THE AUDACITY OF HYPOCRISY: Maxine Waters Thinks It Would’ve Been Fine for Hillary to Fire Comey, But Doesn’t Support Trump Firing Him.

I had to read that headline twice.

CLASSY EXIT: James Comey’s farewell letter to the FBI.

IT HAPPENED AGAIN: ‘The View’ Didn’t Expect This Reaction From The Audience To Comey’s Firing.

The ladies on “The View” clearly didn’t expect their audience to cheer as they announced Wednesday on their show that President Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey.

“I’m sure you all have heard, but FBI Director James Comey’s been fired,” Whoopi Goldberg announced to the audience who could be heard cheering.

I think it was Jim Treacher who noted yesterday that Stephen Colbert was shocked when his audience reacted exactly the way he’d spent the last six months training them to react.

IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT:

FASTER, PLEASE: U.S. Military to Move ‘Very Quickly’ in Arming Syrian Kurds Despite Turkish Opposition.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: 4 Times Liberals Called Fellow Liberals Racist (Or Worse). “Being woke is no longer a defense for liberal stars and starlets.”

When the standard is outrage, nothing is outrageous enough.

BARREL, SCRAPED: Dem Senator Uses Info From Conspiracy Blogs To Draw Trump-Russia Connections.

Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey uses conspiracy theory-laden blogs as sources for information on alleged Trump-Russia connections, according to a top aide in his office.

“In fact, subpoenas have now been issued in Northern Virginia in regard to General Flynn and General Flynn’s associates. A grand jury has been empaneled up in New York,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in a Wednesday CNN interview.

One of Markey’s top aides told The Daily Caller that his sources were Louise Mensch’s blog and a left-wing blog called the Palmer Report. Markey did not mention these sources in his television appearance.

A spokeswoman later released a statement that said: “This morning Senator Markey erroneously reported that a grand jury has been empaneled in New York related to the wider inquiry of possible Trump campaign and administration ties to Russia. Senator Markey does not have direct intelligence that is the case, and the information he was provided during a briefing is not substantiated. Subpoenas have been issued in Eastern Virginia, but Senator Markey apologizes for the confusion.”

That’s the kind of confusion one usually sows with a purpose.

UM, NO: Violence and unrest are tearing Venezuela apart.

Violence and unrest are the reaction to years of socialist misrule, which has been tearing Venezuela apart.

“KIND OF A WARNING”: China Says it Successfully Tests New Type of Missile.

The Chinese weapon tested was likely a DF-26 intermediate range missile being developed to sink warships, including U.S. aircraft carriers, said Song Zhongping, an expert on military affairs and commentator for Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV. The Bohai Gulf is the preferred location for such tests because it is Chinese territorial waters, Song said.

However, while the DF-26 could be useful against THAAD, China also has several other missiles that are up to the task, he said.

“It hasn’t much to do with THAAD directly, but it is a kind of warning” to South Korea and the U.S., Song said.

If South Korea’s liberal new president had hoped his election would bring moderation from Beijing or Pyongyang, he might want to reassess.

ACADEMIA: Duke Professor Faces Disciplinary Action for Calling Diversity Training a Waste.

There’s no discourse in here, gentlemen — this is a diversity seminar!

OH, CANADA: Magazine editor quits after outrage over column saying he doesn’t believe in cultural appropriation.

Hal Niedzviecki, editor of Write — a publication for the union’s members — published an opinion piece in the spring 2017 issue titled “Writer’s Prompt.” In the article, in an issue dedicated to indigenous writing, Niedzviecki wrote: “In my opinion, anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.

“I’d go so far as to say there should even be an award for doing so — the Appropriation Prize for best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him.”

He went on to argue that Canadian literature remains “exhaustingly white and middle class” because writers are discouraged from writing about people and places they don’t know.

A sociological term, cultural appropriation is used to describe the adoption of elements or practices of one cultural group by members of another.

