HARRY REID OPENED PANDORA’S BOX: House conservatives push McConnell to gut filibuster.

A growing number of House GOP conservatives are pressuring Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday to invoke the “nuclear option” and change the chamber’s rules to pass a bill defunding President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.

Reps. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) and Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said McConnell should change Senate rules, so the House-passed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill, which includes language to revoke Obama’s immigration-related actions, can bypass a Democratic filibuster in the upper chamber.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) also endorsed the idea at a Thursday news conference. He said there’s a “way to change the rules to allow us to move forward” and “take away the ability to filibuster.”

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) was the first House Republican to advocate such a rules change Wednesday evening, arguing that now-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had established a precedent during his time in the majority.

Republican senators, however, immediately sought to quash the idea.

“The answer is not to change Senate rules,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during the same news conference at which Mulvaney spoke. “The answer is for Senate Democrat not to be obstructionists.”

Well, I’m not super-confident of that. But then again, as they say, the value of the sword of Damocles is that it hangs, not that it falls. Perhaps the treat of taking Reid’s “nuclear option” to the next level will encourage cooperation. Though I doubt it.

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Plus, deals on Hunting & Tactical Knives.

CONGRESS: Obama’s war request runs into a brick wall. It’s hard to give a President war power when he’s just not a credible war leader.

KEVIN WILLIAMSON: “I met Walter Cronkite once. He was a jerk.”

OF COURSE HE DID: Obama Secretly Partied With Bill Ayers Last Summer. “While the fact that Obama was literally partying with former advocates of violent struggle against the U.S. government will no doubt be taken by his critics as further evidence that he hates America, the most interesting thing about the wedding is the shocking proof it offers that—at long last!—Obama truly no longer gives a fuck about keeping up political appearances.”

Yeah, we’ve kind of noticed.

NO SURPRISE THERE: Senate confirms Carter to lead Pentagon. Hey, at this point I’m missing Carter in the White House. . . .

ER, BUT I WAS QUITE HAPPY WITH IT AS IT WAS: It’s The End Of Sex As We Know It.

NEW DOUBTS ABOUT the Columbia mattress-girl’s story.

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Female Genital Mutilation on the Rise in the U.S.

UPDATE: I kind of let snarking at the headline run away with me (yeah, it happens) but I should note that the story’s a bit unclear: “More than half a million women and girls in the U.S. are at risk of undergoing FGM in the U.S. or abroad, or have already undergone the procedure, including 166,173 under the age of 18, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). Immigration to the U.S. from African and Middle Eastern countries—where the practice of FGM is a deeply entrenched cultural tradition—is the sole factor for the rise in numbers, says Mark Mather, a demographer at PRB who led the data analysis. There has not been an increase in the practice happening in the U.S. itself, he says.”

But then, there’s also this: “Included in the data are girls at risk of being sent back to their family’s origin country to undergo FGM—a practice widely known as ‘vacation cutting’—or having a traditional midwife or cutter sent to perform FGM in the U.S. ” Still not very hopey-changey.

“SICKENINGLY” IS THE RIGHT WORD: The Sickeningly Low Vaccination Rates at Silicon Valley Day Cares. I blame the Tea Party. And Baptists. And Rand Paul!

Hey, you want low vaccination rates and segregated schools, go to the wealthy enclaves of California.

TEST-DRIVING THE 2016 Audi TT Roadster.

OUR FEAR of artificial intelligence.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: “The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act would allow gun owners who have a concealed carry permit in their home state to bring their firearms in any other state with concealed carry laws.” It’s a good start, but Congress has the power to allow interstate carry regardless. I discuss some related issues in my Second Amendment Penumbras piece.

SKYNET IS PLEASED: The Creepy Collective Behavior of Boston Dynamics’ New Robot Dog. “Spot’s life-like motions are uncanny, but when you add this emergent, collective behavior—which can sometimes be unpredictable—the possibilities get downright scary. Will Spot’s group dynamics stop at the point of swarming like locusts? (Ominous.) Will they cluster into self-protecting balls like sardines? (Less so.) Or could they end up as smart and responsive as humans?”

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IF IT WERE WOMEN, IT WOULD BE A NATIONAL CRISIS: Why Are So Many Men Committing Suicide?

MACHINE SAYS YES: I Paid for an Invisible Girlfriend. Things Took a Weird Turn. Okay, this should have been tagged 21st Century Relationships, but I couldn’t resist the FC/Kahuna reference.

AN ELECTRIFYING TIME TO BE IN NEUROSCIENCE: Brain Stimulators Get Brainier. “Using implanted devices that send pulses of electricity through the nervous system, physicians are learning how to influence the neural systems that control people’s bodies and minds. These devices give neurologists new ways to treat patients with a wide range of disorders, including epilepsy, chronic pain, depression, and Parkinson’s disease.”

READER BOOK PLUG: A Parody From Reader J.P. Mac, Fifty Shades of Zane Grey.

THIS IS SO DETAILED, PEOPLE WILL BE TEMPTED NOT TO BUY THE BOOK: Mark Rippetoe: The 4 Week Guide To Starting Strength.

But buy the book anyway. And remember, you can work out with Rippetoe (and me) at Bullets And Bourbon 2015.

REMINDER: In 2009, Barack Obama “Joked” About Auditing His Enemies.

THE INTERNATIONAL BDS MOVEMENT: Students Urge South African University to Expel Jews.

REMEMBER BACK IN 2008 WHEN PEOPLE WERE TELLING US THAT OBAMA WAS THE ADULT IN THE ROOM? Well:

As somebody on Twitter said, where Nero fiddled, Obama selfies.

UPDATE: Study: Men who take selfies may be psychopaths. The science is settled! You don’t want to be a science-denier, do you? And note the selfie-stick reference. . . .

TODAY IN COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA: New North Korean Slogans Call for ‘Socialist Fairyland,’ ‘Country of Mushrooms.’ You’d have to be on mushrooms to believe them, so. . . .

GORDON CROVITZ: The Great Internet Power Grab: We’ve come a long way from Steve Jobs as ‘phone phreak’ to Tom Wheeler as ruler of the Internet.

The era of open innovation can be dated to 1971, when teenager Steve Jobs and his engineer friend Steve Wozniak became “phone phreaks.” They sold kits to create routing tones spoofing government-regulated phones into making free long-distance calls. Evading the absurdly high prices that federal regulators set for AT&T calls felt like civil disobedience. The same spirit of disruptive innovation led them to found Apple.

Last week Washington abandoned open innovation when the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission yielded to President Obama ’s demands and moved to regulate the freewheeling Internet under the same laws that applied to the Ma Bell monopoly. Unless these reactionary regulations are stopped, they spell the end of the permissionless innovation that built today’s Internet.

Until now, anyone could launch new websites, apps and mobile devices without having to lobby a regulator for permission. That was thanks to a Clinton-era bipartisan consensus that the Internet shouldn’t be treated as a public utility. Congress and the White House under both parties kept the FCC from applying the hoary regulations that micromanaged the phone system, which would have frozen innovation online.

Last week’s announcement from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler rejects 20 years of open innovation by submitting the Internet to Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Once Mr. Wheeler and the commission’s Democratic majority vote this month to apply Title II, the regulations will give them staggering control. Any Internet “charges” and “practices” that the bureaucrats find “unjust or unreasonable is declared to be unlawful.”

This is an open invitation to entrenched companies challenged by new technologies.

Hey, “permissionless innovation” may make the country rich, but it’s hell on people who buy and sell permissions for a living.

Related: Colorado Regulator Going After Unregulated Yoga Instructors Works For Regulated State Chain.