HUGH HEWITT: President Biden’s politburo strikes again.

We will remember “37 out of 40,” and biographers and presidential historians will long note and long record and elaborate on this abuse of power, along with the pardon of Hunter Biden, and all the other outrageous abuses of power. The people around our apparently incapacitated president don’t care at all what history will declare about Biden. Their indifference purposeful. It’s a display of shamelessness. Don’t look past it. They know what they are doing, it’s just the president who doesn’t.

After the Wall Street Journal’s detailed story on the president’s mental incapacity last week, the decision by the unnamed politburo actually running the country to issue these commutations is hard to understand as anything other than a giant [expletive deleted] to the rest of the country.

To be fair, much of the last four years felt like “a giant [expletive deleted] to the rest of the country.” The pardons were simply the equivalent of spiking the football as the clock mercifully winds down on this administration.

COLD WAR II: Philippines says it will acquire U.S. Typhon missile system, sparking warnings from China.

The U.S. Army deployed the mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines earlier this year for annual joint military exercises with its longtime ally and decided to leave it there despite criticism by Beijing that it was destabilizing to Asia.

Philippine Army Chief Lieutenant-General Roy Galido told a news conference on Monday that the missile system would be “acquired because we see its feasibility and its functionality in our concept of archipelagic defense implementation.”

“I’m happy to report to our fellow countrymen that your army is developing this capability for the interest of protecting our sovereignty,” he said, adding that the total cost of the acquisition would depend on “economics.”

The presence of the U.S. missile launcher had angered Beijing, whose navy and coast guard forces have engaged in escalating confrontations in recent months with the Philippines over disputed reefs and waters in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, a key global shipping route, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

Beijing has been on a “might makes right” bender in the SCS. If Xi doesn’t like Manilla buying medium-range missiles, maybe he should try being less of a bully.

A HUMBLE BRAG FROM ROGER SIMON: Did Musk Derangement Syndrome Inspire Me to Buy a Tesla?

Musk is an apostate, having, like a growing number of us, switched over from their camp. Muslims aren’t the only ones who abhor apostates, just the ones who, shall we say, take it the final level (cf. Salman Rushdie).

Apostates especially threaten liberals and progressives, and Democrat party leaders , because they have little left of their ideology now that woke and DEI are more than halfway down the drain. They have nothing to offer anymore.

So they’re angry at Elon Musk just as much as they’re angry with Donald Trump who was also an apostate.

Now here’s the bad part.

Some are even taking it out on their, or somebody’s Tesla. As a new buyer I’ve been hanging out on reddit’s Tesla Lounge and discovered this missive that was found, spattered with what I assume to be water but who knows, on a windshield in Portland:

Happy Holidays, indeed!…. Of course, this is Portland and my new Model 3 will undoubtedly be safer here in Middle Tennessee where there is far less Musk Derangement Syndrome and, needless to say, less of its father, Trump Derangement Syndrome than in Oregon. Nevertheless, I can imagine a lot of confusion in Portlandia (aka The City of Roses) where numerous Teslas were bought by global warming true believers over the years. Do they come from the Old Musk or the New Musk. Which cars do we key? What tires do we pop?

Well, that’s their problem.

To answer the question at top, short answer no. I bought the Tesla because it’s the coolest car out there for the price, irrespective of climate. I had been researching it, which told me the new Model 3 was their best car yet. I bought the all-wheel drive. What I like: I put one of those chargers in my garage and never have to think about gas stations or running out. The sound system is great, ditto the visibility. It’s super quiet and super fast when it has to be. There’s no blind spot because a video camera handles it. Also you can warm or cool your car through the app when you’re sitting at your desk and it’ll be ready when you are.. And there are a ton of things I haven’t figured out yet. Have I tried the self-drive component? No, but I suppose I’ll get around to it. I happen to like to drive, so I’m not overly compelled. Besides, it’s obviously not all the way there yet. When it is, I’m certain they’ll let me know. Best of all, the buying process of the car was by far the least stressful I have ever experienced. No dickering. No awful salesman or manager trying to sell you crap you don’t want or need. You just do the whole thing on the app, including photographing a car you might want to trade in, and then go pick the new one up. It takes about fifteen minutes and you’re on your way. It’s the most fun car I’ve ever driven. My only question is—am I ready for the Cybertruck?

I know one person who isn’t — click on Roger’s post to see.

(Incidentally, I’m so old, I can remember Roger was a Jaaaaag man, long before that brand decided to commit saloon car seppuku.)

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Jewish radio host fired for refusing to call Oct. 7 ‘resistance.’

Nicole, a Jewish volunteer radio host at a community station in Sydney, Australia, was terminated from her position after covering up a “Free Palestine” sticker and refusing to characterize Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023  massacre as an act of “resistance.”

The host, who shares Mexican and Israeli heritage, volunteered at a local radio station specializing in Latin music. In a tearful video posted after her dismissal, she described the confrontation that led to her termination: “I just came out of a meeting with radio Skid Row 88.9 FM…they basically just told me that if I cannot support the October 7 attacks as resistance or as something positive – saying it is not true that anybody got killed, or burned – and cannot support the hostages being kept, then I don’t align with their values.” She added that when she became emotional during the conversation, she was told, “We have no sympathy for white women’s tears.”

