KINSLEY GAFFE: Democrats admit they want to make the government ‘irritating:’

It’s rare when a politician is as honest about his strategy as the New York City councilman largely responsible for the plastic-bag fee about to hit New York City. For his candor, Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn) ought to be considered a new American hero.

Here is progressive politics in 2016: “It works by irritating us into changing our behavior,” Lander said of the bag tax.

It works by irritating us. There can be some debate about the accuracy of one of those verbs, but not the other. Government, when it’s being honest, acknowledges it isn’t your buddy, your helper, your protector, your go-to source for inspiration and dreams.

Reminder, this is out of New York, whose political class is better suited to Star Wars’ cantina: Charles Schumer, Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, Anthony Weiner, Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton, and possibly joining them in November, Donald Trump. Outside of Sacramento, nobody does political irritation like New York “liberals.”

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Austrian woman attacked by Muslim immigrants claims police told her to dye hair: “After the attack they told me that women shouldn’t be alone on the streets after 8pm. And they also gave me other advice, telling me I should dye my hair dark and also not dress in such a provocative way. Indirectly that means I was partly to blame for what happened to me. That is a massive insult.”

Don’t think of it as an insult; think of it as the Austrian police admitting they’re as helpless to stop the onslaught as you are. But hey, Angela Merkel got to be Time’s Woman of the Year last year, so it’s a fair trade, right?

JUST THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE: White House Press Corps Asks Obama Three Questions About Trump, None About Ben Rhodes.

Related: As You Would Guess, There Are No Republicans In the White House Press Corps.

RUSSIA’S ‘OBAMA’ ICE CREAM DEEPENS CHILLY RELATIONS WITH U.S.:

A Russian company is trying to cash in on chilly relations between Moscow and Washington by releasing an ice cream called “Little Obama”, irritating U.S. officials.

Obama may be an Alinskyite (just ask Saul’s son), but Putin is taking that whole “pick the target and freeze it” rule all too literally.

THE HILL: How Trump Could Beat Clinton.

Many Democrats think Trump is dead on arrival, but others on the left, including CNN commentator Van Jones, believe it is quite possible that Trump could triumph over Clinton.

While it will be challenging for Trump to win 270 electoral votes — especially with the nation’s changing demographics — a contest against Clinton is winnable.

Here’s how it could happen.

Trump needs to shake up the electoral map by winning states that Republicans have lost for decades.

He intends to do this chiefly by winning Pennsylvania and Michigan, two states Trump won in the GOP primary season.

“We’ll win places that a lot of people say you’re not going to win, that as a Republican you can’t win,” Trump said at a rally in Illinois late last month. “Michigan is a great example; nobody else will go to Michigan. We’re going to be encamped in Michigan because I think I can win it.”

No Republican has won Michigan since 1988, and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney lost the state and Oakland County, a GOP-friendly area where he grew up.

“We’re a pretty reliable blue state,” said Inside Michigan Politics editor and publisher Susan Demas. She said Trump’s primary victory in the state was impressive and that he could be a stronger GOP candidate in Michigan than Romney or 2008 GOP nominee John McCain.

Remember, celebrity candidates don’t poll like regular candidates.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: You Could Probably Lift a Car, If You Really Needed To.

WITCH HUNTS ARE EVERYWHERE: How Accusations of Misogyny Are Tearing the Tight-Knit Bar World Apart.

YES. Scott Shackford: Memorialize Stonewall by Remembering It Was About Fighting Government-Endorsed Punishment.

The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights movement was historically fundamentally a fight for the right to free association. The right to hook up, the right to start families and have marriages legally recognized, the right to serve in the military—these pushes all originate from the concept that gay and transgender folks should be able to operate from the same rules of association as everybody else without the intervention of government authority or the sanctioning of punishment for those who make different relationship choices from the heterosexual majority.

It’s an important reminder as some loud voices want to now use government authority and sanctioned punishment against those—like cake bakers or photographers—who want to exert the same right of association to say no to gay people.

It’s worth bringing up now not just because of the current extremely punitive direction the culture war is taking, but because President Barack Obama’s administration is looking to make a national monument out of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York. The location was ground zero for the Stonewall riots in 1969, where gay and transgender citizens fought back against raids from police.

It was a fight against the government. It was a fight against a majority who wanted to punish them with jail sentences, fines, and public humiliation for demanding the right to live their lives the way they chose.

Then it was blue-haired Legion of Decency types. Now it’s bluer-haired Social Justice Warrior types.

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IF IT WEREN’T FOR HOAXES, WOULD WE HAVE ANY HATE CRIMES AT ALL? Albany expels students indicted in hate crime hoax.

The University at Albany has expelled two black female students and suspended a third after they were indicted for allegedly lying about being victims of a hate crime.

Ariel Agudio and Asha Burwell have been dismissed from the university and Alexis Briggs has been suspended for two years, according to an email sent to the school community Thursday by President Robert J. Jones, the Albany Times Union reported.

The women grabbed national headlines — and a sympathetic tweet from Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton — after claiming that a group of 12 to 20 white men hurled racial slurs and attacked them on a CDTA bus about 1 a.m. Jan. 30 while others stood by and did nothing.

The alleged incident sparked a large on-campus rally defending women of color and the social media campaign #DefendBlackGirlsUAlbany.

I now start with the presumption that these stories are bogus.

SUCKING IN THE SEVENTIES: The 10 Most Terrifying Public Service Announcements from the 1970s.

Including Batgirl lecturing Batman about equal pay, and “Save Free TV” – all three stations!

THE UNIVERSE IS A STRANGE PLACE: Strange X-ray sources are shooting ions at us at 20 percent of light speed.

THE SERVER IS THE SMOKING GUN: ‘Guccifer,’ the Hacker Who May Have Breached Clinton’s Server, Says He Spoke With FBI.

(Classical reference in headline.)

NEWS YOU CAN USE: What it’s like to have sex as a ‘furry.’

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MYTH: JIHADIS ARE DRIVEN TO TERROR OUT OF POVERTY AND DESPERATION. Reality: “Nearly all of the jihadis were well-educated and turned their backs on promising lives.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: The Future Is ‘Bleak’ For Law Students And Law School Graduates.

THIS IS A BIG BANG THEORY EPISODE WAITING TO HAPPEN: Economist Removed from American Airlines Flight for Doing Math.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT CANCER: False cancer claims could land blogger in jail.

NO MEANS NO: “Absolutely Not” Marco Rubio Won’t Be Donald Trump’s VP – or Call Him.

BEN RHODES “IS THE REFLECTION. OBAMA IS THE ORIGINATING IMAGE:” Richard Fernandez on “The Men Who Would Be King:”

Bonhoeffer anticipated Hannah Arendt’s discovery of the banality of evil when he observed that true stupidity — real emptiness — is the most destructive condition of all.

Read the whole thing.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: A pregnant woman walks into a bar: You must serve her in NYC.

But what if she orders a 32-oz Coke?

ONLY IF YOU’RE SHELDON COOPER: No, Millennials. Grown Men Should NOT Wear Underoos.

Pro tip: Don’t be Sheldon Cooper.