SHOWMANSHIP: Wall funding to be State of the Union demand, direct challenge to Pelosi.

Anxious over the image of shutting down the government four days before Christmas, the White House and congressional Republicans shifted the budget fight over border wall funding to February to make it the focus of President Trump’s State of the Union.

With the administration under fire in some conservative quarters for “caving in” after making repeated threats to shut the government down Friday if a deal for more wall funding wasn’t cut, officials Wednesday afternoon pushed back, claiming it is part of a broader plan to heighten the war with Democrats over securing $5 billion for border security.

“It’s not a retreat, it’s actually a bigger attack,” said a Trump adviser.

The shutdown date was pushed back to Feb. 8, after Trump is scheduled to give his State of the Union to a joint sitting of Congress. It is always the biggest speech of the year.

“The date after the State of the Union gives the president the biggest visible platform,” said another source familiar with the agreement cut today. “This positions us to have the fight when we have the most visibility,” added the source.

Yes, but you won’t have a GOP House anymore. Then again the GOP House you have now hasn’t been any good on this either. I suppose this makes sense if you figure Trump wants a victory — or even a defeat — on the wall to be a 2020 presidential campaign issue, not a midterm issue.

IF IT FEELS GOOD, TAX IT: Federal Judge Strikes Down New York Tax on Opioid Industry.

A federal judge struck down Wednesday a New York law that aimed to collect $600 million from the pharmaceutical industry to help combat the opioid crisis, a ruling that could shape opioid legislation being weighed in other states.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan called the novel law an unconstitutional regulatory penalty on the makers and distributors of opioid painkillers, even as she acknowledged the validity of trying to legislate a solution to the epidemic gripping the nation.

The ruling comes days before a deadline set by New York’s health department to pay the first installment of the levy. Under the Opioid Stewardship Act, $100 million was set to be collectively paid each year for six years by companies that sold or distributed opioids in the state. The first round of bills, retroactive to 2017, were sent to 75 companies and their subsidiaries in November.

This country has a real opioid problem, but this “tax” like nothing more than an attempting mugging by Albany.

REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: Texas Ballot-Fraud Convictions Outpace Past Five Years Combined. Weird, all the best people assured me that this never happens.

DEMOCRATS’ IDEA OF JUSTICE: Can’t get Trump? Indict his children. A great alternative! So says a former Watergate prosecutor, Carter administration official, and executive director of American Bar Association.

STONEWALLING: D.C. Attorney General Sued for Documents Related to Bloomberg Scheme.

A D.C.-based think tank filed suit Wednesday against D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, claiming his office has refused to produce any kind of response to several Freedom of Information Act requests seeking documents related to an environmental legal scheme largely funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In that scheme, Bloomberg funded a new “center” of the New York University School of Law, and the school provides the funding for certain attorneys to be placed within attorney general offices (OAGs) around the country with the sole purpose of pursuing litigation and other legal work related to climate change.

The payment for these attorneys includes their ongoing salaries, so that the OAGs are able to essentially add an extra full-time staff member without having to dip into their budget.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has led the way in obtaining records to uncover the activities across the country, filed the suit asking a judge to compel Racine’s office to fully comply with the requests made under the district’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which closely mirrors the federal law of the same name.

Laws are for the little people.

PRIVACY: How Facebook sneakily uses IP data & more for targeted ads, even if users disable all location settings.

Aleksandra Korolova, a University of Southern California computer science professor, has shared a post on Medium diving deeper into Facebook’s targeted ad technology. Specifically, Korolova focuses on how Facebook is able to deliver location-based ads even if you disable location services.

Korolova says that she has the Location History functionality disabled through Facebook’s website, and has Location Services for Facebook on iOS set to “Never.” She adds that her Facebook profile does not contain her current city, nor has she uploaded photos to Facebook or posted content tagged with her location. Korolova says she also doesn’t share location with WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook Manager.

Despite this, however, she says she continued to see ads targeted for “people who live near Santa Monica” and “People who live or were recently near Los Angeles.” Korolova lives in Santa Monica and works in Los Angeles. Further, some of the ads were accompanied by an explanation saying Korolova was “recently near their business.”

With all of this in mind, Korolova dug deeper into how Facebook gathers location data for its targeted advertising. In Facebook’s “How Facebook ads work” explainer, the company says it gathers data from sources including “Where you connect to the Internet” and “Where you use your phone.”

Plus: Facebook collects user data from apps like Tinder, OKCupid and others.

Yesterday: Amazon and Facebook Reportedly Had a Secret Data-Sharing Agreement, and It Explains So Much.

And a rhetorical question: Why Should Anyone Believe Facebook Anymore?

