DUMB, ANNOYING, AND EASY TO TURN OFF — ONCE YOU KNOW IT’S THERE: Apple iPhone’s Clean Energy feature angers users over charging times. “Apple introduced Clean Energy Charging with the release of iOS 16.1 on Oct. 24, 2022. The company claims that when the mode is enabled and a phone is connected to a charger, the iPhone gets a report of carbon emissions generated by the local energy grid and uses that information to determine when to charge the phone.”

Pure virtue signaling on Apple’s part, given how little energy it takes to charge a phone.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Is Ron DeSantis Running for President Without Running for President? “To give you an idea of what I mean, watch the ‘Freedom Is Worth Fighting For’ video his non-campaign released on Sunday.”

HMM: Biden admin ‘pauses’ removal of contaminated waste from East Palestine after destination states complain.

CHANGE: DeSantis Declares Victory as Disney Is Stripped of Some 56-Year-Old Perks.

OUTSOURCING [VIP]: Biden ‘Outmaneuvered’ by Xi on Ukraine Peace Plan. “Thanks to Team Biden having a perfect 100% absent record on the peace process, it’s now possible to envision a peace deal with an anti-Western slant that would potentially move Ukraine into China’s orbit — after all of that cash and all of those weapons were sent to Kyiv from the West.”

Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: Electric vehicle drivers get candid about charging: ‘Logistical nightmare.’ “Longer trips bring up flaws with EVs. People are leery of taking them on long trips — that’s why older EVs don’t have 40,000 miles on them.”

THE RESULT OF THREE YEARS SPENT SHATTERING PUBLIC TRUST: No One in East Palestine Believes Anything the Biden Administration Is Telling Them.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: ‘I felt safer in downtown Saigon during Vietnam’: Moment squatters terrorizing Portland family almost set their home on fire as city battles to deal with 6,600 homeless people across 700 encampments.

Jacob and Beth Adams live next door to an abandoned home that has been taken over by several homeless people.

The couple has caught the homeless people overdosing and stealing from their backyard – but said the final straw was when the group set their property on fire.

‘There are fires that have been happening off and on. Major ones. This recent one actually came and set our property on fire,’ Jacob told Fox12.

The Adams’ official neighbor, who is a Vietnam veteran, echoed his concern, adding that the squatters have made his living situation worse than his military deployment in Vietnam.

Plus: “Jacob has called police constantly to report his squatter neighbors, but it appears nothing has changed.”

DEMAND MORE: The Top Spending Cuts Republicans Must Demand Before Raising the Debt Ceiling.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Chicago’s pursuit of ‘criminal justice reform’ an utter failure: Windy City homicides top nation for 11th year in a row with crime still rising. “There were no police available in 2021 for more than 400,000 high-priority 911 dispatches. That included 15,000 assaults in progress, 1,300 instances of people shot, 14,000 instances of domestic battery, and many more serious crimes.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Score Another One for the Tinfoil Hat COVID ‘Disinformation’ Crowd. “Those of us over here on Fauci Skeptic Island are on a roll lately, aren’t we?”

THE GREEN SCAM: Dark money group pushing gas stove crackdown has significant financial stake in green energy.

Alex Laskey, Saul Griffith and Ari Matusiak – who together founded Rewiring America in 2020 – have all pursued various wind, solar, electrification and energy efficiency ventures, some of which have netted them millions of dollars in buyouts or received significant federal funding. The three co-founders have simultaneously advocated for policies benefiting those ventures through the nonprofit.

“It’s a shocking amount of money that they’re hauling in with this scheme of theirs,” Tom Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “I call it Big Green Inc. It is literally a business for these guys and they cloak themselves in the mantra of trying to save the planet. But, really, this is just very sophisticated self-dealing.”

“Congress needs to be an aggressive watchdog precisely because of organizations like Rewiring America.”

Even better: Curtailing Washington’s money and power to prevent all kinds of rent-seeking and grift.