Why is the left such a cesspit of violence and bigotry?

CHANGE (IT BACK): Trump to rename Denali to Mount McKinley after Obama changed it. “It was known as Mount McKinley from 1917 until 2015 and Trump vowed Sunday at the Turning Point USA AmFest conference in Phoenix that the mountain will once again honor America’s 25th president, a hugely popular Republican candidate who successfully won the office twice but was assassinated in 1901.”

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

How it started for Jaguar:

How it’s going:

Exit quote: “You can’t rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately constructed veneer of a blithering idiot lurks a blithering idiot.”

That’s from Boris Johnson in the above 2003 episode of Top Gear, long before living out that quote as prime minister in 2020, but it could also apply to Jag, today.

But will there be a tomorrow for them? Jaguar Rebrand Called ‘Disastrous’ as Focus on Diversity Comes Under Fire.

THE DEMAND FOR HATE CRIMES IN AMERICA EXCEEDS THE SUPPLY: Illinois State U. omits key facts on why it closed LGBT ‘hate crime’ case.

The alleged victim of an anti-gay “hate crime” at Illinois State University is not even homosexual – and he changed his story multiple times, according to a police report obtained by The College Fix via a public records request.

Though the police and university left the community with the impression the case was closed because of a lack of suspects and that the unnamed individual was “knocked” off a scooter and “punched,” the official report from the incident four months ago tells a different story.

“Although this was reported as a possible Hate Crime, I was unable to establish the elements of the offense,” Detective Matthew Hice wrote at the end of the police report about the Aug. 24 incident.

One reason is, according to Hice’s recounting, the alleged victim, “could not recall [his attacker’s] height, weight, clothing details, or any unique features. He stated he would not recognize them if he saw them again.”

The event led to LGBT marches and a response from ISU President Aondover Tarhule.

Event, non-event, whatever.

CONQUEST’S SECOND LAW OF POLITICS REMAINS UNDEFEATED:

OUCH:

And speaking of those grandfathers who “roasted to death in a tank at Kursk,” earlier: Christmas in Nazi Germany: How Nazis Stole Christmas and Turned Adolf Hitler into Messiah (Video).

And: The National Socialists Fought the Original War on Christmas.

Who knew? Other than everyone who read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism in 2008, or this London Daily Mail article the following year. But it’s good to see this sort of thing in the Smithsonian’s house organ. Or as author Dave Shiflett quipped in 2002 at NRO, “A shocking story has been revealed: Adolf Hitler was not a Christian after all. Instead, he hoped to destroy Christianity.”

To borrow a line from another 19th-century born socialist God killer, as a reminder of the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce — while killing time before engineering the next tragedy — I found that above quote in a post of mine from right around this time in 2012. A few years before Angela Merkel turned the lights out on 21st Germany, Yahoo was reporting that “A minister in Angela Merkel’s government has sparked a pre-Christmas row among Germany’s ruling parties by suggesting God be referred to with the neutral article ‘das’ instead of the masculine ‘der.’”

But then, political correctness is what governments do in order to ignore their nation’s real, structural problems.

Related: Nazi Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism).

And in the adjacent world of International Socialism, Peter Hitchens: The last Noël in the USSR.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA:

The victim, not so much.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Greenland Seems Like a Wonderful Stocking-Stuffer. “Trump’s big Greenland tease during his first term was a real palate cleanser in the midst of all of the turmoil back then. It was also impossible to tell back then if he was serious, but who cares? The entertainment value is in the swagger. That whole, ‘Maybe I’ll just buy it,’ attitude reminds of of Rodney Dangerfield’s Al Czervik character in ‘Caddyshack.'”

THEY HAPPILY DUG IT THEMSELVES: New research shows the massive hole Dems are in.

In a trio of focus groups, even voters who previously backed Democrats cast the party as weak and overly focused on diversity and elites, according to research by the progressive group Navigator Research.

When asked to compare the Democratic Party to an animal, one participant compared the party to an ostrich because “they’ve got their heads in the sand and are absolutely committed to their own ideas, even when they’re failing.” Another likened them to koalas, who “are complacent and lazy about getting policy wins that we really need.” Democrats, another said, are “not a friend of the working class anymore.”

The focus group research, shared first with POLITICO, represents the latest troubling pulse check for a party still sorting through the wreckage of its November losses and looking for a path to rebuild. Without a clear party leader and with losses across nearly every demographic in November, Democrats are walking into a second Trump presidency without a unified strategy to improve their electoral prospects. And while some Democrats blame Biden, others blame inflation and still others blame “losing hold of culture,” the feedback from the focus groups found Democrats’ problems are even more widespread and potentially long-lasting than a single election cycle.

More:

“I think what the Democratic elites and their politicians believe is often very different from what the average Democratic voter is,” said a Georgia man who voted for Biden in 2020 but Trump in 2024.

Living in a mainstream media/social media bubble will do that.

CHANGE:

Incentives matter, and California voters changed them.