WHY NOT? To Truly Beat The Bureaucrats, Trump Needs To Shut Their Agencies Down.

HOMELAND SECURITY? US bans larger electronic devices on some flights from Middle East.

US authorities have secretly required airlines from eight nations to forbid passengers from carrying any electronic or electrical device larger than a cellphone.

The new edict was distributed in an email described as “confidential” from the US transportation safety administration (TSA) on Monday.

The requirement forbids passengers from bringing laptops, iPads, Kindles and even cameras larger than mobile phones into the cabin. All such devices must be checked.

Saudi Arabia’s Saudia Airlines and Royal Jordanian airlines are among the affected countries; the full list had not been revealed to the affected airlines themselves until a press briefing by the US department of Homeland Security on Monday evening.

The ban is techincally related to ten airports in eight countries:

Queen Alia in Jordan
Cairo International in Egypt
Ataturk International in Turkey
King Abudlaziz and King Khalid in Saudi Arabia
Kuwait International in Kuwait, Mohammaed V in Morocco
Doha International in Qatar
Dubai international and Abu Dhabi international in the United Arab Emirates.

Royal Jordanian airline tweeted the new rule yesterday, but the English was broken (and the tweet since deleted) so that didn’t seem like a trustworthy source for a new DHS rule. And DHS would neither confirm nor deny, per this Guardian report. Nevertheless, “Compliance has been swift” and an official announcement is expected later today.

I’M CHANGING MY NAME TO GLENDA AND ENTERING ONE OF THESE: Controversy as Transgender Athlete Wins Women’s Weightlifting Competition. Sadly, I’m not sure my personal-best squat of 320 pounds would win me anything in one of those. But hey, it’s not bad . . . for a law professor.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: The Suicide of Expertise.

In the realm of foreign affairs, which should be of special interest to the people at Foreign Affairs, recent history has been particularly dreadful. Experts failed to foresee the fall of the Soviet Union, failed to deal especially well with that fall when it took place, and then failed to deal with the rise of Islamic terrorism that led to the 9/11 attacks. Post 9/11, experts botched the reconstruction of Iraq, then botched it again with a premature pullout.

On Syria, experts in Barack Obama’s administration produced a policy that led to countless deaths, millions of refugees flooding Europe, a new haven for Islamic terrorists, and the upending of established power relations in the mideast. In Libya, the experts urged a war, waged without the approval of Congress, to topple strongman Moammar Gadhafi, only to see — again — countless deaths, huge numbers of refugees and another haven for Islamist terror.

It was experts who brought us the housing bubble and the subprime crisis. It was experts who botched the Obamacare rollout. And, of course, the experts didn’t see Brexit coming, and seem to have responded mostly with injured pride and assaults on the intelligence of the electorate, rather than with constructive solutions.

By its fruit the tree is known, and the tree of expertise hasn’t been doing well lately.

Read the whole thing!

JUST IN TIME FOR TODAY’S HEARING: 5 Things to Know About the Neil Gorsuch Hearing.

North Korea Blows Up US Aircraft Carrier, Bomber In New Propaganda Video.

The 2 minute clip has emerged just days after Kim threatened to reduce the US “to ashes” as tensions with North Korea continue to increase, which in turn followed a warning by Tillerson that the US is preparing for a “first strike” against the irrational dictator, while US special forces conduct drills in South Korea to “eliminate” the country’s ruler.

It comes after a statement earlier this month warned Donald Trump of nuclear destruction if America fires “even a single bullet” towards Pyongyang. In it the country warned that “the Korean People’s Army will reduce the bases of aggression and provocation to ashes with its invincible Hwasong rockets tipped with nuclear warheads and reliably defend the security of the country and its people’s happiness in case the US and the South Korean puppet forces fire even a single bullet at the territory of the DPRK.”

The menacing talk came as South Korea warned over the weekend that its northern neighbor’s latest rocket-engine test showed “meaningful” progress. As reported on Sunday, the KCNA news agency said the engine would help the country achieve world-class satellite-launch capability – indicating a new type of rocket engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The video isn’t very convincing, but North Korea’s growing launch capability is getting there.

TAKING SIDES: Anti-Trump media: 91% coverage negative, 96% of donations to Hillary.

