Not surprising

The Corner: "Here's a surprise: Iran rejects scrutiny of its weapons program."

More classified info on the bathroom server

Fox News: "Nearly 1,000 Clinton emails had classified info."

The thin twig that the Clinton campaign is putting out is that these were not classified at the time, but were only classified later.  A reasonable question then would be: did Clinton receive any classified emails during her time as Secretary of State?  If not, how is that even possible for such a high-level government official?  It's not possible, that's how.

Extra - From Legal Insurrection.  ROLF!

More - Power Line talks about Hillary and her BFF Sid Vicious: "I think it is reasonable to infer that the long-rumored enmity between Barack Obama and the Clintons is a reality."

"It's a time bomb"

Just this past Thanksgiving weekend, I finished "Too Big to Fail" about the collapse of the housing market and the chaos that swallowed Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and nearly brought down the entire U.S. economy.

Now I see that in December there's a movie based on the other side of the housing market: the guys who made a huge bet that real estate was hugely over-extended, over-valued, and over-leveraged.  I read the Michael Lewis book "The Big Short" when it first came out in 2011 and I can't wait for the movie.



By the way, for those of you who don't know, to "short" an investment (stock, fund, real estate, etc.) means you're betting the price of something will go down while most buyers in the market are hoping the value of an investment will go up.  In "Too Big to Fail", certain CEOs (notably Dick Fuld of Lehman) were reported to have railed against short sellers as the bottom-feeders of the investment world, preaching doom and gloom to drive down a stock price.  In reality (IMHO) they were exposing weaknesses in certain companies that deserved to be exploited.  If Lehman was a solid company, the short-sellers would have gone broke.  But instead Lehman, along with many other investment companies, were hobbled by terrible real estate investments and the short-sellers were the Cassandras of Wall Street.

Today's ELI5

Explain Like I'm Five: "How would a $15 minimum wage actually affect a franchised business like McDonalds?"  Good review.

Shut down those urban businesses

Black Lives Matter blocks holiday shoppers in Chicago.  Jeff Bezos smiles.

Yeah, I'm getting there

The Hill: "GOP in panic over Trump."

The Republican establishment is nearing full-blown panic about Donald Trump.
The demise of Trump’s candidacy has been predicted by centrist Republicans and the media alike virtually since the day it began. But there is no empirical evidence at all to suggest it is happening.

I was convinced that the only reason Trump was on top of the polls at the start of silly season was name recognition.  Now I think he's defying gravity by being the anti-Romney: somebody who throws blind punches and doesn't really cares who is in the way.  Ted Cruz is rising in the polls for the same reason by swinging away at the press and then taking aggressive stands during the debates.

But at some point, the GOP is going to go from "shopping" to "buying" mode.  Then reality will set in about Trump.  Right?  Right?  Oh boy.

Happy Thanksgiving

Like a trained seal

Daily Caller: "CNN Reporter Coordinated With Hillary Aide To Smear Rand Paul During 2013 Benghazi Hearing."

The mainstream media is the enemy.

Extra - No worries: it's just tradecraft.

More - Even their bias is biased.  WashPost: "Politico just handed Republicans a ‘liberal media’ talking point."

Yeah, that's the real crime here.  Not the conscious and unconscious bias of the overwhelmingly liberal media, but the reaction of those whiny Republicans.

Sad face emoji: "Fighting terrorism is hard."

Here's Dana Milbank in the WashPost: "Barack Obama, President Oh-bummer."

Chicagoland-style

It's hard to look at this video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald and conclude it was not an execution.  The guy was on the ground and shots keep coming - 16 shots.  I'm tempted to say that the only reason this indictment came out at all, a year later, is because the dashcam video was released and it was revealed that the police wiped the video from a nearby Burger King.

I think we all saw this coming

National Review: "Clock Boy - Not a bombmaker, just a blackmailer."  "In case there was any doubt that the Ahmed “Clock Boy” Mohamed-episode was an extended exercise in fraud and extortion, the family has now made it explicit."

Kyle Busch wins NASCAR championship

Quick story: I've always been a Kyle Busch fan and a couple of years ago I was cheering for him at the Sprint Cup race in New Hampshire.  During driver introductions, I waved my #5 Kelloggs Frosted Flakes baseball cap in the air and I was virtually the only person in the crowd showing support.

