DC MCALLISTER: Why a Rape Victim Defends Men and Criticizes the #MeToo Movement.

PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY SMOKED BRISKET BURRITOS AWAY: Jack in the Box sells struggling Qdoba for $305 million.

The company acquired Qdoba in 2003 when it had only 85 locations in 15 states and $65 million in sales. Jack in the Box grew Qdoba into a major national brand with more than 700 restaurants in 47 states and 2017 fiscal-year sales of more than $820 million.

But Qdoba has stumbled in recent quarters. Sales at Qdoba stores open at least a year fell 1.4% in the 2017 fiscal year, including a 3% drop for company-owned locations.

The trend worsened in the fourth quarter, with company-owned same-store sales down 4% and overall same-store sales down 2.1%.

I’ve been doing my bit to keep our local Qdoba in business, but there are only so many tacos one man can eat.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Obama’s Iran Deal Makes Trump’s Russia ‘Collusion’ Look Like Child’s Play.

David Harsanyi:

Empowering terrorist groups. Paying ransom that emboldened our enemies to kidnap Americans. Creating an echo chamber that undermined a free press. Releasing spies, terrorists, and criminals who assisted not only our enemy and her terrorist proxies, but Russia as well. In the Iran deal, we have clear-cut case of the United States handing over extensive concessions to a nation that openly aimed to destabilize our interests, attack our allies, and kill our people — for nothing in return. It’s worse than anything we know about “Russian collusion.”

On Sunday night, Politico sent an email previewing an another investigative article alleging that the Obama administration had “derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed, Bashar al-Assad-allied, Justice Department-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States.”

This email dramatically underplays the outlet’s reporting. While it looks like the Obama administration neutralized efforts to stop a terrorist group from funding its operations through criminal enterprises in the United States — which should be a major scandal itself — according to Josh Meyer’s source-heavy reporting, it also decided to let a top Hezbollah operative named Ali Fayad, who had not only been indicted in U.S. courts for planning to kill American government employees but whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, to skate free.

Exit question: “What wouldn’t the Obama administration do to save the Iran deal?”

THEY’LL NEVER FORGIVE HIM FOR BEATING THE SOVIETS: Liberals Smash Ronald Reagan After Mark Levin Says Trump’s Foreign Policy Is ‘Reagan’s Third Term.’

EZRA KLEIN NOW: The Republican tax bill is an American betrayal.

EZRA KLEIN THEN: It’s been a year since the Iran deal was signed. So far, it’s worked.

EZRA KLEIN ON OBAMA SIDELINING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATION TO PURSUE IRAN DEAL: [Crickets]

I’m not sure we can trust Ezra’s definition of “American betrayal.”

THAT’S NOT THE IMPRESSION YOU GET FROM READING THE MAJOR NEWSPAPERS:

Full report here.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Liz Sheld unpacks the spin on Andrew “Andy’s office” McCabe.

CHRISTOPHER HARPER: Dictionaries as Propaganda Tools.

In a year when Trumpism, fake news, and myriad conservative terms held sway throughout the world, I am trying not to sound conspiratorial. But the dictionaries chose some liberal words to proclaim as the words of 2017. Merriam-Webster chose “feminism.” Dictionary.com went with “complicit,” while the Cambridge Dictionary anointed “populism.” These choices seem troubling, but Oxford Dictionaries went with something else worse: “youthquake.”

I am happy to say I have never heard someone use youthquake, which is defined as a “significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people.”

Former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland apparently coined “youthquake” in the 1960s to describe the youth culture of London back then. The word fell out of favor until this year when its use increased dramatically, according to an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus, which collects roughly 150 million words of spoken and written English from various sources.

The use of the word surged first in coverage of the British parliamentary elections in June before spreading to political commentary to the United States and elsewhere.

Youthquake triumphed over a politically leftist list that included “Antifa,” “broflake,” “kompromat,” “white fragility,” and “Milkshake Duck.”

You may not be interested in the Gleichschaltung, but the Gleichschaltung is interested in you.

BRAGGING RIGHTS? AOL Instant Messenger Made Social Media What It Is Today.

BRUCE BAWER: What Led Germany to Accept a Tsunami of Migrants?

AND ANOTHER ONE: ‘Silicon Valley’ Star T.J. Miller Accused of Sexually Assaulting and Punching a Woman.

The Daily Beast has corroborated details of her story—which includes two separate incidents—with five GW contemporaries and spoke to numerous associates of both her and Miller.

Two of the GW contemporaries say they were in the off-campus house where the incidents allegedly occurred. The contemporaries later testified in student court about hearing the sound of violent thuds or seeing bruises on Sarah.

Three other contemporaries said they comforted and counseled Sarah in the aftermath of the incidents. Matt Lord was one of them. An ex-boyfriend of Sarah’s, he told The Daily Beast that he continues to believe her story more than a decade after the fact.

