MATH: Today’s students will earn 8% less (but won’t know how much that is). “The decline in reading and math achievement since 2013 means today’s students will earn 8 percent less over a working lifetime, estimates economist Eric Hanushek in a Washington Post op-ed.”

JEFF BEZOS: Stuck in the Middle With Blue.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Franchise Fail: Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Can’t Move Climate Change Needle.

The Oscar-winner has dedicated more than a decade to a film franchise promoting a healthier environment.

The “Avatar” saga is one long, extended hug for Mother Earth. The environment is near and dear to Cameron’s heart. He’s spoken tirelessly against Climate Change, embraced a vegan lifestyle and hoped the public wouldn’t hold his eco-hypocrisy against him.

It’s why he has spent so many years, and endless Hollywood resources, warning us to heed his Climate Change worries.

No regrets. At least, not yet.

“I’ve justified making ‘Avatar’ movies to myself for the last 20 years, not based on how much money we made, but on the basis that hopefully it can do some good. It can help connect us. It can help connect us to our lost aspect of ourself that connects with nature and respects nature and all those things. … Do I think that movies are the answer to our human problems? No, I think they’re limited because people sometimes just want entertainment and they don’t want to be challenged in that way. I think ‘Avatar’ is a Trojan horse strategy that gets you into a piece of entertainment, but then works on your brain and your heart a little bit in a way.”

That strategy isn’t working, apparently.

Read the whole thing.

And here are tangentially related thoughts from Critical Drinker: The Avatar Paradox – Why Nobody Talks About These Movies. “They’re some of the biggest movies ever made, and there’s another one, Fire And Ash coming out in just over a month, yet nobody ever talks about them. Why?”

IT’S AN EXTREMELY POWERFUL BUT ALSO STRANGELY LIMITED TOOL: AI May Be Making Some of Us Rich, but Why Is It Also Making Americans Unhappy?

OH, SO NOW HE’S A MAN: Trantifa city councilor Lucy Lauser seeks dismissal of indecent exposure charges as defense attorney argues males are not prosecuted for going topless.

THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A CITY: Endgame: Chicago.

TDS IS REAL… REAL EXPENSIVE: ‘What has Become of Us’: Rosie O’Donnell May Have Just Handed Trump a Golden Defamation Lawsuit. “I have previously expressed skepticism over some defamation cases against the media brought by President Donald Trump under existing case law. However, comedian Rosie O’Donnell may have supplied the President with a another defamation case if she cannot back up sensational claims made against the President to her 2.9 million TikTok followers. She states as a fact that the President is an ‘adjudicated rapist’ and settled child abuse cases.”

MAYBE THE BEST NEWS SINCE I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHEN: Some Celebrities Are Finally Getting That We Don’t Care What They Think.

CHANGE (IT BACK): Panera lost diners by cutting portions and staff. It’s reversing course to win them back.

When Panera Bread began shrinking its sandwiches and skimping on salads, it started shedding customers.

Now, to win them back, the chain plans to reinvest in the business and undo many of those same cost-cutting measures, it said Tuesday.

Once the No. 1 fast-casual brand in the U.S., Panera has dipped to No. 3, ceding the top spots to Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panda Express. Last year, its sales fell 5% to $6.1 billion, according to Technomic estimates. For years, the chain’s traffic has been shrinking, according to CEO Paul Carbone, who took the reins earlier this year. Controversy after the chain’s foray into energy drinks didn’t help matters, either.

Shrinkflation and worse service were bad for business — and execs were surprised by this?

A CORNERED RAT CAN STILL BE DANGEROUS:

If the dems calling for insurrection doesn't tell you how desperate they are after losing the shutdown battle and whatever little leverage they had left, I can't help you. The Resistance is dead. It's dead, Jim. It's so dead, that the dems are now calling for a revolt and…

— unseen1 (@unseen1_unseen) November 19, 2025

LAWFARE: Federal Court Delivers a Big Blow to GOP Prospects for Holding the House.

SPACE: James Webb telescope may have found the first stars in the universe, new study claims. “The stars’ spectra, which show their composition based on the light they absorb and emit, had emission lines suggesting lots of high-energy photons, which is consistent with Population III predictions. The spectra also suggested the stars are very large — each on the order of 100 solar masses — and the mass of the stars met some theoretical calculations.”

RABBI MICHAEL BARCLAY: A Tale of Two Pundits: Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin.