On Wednesday, the Writer’s Union of Canada issued an apology for the piece, announcing Niedzviecki’s resignation and pledging to review the magazine’s policies.

“The Writer’s Prompt piece offended and hurt readers, contributors to the magazine and members of the editorial board,” said the statement. “We apologize unequivocally. We are in the process of contacting all contributors individually.

The left always eats its own.

(Hat tip, Will Collier.)

AND THE GLUT GOES ON: OPEC sees much higher oil supply from rivals in 2017.

OPEC on Thursday raised its forecast for oil supplies from non-member countries in 2017 as higher prices – partly as a result of OPEC supply cuts – encourage U.S. shale drillers to pump more, reducing demand for OPEC’s oil this year.

In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries revised up its estimate of oil supply growth from producers outside the group this year to 950,000 barrels per day (bpd), up from a previous forecast of 580,000 bpd.

That’s a huge increase — have you hugged a fracker today?

DOYLE MCMANUS: Hillary Clinton has a right to be a major voice in American politics — but maybe it’s time she moved on.

She has accused President Trump of pursuing what appears to be “a commitment to hurt so many people.” She called House Republicans’ healthcare bill “shameful.” She proclaimed herself “part of the resistance.” She’s traveling the country giving speeches. She’s reportedly organizing a new political action committee to raise money for Democratic causes. And she’s writing a book to explain her side of the 2016 presidential campaign. She says she doesn’t expect to run for president again. But she has been careful not to rule it out.

Clinton’s impulse to get back into the fight is understandable. Democratic politics has been the cause of her life, and she’s surely entitled to work through her grief over the campaign. If her book turns out to be a candid self-examination of what went wrong — a big if, based on her self-protective previous memoirs — that could be healthy for her party.

But by moving so fast and so visibly, and by keeping the door open to another presidential campaign, Clinton risks harming not only her own image, but the anti-Trump resistance she wants to help.

Run, Hillary, run!

PERSPECTIVE: Comey sacking doesn’t rise to Watergate levels.

Nixon was fighting a pitched battle with Archibald Cox and the courts.

Cox, a Harvard professor who had been appointed as special prosecutor in May that year, had issued a subpoena ordering the White House to hand over nine tapes of phone calls and West Wing conversations in connection with the Watergate break-in. Nixon’s legal team argued the principle of executive privilege should apply, and the tapes should remain private.

On 12 October, however, the Court of Appeals in Washington upheld a lower court’s ruling granting Cox’s request. Rather than comply, Nixon decided to fire the special prosecutor, something his Attorney General Elliot Richardson had promised Congress would never happen.

A president stood in defiance of the courts, putting himself above the law of the land. It was a textbook constitutional crisis.

Donald Trump’s sacking of his FBI director, while highly unusual and deeply controversial, is constitutionally permissible. No court orders have been flouted. The president, while breaking with the norm of allowing FBI directors to serve out their 10-year terms unimpeded, is not putting himself above the law.

RUSSIANS VISITED THE WHITE HOUSE AND YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT: “They tricked us.”

PROGRESS: HIV life expectancy ‘near normal’ thanks to new drugs.

The study authors, from the University of Bristol, said the extraordinary success of HIV treatments was a result of newer drugs having fewer side effects and being better at preventing the virus from replicating in the body.

It is also more difficult for the virus to build up a resistance to the most recent drugs.

Improved screening and prevention programmes and better treatment of health problems caused by HIV are thought to have helped, too.

But many people with HIV still do not live as long as expected, especially those infected through injecting drugs.

People injecting illegal drugs probably won’t live as long as expected even without HIV.

TAMMY BRUCE: Why the media’s attempt to hobble Trump admin w contrived Comey drama will fail.

Mr. Trump’s one mistake upon taking office was not immediately sweeping out bureaucratic and partisan hacks like Ms. Yates and Mr. Comey. We wanted a team that was from outside the disaster, and with that comes a learning curve. With the firing of Mr. Comey, it became obvious that Mr. Trump now understands the nature of the beast he is assigned to dispatch.

