INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: How come Trump hasn’t fired IRS Commissioner Koskinen?

House Republicans aren’t giving up their quest to show Koskinen the door.

“President Trump should fire Commissioner Koskinen and replace him with someone that will bring integrity and competence to the IRS,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told Fox News on Tuesday.

OK, House GOP, go ahead and impeach Koskinen. Remember, the IRS recently “found” 6,924 new documents related to the targeting of conservative organizations. Judicial Watch has kept up the pressure. The House can exert political pressure. Koskinen would be the opening round. The IRS targeted conservatives — it sure looks like Obama politicized the agency. Did Obama politicize other alphabet agencies (like NSA and CIA) and use them to target Trump? Fair question.

A HALLMARK OF OUR AGE: Spectacular Ass Pants. Plus: “I do not have a six-pack, but I do have Adobe Photoshop.”

THE MANHOFF ARCHIVES: Radio Free Europe posts imagery of every day life in Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union –taken by a U.S. Army attache.

Major Martin Manhoff spent more than two years in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, serving as assistant army attaché at the U.S. Embassy, which was located just off Red Square at the beginning of his time in Moscow.

He took full advantage of his post, using his gifted photographic eye to capture hundreds of images of everyday life in Moscow and across the U.S.S.R.

When he left the country in 1954 amid accusations of espionage, Major Manhoff took with him reels of 16 millimeter film and hundreds of color slides and negatives he shot during his travels – including of one of the Soviet Union’s pivotal events, Josef Stalin’s funeral.

The intro has some great film. Part 1 is Stalin’s funeral. At least three more installments are scheduled. The film and commentary are worth your time.

NBC BECAME TRAPPED IN A TEMPORAL CAUSALITY LOOP SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED! In his post titled “Trump Isn’t Intimidated, Either,” Power Line’s John Hinderaker links to an AP story headlined “NBC chief to Trump: We won’t be intimidated,” and notes:

The sickness at NBC and other liberal outlets has nothing to do with over-reliance on polls.

[NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack] said NBC needs more reporters along the likes of Hallie Jackson, Katy Tur, Kasie Hunt and Kristen Welker working in the states where Trump won, and promised the network would be able to afford them.

The implication is that NBC needs to learn more about, and devote more coverage to, the pro-Trump states. That is interesting, since Trump carried 30 out of 50 states. I don’t know whether reporters like Jackson, Tur, Hunt and Welker are up to the task or not. My sense is that if they were deployed to the red states, they would need a compass and safari gear.

We’ve been here before with NBC, haven’t we? Yes we have:

Back in late 2004, Rush Limbaugh had lots of fun playing an interview that Tina Brown (now editor of Newsweek) had on her little-seen CNBC show with David Westin, then the president of ABC News, who said that the media needed to send the equivalent of foreign correspondents to the Red States, to witness firsthand how these strange people in the hinterlands live out their exotic day-to-day existences, and why they rejected the suave and debonair John Kerry for that hayseed George W. Bush:

WESTIN: I think we don’t do that enough, and I’m not just talking religious communities. I’m talking all sorts of communities across the country. I think that… You understand this, Tina, living in New York or in Los Angeles, we have busy jobs. We go into the office every day. We tend to socialize with the same people, or the same types of people, and I think it’s terribly important for journalists to get out whether it’s overseas or domestically and try to understand.

As Rush quipped, paraphrasing Westin, “We need more foreign correspondents in Alabama! We need more foreign correspondents north of Palm Beach County in Florida! We need embeds to go to church, find out what’s going on with these holy rollers! Ah, folks, you can’t know how much I love this.”

Also in November of 2004 after the election was concluded, when Brian Williams replaced Tom Brokaw, then-NBC president Jeff Zucker attempted to sell Williams to the public, by proclaiming to USA Today that “No one understands this NASCAR nation more than Brian.”

