WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Swarms of DNA nanorobots execute complex tasks in living animal.

I WANTED FLYING CARS, but what do I get? Flying selfie-bot drones. “Plenty of people—sports enthusiasts in particular—are ravenous for selfies taken by aerial robots. And start-ups everywhere are now scrambling to develop this technology for them.”

ANTI-AGING NEWS: Telomere Lengthening RNA Treatment Lets Cells Divide More.

SPACE: Here’s What a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Will Look Like.

JOURNALISM: Politico invents nasty Mike Huckabee quote, mocks it.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: The Tick-Tock Begins for Andrew Cuomo.

AUSTIN BAY: Time for Obama and Ambassador Power to Account for Their Darfur Failure.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 629.

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Democrats Not Giving Up On “War On Women” Tactic Yet:

Democrats are far from finished with their “war on women” campaign strategy, midterm losses be damned.

Critics said Democrats’ focus on topics such as abortion rights and access to contraception proved to be a losing strategy in 2014. But leading Senate Democratic strategists aren’t backing away from the message just yet. They don’t necessarily defend the way the strategy was executed, but they do think a focus on female voters and the subjects they care about will resonate in next year’s races—especially as Republicans on Capitol Hill debate new abortion legislation. . . .

Democrats once considered Sen. Mark Udall’s Colorado race against Republican Cory Gardner an ideal place to emphasize abortion rights and contraception, hoping it would carry Colorado’s cosmopolitan, socially liberal electorate. It had worked there in 2010, when Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet won reelection after successfully characterizing his opponent (now-Rep. Ken Buck) as too extreme.

But by the late summer, with polls showing a close race, Democrats began to worry that Udall—who was saddled with the moniker “Senator Uterus”—had too narrowly focused on abortion rights, at the expense of a more well-rounded message. The criticism crystalized by October when The Denver Post, in an endorsement for Gardner, castigated Udall for running an “obnoxious single-issue campaign.” Udall lost the race, the first Democratic gubernatorial or Senate candidate to do so in Colorado since 2002.

Despite the criticism, Democrats insisted that although the campaign made mistakes, focusing heavily on something like access to contraception was the right thing to do. Their polling backed it up: According to sources close to the Udall campaign, every time the senator wavered from that message, Gardner’s lead would increase. (Lopach, for his part, said that because he just joined the DSCC he wasn’t equipped to assess whether the Udall campaign had focused too heavily on abortion rights.)

To some of them, the message was right—it just wasn’t enough to overcome an unpopular president and strong Republican candidate like Gardner.

My sense is that men are going from indifferent, to seriously turned-off by all this gynocentric rhetoric. So what will the Dems do when their war on women schtick costs them more male votes than it gains them female votes?

LIZ PEEK: Why Elites Think ‘Pro-America’ Is So Last Century.

HOW THE FIRE PHONE FIZZLED. “Understanding Amazon’s journey to create a smartphone, and why it failed, is perhaps the best way to understand the company’s evolving mission and values as it struggles to unearth its next gusher of revenue.” Steve Jobs had the Lisa before he had the Mac.

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on bestselling products, updated every hour.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Featured Digital Deal. Remember, these deals weren’t there yesterday, and they won’t be there tomorrow, so browse and save!

“SMART DIPLOMACY” MARCHES ON: Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders Hosted at State Department; Brotherhood seeks to rally anti-Sisi support.

ROLL CALL: House Democrats Brace for Potentially Tense Retreat. “For House Democrats, the months since the demoralizing midterm elections have been characterized by several public episodes of party infighting — about the culture of the caucus, the ‘brand’ and the perceived lack of opportunities for younger members to climb the ranks.”

ED DRISCOLL: Sorry, Jonathan Chait, But Political Correctness Is The Essence of Liberalism.

JOURNALISM: Media “Blows” Coverage Of Menendez Iran Sanctions Delay.

WELL, LOOK AT HOW THEY TREAT THE TEA PARTY, WHICH IS A VERY MIDDLE-CLASS MOVEMENT: Why are Republicans so weirdly hesitant to talk about America’s middle class?

The paucity of “middle” mentions is bizarre. The story of this anemic economic recovery — and really of the entire 2000s — is how poorly America’s broad middle has done. Countless news stories and research reports have highlighted the middle class’ financial struggles. Clearly, Democrats have gone long on “middle class” for 2016. In his recent State of the Union speech, President Obama coined a new term for his policy agenda: “middle-class economics.” And the Center for American Progress, the “ready for Hillary” think tank, recently produced a lengthy report devoted to solutions for middle-class woes.

But weirdly, much of the GOP is reluctant to explicitly target the middle, either with rhetoric or ideas. It’s not necessarily that Republicans don’t care about the 99 percent. They just think their way is better than the Democrats’ way, even if it’s less obviously and directly helpful to the middle class. This is the party that believes “a rising tide lifts all boats,” that faster economic growth is the best path to shared prosperity. To concede otherwise is to challenge one of the modern party’s first principles. Moreover, many think mentioning the “middle class” by name — much less pushing policies to directly help it — smacks of “class warfare” and uses the language of Karl Marx. As Rick Santorum, one GOPer who has actually focused on the middle, has put it, “since when in America do we have classes? Since when in America are people stuck in areas or defined places called a class? That’s Marxism talk.”

