FROZEN TESLA SYNDROME: Tesla owner goes viral after his car would not charge in the cold.

FINALLY, ON THIS CHRISTMAS DAY, the American Story has some thoughts on our American Christmas, American New Year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's been a long day and I leave you with these thoughts from Christmas past:

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A visit from St. Nicholas

A Christmas Carol

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

Good night, and may this New Year to come be a happy one.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC I want to hear.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS caught humbly serving at Arlington National Cemetery.

When we lived in Northern Virginia I always wanted to be one of the wreath layers at Arlington National Cemetary; I never did. There is another national cemetary near Atlanta where I now live. It's too late this year; but next year I resolve to remember.

FLEE FASTER: Another key voting bloc is fleeing the Democrat party.

REPUBLICANS ARE INDEED THE 'STUPID PARTY': Money talks, in Spanish.

HE ROCKS: DeSantis takes on Florida teachers' unions financing.

Democrats to be hard hit.

IN POLITICS, stupidity wins every time.

IF THERE WAS ANY DOUBT THE LEFT HATES AMERICA, border security gets thrown under the omnibus (again).

A DEFINITE STOP ON MY NEXT VACATION: A mountain town, a highway diner, and half a century of exceptional service.

NOW BANNED IN CANADA: the ButtMaster 22.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: What comes next for the most empty downtown in America.

INTELLECTUAL MORONS: Stanford University's 'index of forbidden words' includes calling yourself an 'American'.

Um, Stanford, Elon Musk is an african American. Does that make him black?

Moron is too high on the intellectual scale to describe the people who created the 'index'; idiot is two levels lower and it's still too high.

WHY WORK? After the COVID lockdowns, unemployment benefits and Obamacare subsidies outpace median income.

YOU CAN HAVE MY GAS COOKTOP when — well, never.

And the same for my ventless (propane) fireplaces. Fuck off, nanny-staters.

ANDY NGO REPORTS: Domestic terrorism charges for five arrested at violent Antifa autonomous zone near Atlanta.

Note that none of those arrested were local and four of the five were from out-of-state.

SUPREME COURT urged to corral 'unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats' weaponizing federal law against Christians.

“As we explain in our brief, federal agency officials frequently disrespect American citizens and businesses’ most cherished principles — including religious freedom and the sanctity of life — by imposing personal political agendas that Congress has not authorized,” the brief argues.

“We urge the Supreme Court to take this case, overrule Chevon v. Natural Resources Defense Council, and affirm that courts should not defer to federal agencies when they overstep their executive authority and violate Americans’ First Amendment rights,” the brief continued.

“When left to their own devices — or to the political calculations of the White House— agencies stretch and strain their authority to impose on the everyday lives of American citizens in ways Congress never prescribed. As one justice of this Court recently put it, federal agencies now regularly ‘write ever more ambitious rules on the strength of ever thinner statutory terms.’”

Since Republicans appear to have no spine, the Supreme Court appears to be normal America's last resort.

DEBT-RIDDEN STACEY ABRAMS panned (by Democrats!) for 'incredibly bad' financial planning. Self awareness is not their strong suit.

Thanks, Presidentish Biden and your progressive supporters....

GOOD RIDDANCE: Generation Z students dramatically threaten to leave country, change schools over Roe overturning.

THEY WERE just willing donations to the Democrat causes....

WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES? Go to hell.

The natives are getting restless. It's about time.

GOOGLE GOES FULL-ON RACIST, will start marking the race of business owners.

Remember the old “Whites Only/Colored Only” signs on water fountains and bathrooms in the old Jim Crow South? Thanks to Google, that kind of open, in-your-face racism is back with a vengeance. Google is so concerned that you not be racist that it is doing the most racist thing a major corporation has done at least since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: it is planning to mark the race of the owners of various businesses so that racists of all varieties can patronize only the stores of their favored group. Have Google’s far-Left ideologues really thought this through? If they really want to eradicate racism, this is just the way not to do it.

I'm old enough to remember and I don't want to go back.

LINCOLN BROWN IN PJ MEDIA: The Quinton Simons story demonstrates why we must fight the evil in this world.

It's a longer read, but eminently worthy.

LOL: Elon Musk delivers the perfect response to QAnon accusations.

To be fair, imbeciles are not at the bottom of the IQ totem pole ... that's inhabited by progressives.

INSTAPUNDIT IS GETTING A LITTLE TOUCHY: Oh fuck off.

IMPRIMIS: Education as a battleground.

It's not 'a battleground'; it's the battleground of the future.

WE'RE LETTING WEIRDOS RUN THINGS: Bald, mustachioed men in dresses should not be running the government.

They should be escorted to the children's table (sans children) in another room and the door locked behind them.

BIDEN'S RETURN TO 'NORMALCY' brought us crazy instead.

For Democrats, crazy is normal....

IT LOOKS LIKE Kari Lake's Arizona election lawsuit has legs.

HAS THE COVID VACCINE MANDATE affected football?

PRESIDENT BIDEN seems to suggest that restaurants kick people out ‘for being gay’.

No, just Republicans and other undesirables.

