THIS PART OF THE TRANSITION IS GOING AS EXPECTED: Biden Tosses a Middle Finger Salute to the Coal Industry on His Way Out the Door.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Judge accused of ‘willful misconduct’ for letting illegal immigrant escape court.

More (from a non-paywalled link):

The Commission on Judicial Conduct on Dec. 2 formally charged District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph with multiple counts of judicial misconduct stemming from the same events that once had her facing federal criminal charges.

On April 2, 2018, Joseph allegedly helped a defendant in her courtroom, Jose Medina-Perez, avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents seeking to detain Medina-Perez under a civil immigration detainer after his release from state custody.

According to the charges, Joseph allowed an off-the-record discussion in her courtroom — a direct violation of Massachusetts District Court Special Rule 211, which mandates the recording of all courtroom proceedings. This sidebar, lasting 52 seconds, allegedly included plans to permit the defendant to avoid ICE custody by exiting through the courthouse’s rear sally-port door.

The CJC asserts that Joseph’s actions during and after the April 2018 incident, including her statements to court officials and investigators, reflect a pattern of willful misconduct and dishonesty. Joseph also allegedly violated state policy by instructing court personnel to exclude ICE agents from certain courthouse areas.

Joseph is charged with violating the following rules in the Code of Judicial Conduct: Rule 1.1 (failing to comply with the law), Rule 1.2 (acting in a manner that undermines public confidence in judicial independence and integrity), Rules 2.2 and Rule 2.5 (failing to perform judicial duties fairly, impartially, and competently) and Rule 2.16 (failing to cooperate candidly with judicial disciplinary authorities).

The CJC has requested the Supreme Judicial Court appoint a hearing officer to oversee public proceedings, which are expected to begin within 30 to 60 days of the appointment.

Developing…

HECKUVA JOB, KAMALA:

Kamala Harris is the 1st candidate since Herbert Hoover 1932 who did not flip a *SINGLE* county pic.twitter.com/nqWds9ms8x

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 2, 2024

To be fair, Hoover only had the start of the Great Depression on his record but Harris had all of Joe Biden.

THAT IS NOT THE SLAM ON TRUMP THEY THINK IT IS: MSNBC Analyst Wants Biden to Preemptively Pardon Jack Smith, DOJ Lawyers.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Kamala Harris Fatigue Is Finally Breaking Through Some Dems’ Denial.

HMM: Delaware judge rejects request to restore Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay.

A Delaware judge ruled on Monday that Tesla CEO Elon Musk still is not entitled to receive a $56 billion compensation package despite shareholders of the electric vehicle company voting to reinstate it.

The ruling by the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Court of Chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors, and cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker.

Musk did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Tesla has said in court filings that the judge should recognize a subsequent June vote by its shareholders in favor of the pay package for Musk, the company’s driving force who is responsible for many of its advances, and reinstate his compensation.

McCormick also ordered Tesla to pay the attorneys who brought the case $345 million, well short of the $6 billion they initially requested.

Shareholders also flooded the court with thousands of letters arguing that the January ruling increased the possibility that Musk would leave Tesla or develop some products like artificial intelligence at ventures other than Tesla.

The point of the compensation package was to give Musk enough voting — enough control over the company — to do things exactly like those. So, yes, the shareholders are probably right to worry.

Delaware’s business-friendly reputation was built over decades, was a huge boon to the state’s finances, and may have been undone by a single judge.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Just How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Nearly 180,000 noncitizens deliberately not detained, roaming free in US cities.

According to the latest data published by ICE, 179,937 illegal foreign nationals, who under current federal law are inadmissible and required to be removed, weren’t detained but were living freely in the U.S. through ICE’s “Alternatives to Detention” (ATD) program, as of June 2024.

Newly published data in ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations dashboard covers fiscal year 2021 through the third quarter of fiscal year 2024. It includes arrests, detention, removals and enrollments in ICE’s ATD, created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Congressional Republicans argue ATD is illegal and circumvents federal law, which requires inadmissible illegal foreign nationals to be detained and processed for removal.

Well, yeah — that was the point. Allow them in by whatever means and deny law enforcement any means of enforcing the law.

SCOTT JENNINGS: Biden Has Drained Every Ounce Of Credibility From His Surrogates And Defenders.

Listen, you guys can spend all day long trying to spin this, that this is Donald Trump’s fault, that this is somehow caused by Donald Trump.