FINISH THE JOB: Report Says Trump to Announce Long Overdue Dismantling of Education Dept. “The Post talked to three unnamed (naturally) sources, two of whom (and let’s hope they are reliable) say that six offices in the Department of Education will move to other agencies. The overall goal here (tee hee) is to dismantle the Education Department as much as legally possible when only Congress has the ultimate authority to close it entirely.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems’ Nasty Civil War Is Safe From Any Mainstream Media Scrutiny. “At the moment, Democrats are a fractious hot mess. They’re more bad reality show audition than functioning political party these days. Leadership in both the Senate and the House is weaker than gas station toilet paper. The kids are definitely not all right. After Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer led the Democrats into a government shutdown showdown that they weren’t going to win in any of the alternative universes they occupy, some are looking to shake things up.”

NOT SO LONG AGO, THEY HAD A BILLION-DOLLAR BUDGET:

Wow. USAID and the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund got nuked and suddenly Democrat megadonors are broke.

Isn’t that something https://t.co/1WT1CSXAJF

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 18, 2025

THEY’RE JUST DOING THE TRAFFICKING JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO: Deported Couple Accused Of Running ‘Barbaric’ Sex Ring After Sneaking Back Into US.

A husband and wife duo accused of running a sophisticated sex ring in Louisiana are previously deported illegal migrants with lengthy rap sheets.

Murillo Lazano-Vargas and Zabdi Danea Guzman-Diaz were apprehended by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office earlier in November on charges related to the promotion of prostitution, human trafficking by force and pandering, according to local outlet WAFB. The married couple are Mexican nationals who are not only living in the U.S. unlawfully, but had already been deported from the country before returning to allegedly launch their illicit brothel enterprise, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“On November 6, ICE Homeland Security Investigations executed a search and arrest warrant for a human trafficking and sexual exploitation investigation,” a DHS spokesperson stated to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “HSI Law enforcement rescued three victims of these barbaric criminals.”

Plus: “The back-to-back sex ring busts follow GOP Gov. Jeff Landry’s signing of a partnership agreement with ICE earlier this year that empowers Louisiana law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws.”

Sanctuary cities and states, meanwhile, provide actual sanctuary for criminals like these

ROCKET MAN: Billionaire Elon Musk Strikes Back Against Billie Eilish for Calling Him ‘Pathetic Pu**y.’

YES, PLEASE: SCOTUS Must Stop Mail-In Voting Madness.

One of the suppurating sores that still bedevil our body politic in the aftermath of COVID-19 is the ongoing abuse of mail-in voting. Absentee ballots have long been available to a small number of voters, of course. But, during the pandemic, many states used public safety as a pretext to dramatically expand eligibility for mail-in voting and to extend the deadlines for receiving these ballots. Now, at least 30 states continue to count such votes long after Election Day has come and gone. This inevitably creates concerns about election integrity. Consequently, it was only a matter of time before the U.S. Supreme Court would be required to decide if post-election vote counting violates federal law.

This is why the Court quietly added Watson v. Republican National Committee to its docket last week. In 2020, Mississippi passed “emergency” legislation requiring election officials to accept absentee ballots “postmarked on or before the date of the election and received by the registrar no more than five (5) business days after the election.” Long after the pandemic had ended, Mississippi inexplicably made that post-election deadline permanent. Thus, in 2024, the RNC and the Mississippi Republican Party went to federal court to challenge the statute. The U.S. district court judge ruled against them.

The RNC subsequently won, however, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mississippi appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to take up the case.

We’re an international laughingstock, unable to tally our own election results while blue staters magically find whatever ballots they need, taking as long as they like.

CHURCH AND STATE: Trump’s Catholic Border Czar Sets Bishops Straight on Immigration.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Amazon sending out payments in $2.5B settlement over Prime subscriptions. “If you’re one of the millions of people who were signed up for Amazon Prime without your permission, you may want to check your email inbox. The company has started providing automatic refunds from a $2.5 billion settlement it reached with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) earlier this year.”

ICYMI: In Which We Applaud Fareed Zakaria for Belatedly Seeing the Blindingly Obvious.

THEY’RE CALLED SOCIAL MEDIA: You’re Living Alongside Invisible Wormholes, Scientists Say — and They May Be Warping Your Reality.

THE REMARKABLE THING IS THAT HE HASN’T RUN OUT: Mamdani Just Said He’s a Commie in a Whole New Way.

MODERN PROBLEMS: Tesla safety driver falls asleep during passenger’s robotaxi ride. “In fact, the safety driver fell asleep three times during the ride, which took place a little over a week ago, according to Reddit user ohmichael. In his post, which contains a 12-second clip of a man sleeping and then waking in the front seat of a moving Tesla, the poster says he contacted Tesla to report this behavior but never heard back.”