And I understand: Kyle was a bit of a jerk.  All right, he was a big jerk.  In that same race, he was dumped by another driver (Juan Pablo Montoya, if I remember correctly) and the crowd cheered.

But this year was a year of transition for Kyle.  First, he broke his leg at the Daytona 500 and missed the first eleven races of the season.  Then his wife gave birth to his son, Brexton and - in my opinion - he became a changed man, somebody who had perspective on the important things in life.  In a classic comeback story, he worked his way back to gain enough points and wins to make the Chase.  Then tonight he held off a charge by last-year's winner Kevin Harvick to win his first Sprint Cup championship.

Congratulations, Kyle.

Extra - I think this Fox News update echoes a lot of what I said:

The title is a sweet reward for Busch, who has made huge personal and professional gains over the last several years. Known as one of most talented drivers in the sport, his temperament often got in his own way. But he has mellowed with marriage, gained perspective after the Daytona wreck, and was determined to be on his feet in the delivery room when wife Samantha delivered their first baby, a boy born in May — right after Busch returned to the race car and celebrated his 30th birthday.

By the way, that kid was so funny in Victory Lane tonight.  Slobbered all over a microphone.

Dead legislation walking

HuffPost: "Bad Obamacare News Is Real. That Doesn't Mean Obamacare Is Dying."

This article is pretty remarkable: the authors acknowledge that virtually nothing has gone right, that the predictions of Obamacare critics have been borne out, but - darn it - it's just the gyrations of a new insurance marketplace.  The comments of the typically-liberal readers of HuffPost are telling.  They hate Obamacare but think single-payer is the solution.  That pipe dream is never going to fly, right Vermont?

Extra - Kevin Williamson: "Obamacare is dead."

The war against jihadism of an untold religion

Legal Insurrection reviews the latest DNC ad: "The DNC Just Lost Its Mind—and Maybe Its Own Base—with this New Ad."

The Democrats start from the assumption that voters are stupid and can't differentiate between a billion peaceful Muslims and the radical Islamic strain that is killing people.

It's so simple

Steve Martin on how to make a million dollars: "First, get a million dollars."

Hot Air: "Hillary announces her strategy to defeat ISIS: Defeat ISIS."

Twitchy: "‘Underpants gnome foreign policy’: John Podesta presents a mock-worthy summary of Hillary’s anti-terror plan."

Then when somebody asks if you have a post-operational plan, say "I forgot."

UnitedHealthcare looks for the exit

The Hill: "Major insurer may leave ObamaCare."  "One of the country’s largest health insurers warned Thursday that it may leave the ObamaCare exchanges within two years, delivering a shock announcement that could ripple through the marketplace."

Better ramp up the secret advertising spending.

Broken heart syndrome is real

This is so sad: "Former Patriots, Boston College QB Doug Flutie loses both parents to heart attacks on same day."  Geez.

Classy as an internet troll

Commentary: "Our bitter and graceless President."

By now it’s all quite predictable and quite tiresome. Even the president’s own peculiar psychological habits – his tendency to project, his narcissism and seething resentment in reaction to criticisms, his inability to see reality when reality conflicts with his rigid and dogmatic views – are tedious because they are so commonly on display.

The way to understand Obama is through his vanity.  All is vanity.

That was then

Everything - every single "principle" that Hillary has - is subject to polling.  Hot Air: "As a senator, Hillary Clinton was a fan of profiling."

Obama loves him some straw men

So said the Washington Post: "President Obama’s false choice against the Islamic State."

Pressed about his strategy for fighting the Islamic State, a petulant-sounding President Obama insisted Monday, as he has before, that his critics have offered no concrete alternatives for action in Syria and Iraq, other than putting “large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground.” This claim was faulty in two respects. First, few if any White House critics are proposing a U.S. ground operation on the scale of the previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, military experts both within and outside the administration have proposed more modest measures that could significantly increase the pressure on the Islamic State if the president were to adopt them.

"Why do you want war?" quipped our so-called Commander in Chief.

Our CinC talks about the contained JV team

I've been trying to lay off the regular screeds against our semi-retired President, the Blamer-in-Chief, King Putt.  But his press conference addressing the rise of ISIS and the attacks in France were beyond the pale.  Red State: "How Disastrous Was Obama’s Press Conference In Antalya, Turkey?"