“Oh, he’s appointing the wrong people. Oh, he did it.” This is the worst possible thing a president could possibly do to his party and to the country. To sit for a year and say, “I will not do this. I will not do this. The rule of law is sacred. We have to respect the justice system, juries. We have to respect juries. We have to respect the guardrails and the norms of our democracy.” These people are liars.

“Inflation is transitory. Afghanistan is a success. The border is secure. Robert Hur is a liar. The videos are cheap fakes. Biden has a cold. He’ll never drop out. Oh, I’ll never pardon Hunter.” It’s all a lie. It is all a grift. Every American except the most partisan brain-rotted people are going to be outraged by this today.

He is going to leave office — you think 38-39% job approval is bad? Just you wait. Just you wait. He’s disgraced, disgraced today. Outrageous…

Joe Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre, how many minutes of tape do we have of both of these people telling the American people this will not happen? I mean, we could play it all morning.

It’s a lie, and it’s a lie to benefit his own family. And that’s all that it is. And everybody who went on TV and said, “Oh, look how he’s the modern George Washington.” He’s drained every ounce of credibility from every surrogate.

To be fair, that well ran dry long ago.

TO BE FAIR, LYING FOR DEMOCRATS IS THEIR JOB: Seriously? The Liberal Media Is Actually Denying Biden Lied About Hunter’s Pardon.

IF YOU WANT PEACE, PREPARE FOR WAR: The U.S. Is Losing the Ability to Deter War With China.

This month, my colleagues and I led members of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party in a simulation of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The goal was to understand how the U.S. defense industrial base would perform in a protracted war with China and to assess the implications for deterrence. The results weren’t reassuring.

The simulation began with a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan in 2026. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the U.S. defense industrial base was severely stressed. The U.S. military spent its entire inventory of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles by the end of the first week and ran out of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range missiles after a month. Taiwan used up its entire inventory of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles after a week. It would be very difficult to sustain a fight without these weapons.

We also found that the U.S. faces significant supply-chain, workforce and contracting challenges. It has too few solid rocket motors, processor assemblies, castings, ball bearings and forgings. These shortages would drastically limit replacement of weapons systems used or destroyed in a conflict. The U.S. also relies on China for advanced battery parts and key raw materials, which could be cut off in a war.

A shortage of engineers, electricians, pipefitters, shipfitters and metalworkers at U.S. factories and shipyards would also cripple the country’s ability to win a protracted war. These challenges are already delaying the construction of frigates, submarines, destroyers and other ships.

Reversing these trends will take time.

Communist China has developed a bit of manufacturing expertise of its own and certainly has a good idea of how much time.

SCOTT PINSKER: Deconstructing Liberal Mythology and Slaughtering Liberal Mermaids.

Right now, the Democrats are disoriented.

For years, they rocked themselves to sleep with the following fictions: Donald Trump is a Nazi racist, and only white supremacists support him! Joe Biden is as sharp as a tack! Liberals are in the majority! Kamala Harris is a fine, capable candidate! We’re morally superior to those crass, shallow Republicans because we believe in the rule of law: You don’t see Joe Biden pardoning his idiot kid Hunter, do you?

It’s been a strange six months.

First, Biden wasn’t “sharp as a tack.” He was sick and diminished. Next, Trump wasn’t a Nazi: He’s the president-elect of the United States with a majority mandate. Record numbers of blacks, Hispanics, and 65% of Native Americans supported him. Kamala Harris was a lousy candidate, wasted billions of dollars, and owes her #2 position to her ethnicity and gender. And finally, it’s now perfectly clear that Joe Biden was lying about never pardoning Hunter Biden.

That’s an awful lot of myths to collapse at once.

Thus the coming mental health crisis that Mark Halperin warned us about.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Behold the Hundreds of Crimes for Which Hunter Biden Just Got Pardoned.

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Is Trump About to Pull off an Iran Hostage Moment?

TO BE FAIR, ESTONIA DIDN’T SUBSIDIZE THE IMPORTATION OF A NEW CRIMINAL CLASS FROM ABROAD:

Sweden is considering to outsource some of its prisons to Estonia.

After a dramatic rise in violent crime, Swedish prisons are overcrowded.

