KARL ROVE: A Preview of Obama’s Post-Presidency.

Mr. Obama still doesn’t understand that the GOP’s victories in ’10, ’14 and ’16 were repudiations of his policies. In the podcast, he argued that rural voters were wrong to vote Republican because his administration “devoted more attention, more focus, put more resources into rural America.” The idea that Democrats “abandoned the white working class,” he added, is “nonsense.” In other words, country folks should stay bought and the working class is too dumb to understand what’s good for them.

While saying it was time for “new voices and fresh legs,” Mr. Obama threatened that if “some foundational issues about our democracy” arise after he leaves office, he might “weigh in.” He also promised his presidential center would help young people become “organizers, journalists, politicians” by providing “tools for them to bring about progressive change.”

The IRS may get indigestion at such partisan use of a nonprofit, but Republicans should do cartwheels about these pledges, since it was Mr. Obama’s leadership that helped produce the biggest GOP dominance in nearly a century.

Mr. Obama will be the first ex-president since Woodrow Wilson to remain in Washington. Given the tone of his interviews, he could well become a carping, persistent presence in our nation’s capital.

We’re years past Carter being Obama’s best-case scenario.

PHILIPPINES DUTERTE: I threw suspect from helicopter.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to throw corrupt officials from helicopters mid-air, saying he has done it before.

“If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out,” said Mr Duterte, who is waging war on corruption and drugs.

It’s the latest claim by the president that he has personally carried out extra-judicial killings.
His spokesman played down the remarks, which he described as “urban legend”.

Earlier this month another spokesman Martin Andanar said his blunt-speaking boss should be taken “seriously but not literally” when he said he had shot dead three men while mayor of Davao.

Maybe he should be taken literally — nearly 6,000 Filipinos have been killed since May in Duterte’s extra-legal drug crackdown.

OF COURSE THEY DID: George Washington University Drops U.S. History Requirement — for History Majors!

GOOD LORD: Florida man dies after jumping on cars naked on a busy highway.

That’s too much, even for Florida Man.

BECAUSE EVERYBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO BE UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING: SJWs Claim Sandwich Invented in U.S. Is Being Culturally Appropriated by Americans.

FAKE NO NEWS: NBC’s cash-strapped ‘Breaking News’ app & social media feeds to shut down this week.

AMANDA MARCOTTE: Fox News and Breitbart spent the holiday weekend sliding outrageous white supremacist ideas into the mainstream.

I was so busy oppressing women I barely even noticed.

FOR THE MAP-LOVER IN YOU: Vintage Maps Rekindle the Romance of Early Air Travel.

The Imperial Airways “Empire Air Routes” map is both telling and charming, showing Britain and her colonies and dominions in red, and all other countries in just the same translucent blue as the oceans.

SPACE RACE: China Says We will be on Mars by 2020.

Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the National Space Administration, said Beijing aims to launch its first Mars probe around 2020 to carry out orbiting and roving exploration, followed by a second mission that would include collection of surface samples from the red planet.

She said other plans include sending probes to Jupiter and its moons.

“Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world,” she said.

The Soviet Union achieved its first successful Mars landing in 1971, but the Soft Lander unit failed after relaying just 20 seconds of video. The U.S. followed suit by landing two Viking spacecraft in 1976, and both operated continuously for several years. China last tried to put a spacecraft in orbit around Mars in 2011, in conjunction with a Russian landing craft. However, an orbital failure caused both spacecraft to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere weeks after the launch.

China seems to have a bit of catching up to do.

DANNY GLOVER, HISTORIAN: History of America About ‘Annexation’ and ‘Violence’

ROUND TWO: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Indicted Again on Corruption Charges

Several members of her administration, including Julio De Vido, a former planning minister, and José López, a former public works secretary, were also charged in the case. Lázaro Báez, a businessman long associated with Mrs. Kirchner and her husband, Néstor Kirchner, was charged, too. One of his companies, Austral Construcciones, was accused of being the beneficiary of corruption.

The former officials are accused of being part of an illegal association “that operated between at least May 8, 2003, and Dec. 9, 2015, and was created to commit crimes to illegally and deliberately appropriate itself with funds that were assigned to road works,” according to the indictment. The charges focus on 52 projects in the southern province of Santa Cruz, where Néstor Kirchner was governor for more than a decade until he became president of Argentina in 2003.

Julián Ercolini, a federal judge, said that Mr. Báez’s company, which did not exist until shortly before Mr. Kirchner became president, was awarded contracts worth $2.97 billion. That included 15 percent surcharges above the original cost of the contracts, Judge Ercolini added.

It would be nice if our own Justice Department pursued high-level crimes up to Argentina’s standard.