The truth is evident. Barack Obama is a tiny, timorous man who is intellectually unable to comprehend the challenge facing the United States and Europe from ISIS and even if he could recognize the challenge he is morally incapable responding.

Whenever Obama faces a media horde that doesn't kiss his ass, he falls back on a series of dilatory and discursive tropes.  Step one: every question deserves a rambling, shifting, professorial filibuster that never really gets around to an answer.  There's a reason why the press asked the same question about underestimating ISIS.  Because the most arrogant and thin-skinned President cannot admit a mistake, well, there's no way to explain away how less than a day after Obama said ISIS was "contained" they could launch the deadliest attack in Paris since World War II.  Oh and our current strategy is totally working and we're going to stick to it (shut up, Dianne).

Second, loves to play this little grade-school taunt of "what's your plan, smart guy?"  He only does this to open up the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority" - that authority being himself.  By asking for an alternate plan to the current one (that's failing), Obama wants to assert his position and paint himself as the only person who has "all the facts."

Third, Obama characterized the latest symbol of the failed fight against ISIS in a bloodless manner - it was a "setback" you know - but when he talks about the Republicans who are criticizing his feckless approach to the terror fight, then the sincere outrage really emerges.

Fourth: the straw men, always the straw men.  The fight against ISIS will "take time" because - golly - everybody wants them defeated, like, tomorrow.  This great strategy will work because ISIS is on "the wrong side of history."  Rinse and repeat.

This train wreck of a press conference shows what happens when Obama steps outside of his Valerie Jarrett-inflated bubble and face up to the consequences of "leading from behind."  He doesn't like and neither do we.

France doesn't waste any time

Here comes the bombing, Raqqa.  Hot Air: "France levels ISIS in Raqqa after Paris attack."

Mark Steyn justifiably wonders if a policy change is on the way in Europe, or this is all for show:

What's the happy ending here? Because if M Hollande isn't prepared to end mass Muslim immigration to France and Europe, then his "pitiless war" isn't serious. And, if they're still willing to tolerate Mutti Merkel's mad plan to reverse Germany's demographic death spiral through fast-track Islamization, then Europeans aren't serious. In the end, the decadence of Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the rest of the fin de civilisation western leadership will cost you your world and everything you love.

So screw the candlelight vigil.

Well.

Our oldest ally

Open borders in Europe invite terrorists

NeoNeocon: "It is now reported that one of the Paris terrorists was a recent arrival with a Syrian passports."

Terrorism in France

Hot Air has updates.  It sounds like multiple, coordinated attacks with 100+ dead.

Also regular updates on the Corner and PJ Media.  It's horrible.

OMG - make it stop

The future of America.

Extra - Ace: "I swear, I don't want to upset anyone, but you cannot look upon this Generation of Imbeciles and not tremble with fear."

You know, the more I think about this, the more it infuriates me.  As somebody who has given many presentations in my day, you owe it both your cause and your audience to prepare accordingly.  It's clear that Keely's advance preparation for this appearance on national television involved drinking a Red Bull and picking out a Twisty for her hair.

Do you want to know "Keely" why nobody takes this national temper-tantrum seriously?  Because this.

Blue meth, yo!

GQ: "Breaking Bad Props and Costumes Have Been Added to the Smithsonian."

Privileged little girls walk out at Smith College

Boston.com: "Hundreds of Smith College students walk out of class to protest racism."

Not racism at Smith, nota bene.  Racism somewhere because there must be solidarity with the precious snowflakes traumatized by uncomfortable speech:

“I’m walking out today because I think it’s important to show this isn’t something that’s happening on one campus, and it isn’t a movement that can be stopped,” said Anna George, a student at Smith. “And I know that racism does exist at Smith since it’s predominantly a white campus.”

Say no more, Anna George.  You had me at "white campus."

Extra - Lifted from comments!  The Onion: "College Encourages Lively Exchange Of Idea - Students, Faculty Invited To Freely Express Single Viewpoint."

Shut up, they explained

Mises Daily: "When You're Popular, You Don't Need Freedom of Speech."

The weathervane candidacy

Paraphrasing Hillary: "Those are my principles! And if the polls change, so will I."  Politico: "Hillary Clinton rebukes charter schools."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded less like a decades-long supporter of charter schools over the weekend and more like a teachers union president when she argued that most of these schools “don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them.”

Oh, that's "old" Hillary, the same one who opposed gay marriage but loved TPP and Keystone.  This is new and improved Hillary.

