BYRON YORK: 6 scenarios for GOP disaster in Roy Moore Senate race.

TURNABOUT: Fusion GPS Co-Founder Leaked Dossier to Reporters in Retaliation for Comey Reopening Clinton Email Case.

BEIJING GAMES: Don’t Count on China’s Support on North Korea, U.S. Panel Says.

Despite concerns over North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programs, China remains the country’s largest trading partner and differs with the U.S. over the best way to handle Kim Jong Un’s reclusive regime, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in the report published Wednesday.

“The United States and the international community should keep their expectations low,” according to the report, “given China’s lackluster record of previous sanctions enforcement and continued sanctions violations by Chinese companies exporting dual-use items to North Korea.”

China faces a dilemma enforcing sanctions “in wanting to see some reform in the North Korean economy and not wanting to see a collapse,” panel commissioner Larry Wortzel told reporters before the report’s release. “We think their cooperation and exercise of sanctions will be fairly limited” by “what they see as their own national interest.”

Since Chinese support for North Korea has killed nuclear nonproliferation in northeast Asia, perhaps it’s time we considering helping our friends in the region — Japan, South Korea, and especially Taiwan — become just as well-armed.

DEFINE “BARGAIN”: The New U.S. Nuclear Triad Will Be A Bargain.

BRITISH PREPPERS: Man jailed over 160 guns found in Gillingham house fire.

The weapons and ammunition, including machine guns and assault rifles, were discovered at Paul Bushell’s home in Nelson Road, Gillingham on 7 May.

Sentencing at Maidstone Crown Court, Judge Philip Statman said the haul posed a “significant risk to the community”.

How, exactly?

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH EUROPE? Global Deaths from Terrorism Dropped in 2016 While Rising in Europe.

ONLY POLICE SHOULD BE ARMED: Detroit police officers fight each other in undercover op gone wrong.

Sources say it started when two special ops officers from the 12th Precinct were operating a “push off” on Andover near Seven Mile. That is when two undercover officers pretend to be dope dealers, waiting for eager customers to approach, and then arrest potential buyers and seize their vehicles.

But this time, instead of customers, special ops officers from the 11th Precinct showed up. Not realizing they were fellow officers, they ordered the other undercover officers to the ground.

FOX 2 is told the rest of the special ops team from the 12th Precinct showed up, and officers began raiding a house in the 19300 block of Andover. But instead of fighting crime, officers from both precincts began fighting with each other.

Sources say guns were drawn and punches were thrown while the homeowner stood and watched.

The department’s top cops were notified along with Internal Affairs. Each officer involved is now under investigation as the department tried to determine what went wrong.

I’m having a hard time working up any sympathy for undercover cops engaged in a sting operations aimed at using asset forfeiture to seize citizens’ cars.

THAT’S RICH: NFL Accuses Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones of Damaging the League.

Throughout the season, Mr. Jones has sharply criticized Mr. Goodell’s discipline of Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott over violations of the league’s personal conduct policy related to alleged domestic violence. Mr. Jones and the NFL Players Association have called the suspension unfair and criticized how the investigation was conducted.

Mr. Elliott has denied the allegations and after a protracted legal battle that kept him on the field served the first game of that six-game suspension last Sunday.

Mr. Jones pivoted against Mr. Goodell after Mr. Elliott’s suspension, according to executives from around the league. They said as recently as two days before Mr. Elliott’s suspension was announced in August, Mr. Jones expressed his continued support for extension of Mr. Goodell’s contract as commissioner.

Although the league’s owners voted unanimously in May to proceed with negotiations for a Goodell contract extension, Mr. Jones has in recent weeks stepped up efforts to halt the process. He hired one of the country’s most prominent litigators, Mr. Boies, and threatened to sue the league and its owners over the issue. That resulted in his banishment from the compensation committee, where he served as an ad hoc member.

Mr. Jones has said he isn’t out for vengeance, but rather has been concerned about the structure of the contract and the rush to get it done when there is still about a year and a half left on Mr. Goodell’s current deal.

Isn’t there anybody left to cheer for in the NFL?

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Moore, Moore, Moore and Much, Much Moore.

TRUTH:

Virtue-signalling and accepting personal responsibility are mutually exclusive.

HMM: A notorious far-right blogger may have provoked WikiLeaks’ outreach to Donald Trump Jr.

I’d be wary of any report involving Charles Johnson or Julian Assange, and this one involves both of them.

OK THEN: Six Dems Introduce Articles of Impeachment Against Trump.

I FELT A GREAT DISTURBANCE IN TWITTER, AS IF THOUSANDS OF CONSERVATIVE VOICES SUDDENLY CRIED OUT IN TERROR AND WERE SUDDENLY SILENCED: Twitter to Revamp Verification Process.

Twitter is working on developing a new authentication and verification program, the social media company announced in a tweet from its support account. Until that new process is put in place, it will no longer accept public submissions for verification.

It is also reviewing its current group of verified accounts and will remove the blue check mark on any accounts that do not fall within its new guidelines. Twitter has not widely removed verification up to this point, but did take away the blue check mark from Milo Yiannopoulos earlier this year.

“We should have addressed this earlier but did not prioritize the work as we should have,” Twitter said in one of a series of tweets announcing the changes.