OOPS: Wrong sperm may have fertilized eggs of 26 Dutch women in IVF mix-up.

INDEED: Climateers Can’t Handle the Truth.

Donald Trump, our new president-elect, has been tagged for indiscriminately referring to climate change as a hoax. Here’s what he actually said at a campaign rally in South Carolina one year ago about climate advocacy: “It’s a money-making industry, OK? It’s a hoax, a lot of it.”

This statement, with its clearly framed qualifications, is true and accurate in every detail. It’s a statement of basic truth that can be embraced, and increasingly should be, by exactly those people most concerned about man-made climate change.

Yet it won’t be, for reasons demonstrated by the New York Times’ adoption of the term climate denialist, whose deliberately non-discriminating function we now take care to state precisely: It enables a kind of journalism that is unable—incapacitates itself—to stumble on truths that would be inconvenient to climate religion.

Read the whole thing. And if you need a way past the WSJ paywall, you might find one here.

WELL, GOOD: Donald Trump urges Israel to “stay strong” until he takes office, says cannot allow it to be “treated with disdain”

TERROR: Tunisian Man Detained In Connection To Berlin Market Attack.

The 40-year-old, who wasn’t identified, was detained during a search of his home and business, federal prosecutors said.

The man’s telephone number was saved in the cellphone of Anis Amri, a fellow Tunisian believed to have driven a truck into the market on Dec. 19. Amri, 24, was killed in a shootout with police in a suburb of Milan early Friday.

Of the new suspect, prosecutors said in a statement that “further investigations indicate that he may have been involved in the attack.”

Twelve people died in the truck attack. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.

Prosecutors have until Thursday evening to determine whether the case against the 40-year-old is strong enough for them to seek a formal arrest warrant. That would allow them to keep him in custody pending possible charges.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Amri had a support network in planning and carrying out the attack, and in fleeing Berlin. They’re also trying to piece together the route he took from Berlin to Milan.

The Schengen Area made it possible to travel throughout most of Europe with less hassle, but it also has made it easier for terror suspects to flee between police jurisdiction and intelligence agencies which are still, unlike travelers and terrorists, largely confined to their home countries.

STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE: Hundreds of Unwelcome Immigrants Set Up New Illegal Camps Near Calais.

SHOT: Israel pressing ahead with settlements despite UN vote.

An agenda published by Jerusalem City Hall listed applications for at least 390 new homes whose approval looks certain to intensify international and Palestinian opposition to the Israeli settlement-building.

The Municipal Planning and Construction panel usually meets Wednesdays and the permit requests were filed before the Security Council resolution.

Settler leaders and their supporters have been urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step up construction in East Jerusalem, accusing him of having slowed its pace last year because of international pressure.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported Tuesday that 1,506 housing units for Israelis have already been approved in East Jerusalem this year, compared with 395 in 2015.

The Jerusalem Municipality said in a statement Tuesday it would “continue to develop the capital according to zoning and building codes, without prejudice, for the benefit of all residents.”

CHASER: Jerusalem cancels vote on settlement construction “until after Kerry speech.”

AND ANOTHER SHOT: Israel approves four-storey east Jerusalem settler building.

Doesn’t anyone know what’s going on in Israel today?

Whatever the case, it’s absurd the notion that any group of nations could have any say in how Israel develops its own ancient capital. And it’s shameful that Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Samantha Power have aided and abetted antisemites at the United Nations.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? As Home Prices Rise, Flippers Make a Comeback.

The number of investors who flipped a house in the first nine months of 2016 reached the highest level since 2007. About one-third of the deals were financed with debt, a percentage not seen in eight years.

Now Wall Street, which was nearly felled by real-estate forays almost a decade ago, is getting back into the action. A number of banks are arranging financing vehicles for house-flippers, who buy and sell homes in a matter of months. The sector is small—participants say roughly several hundred million dollars in deals have been made in recent months—but it is expected to keep growing.

“The floodgates have opened,” says Eduardo Axtle, a 35-year-old former telecom entrepreneur in Oakland, Calif., who has taken out about 50 home loans over the past five years. These days, he is bombarded with unsolicited emails from brokers offering him access to financing, and fellow flippers invite him to get-togethers that are advertised with YouTube videos showing off recent projects.

Just try not to be the last flipper left unflipped.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Army Abrams Tanks to Control Robotic Attack Drones.

Algorithms are progressing to the point wherein they will be able to allow an Abrams tank crew to operate multiple nearby “wing-man” robotic vehicles in a command and control capacity while on the move in combat.

Army researchers, engineers and weapons developers are preparing to prototype some of these possibilities for future Abrams tanks, Maj. Gen. David Bassett, Program Executive Officer, Ground Combat Systems, told Scout warrior in an interview.