In Estonia, the situation is the opposite. A drastic decrease in crime has left the country with half of its prisons empty. pic.twitter.com/1X2qBcmWoD

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 1, 2024

According to the replies, that picture is of “a cell in the Swedish maximum security prison Kumla.”

Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the surprisingly posh tiny home-style living.

THAT’S NO SKIN OFF JOE’S NOSE: Hunter’s Creditor Speaks Out on No-Consequences Pardon. “They say crime doesn’t pay, and in the case of Hunter Biden, one could certainly say that the criminal doesn’t pay. A man to whom Hunter reportedly owes over $300,000 is not exactly thrilled at Hunter‘s blanket pardon from his senile father.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China launches first Long March 12 from new commercial spaceport in boost for country’s lunar plans.

China launched its first Long March 12 rocket Saturday, marking an advance in its crewed moon plans and the debut of a new spaceport that will boost the country’s access to space.

The two-stage, 62-meter-tall Long March 12 lifted off at 9:25 a.m. Eastern (1425 UTC) Nov. 30 from the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. The rocket climbed into the night sky above the coastal spaceport, with amateur live streams from the area capturing the event.

The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), the rocket’s maker, declared launch success within an hour of liftoff. SAST announced the previously undisclosed payloads on the flight to be the experimental “Satellite Internet Technology Test Satellite” and “Technology Test Satellite-3”. No details of the spacecraft were provided.

The kerosene-fueled Long March 12 is China’s first 3.8-meter-diameter launch vehicle. It can carry a payload of 12,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit (LEO), and 6,000 kg to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), according to SAST. The new rocket could play a role in the construction of China’s planned LEO megaconstellations.

Without reusable rockets, those megaconstellations could prove a huge cash sink.

(ALMOST) NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW: Here’s How Pardoning Hunter Biden Was Really About Protecting Joe.

HMM: Why is Xi Jinping’s China purging its senior military leaders?

“Xi appears to be chronically distrustful of his most prominent military officials,” Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told AFP.

Reports of Dong’s fall suggested “the rot in China’s military remains even deeper than previously suspected”, Neil Thomas, a fellow on Chinese politics at the Asia Society, told AFP.

The crackdown has come as China has increased military pressure on Taiwan and repeatedly pushed up against its neighbours over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

But analysts say graft in the military may be raising worries that the army isn’t up to the job.

Something Xi is looking to fix?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The Japanese War Party purged the military of war-skeptics before launching World War II. They chose. . . poorly.

LOOKS A LITTLE INSURRECTION-Y TO ME: Dem Staffer Caught Trying to Smuggle Ammo Cache Into Cannon House Office Building.

BIDEN’S TWO-TIERED JUSTICE:

🚨Hunter Biden – Commits 3 serious felonies ⚠️

0 YEARS IN PRISON

Meanwhile…

🚨 Tina Peters – Tries to expose election fraud ⚠️

9 YEARS IN PRISON

🚨 Daniel Penny – Saves train passengers from thug ⚠️

FACING MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES

🚨 Bevelyn Williams – Stands up to baby…

— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) December 2, 2024

No reason for Trump not to pardon the Jan. 6 “offenders” on January 20.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Just How Stupid Do They Think We Are? “Few believed Biden… but many tried to get you to believe him.”

CHANGE: Costco to stop selling books year-round at most stores starting in January.

Membership warehouse chain Costco is axing most of its book sections, ending year-round sales of books at most of its over 600 U.S. locations starting in January.

The first rumblings of the move came last summer when the retailer told publishers that books would be stocked during only the holiday season from September to December starting in 2025, unnamed publishing executives told The New York Times.

Stores in some markets, like Alaska and Hawaii, had already stopped book sales.

It seems like a shame but, except for the occasional coffee-table book or prepper guide, I can’t remember the last title I purchased that wasn’t an ebook.

OH, CANADA: Terror Suspect Caught at the Northern Border Indicative of a Bigger Problem.

THE KAVENAUGHING OF KASH PATEL HAS BEGUN:

Someone who went to high school with Kash Patel told me he regularly had big parties when his parents went out of town. Patel's family had a big dedicated prayer room in the house, and two boys bragged they had sex with girls in the prayer room during a party.

This is a very…

— Jacqueline Sweet (@JSweetLI) December 1, 2024

Fun!

If this is the best they’ve got on Patel, I like his chances.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): This tweet appears to have been deleted. So I guess they don’t even have this on him.