CLAIM: After Jerusalem, the US Can No Longer Pretend to Be an Honest Broker of Peace.

Trump has, in effect, adopted wholesale the Israeli position that all of Jerusalem belongs exclusively to Israel, and that all of it—including areas extending far north, south, and east of the city—is Israel’s capital, denying the Palestinians any national or political rights there. He has thereby nailed the United States flag to a position that antagonizes virtually every Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim, and the overwhelming majority of peoples and governments around the world.

There can be—and there should be—no going back to the old formula in place for decades, whereby the United States colluded privately with Israel and the two powers thereafter imposed their will on the Palestinians. That was never the way to achieve a just and lasting peace; it served only to oblige the weaker party to bow to the will of the stronger, which in turn exacerbated and prolonged the conflict.

Even if Rashid Khalidi’s ruthlessly dishonest argument had any merit, it would still matter only if the Palestinian leadership was honestly desiring of peace.

BECAUSE REPUBLICANS LITERALLY MURDER ALL ANIMALS TO DEATH: Newsweek Demands to Know Why ‘Mike Pence’s Animals Won’t Stop Dying.’

HMM: Trump admin scraps Obama-era proposal requiring airlines to disclose bag fees.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) posted a notice on the Federal Register this week that it is withdrawing the proposed rule, along with another plan to force air carriers to disclose how much revenue they make from charging other ancillary fees.

The administration, which has made easing regulatory burdens for businesses a top priority, said the rules would have “limited public benefit.”

Airlines are already required to disclose information about optional service fees on their websites. But consumer groups say it’s still difficult for passengers to compare airfare ticket prices, fees and associated rules, and have pushed for more transparency at the start of the process.

Transparency is good for consumers, full stop.

SUBPRIME BLUES: These 10 Charts Reveal An Auto Bubble On The Brink.

U.S. auto sales have hovered well north of replacement rates for several years now on the back of an improving labor environment and more importantly an extremely accommodating financing market characterized by $0 down, 0% interest loans to subprime borrowers, with perpetually longer maturities to help manage monthly payments…because if your monthly payment is $500 you can afford it, right?

But, according to data presented in Experian’s Q3 2017 auto financing market update slides, the auto market may finally be on the brink of running right off the other side of Ford’s proverbial “Plateau.”

The situation doesn’t appear to be as bad as it was in 2007, but the coming correction would be gentler if Detroit could stay away from the channel-stuffing and the subprime borrowers.

IT’S ABOUT TIME: The Air Force is considering a step it has long avoided to ease its deepening pilot shortage.

The Air Force has pursued a number of policies to correct that shortage, including quality-of-life improvements, opening positions for retired pilots, and drawing more active-duty pilots from the National Guard and Reserve. The force also has the option to recall retired pilots, but says it will not avail itself of it.

Now it appears the Air Force is considering a step it has long avoided: training enlisted airmen to be combat aviators.

A new six-month pilot-training program will consist of 15 officers and five enlisted airmen, Maj. Gen. Timothy Leahy, chief of the Second Air Force, told his commanders in a November 30 email, seen by Air Force Times.

Currently, the only Air Force personnel eligible to be pilots are commissioned officers, and achieving officer status requires a four-year college degree.

I know more than one fighter pilot who have left the service or are conserving it after being “demoted” to piloting drones. UAV duty would be a great place for the Air Force to conduct a trial run for NCO pilots, because it could prove good for retention — and maybe even great for morale. Non-coms would get to do something the independent Air Force has never allowed, and “real” pilots wouldn’t get stuck with UAVs.

Besides, it shouldn’t take a captain or a major to fly a steel shack in the Nevada desert.

SPENGLER: Who’s Following Trump’s Lead on Jerusalem?

OOPS, THEY DID IT AGAIN: CNN Botches Major ‘Bombshell’ Alleging Contacts Between Don Jr. And WikiLeaks.

The story, which CNN published on Friday and covered extensively on TV, was touted as the first evidence that the Trump campaign was given a heads-up about documents stolen from Democrats.

But the story appears to have been riddled with errors, while also lacking key context.

Perhaps the most jarring error in the CNN report is the date on which Trump Jr. was sent the email. The network reported that a person named Mike Erickson emailed Trump Jr. and others on the Trump campaign on Sept. 4, 2016, with a link to Wikileaks documents as well as a decryption key to access them.

The email also offered access to emails that had been stolen from former Sec. of State Colin Powell, according to CNN.

But a copy of the email provided to The Daily Caller shows that Erickson sent the email on Sept. 14.

That date is significant because WikiLeaks had released a batch of stolen documents on Sept. 13. The group touted its release of the DNC documents, which were published by Guccifer 2.0.

Read the whole thing, which is yet another enforced error by a major outlet of the Democratic-Media Complex.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Ouch.

YOU DON’T SAY: NY Attorney General Warns of ‘Guns in Times Square on New Year’s Eve’ with Concealed Carry Reciprocity.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Woman Gets Engaged to Her Chandelier: ‘I Love Kissing and Cuddling Lumiere.’