Neither party in this country really wants the middle class to wake up and seize control. Dems can talk about it because they know they won’t rouse it. Republicans can’t talk about it for fear that they will.

K.C. JOHNSON AT MINDING THE CAMPUS: A Slight Nod To Due Process. “Fifty-nine times the document uses the word ‘victim’ to describe a student who has alleged being sexually assaulted; fifty-nine times the document doesn’t couple that description with an ‘alleged,’ even as the document makes clear it’s dealing with procedures that occur before any adjudication.”

GOOD: Sharyl Attkisson leads Loretta Lynch witness list as Senate Republicans plan tough hearing.

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson leads the list of witnesses who will testify at the confirmation hearing. Attkisson is suing the Justice Department, accusing it of tapping her phones and computer while she worked as a correspondent for CBS News.

Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke will also testify. Clarke accused Holder of race-baiting following the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo.

Senate Republicans have also invited Catherine Engelbrecht, who was subjected to numerous federal investigations and repeated questioning by the Internal Revenue Service after she sought tax-exempt status for her voter ID advocacy group, True the Vote, in 2010.

Among the agencies who began suddenly probing Engelbrecht’s business were the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, which are part of the Justice Department.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley will also testify. He authored a critical column in USA Today entitled “Fire Eric Holder.” Turley said Holder’s Justice Department had violated civil liberties and the free press by snooping into the computers and phones of reporters.

I assume C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC and Fox will all be covering live.

A MODEL FOR GOVERNMENT ENTITIES EVERYWHERE: Portsmouth regulators vote to eliminate taxi regulations.

In response to Uber ride-sharing drivers now working in the city, the Taxi Commission on Wednesday recommended the elimination of taxi medallions, regulation of taxi fares, city taxi inspections and the Taxi Commission itself.

The commission voted unanimously to send a memo to the City Council outlining its recommendations to lift many regulations currently imposed on drivers-for-hire. . . .

“I think the public is probably better served if we also have ride-sharing,” Cataldo said, explaining that ride-share drivers help get intoxicated people home safely.

Cataldo said the Uber model dispatches more drivers to certain locations when demand peaks and that cab drivers have not been available to transport all of the people who need rides all of the time. He said he’s most concerned about bar patrons having rides between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. because ensuring impaired people don’t drive is “a blessing to the city.”

Cataldo said if drivers are smoking, or offering rides in unkempt vehicles, consumers will decide if they want to hire them. Under the proposal, police would continue to conduct background checks of registered drivers who would also have to provide proof that their passengers are insured for a minimum of $300,000 under a commercial policy.

Several commissioners compared the proposed deregulation of taxi fares to the fact that someone can buy a glass of beer for $4 at a downtown pub and pay $8 for a glass of the same beer at a nearby restaurant.

“I guess it’s going to come down to what consumers want to do,” said Lt. Chris Cummings, the Police Department’s liaison to the Taxi Commission.

What a novel approach. What if it spreads?

DO TELL: Obama drops proposal to cut tax benefits of 529 college savings plans.

And just one day after my USA Today column blasting that policy came out. Coincidence? I think not.

UPDATE: First link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Grandstanding At The Expense of Due Process? “By inviting Ms Sulkowicz to accompany her, Senator Gillibrand undoubtedly wanted to send Congress the message that passage of her proposed Campus Accountability and Safety Act is necessary to protect students in their college environments. However, in her effort to push through the bill, Senator Gillibrand not only is willing to use a dubious victim, Gillibrand is also willing to use discredited and out of date statistics and unsubstantiated data.”

BYRON YORK: Will Jeb Bush deport four million illegal immigrants?

That’s hardly unthinkable. Obama deported 2 million in slightly more than one term.

WELL, THIS MAKES SENSE: Why Marine Le Pen Is So Popular With France’s Gays:

An insight into the phenomenon comes from Patrick McCarthy, a young gay blogger who lives in Bordeaux. ‘Up until 2005, Bordeaux was a very gay-friendly city,’ he says. ‘Same-sex couples could openly walk down the street holding hands without any problems. However, in the space of two months, five gay men were murdered in the city. The blame was put on Bordeaux’s Muslim community since some of these hate crimes were carried out by people of Arabic origins.’ . . .

The Front National now offers a welcoming home to gay people who feel judged by Muslims and share wider concerns about immigration and the loss of French identity.

That gay men now feel comfortable with the Front National is the result of a deliberate effort by its leader, Marine Le Pen, who has pursued a programme of detoxification (the French term is ‘de-diabolisation’) ever since she took control of the party in 2011.

So the GOP should encourage Muslim immigration so as to pick up gay support! And it’s not just gays: “In the 2012 presidential elections, Le Pen won 13.5 per cent of the Jewish vote. A surprising enough statistic, but her appeal to gay activists has created even more waves.”