FOLLOW THE VW MODEL: Turn off the heat and lights, lock the doors, and leave them to freeze in dark.

Then give them their walking papers as they're escorted out the door....

IMPRIMIS: the-economic-disaster-of-the-pandemic-response/The economic disaster of the pandemic response.

RETENTION ISSUES? Political strategists weigh in on recent departures from the Democrat Party.

They want their Democrat party back but it's so infected with wokeism that it'll be a long, hard slog. Better perhaps would be to just form a new center-left Democrat party.

SAM BRINTON, ANYONE? Biden's 'return to normalcy brought us crazy instead.

BUT, BUT ... YOU SHOULD ONLY NEED 10 ROUNDS: AR-15 used 30 rounds to repel home invasion.

IT WON'T STOP 'EM FROM TRYING: Department Of Justice's latest attempt to 'get Trump' face-plants.

BREAKING JUST NOW: It didn't.

ARIZONA SHERIFF calls on Gov. Ducey to stop sending shipping containers to border for makeshift wall. On public land.

Read the comments -- vigilantism is on the horizon. And it won't be pretty.

AFTER 54 YEARS, Boeing completes the last of its groundbreaking 747 jumbo jets.

Shortly after we were married the 747 made its maiden flight around the world. Hawaii was a first stop and we (along with most of Oahu) were at the airport to see it land.

REDSTATE: We are living in a dystopian novel.

POWERLINE'S 'LOOSE ENDS' is full of good cheer this week.

SHOE: The bright side of homelessness.

SO? ILLEGALS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN CITIZENS? Democrat mayor warns city services could be slashed to prioritize migrants.

Analysis: obviously true.

WHITE SUPREMACIST plots to blow up Texas high school. Oh, wait ... he’s a Muslim white supremacist, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran.

POWERLINE'S DAILY CHART: the super blob.

More here from PowerLine: the health care blob.

I blame 'higher' education. The 'blobs' - both (no, all) of them - are the only places where the woke graduates of modern academia could even remotely be (gainfully?) employed.

A CREDIBLE CONSERVATIVE WARRIOR emerges to lead the RNC.

THE JANUARY 6 PROTEST summarized in one single sentence.

Follow the link and read the whole post.

POWERLINE HAS THOUGHTS ON 2024: Dear President Biden.

WHAT NEXT? ENGLISH? Grammar is racist.

BECAUSE DESIGNER DRESSES ARE SOOO EXPENSIVE: 'Nonbinary' Biden official Sam Brinton accused of grand larceny amid separate [baggage] theft charges.

He couldn't afford them on his paltry Government salary....

AMMO GRRRLL: "There is no aspect of our lives that is safe from Big Karen."

UNEXPECTEDLY? College degree value plummets as woke insanity spikes.

Linked from Instapundit.

A REMINDER FROM 81 YEARS AGO. December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor … and Midway.

Let's not allow it to happen again.

SINCE WHEN CAN WE GIVE UP NATURAL RIGHTS? Democrats push firearms purchasing ban for people who voluntarily give up their Second Amendment rights.

MAYBE IT'LL EVENTUALLY SINK IN: battery storage is a fantasy. My fear is that we're almost too far along the progressives' path to Nirvana to turn back to reality without a world of hurt.

MORE: Saving the world with electric vehicles (EVs).

WHENEVER I SEE this cartoon

I want to insert the 'Biden Administration' for 'Schroedinger's Cat'. Like Dilbert's boss, we're afraid to open the box for fear of finding the Biden administration is alive.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Democrats can't be election deniers.

But of course -- they're Democrats.

WE CAN'T HAVE A MIDDLE CLASS: Team Biden is using the IRS to attack the gig economy.

Those Deplorables can't be controlled by our usual methods....

LAWFARE: Florida Gov. Ron Desantis reveals his next fight in the COVID-19 vaccine battle.

He's taken control of the Left's playbook.

MOORE COUNTY, NC power substations attacked by gunfire.

[P]ower substations in Moore County, North Carolina were attacked Saturday night, resulting in 40,000 people losing power and effectively shutting down the county.

Once the infrastructure could be examined in the daylight, it was determined that the damage was much more extensive than first thought, and local news reports said sources within the county’s emergency management office believed power could be out through Thursday.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but given that several power substations were attacked, that the attackers seemed familiar with the substation connectivity, that the damage was extensive, that repair will require substantial replacement of heavy equipment, and that Moore County is home to the US Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, I have to lean toward the theory that this was a probing attack by terrorists preparing the battlefield for future larger scale attacks.

Again, I hope I'm wrong.

Van Laar's initial post is here.

NOT BRUTAL, DAMNING: The Grand Jury report on 'obstructionist' Loudoun County Public Schools is brutal.

DAVID SOLWAY: Physician, heal thyself.

EVERY LIBERAL NEWS SHOW in sixty seconds.

Linked from here.

WANTED: NYC Rat Czar. Will offer salary as high as $170,000.

I offered it to Tuxedo, but he won't move to NYC.

More here.

YGBFKM -- LIZ CHENEY? Liz Cheney, Ron DeSantis, Elon Musk among finalists for TIME Person of the Year.

