YEAH, BUT THAT KIND OF DIVISION IS NEEDED, TO SEE THE WAY CLEARLY:  Trump Divides Americans and Un-Americans.

I’M POSITIVE THERE ARE CRAZIER IDEAS.  I JUST CAN’T THINK OF ANY OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD:  Taxing the Internet to Stop Porn.

SO DO WE ALL, NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME CONCERNS AS THE FBI, MIND YOU:  The FBI Has “Grave Concerns”? So Do I.

OH, DEMS, WE’RE NOT LAUGHING WITH YOU:  From the Sublime to the Ridiculous.

TO BE FAIR, THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN PRETTY RACIALLY OBSESSED:

● Shot: The New York Times Is Now a Nazi Paper. Wait, What?

—Headline, Reason, January 29th.

● Chaser: Does the word “Caucasity” — used in the NYT today — express the idea of whiteness as a problem?

—Headline, Ann Althouse, today.

● Hangover: ‘Pinch’ Sulzberger, then publisher of the New York Times, told a crowd at the Metropolitan Museum that “alienating older white male readers means ‘we’re doing something right.’”

—New York magazine, November, 1992.

As Rod Dreher warned last year, the elite left “needs to know [that] you aren’t going to be able to count on conservative people like me to help you oppose the alt-right, because you are their ‘respectable’ left-wing mirror image.”

AT AMAZON, deals on Vitamins and Dietary Supplements.

Plus, save on Kitchen and Housewares.

OPEN THREAD: Thread away.

SARAH HOYT: Social Justice Carpetbaggers Exploit Government-Enforced Injustice.

JIM TREACHER: Make Gitmo Full Again.

Faster, please.

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Democratic lead in generic House ballot collapses from 15 percent to just 2 percent: Poll.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Scientists find method of measuring effects of a fourth dimension.

WHAT ABOUT THE DEBT? If a Republican president can’t address a Republican-controlled Congress without paying lip service to the idea of cutting spending, what good are Republicans?

Okay, a few points, starting with the fact that I actually do care about the debt.

But the demise of the Tea Party movement showed that nobody much in DC cares, in either party. “Lip service” is the most we’ve ever gotten, and not even that when there was even a hint of danger that it might actually be taken seriously.

I think that we simply can’t address the debt, barring an immediate crisis too big to finagle our way out of it, under our current political arrangements. I think Trump may be helpful here not because he cares about the debt — he doesn’t, or, if he does, he realizes that there’s nothing that can be done under existing political arrangements — but because he offers some hope of disrupting current political arrangements. Until those arrangements are disrupted, or the bottom drops out of U.S finances, nothing much can be done.

Alternative take: In 2012 with Mitt Romney, America had a chance at a turnaround artist, and it passed. In 2016, we elected Trump. And his expertise is different.

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: FBI HAS “GRAVE CONCERNS” ABOUT MEMO DESCRIBING FBI MALFEASANCE.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker: “Yeah, well, you know what? I have grave concerns about the politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI under the Obama administration, which I have been writing about since 2010.”

THE TET OFFENSIVE REVISITED: Media’s Big Lie.

Read the whole thing.

PROBLEM: Study shows high usage rates for over-the-counter pain relievers. “There’s a well-known crisis going on with opioid painkiller abuse, but new research reveals a sizable chunk of Americans are popping far too many over-the-counter pain relievers, too. Among those surveyed who take over-the-counter ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), 15 percent admitted to exceeding daily maximum dosage when taking either ibuprofen or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, the study found.”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: We’re actually living in a Golden Age, you know.

HAVING SOLVED ALL OF ITS OTHER MYRIAD PROBLEMS, San Jose City Council Votes To Remove Columbus Statue.

Ban all the things!

ROGER KIMBALL ON TRUMP’S STATE OF THE UNION: Trump Restores The “We.”

I GET IT, BUT WHY PICK THE MOST DEPRESSING MONTH OF THE YEAR? Dry January: What happened when I gave up alcohol for 1 month. I mean, February is arguably worse, but at least it’s only 28 days.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Private payrolls grow by 234,000 in January, vs 185,000 expected.

Plus, also unexpectedly: Trump’s First Year Saw Americans’ Compensation Rise At Fastest Pace Since 2008.

WEIRD: After Trump tariffs, Chinese solar company says it will build U.S. factory.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: New Study: College Makes Students Less Religious.

Why, it’s as if higher education has slowly but radically drifted from its original purpose or something.

IF YOU HAD A DRIVER: 2018 Mercedes-Maybach S560 4Matic.

JORDAN PETERSON AT PRAGER U: Fix Yourself (Video).

Still at #1 on Amazon’s Kindle list of self-help books: Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

Related: Rod Dreher on “Jordan Peterson, Preacher:” “Peterson’s deep concern for the well-being of young men is transparently obvious. Where hardly anyone else seems to care for them, and they are constantly pathologized and stifled by the ascendant orthodoxies of the culture, Peterson is drawn out in compassion towards them. He observes that such young men in particular have been starved of compassion, encouragement, and support. There is a hunger there that the Church should be addressing.”