“I attended George Washington University for undergraduate studies from 2000 until December 2003… I had a romantic relationship with [this] woman, who spoke with me about T.J. Miller sexually assaulting her,” Lord, who currently works as an attorney in Montague, Massachusetts, wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast. “At the time I believed the statements she made regarding the assault by Mr. Miller, and I continue to believe the statements she made are true. She was engaged in student conduct proceedings regarding the sexual assault, and I remember the emotional toll that the assault and the subsequent conduct hearings placed on her.”

In the years since, Miller has attempted to address the lingering allegations by occasionally making light of them. He’s privately joked about committing violence against a woman in his past, according to three sources in the comedy world. Perhaps that is why some female performers and comedy professionals tell The Daily Beast that they have declined to work with Miller, citing a perceived history of abusive behavior.

FLASHBACK: T.J. Miller Insists ‘Emoji Movie’ Will Fight Trump, Make Young People ‘Adopt Progressive Values.’

GANGSTER STATE: North Korea Is Behind WannaCry.

The attack spread indiscriminately across the world in May. It encrypted and rendered useless hundreds of thousands of computers in hospitals, schools, businesses and homes. While victims received ransom demands, paying did not unlock their computers. It was cowardly, costly and careless. The attack was widespread and cost billions, and North Korea is directly responsible.

We do not make this allegation lightly. It is based on evidence. We are not alone with our findings, either. Other governments and private companies agree. The United Kingdom attributes the attack to North Korea, and Microsoft traced the attack to cyber affiliates of the North Korean government.

The consequences and repercussions of WannaCry were beyond economic. The malicious software hit computers in the U.K.’s health-care sector particularly hard, compromising systems that perform critical work. These disruptions put lives at risk.

The world is increasingly interconnected with new technologies, devices, networks and systems creating great convenience. Unfortunately, that provides bad actors opportunities to create mayhem with the hope of anonymity, relying on the complex world of ones and zeros to hide their hand. They have stolen intellectual property and done significant damage in every sector.

North Korea has acted especially badly, largely unchecked, for more than a decade, and its malicious behavior is growing more egregious. WannaCry was indiscriminately reckless.

It’s long past time for China to rein in its reckless and criminal ally.

OF COURSE HE DOES: Leahy Regrets Calling For Franken Resignation Before Ethics Committee Investigation.

VIDEO: Rep. Louie Gohmert Goes Off on Mueller During House Floor Speech.

EVERYONE IS BIG BROTHER: Inside China’s Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking.

In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a “credit system that covers the whole society.”

For the Chinese Communist Party, social credit is an attempt at a softer, more invisible authoritarianism. The goal is to nudge people toward behaviors ranging from energy conservation to obedience to the Party. Samantha Hoffman, a consultant with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who is researching social credit, says that the government wants to preempt instability that might threaten the Party. “That’s why social credit ideally requires both coercive aspects and nicer aspects, like providing social services and solving real problems. It’s all under the same Orwellian umbrella.”

The evil genius behind “social credit” is that it gives the impression of turning users into electronically empowered Big Brothers, when in fact it turns users into willing Winston Smiths.

HEALTH: Older Adults’ Forgetfulness Tied To Faulty Brain Rhythms In Sleep.

During deep sleep, older people have less coordination between two brain waves that are important to saving new memories, a team reports in the journal Neuron.

“It’s like a drummer that’s perhaps just one beat off the rhythm,” says Matt Walker, one of the paper’s authors and a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. “The aging brain just doesn’t seem to be able to synchronize its brain waves effectively.”

The finding appears to answer a long-standing question about how aging can affect memory even in people who do not have Alzheimer’s or some other brain disease.

“This is the first paper that actually found a cellular mechanism that might be affected during aging and therefore be responsible for a lack of memory consolidation during sleep,” says Julie Seibt, a lecturer in sleep and plasticity at the University of Surrey in the U.K. Seibt was not involved in the new study.

I started taking tryptophan and melatonin a few weeks ago, and have been sleeping better than I have in years. Now I’m wondering if doing so can help prevent or forestall this de-syncronization.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Amtrak Crash, Tax Reform, RUSSIA Update and Much, Much More.

PUSHY: 5 Chinese warplanes enter Korea’s air defense zone.

The flight into the KADIZ [Korean Air Defense Identification Zone] came just two days after President Moon Jae-in returned home from his four-day state visit to China during which time he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders to discuss issues related to the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system and other challenges.

The JCS said Seoul countered by sending fighter jets including F-15Ks to the area, noting that the Chinese aircraft also flew into the Japanese Air Defense Identification Zone (JADIZ).

The aircraft then left the KADIZ and flew back toward China, the JCS added.

“South Korea’s fighter jets that scrambled to the area indentified the types of the Chinese military aircraft,” a JCS official said, asking not to be named. “Our fighter jets took normal tactical measures until the Chinese planes left.”

