TO BE FAIR, MOST OF WHAT HE SAYS MAKES NO SENSE: John Fetterman Claims He Made Communities Safer, but We Have the Receipts.

RATINGS: Former Fox News host bombs in CNN debut.

A new show hosted by former Fox News host and current CNN host Chris Wallace fell flat in its debut.

Nielsen Media Research tracked ratings for Wallace’s show, Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, which debuted on CNN Sunday. The ratings show that there were 401,000 viewers, down 29% from the average, and 44,000 among those aged 25 to 54, down 64% from the average.

Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, a long-standing Fox News program that aired at the same time as Wallace’s, received 1.3 million viewers and 78,000 viewers aged 25 to 54.

Whatever goodwill Wallace generated at Fox is long gone.

I’M STRANGELY OK WITH THIS: Bad Polling Is Giving Democrats a False Sense of Confidence Going Into the Election.

GLEICHSCHALTUNG: Employee fired from hospital for rejecting trans ideology in online comment.

IT ALSO LACKS IN TASTE AND NUTRITION: Once-Hot Fake Meat Sees Sales Slide on Price and Being Too ‘Woke.’

WHAT A SHAME IT TOOK A LAWSUIT: Shareholders Demand Pfizer Scrap Race-Conscious Policies in the Wake of Civil Rights Lawsuit.

HEALTH: Could the Answer to Improving Metabolic Health Be Attached to Your Foot?

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN? Connecticut will pay a security analyst 150k to monitor election memes for misinformation.

REALITY CONTINUES TO LAP THE BEE: Turbines in One Part of Norway Are Falling Apart Because of…the Wind.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Damage To Nord Stream Pipelines ‘Unprecedented;’ May Have Been ‘Sabotaged.’ “The destruction that happened within one day at three lines of the Nord Stream pipeline system is unprecedented … and impossible now to estimate the timeframe for restoring operations of the gas shipment infrastructure.”

Previously: Trump Warned Germany About Russian Energy and They Laughed About It.

VICTIMHOOD PECKING ORDER: Court Rules Trans Prison Guard Can’t Strip-Search Muslim Inmate.

ETHICS? The Atrocious Ethics of Fauci’s Lockdown Defense.

Fauci, on the other hand, is defending “draconian” public policies that harm innocent people. During the pandemic, people were arrested for leaving their homes, driving their cars, paddling a boat, or going to a park. Moreover, Fauci admits these draconian policies also had other “deleterious consequences.” These included mental health deterioration, record drug overdoses, systemic fraud of taxpayers, millions of jobs lost, increased self-harm (especially among teenage girls), and more.

Despite these consequences, Dr. Fauci has consistently defended lockdowns, insisting that the draconian policies served a greater good.

To be fair, Fauci lies a lot.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Old Man Yells at Cloud… I Mean, Biden Tackles Inflation. “It might also be that Biden just doesn’t understand what inflation is. Watch this clip from a couple of days ago.”

Plus:

• Spank your children before they grow up to be shrieking toddlers
• There’s no escape from Los Angeles DA George Gascon
• You won’t believe John Fetterman’s latest brain impairment… or will you?

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

LET THE SUNSHINE IN: Record number of New Yorkers switching driver’s licenses to Florida.

Previously: ‘Overwhelming’ Number of People Moving to Florida Registering As Republican.

LINCOLN BROWN: American Stasi. “So why the seemingly never-ending parade of abuses of power? Why is the government doling out $5,000 worth of punishment for $5.00 ‘crimes?’ As a former Leftist, I think I can shed some light on that.”

HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IT; HE JUST GRIFTS OFF PEOPLE WHO DO: Noted CIA Analyst Evan McMullin Still Believes, Without Evidence, That Trump Is a Russian Asset.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Drag Queens Hanging Around Kids Are Skeeving Me Out. “I need to know what changed. Was there always this much drag show action around school kids and they were just better at hiding it or did the Dems all go off of their meds at once?”

BLUE CITY BLUES: Why Thousands Moved Out of Denver This Summer. “A new study finds that thousands of Denver residents moved elsewhere in July and August, landing it in the top ten on a list of U.S. metro areas with the largest population outflow. It’s all part of what researchers see as a national trend in which a growing number of people are abandoning expensive areas for less spendy places to live.”

Also: Denver murders rose in first half of 2022 — unlike most major cities.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Why the Democrats Must Be Punished.

So many good reasons, all lovingly detailed.

21ST CENTURY IMPERIALISM AIN’T CHEAP: China Reins In Its Belt and Road Program, $1 Trillion Later.

A slowing global economy, combined with rising interest rates and higher inflation, have left countries struggling to repay their debts to China. Tens of billions of dollars of loans have gone sour, and numerous development projects have stalled. Western leaders have criticized China’s lending practices, which some have labeled “debt-trap diplomacy,” embarrassing Beijing. Many economists and investors have said the country’s lending practices have contributed to debt crises in places like Sri Lanka and Zambia.

After nearly a decade of pressing Chinese banks to be generous with loans, Chinese policy makers are discussing a more conservative program, dubbed Belt and Road 2.0 in internal discussions, that would more rigorously evaluate new projects for financing, the people involved said. They have also become open to accepting some losses on loans and renegotiating debt, something they had been previously unwilling to do.

Chinese President Xi Jinping once called the initiative “a project of the century,” but the overhaul exposes limits to his vision to reshape the global order. At a November meeting with senior officials, Mr. Xi noted that the international environment for Belt and Road was becoming “increasingly complex,” and stressed the need to strengthen risk controls and expand cooperation, according to state-media reports of the meeting.

Related: Weaker Demand for Chinese Goods Spells Shipping Boom’s End.

Xi thought he could build a high-tech empire across some of the world’s most backwards lands, and get American consumers to pay for it.

On this other hand, squandering a trillion dollars on a flawed, technocratic vision would make him a piker in the Biden Administration.

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: The Left’s Flirtation With Homophobia. “The truth is that making homophobic jokes about Republicans is a Democrat pastime.”

Stacey Lennox: Are More Americans Waking Up to the Horrors of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’? “In reality, the only thing this irreversible experimentation on children affirms is the delusions of mentally ill adults like Parker Malloy.”

Yours Truly: An Insurgency: Just What Russia Needs Right Now. “Where does it all end? Nobody knows, but if Moscow looks weak and the republics feel pushed around, it doesn’t end well.”

DEFUND THE FBI: FBI misled judge who signed warrant for Beverly Hills seizure of $86 million in cash.

IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING: Now the Commies Want to Abolish Your Kitchen. “If we begin by abolishing our kitchens, what else might we get a taste for destroying, and for creating?”

ED MORRISSEY: Biden’s economic victory lap keeps getting interrupted by reality, or something.

It’s tough to tell which party is more clueless in this construct. Is it the White House and Joe Biden, who threw a “Mission Accomplished” celebration of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act on the same day as the CPI report that showed inflation still clocking in above 8%?

Or is it Politico, the news organization that wonders why people won’t let Biden have his victory lap while they struggle with five quarters of erosion in real disposable personal income?

Answer: yes.

Heh.

GRINCHY: Biden’s Inflation Takes a Huge Toll on Christmas Shopping.