BRIDGET JOHNSON: Transgender Military Recruits to be Accepted in New Year Per Court Orders.

Meanwhile, Bridget’s unexplained and unacknowledged Twitter banishment remains unexplained and unacknowledged by Twitter management.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THIS KIND OF THING NEVER HAPPENED: Firms reach $7.8-million settlement over allegations of selling fetal tissue.

Prosecutors opened an investigation into the companies in September 2015 after a complaint was submitted by Irvine-based Center for Medical Progress. The anti-abortion group gained national attention in 2015 after releasing a video showing Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing the sale of aborted fetuses.

In October 2016, prosecutors filed a complaint against the companies in Orange County Superior Court alleging unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices.

The lawsuit accused the companies of illegally selling cells from fetal brain tissue for up to $1,100 per vial from 2009 to 2015, prosecutors said. Fetal tissue and cells were sold to pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions in Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and the United Kingdom, authorities said.

Furthermore, “DV Biologics LLC and sister company DaVinci Biosciences LLC, both based in Yorba Linda, must cease all operations in California within 60 to 120 days.”

THE MOST 2017 HEADLINE EVER (EARLY WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13 EDITION): North Korea Hacks Bitcoin Exchanges Attempting To Steal Amid Bubble Warnings.

ALLIES: Turkey Places Bounty on Two Former U.S. Government Officials.

A bounty of three million Turkish lira, or nearly $800,000, was placed on the heads of former Pentagon official Michael Rubin and former top CIA official Graham Fuller for what Erdogan’s allies claim is their role in a 2016 failed coup that nearly toppled Erdogan’s ruling government.

Both Rubin and Fuller have been vocal critics of Erdogan’s, often publicly highlighting his widespread corruption. Rubin, in particular, has been in constant conflict with Erdogan, who once filed a lawsuit against the former Pentagon official in a bid to silence him.

The Turkish prosecutors office has issued arrest warrants for both Rubin and Fuller.

Current and former U.S. officials who spoke to the Free Beacon about the situation called allegations that Rubin and Fuller played any role in the coup attempt “absurd,” and said the bounty is part of a larger effort by Erdogan to silence dissent against his government across the globe.

Some also criticized the State Department for doing very little to combat Turkey’s threats on former American officials.

Erdogan’s government has threatened and intimidated several prominent Americans in recent years and is currently holding hostage U.S. citizens who his government claims played a role in the failed 2016 coup.

What to do? The Turkish military’s size, strength, and location makes it NATO’s southern and Middle Eastern pillar, but the country’s political leadership is increasingly retrograde and even hostile.

HOT MIC IS LIVEBLOGGING the Alabama election returns.

BLUE ON BLUE: Oregon’s Wealthiest City Grapples with Social Justice Crusaders over Lake Access.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Ed Helms’ Apolitical Fake News Can’t Help Bashing Guns.

Can’t or won’t?

PRIVACY: Some HP laptops are hiding a deactivated keylogger.

“Some time ago someone asked me if I can figure out how to control HP’s laptop keyboard backlight,” wrote Myng. “I asked for the keyboard driver SynTP.sys, opened it in IDA, and after some browsing noticed a few interesting strings.”

The strings led to something that appeared to be a hidden keylogger – a program that sends typed characters to an attacker – in a Synaptics device driver. Given that the decompiled code prepared and sent key presses to an unnamed target, Myng was fairly certain he had something interesting on his hands.

Luckily, HP responded quickly.

“I tried to find HP laptop for rent and asked a few communities about that but got almost no replies,” he said. “One guy even thought that I am a thief trying to rob someone. So, I messaged HP about the finding. They replied terrifically fast, confirmed the presence of the keylogger (which actually was a debug trace) and released an update that removes the trace.”

Good on HP for a quick fix, but how did they release a laptop with a dormant keylogger installed?

BUT OF COURSE: CNN Covers Botched Don Jr. Story 27 Times More Than Correction.

SARAH HOYT: The Sexual Harassment Frenzy is Madness and Must Stop.

PROCUREMENT: First Japanese-built F-35A lands at Misawa AB.

Maj. Elijah Supper piloted the brand-new aircraft from the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Komaki South F-35 Final Assembly and Check Out facility, and was quickly joined by two F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 115th Fighter Wing, Wisconsin National Guard, there to escort the new jet across the Pacific.

“This F-35 is one of the most clean and well-built aircraft I have ever seen,” Supper said. “The Japanese take great pride in this aircraft and have ensured it’s made to the highest standard.”

Although the aircraft is a Japan Air Self-Dense Force-owned jet, it is required to go through final function tests in the United States to ensure all future F-35A’s produced in Japan are up to standard.

That last bit sounds like an expensive bit of make-work for Lockheed, or maybe I’m just being too cynical today.

THERE’S NOTHING SOCIAL ABOUT IT: Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society.

Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”

He went on to describe an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Palihapitiya. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He says he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.” He later adds, though, that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world.”