“As I look to the future and I think about game-changing technologies, manned-unmanned teaming is a big part of that. There’s a set of things that we think could be really transformational,” Bassett said.

This kind of dynamic could quickly change the nature of landwar.

Autonomous or semi-autonomous robotic vehicles flanking tanks in combat, quite naturally, could bring a wide range of combat-enhancing possibilities. Ammunition-carrying robotic vehicles could increase the fire-power of tanks while in combat more easily; unmanned platforms could also carry crucial Soldier and combat supplies, allowing an Abrams tank to carry a larger payload of key combat supplies.

All that’s lacking is repairbots and refuelbots, and the ability to swap out tired human crews for fresh ones — and you’d have an armored formation able to fight nearly 24/7, denying the other side the ability to rest.

Either that, or one heck of a big reason for Skynet to smile.

LAME DUCK LEFT OUT IN THE COLD: Russia, Turkey Agree On Syria Ceasefire Plan, Snub Washington.

In the latest snub of president Obama and the US State Department, on Wednesday Turkey and Russia reached an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said, and according to Anadolu News Agency, will aim to put it into effect by midnight. Anadolu, citing sources, said the two countries have reached a consensus that will be presented to participants in the conflict on expanding the ceasefire that was established in Aleppo earlier this month.

There may be a hurdle however: Ankara would not budge on its opposition to President Bashar al-Assad staying in power. The comments by Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday appeared to signal a tentative advance in talks aimed at reaching a truce, but the insistence that Assad must go will do little to smooth negotiations with Russia, his biggest backer.

Not content with isolating the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey also made a mockery of the UN when they said last week they were ready to help broker a peace deal after holding talks in Moscow where they adopted a declaration setting out the principles any agreement should adhere to. Arrangements for the talks, which would not include the United States and be distinct from separate intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations, remain hazy, but Moscow has said they would take place in Kazakhstan, a close ally.

“There are two texts ready on a solution in Syria. One is about a political resolution and the other is about a ceasefire. They can be implemented any time,” Cavusoglu told reporters on the sidelines of an awards ceremony at the presidential palace in Ankara.

While Turkey’s insistence has been that Assad must go, perhaps in legacy support of US and NATO positions, with Cavusoglu saing that “the whole world knows it is not possible for there to be a political transition with Assad, and we also all know that it is impossible for these people to unite around Assad”, Turkey’s position appears not set in stone, and last week, Russia’s foreign minister said Russia, Iran and Turkey had agreed that the priority in Syria was to fight terrorism and not to remove Assad’s government.

Elsewhere today, John Kerry is still scheduled to make a speech outlining his vision for the Middle East — which Russia has already rejected.

MAD DUCK: Obama’s 7 Deadliest Lame-Duck Sins.

OR IS HE POSITIONING HIMSELF FOR 2020? Joe Biden Admits: Hillary Lost Because She Failed to Reach Out to the White Working Class.

21ST CENTURY CRIME: Chinese traders charged with insider trading on hacked information.

The suspects in the alleged criminal marriage of cyber-hacking and securities fraud targeted at least seven law firms and other entities that handle the sensitive and often lucrative legal work of advising companies pursuing mergers and acquisitions, according to a 13-count superseding indictment unsealed in New York.

Operating from April 2014 through late 2015, the alleged scheme ultimately gained access to secret information from two law firms about pending corporate deals, prosecutors charged.

The suspects allegedly prized, targeted and gained access to the emails of attorneys directly involved in the deals. Prosecutors charged they exchanged a list of partners who performed such work at one of the firms before hacking into that firm’s computer system.

Using that information, the suspects allegedly bought stocks in the companies involved in the deals, and ultimately sold the investments at a profit when the mergers or acquisitions were announced.

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a formal statement said the allegations spotlight the vulnerability of highly-sensitive law firm records to the efforts of determined cyber criminals.

You might at least hope that high-powered law firms would have better security and smarter users that our government does.

MOST EVERYTHING: What China Didn’t Learn From the Collapse of the Soviet Union.

THE PERILS OF PROHIBITION: Toxic liquor kills at least 32 in Pakistan.

The dead, mostly minority Christians, consumed the homemade liquor in the city of Toba Tek Singh.

Muslims are forbidden from buying or drinking alcohol in Pakistan – and minorities need a permit to buy liquor.

With alcohol sales tightly regulated, cheap homebrewed spirits often contain poisonous methanol.

It’s the latest case of deadly alcohol poisoning in Pakistan after 11 died in October, also in Punjab province.

To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, I’m simply saying that vice finds a way — and that way is usually worse than vice left alone.