Actually, there was an employee on salary at NBC back then who happened to understand this NASCAR nation much more than Brian Williams. However, while Brian has moved from the NBC nightly anchor chair to downmarket MSNBC, this other NBC vet has also moved — from midtown Manhattan to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Naturally, NBC is at war with him, rather than understand what made him so appealing. Perhaps one of the reasons why Trump isn’t intimidated by the DNC-MSM is that he knows they won’t be learning from their past mistakes anytime soon. As another group of ex-NBC vets would say, choose the form of your Destructor.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Memo to U.S. Mission in Vienna: Obama No Longer President.

RESET: Russia Has Deployed Banned Missile.

A senior U.S. general on Wednesday accused Russia of deploying a land-based cruise missile in violation of “the spirit and intent” of a nuclear arms treaty and charged that Moscow’s intention is to threaten U.S. facilities in Europe and the NATO alliance.

“We believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility,” Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Selva said he sees no indication that Moscow intends to return to compliance with the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which bans an entire class of weapons — all land-based cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 and 3,410 miles). The treaty was a landmark in arms control in the final years of the Cold War.

The Obama Administration sat on its hands during Moscow’s illegal buildup. It will be interesting to see if the Trump Administration takes a more active approach.

IT TAKES TWO TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN: Americans are having less sex than they once did.

The paper, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, showed a drop across gender, race, region, education level and work status. One factor is the higher percentage now of unpartnered people, who tend to have less sex than partnered ones. But a major driver is a steady fall in the rate of sexual activity for people who are married or living with partners, which reduces what had been known as the “marriage advantage.”

Using 1989-2014 data from the General Social Survey, the study found that American adults have sex seven to nine fewer times per year than in the 1990s. Back then, Americans on average had sex 60 to 62 times a year, but in the early 2000s the frequency began to slip, and by 2014 it had declined to less than 53 times a year.

When looking only at married people, the drop was even sharper — from around 73 times a year in 1990 to around 55 in 2014 — bringing their frequency of sexual activity below that of never-married people. People in that group have sex an average of 59 times a year.

C’mon, America — we’re better than this.

IN SOVIET TIME-WARNER, CNN STICKS FORK IN YOU! CNN’s Reza Aslan Sparks Outrage After Eating Human Brain in New Show: It Tastes Like ‘Charcoal.’

I’m so old, I can remember when the notion of CNN anchors devouring the brains of their viewers was only a metaphor. Not to mention, I can remember when Total Coelo promised me that cannibalism would taste much better. (Yet another myth painfully destroyed by Ted Turner’s demon spawn.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqCTGoWMZcQ

As NewsBusters quips on Twitter, “Can’t wait for [CNN spokesman/apologist Brian Stelter] to address the media ethics of human brain-eating on a CNN documentary series.”

TO BE FAIR, HAVE YOU SEEN THE OUTFITS FASHION DESIGNERS DRESS THEMSELVES IN? The Man Who Developed the 911 GT3 Drives a Hemi-Powered RAM 1500. Not only that, it has a Magnaflow exhaust.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Tips for Using a Double-Barrel Shotgun for Home Defense.

TANSTAAFL: New on Your Dinner Tab: a Labor Surcharge.

In lieu of steep menu price increases, many independent and regional chain restaurants in states including Arizona, California, Colorado and New York are adding surcharges of 3% to 4% to help offset rising labor costs. Industry analysts expect the practice to become widespread as more cities and states increase minimum wages.

“It’s the emerging new norm,” said Sharokina Shams, spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Association. She said California restaurants are adding surcharges as the state lifts the minimum wage every year until it reaches $15 an hour by 2023. It is currently at $10.50 an hour for employers with 26 or more workers.
…
Many restaurant owners say they have added surcharges because jacking up menu prices can turn off customers who are sensitive to how much a sandwich or bowl of soup should cost. When prices do rise, “consumers often trade down in the types of menu items they order, choosing a sandwich instead of an entree, or they leave off beverages or dessert,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant analyst for NPD Group Inc.

In other words, diners who can least afford it are getting stuck with a bigger bill anyway — but they can’t see that until the end of the meal, when the check arrives.

Because fairness or something.

UPDATE: In the comments, UncleFedele writes, “In the state in which I owned a restaurant, if the existence of a surcharge wasn’t prominently printed on the menu it could not be charged. If I encountered ‘surprise’ surcharge, either it would be removed from the bill, or the bill would not be paid. I’d love to let the restaurant owner take me to small claims court on that.”

