I HOPE THEY ENJOY BEING PRIMARIED. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, REMEMBER AND MAKE SURE PEOPLE KNOW IT WAS THE DEMOCRATS WHO CAUSED THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN:  *UPDATE* New Spending Bill Fails to Pass, 38 Republicans Vote No.

Look, they’ve been manipulating people to “avoid government shut down” because they always blame it on Republicans. It’s time to turn that on them.

JONATHAN ZITTRAIN: Chat GPT can’t say my name. “Anytime ChatGPT would normally utter my name in the course of conversation, it halts with a glaring ‘I’m unable to produce a response,’ sometimes mid-sentence or even mid-word. When I asked who the founders of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society are (I’m one of them), it brought up two colleagues but left me out. When pressed, it started up again, and then: zap.”

Enjoy it. It won’t be able to send Terminators after you.

AN IDEA SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK:

THERE WERE SOME MISSING REPUBLICANS, TOO, THOUGH:

UPDATE: Heh.

I say shut it down. Then on January 21, lay off all the “non-essential” employees because, hey, they’re not essential.

And note by the way, that nobody has asked still-sort-of-President Biden and oh-yeah-she’s-still-the-VP Kamala Harris about this.

MORE:

OPEN THREAD: Discuss things among yourselves.

I’M SO OLD, I REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS THE END OF THE WORLD IF CONGRESS DIDN’T PASS THE ONE ON THE LEFT:

TO BE FAIR, FAKE NEWS IS WHAT THE INFOTAINMENT COMPLEX (FORMERLY THE PRESS) DOES: Justine Bateman Shames Hollywood Reporter for Fake News. “The actress-turned-filmmaker saw the results as a rebuke to those eager to silence debate, attack free speech and make select opinions untenable.”

QUESTIONS FROM 2022: Why the Hell Is Joe Biden Still President? “The White House, the press corps, all of them… they ruined their reputations to protect a man who was already known as a serial fabulist and whom they could have ditched long before July 21, 2024.”

“YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS CAT WALK BACKWARDS, PROFESSOR:” Watch: Sen. Kennedy Delivers Masterclass in Destroying Climate Change Hypocrites.

“Pretty bold,” Kennedy observed. “You own a home?”

“I do. In a flood zone,” [Dr. Benjamin Keys, Professor of Real Estate and Finance at Wharton] Keys admitted.

Kennedy’s response was priceless: “Have you sold it?”

Keys sheepishly admitted he had not, prompting Kennedy to drive the point home. “Oh, well, you’re telling everybody else to sell theirs.”

Kennedy had just exposed him for the classic climate change alarmist hypocrite. Some of the biggest climate change alarmists are the ones who travel by private planes and live on the water despite their apocalyptic predictions of rising sea levels. Barack Obama comes to mind as a notorious example of this.

In his guest essay, Keys wrote, “it’s time for some prospective buyers set on living in areas with high risk of hurricanes, floods, wildfires and tornadoes to reconsider homeownership as a financial goal.” He added that “renting is quickly becoming a better way for many people to enjoy these places with much less financial baggage.”

If you read his entire essay, it comes across as a veiled attempt to push people of modest means out of desirable areas, leaving them as playgrounds for the wealthy — all under the guise of a climate change agenda.

* * * * * * * *

But Kennedy wasn’t finished. He moved on to expose Keys’ disdain for ordinary Americans. Referring to a tweet from July 2024, Kennedy quoted Keys as saying, “Honestly, the biggest long-term political problem the Democrats have is that they don’t know how to talk to low-information morons.” Keys tried to deny it, claiming the words weren’t his.

Kennedy wasn’t buying it. “Yes, you did,” he said with the kind of confidence that makes witnesses squirm. When Keys backpedaled, suggesting he might have liked or retweeted it instead, Kennedy pounced. “Oh, do you often like tweets you don’t agree with?”

Nobody can defenestrate smug leftists like Kennedy:

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

It isn’t just Democrats, of course. North Carolina Rep. Greg Murphy looks at holding disaster aid hostage to a bunch of pork and Democrat priorities and calls it “governing.”

If that’s governing, pal, we could use a lot less of it.

SLOUCHING TOWARD WWIII: At least 100 North Korean soldiers killed, 1,000 injured in fighting in Russia, South Korean intelligence says.

North Korea may dispatch more troops to Russia despite casualties, South Korea’s National Intelligence told lawmakers during a briefing Thursday.

At least 100 North Korean soldiers died, and over 1,000 were injured during combat in Kursk, Russia, South Korean lawmaker Lee Sung-kwon of the ruling party told reporters Thursday after a closed-door briefing with South Korea’s National Intelligence.

U.S. and Ukrainian estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops currently inside Russia, with their focus on the Kursk region. Ukrainian and American officials now say North Korean forces are actively engaged in fighting and taking casualties.

South Korea’s National Intelligence found evidence suggesting there were numerous North Korean casualties including senior officials during missile, drone attacks and drills, Lee said Thursday.

The reason why there were so many casualties despite a small number of battles is because North Korean soldiers were deployed as frontline shock troops in an unfamiliar open field and lack abilities to respond to drones, Lee said.

So in the two weeks (more or less) that North Korean troops have been fighting, they’ve lost roughly 1% KIA and another 10% wounded.

LISTEN SUG, DON’T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS: Nuclear bunker sales are increasing, despite expert warnings they aren’t going to provide protection.

When Bernard Jones Jr. and his wife, Doris, built their dream home, they didn’t hold back. A grotto swimming pool with a waterfall for hot summer days. A home theater for cozy winter nights. A fruit orchard to harvest in fall. And a vast underground bunker in case disaster strikes.

“The world’s not becoming a safer place,” he said. “We wanted to be prepared.”

Under a nondescript metal hatch near the private basketball court, there’s a hidden staircase that leads down into rooms with beds for about 25 people, bathrooms and two kitchens, all backed by a self-sufficient energy source.

With water, electricity, clean air and food, they felt ready for any disaster, even a nuclear blast, at their bucolic home in California’s Inland Empire.

“If there was a nuclear strike, would you rather go into the living room or go into a bunker? If you had one, you’d go there too,” said Jones, who said he reluctantly sold the home two years ago.

Flashback: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.

(Classical reference in headline.)