With the coverage of President Trump putting media bias on display as never before, an influential House chairman and longtime press critic has opened a campaign to call out the “mainstream media” for what he thinks it is.

“The media and Democrats are so close in association and so close in their philosophical views that we might as well use one word to describe both, and that’s ‘Mediacrats,'” said Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, founder of the House Media Fairness Caucus.

Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, has often been on the receiving end of the media’s anti-conservative bias, but he said the attacks on Trump have led him to urge colleagues to stop referring to the “mainstream” media.

“How can the media be considered ‘mainstream’ when it doesn’t represent a majority of the American people?” he asked. “It’s more accurate to use the term ‘liberal,'” he said.

In an interview, he cited the media’s ills: 91 percent of Trump campaign coverage was negative, 96 percent of media campaign contributions went to Democrat Hillary Clinton, and 55 percent of the public is weary of the anti-Trump tone in coverage.

“It’s the most biased media I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Smith said.

Mine too.

NO SHE WON’T: Donna Brazile will “forever regret” doing thing she still insists she didn’t do.

Jazz Shaw:

I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile no longer had a career in American politics. How could she? After the revelations which came out of the leak of John Podesta’s emails one might easily presume that she would be so radioactive nobody would come within a country mile of her. This was clearly an errant conclusion since the party kept her on straight through the election of her successor last month and she is still making the rounds on the interview circuit to this day. This past week she published an editorial in Time Magazine which finally seemed to amount to a confession of what she did to rig the Democratic primaries against Bernie Sanders. (Emphasis added)

In October, a subsequent release of emails revealed that among the many things I did in my role as a Democratic operative and DNC Vice Chair before assuming the interim DNC Chair position was to share potential town hall topics with the Clinton campaign. I had been working behind the scenes to add more town hall events and debates to the primary calendar, and I helped ensure those events included diverse moderators and addressed topics vital to minority communities. My job was to make all our Democratic candidates look good, and I worked closely with both campaigns to make that happen. But sending those emails was a mistake I will forever regret.

Saying that you “forever regret” something isn’t quite the same as an apology, but at least it’s a start. So now we can all let the healing begin and simply move on, right? Not so fast. In a follow-up interview, Brazile reversed course and yet again flatly denied any wrongdoing.

A just and decent Fourth Estate would have hounded a lying cheat like Brazile out of print and off the airwaves months ago.

MATT DESSEM: MEET THE OTHER CHUCK BERRY. One Chuck Berry Invented Rock ’n’ Roll. The Other Chuck Berry Lived a Life in His Shadow.

ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Psychologist Blasts Destructive ‘The Future is Female’ Slogan as Threat to Boys. Remember, feminism today is about making middle-aged white women feel good about themselves. Collateral damage is irrelevant.

WINNING: China Sees a Manufacturing Future —- in America.

Glen Lin is struggling to keep his shoe company competitive on the world’s factory floor in southern China. Wages are shooting up 15% each year. Taxes are high. Shipping is exorbitant, and slow.

So, as fast as he can he’s automating production, while planning an escape to his largest market—the U.S.

The vice general manager of Dongguan Winwin Industrial, a Taiwan-owned company, is scouting for a location in America to move his newest machinery that turns out high-quality sneakers and casual shoes. Most likely, he’ll end up near one of his main customers: Skechers, based in California, Crocs in Colorado, or Nike in Portland, Ore.

In global manufacturing, fortunes are starting to shift in America’s favor.

Come for the skilled workers and business-friendly climate, stay for the low shipping rates and fast cars.

I’M NOT SURE THAT’S THE WAY TO BET HERE: Scarborough: Trump learning that ‘Washington always wins.’

But if it is, it’s bad news for Washington. Washington may not like it, but it can live with Trump. It’s not clear it can live with what will come after Trump, if Trump is blocked.

BUT DOES IT SELF-IDENTIFY AS HUMAN? New Zealand Grants a River the Same Legal Rights as a Human Being.

CHANGE: Military Cooperation Between Russia, China Hits Three-Decade High.

A SCARY STORY ABOUT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DOING WHAT OTHER ADMINISTRATIONS HAVE DONE FOR YEARS: White House installs political aides at Cabinet agencies to be Trump’s eyes and ears.