COLONIALISM, STRAIGHT UP: Cops Called In, Students Suspended for Qur’an Desecration…in the U.K.

YOU DON’T SAY: Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says. “The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.”

I’m so old, I remember when even suggesting the possibility was enough to get a blogger deplatformed and demonetized.

YOU WILL BE MADE TO CONFORM: Washington State Dems Want ‘Minority Report’ Commission to Destroy Conservative Wrong-Think.

CHANGE? Russia’s Withdrawal From START: Less Than Meets The Eye. “The real reason that Putin withdrew from START is that it allows America to carry out regular inspections of Russian infrastructure, and I’m sure they feared America relaying any actionable intelligence from such inspections to Ukraine.”

BIDENFLATION: Biden Just Got Some Really Bad News.

THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT HOW I’D HOPED: Canadian trans Antifa activist with diaper fetish speaks to children on tour event.

LINCOLN BROWN: To My Sorrow, There Can Be No Common Ground With the Left. “There comes a time when one must admit that compromise is impossible, and that to search for it involves capitulation with alleged human beings who have blinded themselves to all but the basest of pursuits and desires. There comes a time at which hope ends, and one realizes that we can no longer live with one another. It is a sad realization, but one that is based on a harsh, unforgiving reality. Long had I hoped that cooler heads might prevail, that we could see eye to eye on something. But whether it is because of the internet, our feckless leaders, or the inherent sinfulness of mankind, we must admit that the breach between the insanity of the Left and the rest of the world is simply too large and wide to bridge.”

Read the whole thing.

STILL MORE OF A PEACE EFFORT THAN BIDEN HAS MADE: China’s Plan To End Ukraine-Russia War Met With Skepticism In West. “Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the West believes China is poised to begin supplying arms to Russia. Given that the West, led by the U.S., is sending lethal aid to Ukraine, that would raise the specter of a proxy war between the world’s most powerful nations and stoke fears the U.S., Europe, and China could all be further drawn in.”

A look at China’s 12 points reveals a wishlist of feel-good measures “abandoning the Cold War mentality” and little of substance. So if I had to guess, Beijing is putting this out there for Ukraine and the West to reject in order to justify sending arms to Russia.

But that’s just a guess. We’ll see.

MEGAN FOX: Why Is Missouri’s Republican AG Andrew Bailey Protecting a Judge Who Abused Children? “The children, who were both teens at the time, refused to go live with their mother. In an effort to coerce them to do so, Eighmy dragged them to the detention center under his office and jailed them for an hour — stripped of their socks and shoes — and then threatened them with foster care if they refused to obey him. Later, the judge issued an order across state lines for a Louisiana sheriff to arrest the children and throw them in the juvenile detention center for two days, in solitary confinement, where they were subjected to abuse through strip searches, sleep deprivation, interrogation, and psychological trauma.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Colorado gun buyers would have to wait 3 days before accessing their weapons under waiting-period proposal. “The waiting-period bill, expected to be formally unveiled this week in the House, is part of a package of gun control measures Democrats are planning to introduce at the Capitol this year. Other legislation will seek to raise the age to purchase rifles and shotguns to 21 to match the policy for handguns, regulate homemade firearms that lack serial numbers — also known as ‘ghost guns’ — and make it easier to sue gun manufacturers and sellers. Additionally, there will be a measure introduced that would expand who can petition a judge to order the temporary seizure of someone’s guns under the state’s so-called red flag law.”

UNEXPECTEDLY! The Project Veritas Board Is Feeling the Pain After Ousting Founder James O’Keefe.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Elon Musk’s Big Boy Rocket, the Most Powerful Ever Built, Is Nearly Ready to Fly.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Mayor Pete Enters the Biden Diversity Hire Hall of Failures. “To say that Buttigieg hasn’t handled his duties as Transportation secretary well would earn one an award for understatement. Prior to getting the gig, Mayor Pete thought that ‘supply chain’ was a mobile game.”