Who will rid me of this meddlesome Congress?

TownHall: "White House Not Sure If Closing GITMO With Executive Order is Constitutional, Hints Obama Might Do It Anyway."  Hat tip: Instapundit.

I like how this guy turns "Congress failed to act the way I want" into carte blanche to do whatever.  Like the WSJ says: "Decision first, law later."  That's going to be a helpful precedent when the Republican President starts to selectively enforce Obamacare.

Related - Politico: "Appeals court keeps block on Obama immigration."

Reckless disregard

Legal Insurrection: "Phi Kappa Psi Sues Rolling Stone, Writer Over Discredited Campus Rape Article."

Gangland Springfield

Two years ago, 60 Minutes ran a piece called "Counterinsurgency Cops" about how a couple of ex-military State Policemen were bringing counterinsurgency tactics to fight gang violence in Springfield, Mass.

How's that going, mayor?  MassLive: "Springfield Mayor Sarno denounces 'gang bangers' and 'cesspools' he believes contribute to late-night violence."

The victims and dozens of potential witnesses refused to cooperate with police, said Deputy Police Chief William Cochrane.
"All we need is for someone to say: 'I saw that person shoot that guy with that gun,'" [deputy police chief] Cochrane said...

Snitches get stitches, yo.  Oh, yeah, and black lives matter.

What media bias?

Instapundit: "Washington Post columnist, Face the Nation host stricken with a mysterious case of collective amnesia."

The MSM is in constant Pauline Kael mode: nobody they know could be anything but objective.

The perpetual story

If you want to know why this country is $18+ trillion in debt, look no further than the Democrats looking to roll back the "Cadillac tax" in Obamacare.  From Social Security to Medicare to anything else, programs start out as "paid for" and then there is inevitable political pressure to expand benefits and roll back taxes.  End result: more debt.

Security theater, Egypt-style

Shot - Popular Mechanics: "The TSA is Frighteningly Awful at Screening Passengers - The Department of Homeland Security has released an official report stating they "found layers of security simply missing" during covert testing."

Chaser - Fox News: "Evidence in Russian plane crash consistent with 'high end' explosive device, government source says."

In fact, I heard on the news tonight that a working theory is that the security agents that were supposed to safeguard the airport may have allowed the terrorists through.  If true, you can kiss Egypt's tourism industry goodbye, a cash-cow that accounts for 10% of the country's GDP.

Very clever, Thursday Night Football

Tonight it's the Cleveland Browns vs. the Cincinnati Bengals.

As they went into halftime, CBS played "Love Rollercoaster" by the Ohio Players.  Nice.

None dare call it media bias

Old and busted: Mitt Romney is too rich to be President!

New and shiny: Marco Rubio is too poor to be President!

Look who's whining about Fox News

The Hill: "President warns of 'misinformation' during ObamaCare enrollment."

Awww...if you can't handle Fox News, how are you going to handle Russia?  Oh, yeah.

Looks like Bernie wants a do-over

After being accused by Hillary of being both sexist and racist, Bernie Sanders is thinking that maybe America does want to talk about her damn emails.  WSJ: "Bernie Sanders Takes Gloves Off Against Hillary Clinton in Interview - Democratic presidential candidate draws sharper distinctions with front-runner, casting her policy reversals as a character issue."

The delays will continue

Legal Insurrection: "State Department: Keystone XL Review Will Proceed."

Kentucky surprise

In the race for Kentucky governor, Democrat Jack Conway led in every poll taken except the one that mattered.  In the end, it wasn't remotely close: Matt Bevin will flip the governor's seat to the Republicans largely on a campaign of repealing Obamacare.

What? He just got a little loose!

Fox Sports: "NASCAR suspends Kenseth for 2 races over Logano wreck."

Yeah, it was pretty egregious:

NASA joins the conspiracy

NASA says that Antarctica is gaining ice and lowering the sea level: "Mass gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet greater than losses, NASA study reports."  Insert Manbearpig joke here.

Entitlement nation

Newsday: "Social Security’s impending insolvency — just the facts."

I like this review because it directly addresses the Left's favorite panacea to fixing Social Security: raising the income level subject to taxation.  Or as Bernie Sanders says: "Scrap the cap!"  Well, it won't work and it fundamentally changes the nature of Social Security into another welfare program.