And Trump needs it more than most, since the bureaucracy is at open war with him. But by all means pretend that this is unprecedented if it advances the narrative.

REPEAL-ISH AND REPLACE-ISH: GOP leaders unveil changes to healthcare bill.

The changes include two measures that conservative Republican Study Committee members won at the White House on Friday: allowing states to require Medicaid recipients to work and allowing states to choose a Medicaid block grant over the cap system in the current bill.

The revisions also include a change targeted at New York state that is expected to bring on board several wavering Empire State Republicans. That change would cut off federal Medicaid reimbursement for county contributions to Medicaid.
…
It is in doubt whether this range of changes will be enough to win the 216 votes needed for the bill to pass on Thursday. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Monday night that given his understanding of the changes, not enough was altered to bring him and his colleagues on board.

More from Axios:

Here’s what Meadows told Axios early Monday evening:

After investing hours and hours and hours of trying to find common ground between our moderate members and conservative members, and believing, because of the White House’s engagement in the process, that we could find common ground; I’ve now reached a conclusion that our leadership is going to put forth a bill that does not address any of the concerns in a meaningful way and will dare us to vote against it.

Why this matters: If the White House loses most of the Freedom Caucus members they can’t pass this bill. Meadows was only speaking for himself tonight, but his is a voice to move votes. The caucus will meet tonight, and whether to collectively oppose the bill or not will certainly be discussed.

What a trainwreck.

PRIORITIES: Obama’s IRS gave ‘Satan Club’ creator fast tax-exempt status.

Documents obtained by a government watchdog show that the originator of the “After School Satan Club” received speedy tax-exempt status while conservative groups were stuck in bureaucratic red tape under the Obama administration.

Treasury Department files obtained by Judicial Watch last week show Reason Alliance in Somerville, Mass., was given nonprofit status within 10 days of its application in October 2014. The group operates the Satanic Temple out of Washington state and planned an “After School Satan Club” initiative in 2016.

It’s fair to say that by 2014, Obama’s IRS didn’t give a damn about the optics of anything.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: In a Polarized Climate, Free-Speech Warriors Seize the Spotlight. “The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a champion of First Amendment rights, has gained new prominence as campus controversies spread. Yet FIRE has also found itself in the cross hairs of increasingly fraught debates.”

Well, people who hate free speech will naturally attack people who support free speech. And since people who hate free speech are horrible human beings, bereft of morals or standards, they will often do so unfairly.

Because they suck.

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AND FRANK RICH. On anti-Semitism and dog whistles.

DON’T TRY TO FIX IT: “I just need you to listen.”

ROGER KIMBALL: The Nothing Burger Gets Flipped.

It wasn’t quite “Are you now or have you ever been . . .” but it was close. You don’t have to have that good a memory to have found the whole exercise amusing: Democratic politicians abandoning the “1980s asking for its foreign policy back” in order, suddenly, to castigate Russia as a threat to US national security and even (if you can believe it) wrapping themselves in the flag of patriotism (yes, really) to denounce Donald Trump.

My own feeling is that the Dems must be very, very worried to go down that street. And what did it all add up to? Nada. Which is to say, rien. Nichts. Zilch. Nothing.

Well, it let them look good to their constituencies, and distracted from their inability to stop Gorsuch. So there’s that.

Plus:

Was that it? Almost. There actually was one bit of news. If you are looking for a crime in this whole scenario, the one crime we know was committed was when someone “unmasked” Mike Flynn’s name and leaked it to the press in connection with a couple of exchanges he had with the Russian Ambassador. That, as was stressed by Republican interlocutors as well as by James Comey, was a felony punishable by up to 10 years in the slammer.

To my mind, that was the big news of the day. If I were the person who did the leaking, I would not be sleeping so well.

I’m sure the leaker was promised protection. But we all know what promises are worth in DC.

HEY, MAYBE WHITE WOMEN REALLY ARE THE WORST: Yoga Pants, ‘Active Wear’ Are Destroying the Oceans.

NEIL GORSUCH’S OPENING STATEMENT: “OURS IS A JUDICIARY OF HONEST BLACK POLYESTER.”

Classical allusion in headline?