Good to know — thanks for the correction. We don’t (yet) have this kind of nonsense in my neck of the woods, so I haven’t had any experience with it.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Egg Freezing for Millennials: The Latest Start-up Trend.

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Amtrak train freed after being stuck almost 13 hours in 25-foot ND snowbank.

Found via Maggie’s Farm, video of how global warming is removed from Donner Pass by the Union Pacific Railroad:

(Classical reference in headline.)

GAMING THE SYSTEM: Panhandler Begging to Be Arrested Gets His Wish—Then Files a $1.6 Million Federal Lawsuit.

HMMM: A FISA Warrant Was Issued in October to Investigate Russian Hacking.

WELL, YES: China’s Military Budget is Larger Than it Appears.

While Beijing is trying to tamp down the budget controversy, two things, which on their face look contradictory, are becoming apparent. At the same time, the rate of growth of military spending has dramatically slowed and China’s military is in the process of taking over a larger proportion of the Chinese government budget.

We begin with the fascinating rollout of the Chinese military budget. On Saturday, before the start of the annual meeting of the Congress, Fu Ying announced that China will spend “about 1.3 percent” of its gross domestic product on its military this year. That, she said, represented an increase of around 7 percent over 2016.

Fu, a veteran diplomat now serving as a spokeswoman for the Congress, did not give a total figure for the military budget.

The omission became a matter of public controversy on Sunday when, at the opening of the Congress, the Ministry of Finance released its report, which did not include a figure for military spending. “For the first time in decades, Beijing has not revealed its defense spending total for the year despite a stated commitment to transparency in military outlays,” wrote Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

Given how much control the People’s Liberation Army has over big sectors of the economy, and the level of corruption endemic to that sort of thing, Beijing probably doesn’t honestly know how much is being spent on (or by) the military.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Clay Cambridge, Writing E-books: A Brief Overview of a Legitimate Path to Passive Income.

SPYING: CIA Leaks Unsurprisingly Show The Internet Of Broken Things Is A Spy’s Best Friend.

SUCH A NASTY WOMAN. Samantha Bee To Kid With Brain Cancer: You Have Nazi Hair.

UPDATE: Bee has apologized.

HMM: Hawaii Sues to Block Trump Travel Ban; First Challenge to Order.

I’m guessing Hawaii doesn’t have a big problem with illegal border crossings.

I DON’T LIKE THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Nest reportedly planning a cheaper smart thermostat for “under $200.”

REPORT: A FISA Warrant Was Issued in October to Investigate Russian Hacking.

SALENA ZITO: Trump’s voters have high hopes – even if they don’t expect miracles.

Thirty-two former businesses line both sides of Commerce Street. Heading west, two nonprofits and a post office are the only things open on the right-hand side; two bars and a dentist’s office are the only things open on the left.

Grimm sits with five other locals sipping coffee at the Mingo Junction Senior Center. Tom Strohmayer is to his right, Baci Carpico to his left; Fred and Diane Pernick, the husband-and-wife director and secretary of the center, sit across the table with Teresa Elder, at 47 the youngster of the group and the only African-American.

All are Democrats. All except Elder voted for Trump; she didn’t care for any of last November’s candidates.

They’re happy with what Trump has done so far — limiting US entry from certain countries; plans for a wall along the US-Mexico border; taking the ObamaCare bull by the horns — but it’s tax and regulation reform that they all believe will truly help their community.

“Look, we all know the steel jobs aren’t coming back to the degree they once were, nor the coal jobs,” said Grimm. “Honestly, we never expected that.”

Hope tempered by realism strikes me as a much healthier attitude than the wide-eyed rapture received by President Obama during his early days in office.

I HOPE TRUMP AND MATTIS ARE PLAYING TEN-DIMENSIONAL CHESS HERE, BUT IT DOES SEEM ODD: Why Is General Mattis Nominating the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’s Stooge?’

ED MORRISSEY: The GOP Health Plan: A Giant Step in the Wrong Direction or Merely Step One?