HERE IT IS: Your Christmas Eve Open Thread. Enjoy!

ARE YOU SURPRISED? In a written statement to the FBI after the attack, Noor Salman, Orlando shooter Omar Mateen’s wife, says he looked at the Pulse website the day before and she knew he was going to attack the club.

MERRY CHRISTMAS: Trump Spent Christmas Eve Personally Thanking Hundreds Of Armed Service Members Around The World.

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CHICKS DIG BAD BOYS: Women are still lining up to meet Charlie Rose.

What, me worry? Charlie Rose seems more like Alfred E. Newman at dinner with a beautiful woman on the Upper West Side, where he was besieged by other women lining up for selfies.

Spies said the disgraced ex-host of “CBS This Morning” was at Gabriel’s Bar & Restaurant with an attractive young brunette on Thursday night, and didn’t appear to have lost his old “charm.”

Rose “looked in a great mood,” said one onlooker, who added that he seemed like he’d had “a few bottles of wine.” But the onlooker was stunned to see other women falling all over themselves to approach Rose, who was fired by CBS and PBS last month after sexual harassment allegations.

This is not entirely shocking. There’s more than one kind of #MeToo.

MERRY CHRISTMAS: Flashback: Trump Tax Plan Has No Shot of Passing in 2017, Obama Official Says.

IS THERE ANYTHING TRUMP CAN’T DO? WaPo Columnist: I’ve never loved my country more.

THE GRAY LADY HAS A BAD CASE OF ALZHEIMER’S THESE DAYS:

The New York Times’s Roger Cohen, an occasionally iconoclastic left-wing journalist, composed an inspired masterpiece of anti-Trump oratorical obloquy: “Wondering, If This Is America.” Cohen, an international columnist for the paper born in London, mustered his high indignation not only of President Trump (aka “Mussolini’s understudy”) but of America itself.

Cohen sold his Saturday edition article on Twitter as “Turkmenistan-on-the-Potomac: If This Is America.”

If this is America, with a cabinet of terrorized toadies genuflecting to the Great Leader, a vice president offering a compliment every 12 seconds to Mussolini’s understudy, and a White House that believes in “alternative facts,” then it is time to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.”

Flashback to Thomas Friedman, also of the New York Times, in September of 2009:

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.

As Jonah Goldberg wrote in response, “Thomas Friedman is a Liberal Fascist:”

Now, of course, there are “drawbacks” to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it’s the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn’t picky in this regard). This is the argument for an “economic dictatorship” pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It’s the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

Similarly, I’ve been meaning to link to this NewsBusters post from this past Thursday: “Irony! [Chris] Matthews Trashes ‘Trumpkins’ Praying to ‘Sun King,’ Calls Tax Reform ‘Greatest Shorting’ Ever.”

On Friday, Noah Rothman of Commentary explored “The Death Rattle of Obama’s Reputation:”

The members of Barack Obama’s administration in exile have become conspicuously noisy of late—even more so than usual. Former CIA Director John Brennan accused Donald Trump and his administration of engaging in “outrageous,” “narcissistic” behavior typical of “vengeful autocrats” by threatening proportionate retaliation against countries that voted to condemn the United States in the United Nations, as though that were unprecedented. It is not. James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, all but alleged that the president is a Russian “asset.” Perhaps the most acerbic and incendiary series of accusations from the former Democratic president’s foreign-policy professionals were placed in the New York Times by Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice. In her estimation, America has abdicated its role as a “force for good.”

It’s no coincidence that these overheated condemnations accompany abundant evidence that the Trump administration is finding its legs. As the last administration’s undeserved reputation as sober-minded foreign policy rationalists is dismantled one retrospective report at a time, its jilted members are lashing out.

Leftwing pundits such as Matthews and Friedman produced an astonishing amount of silly material worshipping Dear Leader in 2009. As his reputation becomes increasingly impossible for even his worst toadies (to borrow Cohen’s phrase regarding Mike Pence) to defend, their amnesia will likely only increase in direct proportion to their lashing out to Trump and his administration.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Remember this?

CERTAINLY BETTER THAN TOBACCO: Some Older Smokers Turn to Vaping. That May Not Be a Bad Idea.

THAT JUST WHAT THE KILLER ROBOTS WANT YOU TO THINK: Why You Shouldn’t Fear ‘Slaughterbots.’

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QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

● Shot: Why Do Intellectuals Support Government Solutions?

— Julian Sanchez, Libertarianism.org, October 9th, 2012.

● Chaser:

Leftists never take responsibility for their own lives. This is why they must constantly blame others for their problems, cry for resources and sympathy, and expect everyone else to respect them when they deserve none. It’s no surprise that many of these individuals tend to be in favor of nanny-governments. They have no accountability, because they’ve been coddled all their lives, and because they view themselves as victims who need to be compensated for, the leftists have the most deranged and shameless sense of entitlement. They seem to think that the world owes them everything, which is why they have such arrogant and hostile attitude towards everyone else. The whole concept of working to earn something for yourself is lost to them.

—In 2018, will the pendulum return in favor of free speech for all?, Small Dead Animals, today.