NOBODY TELL NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS: 27 Percent of Millennials Would Date a Robot.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s chronic shortages give rise to ‘medical flea markets.’

In the middle of a market in the humid and sweltering city of Maracaibo, dozens of boxes full of medicines including antibiotics and pain killers are stacked on top of each other. The packaging is visibly deteriorated: The cases are discolored and some are even dirty.

Doctors warn these drugs — usually smuggled in from Colombia, a few hours’ drive from Maracaibo — pose risks.

“We’ve found that a lot of them have not been maintained at proper temperatures,” warned oncologist Jose Oberto, who leads the Zulia state’s doctors association.

Still, some Venezuelans feel they have no choice but to rely on contraband medicine.

“I had to buy medicine from Colombia, and it worried me because the label said ‘hospital use,'” said retiree Esledy Paez, 62.

But they are often prohibitively expensive for Venezuelans, many of whom earn just a handful of dollars a month at the black market rate due to soaring inflation.

Norkis Pabon struggled to find antibiotics for her hospitalized husband to prevent his foot injury from worsening due to diabetes.

Wreckers, hoarders, saboteurs, Trotskyites, kulaks, Yankee Imperialists, counterrevolutionaries, and (of course) Jews are to blame.

IT’S NOT OVER YET: Al Franken’s political career began with an apology to women. It ended without one.

He never actually felt sorry “that I had written ‘Porn-O-Rama’ or pitched that stupid Lesley Stahl joke at two in the morning,” Franken wrote years later in his book.

“I was just doing my job,” he wrote. “But running for office is a different job. When you run for office, you’re asking people to stand with you and work for you and believe in you. And you’re making a promise that it’ll be worth it. People had to know I understood that.”

Last month, nearly a decade after Franken’s strategic apology, a woman accused him of groping and forcibly kissing her in 2006. She was followed by another accuser, then another and another — eight women in total by Thursday.

Franken apologized without hesitation this time, but also without admitting anything, and always with qualifications.

“There are some women — and one is too many — who feel that I have done something disrespectful, and that’s hurt them, and for that I am tremendously sorry,” he told one interviewer.

“I am very sorry if these women experienced that,” he told another.

Many recoiled from these semi-apologies.

Franken hasn’t changed — and he hasn’t actually ended his political career, either.

ANALYSIS: ISIS Territorial Losses Haven’t Degraded Global Attack Reach.

CHANGE: Saudi Arabia Allows First Public Concert by a Female Performer, and Saudi Women Go Crazy.

Thousands of young women attended the sold-out event on Wednesday, removing their abayas, (the floor-length robes women in Saudi Arabia are obligated to wear in public), shaking out their hair and dancing to covers of songs by pop stars such as Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. At one point, the singer looked out at the crowd and yelled, “Girl power!”

“This is a very proud moment for Saudi Arabia,” a presenter said while welcoming the Lebanese singer to the stage. “All women should express their appreciation for a fact that a woman for the first time is performing at a concert in Saudi Arabia.”

The concert was another symbol of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s attempts to modernize and reform Saudi Arabia.

Prince bin Salman’s baby steps keep growing bigger and coming more frequently.

FASTER, PLEASE: Pentagon wants 12 month procurement time for major weapons programs.

The Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Ellen Lord, was asked her goal for cutting back time for weapons procurement and she responded “12 months for major programs.”

Lord, who began working at the Pentagon in August, was formerly chief executive of defense contractor Textron Systems, an aerospace and defense company that makes drones and missiles.

If the acquisition process is shortened it would be good for larger weapons makers because time is money, Byron Callan, a defense analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, said in an interview. The move could also increase competition from smaller companies that often lack the financial resources to wait out lengthy Pentagon procurements, he said.

Speeding things up might shake the Pentagon loose from its insistence on reinventing the wheel with nearly every major program.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Rod Rosenstein Overcome By Soros Swamp Gas.

GOOD LORD: Arizona Cop Acquitted for Killing Man Crawling Down Hotel Hallway While Begging for His Life.

The incident occurred in January 2016. Daniel Shaver apparently was showing off a pellet gun, and it was visible through the hotel room window. This promped somebody to call to the hotel front desk, which prompted a call to the police.

So it wasn’t unreasonable for police to approach the hotel room thinking the encounter might be dangerous. They knew there was a gun there, and they didn’t know it was a pellet gun. But that video shows some truly baffling decisions by Brailsford that escalated the situation to make it even scarier, not the least of which was that Brailsford’s bluster and open threats of violence made him appear as terrified as Shaver.

The contents of the body camera footage had been described to the public before, when Brailsford was first charged, but the video itself was withheld until this morning.

Forcing Shaver to crawl toward the police like this increased the likelihood that Shaver would lose balance and make wild movements, and Brailsford’s bizarre orders were probably confusing even to a sober person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M62Va6Ft2cw

Read the whole thing. And the video, I must warn you, is disturbing.

HEATHER WILHELM: ‘Evil’ Tax Cuts? Nope, It’s Blue-State Panic.

