HMM: Did Rep. Conyers Tacitly Admit Dems Are Hiding Assault Allegations?

Well, he is an “icon.”

NO. Do Captured Terrorists Belong in U.S. Courtrooms?

There are four potential conclusions to draw from the news that a jury convicted Libyan terrorist Ahmed Abu Khattala on several conspiracy charges, but not murder, in a U.S. federal criminal court yesterday.

1. Maybe the prosecution really dropped the ball. (Not likely.)

2. Maybe proving guilt for a chaotic terrorist attack halfway around the world is more difficult than it looks. (More likely, more on this in a moment.)

3. Maybe this is why military tribunals and/or drone strikes are a better way to deal with terrorists.

4. Maybe he just got the descendants of the O.J. Simpson jury.

Maybe they thought a YouTube video was the real killer.

WE WON’T HAVE TO SAIL SO FAR TO SINK THEM: Iran Deploying Warships to Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Chuck and Nancy Ghost Trump, Conyers’ Underwear and Much, Much More.

GOOD READ: One test pilot flew both top-secret aircraft that are widely regarded as giving birth to the stealth revolution.

GOOD LORD: Reno gunman opens fire at high-rise with links to Las Vegas shooter.

A gunman with a hostage opened fire from the eighth floor of a luxury high-rise condominium in Nevada onto the streets below, authorities said. No injuries were reported.

The man died Tuesday after a SWAT team descended on him while he was barricaded at the Montage, Reno police Deputy Chief Tom Robinson told reporters. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was killed by police gunfire or his own. No one else, including the hostage, was hurt.

Well, good — but the disappearance of the Vegas shooter from the media’s consciousness, when so little is still understood about him, remains a mystery.

MORE ON MATT LAUER: “Apparently he was not terribly popular at NBC.”

Even less so this morning, I’d wager, as the network struggles to put on a show.

THE LEFT RUINS EVERYTHING: Even sex is in crisis in Venezuela, where contraceptives are growing scarce.

When she couldn’t renew her supply of birth control pills, Gutierrez and her husband made a choice. Long-term abstinence was not an option, they agreed.

They tried to be careful, but soon she was pregnant with her second child.

“We barely eat three times a day now,” said a distraught Gutierrez, a former hair washer in a beauty salon who lost her job because of the economic crisis. “I don’t know how we’re going to feed another mouth.”

While the Maduro-neé-Chavez regime is busy rehashing Soviet policy, maybe they can keep the populace amused with rehashed Soviet humor.

#BELIEVEALLWOMEN: Why Won’t Al Franken Say Whether He Believes His Accusers?

The answer seems clear: Franken is trying to rewrite the playbook for successfully surviving a sexual harassment scandal in our newly conscious post-Weinstein culture. Where the politicos of yesteryear would have issued a terse, blanket denial before sweeping the accusations into the past, Franken is trying a new tactic: the terse, blanket apology, followed by sweeping the accusations into the past. He seems to have deduced—probably correctly—that the damage his admission will do his career is less than the damage done by appearing to silence his accusers.

“What I’m going to do is I’m going to start my job, I’m going to go back to work, I’m going to work as hard as I can for the people of Minnesota, and I’m going to start right now,” Franken said abruptly, ending his Monday conference. He vanished back into his office, ignoring the shouted questions that followed him.

Whether Franken’s political career will survive this scandal is anyone’s guess.

He’ll survive as long as his fellow Democrats believe he can win reelection, and not one minute longer.

EARLY WARNING: North Korea’s latest missile launch appears to put Washington, D.C., in range.

The missile traveled some 620 miles and reached a height of about 2,800 miles before landing off the coast of Japan early Wednesday local time, flying for a total of 54 minutes. This suggested it had been fired almost straight up — on a “lofted trajectory” similar to North Korea’s two previous ICBM tests.

If it had been flown on a standard trajectory designed to maximize its reach, this missile would have a range of more than 8,100 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“This is significantly longer than North Korea’s previous long-range tests, which flew on lofted trajectories for 37 minutes and 47 minutes,” Wright said. “Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, D.C.”

It’s past time to employ Austin Bay’s “return of serve” option for neutralizing North Korea.

PAYBACK’S A… YOU KNOW: Teen Vogue Columnist ‘Not at All Concerned’ About Men Losing Jobs over False Sex Accusations.