I HAVE TO WONDER: Can we survive?

CALIFORNIA COPS: We will only "rarely" send robots to kill people.

Only because there aren't that many Trump supporters left.....

IF IT'S REPORTED BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA you can safely assume it's a lie.

It's Victor Davis Hanson, so read it all.

Update: "I trust car salesmen more." Even used car salesmen.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Elon Musk's big mistake -- he trusted the Left.

But he's learning.

OBAMA TO GEORGIA VOTERS: The GOP is the party of looney tunes. I would remind the former president that it takes one to know one -- it's called projection.

GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF AUTOMATION IN THE B-21 RAIDER, maybe we should know its pronouns instead.

ALSO HORSE DEWORMER INVERMECTIN. Two veterinary drugs may help eliminate bedbugs (and other human misiries).

Maybe we should trade MDs for DVMs. I know my cats get better medical care than I do (and I trust them more.)

ON A SERIOUS NOTE Ammo Grrrll writes on unpayable debts and unsung heroes.

TWITTER'S FORMER 'TRUTH AND SAFETY' POOBAH demonstrates why we are ruled by idiots.

Bat shit crazy idiots at that....

ELON MUSK should tell European Union (EU) censors to bugger off.

I suggest hejust shut Twitter down in the EU. See how long until they fold.

IF I LIVED IN CALIFORNIA I'D IMMEDIATELY IDENTIFY AS BLACK: California 'Reparations Committee' recommends $223k each for state's 'Black' or 'African American' residents.

SAN FRANCISCO’S TOILET OF THE FUTURE lasted three days before a systems failure. "It is the perfect allegory for the Left. Great at generating the you-know-what and lousy at cleaning it up."

IF YOU REALLY WANT to destroy the United States, here's how.

ELIZABETH WARREN accidentally reveals the truth about Twitter before Elon.

Musk simply entered the 'dark room', turned on the light and watched as the vermin scattered....

CITY JOURNAL: The decline of higher education.

Not decline, destruction.

IT WON'T: Anti-Xi protests should end American left’s China envy.

THE DIPLOMAD on Twitter, Trump, Kanye, Fuentes, China, and Britain.

Intelligent thoughts, all.

LIKE GOOD NEIGHBORS, armed citizens are there.

THEY'RE NUTS: Legal gun purchases = slavery?

Whether it is video games, social media, or the regular media; whether it is the general decay of society as a whole or some combination of multiple issues, no one seems to want to tackle the actual problems that lead a person to pick up a gun and commit an atrocity. That would mean admitting that our society is broken and could be, at best, charitably described as dysfunctional. That would mean that a whole host of companies, governments, organizations, and systems that claim to exist for the benefit and edification of the people have failed horribly in their duties.

But if you're a Democrat, everything is racist....

THE BABYLON BEE publishes a hysterical spoof of a college english course description.

Oh, wait ... it's not a spoof.

BIDEN'S LABOR DEPARTMENT wants to put your retirement savings to work for the Left.

Protect yourself.

WATCH THIS VIDEO, and you’ll quickly realize why the establishment is afraid of Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

A NOTE FOR LEFTWING ACTIVISTS: Actions have consequences.

THERE MUST BE GLOBAL WARMING: Elon Musk gutted the "Trust and Safety team" that once used to carefully deliberate and "define dangerous language."

The snowflakes are melting....

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Deja vu all over again.

WELCOME TO FREEZING IN THE DARK. Eco-regulations force massive coal plant shut down.

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH: a relatively decent summary of cryptocurrency in the comments.

ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Maricopa County broke the law on election day.

And nothing has happened.

THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE BOONDOGGLE: This whole sordid business is hopelessly corrupt.

Read it all.

TRUMP ON NATIONAL REVIEW: Let it die.

Already did.

IT'S A BIT LATE, but PowerLine had a Thanksgiving Day edition. My favorite:

Don't miss the rest

IF YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO WORK, why should I continue to pay you?

MID-TERM BY THE NUMBERS: Hard to believe that the mid-term results were driven by voter opposition to the respective presidential candidates.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES (delayed edition): My favorite.

Just ask Yogi Bear. Now go see the rest.

IT WON'T WORK. ClintonWorld targeting Musk's advertisers?

Update: it didn't.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: A mid-term election post-mortem.

THE DAILY CHART: Greenies need to take more lithium.

No, seriously. Progressives, too.

FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY is a liar without conscience.

FALLING LEAVES 2022 WEEK 8++++(i.e., 12): Well, oops, I lost track of my plan to finalize the Falling Leaves series four weeks ago so here are the final 2022 pictures I planned to post back then. But first, my standard pond view picture from week 1 of this year:

Now for the final 2022 pictures in the same order and from approximately same locations as the Week 1 pictures.

Until next spring, then ....

NO ONE (YET): Post-election debacle, who is getting fired?

I'm still hopeful, but that hope is fading fast....

THANK YOU, ELON MUSK: CBS News announces it’s suspending all Twitter activity out of ‘abundance of caution’.

Update: Dang! They came back - less than 24 hours as I recall.