In response to the Air Force’s warning messages through a hotline, Beijing said that the flight was part of a routine exercise and that it had no intention of infringing South Korea’s territorial airspace, the official said.

South Korea is a peaceful trading nation. If anyone in the region deserves the attention of China’s military, it’a the expansionist Kim regime in the North.

WELL, GOOD: Trump to Boost U.S. Missile Defense to Combat Iranian, N. Korean WMD Threats.

“The United States is deploying a layered missile defense system focused on North Korea and Iran to defend our homeland against missile attacks,” according to draft language of the NSS viewed by the Free Beacon. “This system will include the ability to defeat missile threats prior to launch. Enhanced missile defense will not undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.”

The document also outlines threats from state and non-state actors when it comes to weapons of mass destruction, otherwise known as WMDs.

While rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea are perfecting ballistic missiles, terror groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS are turning to cruder, but just as dangerous, weapons such as chemical and biological WMDs, according to the Trump administration’s new national security vision.

“We would face grave danger if terrorists obtained inadequately secured nuclear, radiological, or biological material,” the draft portion of the document states.

“As missiles grow in numbers, types, and effectiveness, to include those with greater ranges, they are the most likely means for states like North Korea to use a nuclear weapon against the United States,” the document notes. “North Korea is also pursuing chemical and biological weapons which could also be delivered by missile.”

China and Russia also are developing advanced weapons that could threaten America’s critical infrastructure, according to the Trump administration.

This reality has sparked the Trump administration to put a renewed focus on domestic missile defense systems, such as those used by Israel to protect citizens from rocket attacks.

The Trump administration also is prioritizing missile defense for NATO allies in Europe and elsewhere.

There’s eight years of Obama Administration preemptive surrender on missile defense to make up for.

WHY DO DEMOCRATS HATE HIGHER EDUCATION? Senate Democrats ‘Slander’ Hillsdale College in Attacking ‘Hillsdale Exemption’ in Tax Reform.

CHANGE:

They might want to re-rethink that.

STEPHEN GUTOWSKI: Pro-Gun Women Regularly Face Violent, Sexual Harassment.

“Stick that gun in your cunt bitch and pull the trigger,” Twitter user John T. McFarland said to Jenn Jacques in September 2015.

Jenn Jacques, a visiting fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum and editor at large for BreachBangClear.com who has been recognized by the National Shooting Sports Foundation for her work promoting gun safety, said she’s often stunned by the hypocrisy of the harassers and thinks online anonymity enables their behavior.

“I’ve heard a lot of ‘do us all a favor and swallow your gun,'” she said. “It’s just so bad. The thing is they all claim to be against gun violence. They all claim to be the tolerant left but they are literally the most violent, heinous people out there. I’m sure a lot of it is that they’re hiding behind a computer screen.”

After Bob Owens, a respected gun writer who worked closely with Jacques at BearingArms.com, took his own life in May, Jacques said she received a wave of harassment. While most reacted to Owens’s passing with grace and compassion, a group of gun-control activists reacted by tormenting his friends and family through vile messages on Twitter and Facebook. Jacques said some even encouraged her to kill herself.

“After Bob died, people would be like ‘one down, one to go,'” she said. “How could you say that to anyone?”

I don’t want to hear one more goddamn word about how the Left empowers women.

NEXT YEAR, FULL COMMUNISM: Surveillance cams, face scans help China make thousands vanish.

Along with the detention camps, unprecedented levels of police blanket Xinjiang’s streets. Cutting-edge digital surveillance systems track where Uighurs go, what they read, who they talk to and what they say. And under an opaque system that treats practically all Uighurs as potential terror suspects, Uighurs who contact family abroad risk questioning or detention.

The campaign has been led by Chen Quanguo, a Chinese Communist Party official, who was promoted in 2016 to head Xinjiang after subduing another restive region — Tibet. Chen vowed to hunt down Uighur separatists blamed for attacks that have left hundreds dead, saying authorities would “bury terrorists in the ocean of the people’s war and make them tremble.”

Through rare interviews with Uighurs who recently left China, a review of government procurement contracts and unreported documents, and a trip through southern Xinjiang, the AP pieced together a picture of Chen’s war that’s ostensibly rooting out terror — but instead instilling fear.

Most of the more than a dozen Uighurs interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity for fear that Chinese authorities would punish them or their family members. The AP is withholding the student’s name and other personal information to protect people who fear government retribution.

It’s easy to forget that under the state-capitalism facade, Communist China remains communist.

HOW DO I COUNT THE WAYS? How Feminism Kills Romance.

HMM: Object on tracks may be cause of deadly Amtrak derailment. “A preliminary investigation suggests maintenance problems are unlikely to blame because the incident took place on brand-new tracks, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.”