Thank goodness for people like Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Brown, the New York Times editorial board, and other blue-state stalwarts, whose No. 1 concern is to fight this pernicious money grab by a sinister, well-organized, and garishly wealthy elite! But hark, New York Times: What have we here? Why, it’s an analysis from your own news pages, dated December 5, with a doozy of a headline: “Among the Tax Bill’s Biggest Losers: High-Income, Blue State Taxpayers.”

Well, this is certainly awkward.

Let’s read on: “While the Republican tax overhaul would add up to an overall tax cut for individual taxpayers, at least through 2025, millions could still immediately receive a tax increase,” notes the report. Interesting! Who might those people be? “For many, particularly those in Democratic areas who earn $200,000 or more, the increase would come from the repeal of the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT.”

If you know anything about California, you likely now know why good old Governor Moonbeam is freaking out. California may be filled with natural wonders, but it’s also a Democratic area chock full of people who earn $200,000 or more — and it’s also known for high state-level income taxes, with a top marginal rate of 13.3 percent. In the bad old days, Californians could count on simply deducting this highway robbery from their federal taxable income, masking the state’s shenanigans and blunting the financial pain. The GOP tax bill yanks what is essentially a federal subsidy away, forcing blue-state residents to face the reality of their local high-tax, high-spending regimes.

They’re only being asked to pay their fair share.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS: HomeKit flaw in iOS 11.2 allowed remote access to smart devices, temporary fix already in place.

TOTALLY NONPARTISAN AND UNBIASED INVESTIGATION, WE SWEAR, PART 1,000,007: Mueller’s ‘Right-Hand Man’ on Russia Probe Represented Clinton IT Aide Who Set Up Unsecure Server.

BUT WHEN AND WHY?

More details here, but we haven’t yet seen the full money quote.

HMM: Obama Appointed Judge Mysteriously Recuses Himself From Michael Flynn Case.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras abruptly recused himself Thursday night with no explanation. Contreras is an Obama appointee who also sat on the FISA court while the Trump team was under surveillance by the Obama administration. Judge Emmet Sullivan, an Bill Clinton appointee, was randomly assigned to take over the case after Contreras’ recusal.

Of note, Contreras was appointed to the FISA court on May 19, 2016 – before the warrant to surveil one-time Trump advisor Carter Page was issued “in the summer” of 2016. It is unknown whether or not Contreras was involved in the decision, or whether he was involved in surveillance on Michael Flynn.

In fact every single FISA Court judge was appointed during the Obama administration.

Read the whole thing.

BREXIT BREAKTHROUGH: The EU and Britain Have Agreed on Key Terms of Divorce.

The European Commission said enough progress had been made after the two sides worked through the night to end an impasse over the status of the Irish border that had scuppered an earlier attempt to clinch a deal on Monday.

The Commission gave its verdict in a statement after intense talks, which resulted in British Prime Minister Theresa May taking an early-morning flight to Brussels to announce the deal alongside Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Donald Tusk, the chairman of European Union leaders, welcomed the deal but said London still needed to provide more clarity on the new relationship after Brexit, and bemoaned the fact the first round of talks had taken so long.

“We all know that breaking up is hard, but breaking up and building a new relation is much harder,” he said. “So much time has been devoted to the easier task and now … we have de facto less than a year” left for talks before Britain is due to leave in March, 2019.

And not a moment too soon, if this next story has any weight to it: Martin Schulz wants ‘United States of Europe’ within eight years.

The leader of Germany’s Social Democratic party has sketched out red lines for talks to form another coalition government with Angela Merkel.

In a speech at the SPD’s party conference in Berlin that called for the creation of a “United States of Europe” by 2025, as well as a more robust social security net and a phasing out of coal power, Martin Schulz made the case for entering open-ended talks with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

He also tweeted that “Any state that won’t ratify this treaty will automatically leave the EU.”

Whether Schultz, who just led the SPD to its worst election result in the postwar era, has enough juice to make that happen remains to be seen.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Mueller’s Circus, Days of Rage and Much, Much More.

JAILED FOR A TEXT: China’s Censors Are Spying on Mobile Chat Groups.

One night this September, construction supervisor Chen Shouli fired off a joke in a chat group.

“Haha,” he typed on his black iPhone 7, followed by an off-color wisecrack about a rumored love triangle involving a celebrity and one of China’s most senior government officials.

Four days later, he says, the police telephoned, ordering him in for questioning.

“I thought, I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? I’m law-abiding,” recalls Mr. Chen, a wiry 41-year-old. “So I went in. Once I arrived, they wouldn’t let me leave.”

Mr. Chen was locked in a cell for five days, he says. According to the police report, his comment on the WeChat messaging app was deemed “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a broad offense that encompasses gang fighting and destruction of public property and is punishable by detention without trial.

In China’s swiftly evolving new world of state surveillance, there are fewer and fewer private spaces. Authorities who once had to use informants to find out what people said in private now rely on a vast web of new technology. They can identify citizens as they walk down the street, monitor their online behavior and snoop on cellphone messaging apps to identify suspected malcontents.

Strong encryption is everyone’s friend — except the tyrant.