HE’S NOT THE MESSIAH, HE’S A VERY NAUGHTY BOY: Barbara Walters admits ‘we’ thought Obama was ‘the next messiah.’

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Green Beret Training Standards Now Lower than Army ROTC Camp in the ‘80s.

TRAIN WRECK: Mariah Carey returns to ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ after last year’s disastrous performance.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Japan celebrates Christmas with Kentucky Fried Chicken.

THIS WILL END WELL:  “I want to help humans genetically modify themselves.”

THIS FRONT IN THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NEW YORK TIMES: Not Everyone Is Jolly About Christmas Trees in the Lobby.

To be fair, not everyone is jolly working at the Times, and they want you to feel as equally miserable.

SORRY, KIDS: 6 Beloved Christmas Cartoons That Your Kids Will Probably Hate.

REASON: How Government Almost Killed the Cocktail.

HUH. I THOUGHT JOE BIDEN SAID THAT HIGHER TAXES WERE MORE PATRIOTIC: Harvard Gets No Sympathy for Complaining About New Tax on Its Endowment.

As James Hasson of the Federalist tweets, “If this evil tax is allowed to stand, Harvard may be forced to cut its classes in ‘Tattoos: History and Practice,’ ‘Expressive Body: Dance in Cultural Context,’ ‘History of Witchcraft and Charm Magic,’ and ‘Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food.’ A tragic blow to education.”

Good to see that annual $63,000 cost of attendance not going to waste.

ESPN EMBRACES RACIAL-SLUR RAPPER FOR HALFTIME SHOW:

On ESPN, Jemele Hill, co-host of “SC6,” grew excited. Her previous noteworthy excitements were tweets condemning President Trump as a “white supremacist” who contributes to the oppression of blacks, the second of which led to a brief suspension for defying ESPN’s instructions to cut it out.

Tuesday, Hill was excited for a different reason: ESPN had selected the halftime entertainment for the its broadcast of the national championship football game.

“The powers that be finally got something right — Kendrick Lamar!” she squealed, pumping her arms in delight. “Kendrick Lamar!”

Given Hill’s race-based activism, one logically wonders why she’d so openly favor Lamar, a rapper who has grown fabulously wealthy through lyrics that consistently refer to
black men as “N—-s”.

I’d be glad to provide Hill examples of his lyrical artistry so she can recite them on ESPN. She could start with “Money Trees.’’

That could never happen because ESPN would never allow such a thing, thus she’s spared from exposing her rank hypocrisy.

Or perhaps she can identify the proper context in which African-Americans should be called “N—-s,” and those logical instances when the vulgar degradation of women should be recorded, sold, performed, applauded.

Does Hill know that 12-year-old black kids now effortlessly, reflexively call one another “n—-s”? She’s good with that?

Odd, but not surprising, how it works. ESPN, a sports network, decries racism and sexism from within and beyond, yet eagerly seizes the cross-promotional (perceived) value in embracing such rappers. Still, not one ESPN exec would dare publicly repeat their lyrics.

Why, it’s as if the alt-right is the mirror image of the mainstream American left, or something. How mainstream is Lamar? Obama met with him in the oval office before his last State of the Union Speech, and he performed for Mr. Obama last Fourth of July, despite* Lamar’s lyrics, and the cover of his million-selling album:

A few hours before delivering that State of the Union, President Obama met with rapper Kendrick Lamar. Obama announced that Lamar’s hit “How Much a Dollar Cost” was his favorite song of 2015. The song comes from the album To Pimp a Butterfly; the album cover shows a crowd of young African-American men massed in front of the White House. In celebratory fashion, all are gripping champagne bottles and hundred-dollar bills; in front of them lies the corpse of a white judge, with two Xs drawn over his closed eyes. So why wouldn’t the president’s advisors at least have advised him that such a gratuitous White House sanction might be incongruous with a visual message of racial hatred? Was Obama seeking cultural authenticity, of the sort he seeks by wearing a T-shirt, with his baseball cap on backwards and thumb up?

To play the old “what if” game that is necessary in the bewildering age of Obama: what if President George W. Bush had invited to the White House a controversial country Western singer, known for using the f- and n- words liberally in his music and celebrating attacks on Bureau of Land Management officers?

It takes an Inner Party level of self-imposed amnesia for the left to simultaneously declare Trump a uniquely racist vulgarian, while blocking out their near-total control of pop culture for decades, and the former president’s embrace of some of the worst of it. Perhaps someone should have asked, are we being the baddies here, before going too far.

* I know, I know, I just Fox Butterfield-ed myself there.

IF NEARLY HALF OF LIKELY VOTERS THINK FBI BROKE LAW FIGHTING TRUMP: That’s probably not a good sign for Democrats bubbling with optimism about a “blue wave” in November 2018. And note the 50 percent figure for Independents in the Rasmussen survey. Are Trump’s tweets turning the tide?

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU: 2018 Mercedes-AMG E63 S Sedan. “Just 3.0 seconds. That’s all it takes for the E63 to launch itself to 60 mph. Four seconds later, the Mercedes is traveling 100 mph.”