The harpies in legacy media and in Congress scream about the timing of the firing, as though this is some evidence of nefarious intent.

That’s nonsense, and they know it.

The fact is this: With the firing of Mr. Comey, Andrew McCabe is now the acting FBI director. About Mr. McCabe’s wife, the Daily Mail reported: “Before McCabe was appointed as the Deputy Director of the FBI, his wife Jill McCabe ran as a Democrat for the Virginia State senate in 2015. Her campaign received funds from the state Democratic Party and a political action committee run by Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe. McAuliffe is a close friend of the Clintons and before his group, Common Good VA, donated to McCabe’s campaign, Hillary Clinton headlined a fundraiser for the PAC.”

Even without this Democratic partisan waiting in the wings to take over the FBI, it’s clear no investigation at the FBI is quashed because the director leaves. No matter who takes the helm, the work in progress continues.

If Trump had immediately fired everyone who deserved it, we’d barely have any government left to function — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

GO FURTHER HIGHER: Brand-new Ford Fusions used to smuggle marijuana from Mexico.

New 2017 Ford Fusions shipped from Mexico had their spare tires swapped for packages of marijuana, not only making their way to dealer lots but onto the driveway of an 86-year-old Minnesota man. According to Alpha News, more than 1,100 pounds of marijuana were recovered from 22 vehicles, most of which traveled north on the same train car.

The drugs were found between February and March of this year. A contractor for Burlington Northern Sante Fe railroad tipped off authorities after discovering drugs in two cars. The contractor was inspecting the Fusions before loading them onto a transport headed to dealerships. Thirteen other cars, all from the same railcar, had already made their way to dealer lots. Each car had 40 to 60 pounds of marijuana in the trunk. In March, another Minnesota dealer found another seven Fusions packed with drugs.

That might have been a fine way to get the marijuana into the country, but the smugglers don’t appear to have thought through how or when to get it back out of the cars.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: The New McCarthyites.

SHORT ANSWER: NO. Did a Voter ID Law Really Cost Clinton a Victory in Wisconsin?

There’s no escape from Betteridge’s Law, not even at Slate.

ALLIES: Turkey threatens military action against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters.

The warning was delivered to senior U.S. national security officials in closed-door meetings this week after the Trump administration expressed its intent to arm the Kurds following months of deliberations, the Turkish officials said.

“Turkey’s message to the Trump administration was that Turkey reserves the right to take military action,” said a senior Turkish official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Turkey has already conducted limited strikes against the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria in recent weeks, but it could increase the tempo of those strikes, Turkish officials said. American officials have complained bitterly to Turkey, a NATO ally, about the airstrikes, which have targeted the principal U.S. partner in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State.

Sure would be nice if our treaty allies acted like our actual allies.

CLAIM: For Trump Supporters, the Real Outrage Is the Left’s Uproar Over Comey.

It isn’t outrage so much as it is mocking derision for the bootlegger’s turn they took when Trump finally did what they’d been demanding since October.

GOOD MORNING: Start it right with Liz Sheld’s Morning Brief.

VIDEO: Historically Black College Students Booed Secretary DeVos for Wishing Them Luck.

STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE: Democrats again fall short in a closely-watched election.

Democrats again fell just short in a closely-watched election as Heath Mello lost the Omaha mayoral race on Tuesday after a fierce debate within the national party over his anti-abortion views.

His loss was a setback for supporters who argued that the Democratic National Committee and abortion rights groups were wrong to attack the anti-abortion former state senator.

It was also another near miss for Democrats fighting in typically Republican territory since Donald Trump’s presidential election victory. Democrats lost a special election for a House seat in Kansas and narrowly missed an outright win in a special election in Georgia.

Left unsaid is that Georgia special election