I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT: Top Enlisted Leaders Push Back: There Is No Readiness ‘Crisis.’

It’s difficult to know whether to trust the worries of the brass looking for bigger budgets, or the assurances of the other brass who don’t want it to look like they’ve wasted the money we’ve already given them.

RELIGION OF PEACE: Egypt’s Al-Sisi a Big Disappointment to Coptic Christians.

HEADLINES FROM 1992, 1998, 2001, 2006… Most Believe Sex Allegations Against Bill Clinton.

HOT TAKE: Meghan Markle will likely stop working after marrying Prince Harry — single-income families are a luxury in 2017.

HARDBALL: Former Intel Watchdog Says Hillary’s Allies Threatened Him Over Email Probe.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Facebook rolls out AI to detect suicidal posts before they’re reported.

Facebook’s new “proactive detection” artificial intelligence technology will scan all posts for patterns of suicidal thoughts, and when necessary send mental health resources to the user at risk or their friends, or contact local first-responders. By using AI to flag worrisome posts to human moderators instead of waiting for user reports, Facebook can decrease how long it takes to send help.

Facebook previously tested using AI to detect troubling posts and more prominently surface suicide reporting options to friends in the U.S. Now Facebook is will scour all types of content around the world with this AI, except in the European Union, where General Data Protection Regulation privacy laws on profiling users based on sensitive information complicate the use of this tech.

This seems ripe for abuse.

WELL, YES: Uber’s claim that hackers fully deleted stolen data is ‘nonsensical.’ “Uber’s been sued at least 11 times in just 1 week, faces new scrutiny from Senate.”

The broadly-similar proposed 10 class-action suits were filed in several federal courts across the country: in San Francisco; Los Angeles; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Portland, Chicago; and even Huntsville, Alabama.
On Monday, a group of senators, lead by Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), specifically asked for a “detailed timeline” of the incident, among other demands due by December 11.

Similarly, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) also had an even more damning question.

“To the extent Uber had lawfully acquired information enabling it to identify the hackers who had compromised its systems, ensure they would abide by agreements to delete the data and not to disclose the breach, and transfer them $100,000, it conceivably had enough information at hand to assist law enforcement in the apprehension of these criminals,” he wrote.

“Why did Uber choose not to provide relevant forensic information to law enforcement and has this information been provided to law enforcement in the last week?”

Why indeed.

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: So what’s the dirt on Luis Gutiérrez?

HMM:

Whatever role transgenders can or should have in the military, allowing civilian courts to determine military policy is never a good idea.

ED MORRISSEY: CBS News’ headaches may just have started with Charlie Rose rather than ending with him.

More:

Erin Gee worked for seventeen years at the network and claims that a systemic environment of abuse got so bad that one boss told her to sleep with an editor after complaining about his work.

According to Gee, Klug later followed up with a query to another male boss to see whether he had slept with his female subordinates, specifically Gee. Gee got demoted to the weekends after filing a formal complaint in 2015, according to the lawsuit, after being told that the network would investigate the issue. Klug, also a former director of the network’s flagship news program 60 Minutes, got a promotion not long afterward.

However, the Daily Mail notes that Gee’s complaint didn’t get too far with the EEOC, which prompted the lawsuit. CBS News denies the allegations.

The Rose case may make this a little more difficult to sustain.

The infotainment industry has been getting away with — even nurturing — all kinds of sexual manipulation and predation, while lecturing ordinary, non-predatory Americans about how awful they are.

Even after all these weeks of horrific revelations, the Democrat-Media complex seems to think they can offer up a few public sacrifices and circle the wagons around the rest. But I’m not convinced it’s going to work this time, given the scope and nature of allegations.

HEALTH: Apps Can Cut Blue Light From Devices, But Do They Help You Sleep?

TIS THE SEASON: Homeless Man Gives Woman His Last $20, So She Raises Hundreds of Thousands To Repay Him.

CONTINUE APPLYING PRESSURE UNTIL THE BLEEDING STOPS: Congress Pressured to End Sexual Harassment Secret Payoffs as They Expect More Scandals.

This is such a good-government no-brainer that it takes a US Congress to get it wrong.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Denzel Betrays Own Message with “Roman J. Israel Esq.”

I’m willing to cut him some slack. Every big-name actor takes questionable roles, but Denzel seems to have taken fewer than most.