This may backfire, as losing one’s blue checkmark could become the new measure of antiestablishment cred.

RESET: Russia Offers Venezuela Debt Relief.

The Russian Finance Ministry said the debt of $3.15 billion would now be repaid over 10 years, with minimal repayments during the first six years.

“Reducing the debt burden to the republic from the restructuring of liabilities will allow the funds that have been freed up to be allocated to the country’s economic development, to improve the liquidity of the debtor, and to increase the chances of all creditors to recoup credits provided to Venezuela,” the Russian finance ministry said in a statement.

The agreement comes just as Venezuela’s cash-strapped government teeters on the edge of a default on some $150 billion in outstanding debt. Struggling with a crumbling state-led economic model, President Nicolás Maduro’s administration is seeking to renegotiate payment terms with its creditors in an effort to free up import dollars needed to resolve chronic shortages of food and medicine.

This sort of thing never seems to happen to free-market economies.

THIS IS CNN? CNN takes a grandstanding Ted Lieu to task.

In reference to the congressman’s super slam-dunk tweets, Harlow asked Wednesday, “To prejudge [Sessions’] testimony, I mean, your tweets about him being a liar were before he even appeared in front of you. Why is that appropriate? Why prejudge him?”

“Because he lied to [the] U.S. Senate,” Lieu said. He continued his accusation that Sessions lied to Congress during his confirmation hearings, an accusation Sessions vehemently denied. Lieu also justified the words he used to describe Sessions by saying they were ones Trump had used.

The CNN anchors didn’t seem satisfied by that answer.

“But does that make it right?” Harlow continued. “Do you like seeing the president use words like that, like ‘lying Ted,’ so then you repeat them?”

“I am absolutely highlighting it, and until the president changes, I am going to keep doing it because I do want to highlight how ridiculous it is,” Lieu responded.

“Is that a grownup thing to do, congressman?” Berman pressed.

“Grownup” seems like a lot to expect from members of Congress these days.

TOO SOON? The Best Albums of the Obama Presidency.

CHINESE DEMOCRACY: Has Xi Jinping Become “Emperor for Life”?

In the CCP, power rests with those who can put loyal cadres in high positions. During the recent congress Xi did just that. As expected, General Secretary Xi and Premier Li Keqiang remain in the PBSC, China’s highest ruling body. The five new inductees to the PBSC, all born in the 1950s, have sworn fealty to the “supreme commander.” Li Zhanshu, Xi’s confidant and hatchet man, will become Chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, next March. Party theorist Wang Huning is taking charge of the ideology and propaganda portfolio. Another loyalist, the out-going Director of the Organization Department, Zhao Leji, will head the Party’s top anti-corruption agency, the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI). Vice-Premier Wang Yang, regarded as an economic and financial reformer, will be named Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s highest advisory council. And the veteran Party chief of Shanghai, Han Zheng, is slated to be the next Executive Vice-Premier, the principal deputy to Premier Li.

The dominance of the inchoate Xi Jinping Faction (which consists of his underlings, cronies, and protégés when he worked in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces from 1985 to 2007, as well as his classmates at Tsinghua University and fellow natives of Shaanxi Province) is most pronounced in the larger 25-member Politburo. Fifteen of the Politburo members are Xi loyalists, plus cadres who have publicly sworn total allegiance to Xi.

China’s prosperity was made possible in part by the orderly transfer of power from one likeminded apparatchik to the next. Can Xi keep the prosperity, now that it seems that he’s broken the political model it was built on?

Stay tuned.

HIDDEN IN THE SENATE TAX BILL: Surprise Gifts for Breweries and Start-Ups.

The Senate amendment included apparent victories for the Brewers Association, including a temporary reduction in the excise taxes levied on beer. The “CRAFT beverage modernization” provision, introduced by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, would lower the tax rate on beer produced in the United States, particularly for small breweries. The amendment will lower the tax on beer to $16 per barrel on the first six million barrels brewed and lower it to $3.50 per barrel for small brewers on the first 60,000 barrels produced domestically.

They had me at beer.

EWA RYSZARD: Hey Millennials: Communism Sucks, I Lived It.

THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE REMAINS ZERO: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time.

Amazon is vague on the mechanics, but the store relies on a mobile app and some of the same sensing technology that powers self-driving cars to figure out who is buying what.

Employees have tried to fool the technology. One day, three enterprising Amazonians donned bright yellow Pikachu costumes and cruised around grabbing sandwiches, drinks and snacks. The algorithms nailed it, according to a person familiar with the situation, correctly identifying the employees and charging their Amazon accounts, even though they were obscured behind yellow polyester.

I’m curious to see one of these stores firsthand.

BUT OF COUSE: Democrat Congressman Accused By 10 Women Of Sexual Harassment Claims He’s The Victim.

HO HO HO: ISIS Group Vows ‘Christmas Blood’ While Depicting Attack on Vatican.

AUTONOMOUS DRIVING: Here’s How Alphabet Plans to Beat Tesla and GM.

Beating Tesla won’t be difficult if the company can’t get around to manufacturing the cars Elon Musk promised.

FLASHBACK: House Democrats Standing Behind and Applauding Bill Clinton after Impeachment Dec 19, 1998.

SPENGLER: Trump’s Unsung Success in the Middle East.