If you’re on social media for anything more serious than puppy GIFs or sharing pictures of your adorable kids, you might want to back away from the keyboard and/or smartphone.

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: What The Hell Is Happening With These Alabama Polls?

“BECAUSE THEY’RE BIG, FAT LYING HYPOCRITES” IS A FAIR GUESS: Why did climate scientists emit 30,000 tonnes of C02 this weekend?

WELL, YES: Justice Ginsburg has some explaining to do.

This is Chapman University’s Ronald Rotunda for WaPo:

We already know what Ginsburg thinks of the president. She told us more than a year ago that she “can’t imagine what the country would be . . . with Donald Trump as our president.” Facing criticism for her apparent endorsement of Hillary Clinton and her attacks on Trump, Ginsburg doubled down, emphasizing in a CNN interview: “He is a faker.” She then went on “point by point, as if presenting a legal brief,” the CNN analyst said.

Her statements are particularly troubling in the context of the travel ban case, in which the crucial issue — at least, according to the lower courts and the plaintiffs — is the personal credibility of Trump and whether he delivered his executive order in good faith — in other words, whether he is faking it. It’s no wonder 58 House Republicans sent Ginsburg a letter calling for her recusal because of her comments before the election.

Given these facts, Ginsburg should heed her critics — either by recusing herself from the case or explaining to the public why she will not.

Ginsburg is the most nakedly partisan SCOTUS justice in my adult lifetime, and after nearly 25 years on the bench, no one should expect her to change one bit.

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Haters Turn on Bullied Boy after Confederate Flag Found on Mother’s Facebook Page.

BUBBLE: Bitcoin mining ‘is using so much energy that it is causing electricity blackouts’ amid fears it will consume more power than the world by 2020.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THERE WAS NO SHAME IN THAT: Did Elizabeth Warren just call her fellow senator a slut?

JEFF DUNETZ: So You Think You Know What Hanukkah Is All About? Think Again.

YOU DON’T SAY: Turkey’s Erdogan Was ‘No. 1’ in Corruption Probe, Witness Says.

Delivering fresh accusations against the Turkish leader through a court interpreter today, Korkmaz shared a personal story of exile, persecution, deliverance and globe-hopping escape worthy of a cross between a John Le Carre novel and a Homeric poem.

“I did not feel legally secure in any way for myself,” Kormaz told the jury about events that proceeded his dramatic escape from Turkey.

“During that time, the prosecutor had requested an order for arrest for myself based on a different investigation,” he continued. “I understood this time to be a time where rights to defend one’s own and freedoms of an individual and freedoms as a human were taken away. So I took my wife and my daughter, and I left the country that I dearly love.”

Korkmaz, who is barely 30 years old, told a New York jury that he graduated third in a class of roughly 360 students to rise through the ranks in the Istanbul police force, where he served as a ranking officer on the projects and public corruption desk.

In that capacity, Korkmaz said, his unit came across the case of gold trader Reza Zarrab, a former Erdogan ally whose testimony for the U.S. government last week rattled the highest echelons of the Turkish government.

Zarrab secretly pleaded guilty before trial to laundering billions of dollars to Iran through a complicated system of sham gold trades and spurious humanitarian food aid.

Read the whole thing.

UH-HUH: CAIR Director Outside White House: Trump ‘Empowering Christian Religious Extremism.’

FLASHBACK: Is CAIR a Terror Group?. Daniel Pipes wrote three years ago, “We who follow the Islamist movement fell off our collective chair on November 15, when the news came that the United Arab Emirates’ ministerial cabinet had listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as one of 83 proscribed terrorist organizations, up there with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS.”

YOU AND WHAT NAVY? China Threatens to Invade Taiwan If U.S. Navy Visits.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but one reason for a US Navy visit to Taiwan is to demonstrate the futility of trying to invade Taiwan.

LET IT BURN, SOUTH OF THE BORDER EDITION: Venezuela’s Ruling Socialists Sweep Mayoral Races Amid Opposition Boycott.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Alabama Election Day, Fusion GPS, NYC Terror Attack and Much, Much More.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Apple aims to block climate, rights proposals with quick use of SEC guidance.

While companies routinely seek permission to skip shareholder proposals, Apple’s application of the new SEC guidance shows how it could be used to ignore many investor proposals by claiming boards routinely review those areas, said Sanford Lewis, a Massachusetts attorney representing Apple shareholders who had filed two of the resolutions.

Were the SEC to side with Apple, “this would be an incredibly dangerous precedent that would essentially say a great many proposals could be omitted,” Lewis said.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment beyond its letters to the SEC.

An SEC spokeswoman declined to comment. Officials had previously said the new guidelines were only meant to improve the resolution process.

Often seen as distractions in the past, shareholder measures have taken on new significance as big asset managers increasingly back those on areas like climate change or board diversity.

This might appear to go against Apple’s corporate grain, but I can’t imagine it isn’t good for shareholders in at least some small way.