POLITICS: Republicans slam Trump over plan to withdraw troops from Syria.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close Trump ally, said it would be an “Obama-like mistake” to remove American troops. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called it a “grave error” and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Trump’s declaration that ISIS has been defeated is “simply not true.”

“An American withdrawal at this time would be a big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al Assad of Syria, and Russia,” Graham said in a statement. “I fear it will lead to devastating consequences for our nation, the region, and throughout the world.”

Earlier in the day, two senior defense officials and a third person familiar with the plan told NBC News that the U.S. is preparing to withdraw a significant number of the roughly 2,000 troops that remain in Syria.

Trump has been telegraphing the move for most of the past year at campaign rallies and in other venues.

“We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS,” he said in March. “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”

The only interest the US has in Syria is keeping the terrorist threat to us down, and if we can do that without boots on the ground, that would be great. Keeping Iran in check is more of an Israeli/Saudi interest, and their de facto alliance works well enough.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’m pretty agnostic on Syria, as noted below, but this is hard to argue with:

CHANGE: Navy To Begin Arming Subs With Ship-Killer Missile. “It’s a major shift after decades in which submarines focused on projecting power ashore, with their only anti-ship weapons being their rarely-used torpedoes.”

The effort to bring a modernized Harpoon back to the submarine fleet coincides with the delivery of the first Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) to operational Air Force units, a delivery announced Dec. 18. The precision-guided missile is designed to detect and destroy specific targets operating within groups of ships by identifying the target using links to drones or aircraft. An air-launched variant has been successfully tested aboard the Air Force’s B-1 bomber on a number of occasions, and it’s on schedule to achieve early operational capability on the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet in 2019. Contractor Lockheed Martin has also test-fired LRASM from the same Vertical Launch System tubes used on Navy cruisers and destroyers.

Over the last handful of years, the Pentagon has made a concerted effort to get its ship-killing ability back, first under Obama’s last Defense Secretary Ash Carter and his deputy Bob Work — part of what they called the Third Offset Strategy — and under Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whose focus on “lethality” picked up the offset effort under a new tagline.

Good.

JOHN ELLIS: Meet the Left-Wing Troll Who Creates Fake News to Expose Conservative ‘Stupidity.’ “‘Say what you want about me being a monster. I’m pretty proud,’ Christopher Blair said.”

ON WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO, TIM WU: The Role Of Antitrust Laws In An Era Of Big Banks, Pharma, And Tech.

ON THIS DAY IN 1976, CHICAGO MAYOR RICHARD J. DALEY DIED SUDDENLY: Columnist Mike Royko penned this obit:

If a man ever reflected a city it was Richard J. Daley and Chicago.

In some ways, he was this town at its best—strong, hard-driving, working feverishly, pushing, building, driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful.

In other ways, he was this city at its worst—arrogant, crude, conniving, ruthless, suspicious, intolerant.

He wasn’t graceful, suave, witty, or smooth. But, then, this isn’t Paris or San Francisco.

He was raucous, sentimental, hot-tempered ,practical, simple, devious, big, and powerful. This is, after all, Chicago.

Sometimes the very same Daley performance would be seen as both outrageous and heroic. It depended on whom you asked for an opinion.

For example, when he stood on the Democratic National Convention floor in 1968 and mouthed furious crudities at smooth Abe Ribicoff, tens of millions of TV viewers were shocked.

But it didn’t offend most Chicagoans. That’s part of the Chicago style—belly to belly, scowl to scowl, and may the toughest or loudest man win.

Daley was not an articulate man, Saul Bellow notwithstanding. Maybe it’s because so many of us aren’t that far removed from parents and grandparents who knew only bits and pieces of the language.

So when Daley slide sideways into a sentence, or didn’t exit from the same paragraph he entered, it amused us. But it didn’t sound that different than the way most of us talk.

Besides, he got his point across, one way or another, and usually in Chicago style ….

Yes, that was Daley.

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HIT THE PAYPAL DONATE BUTTON: I sent thank you emails to everyone I got notification emails for, but if I missed you, well, thanks!

THE PRICE IS QUITE LOW: The AmazonBasics Microwave.

Plus Shop Amazon – Top Gift Ideas.

GREAT AGAIN: DC-area federal government workforce continues to shrink.

NOW OUT FROM AUSTIN BAY: Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century. Like all of his stuff it’s clear, concise, and deeply informative.

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

BEING EVIL: I was a contract worker in Google’s caste system—and it wasn’t pretty.

THERE ARE CERTAIN TOWNS IN MINNESOTA I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO INVADE MAKE UP FAKE NEWS: Don’t Mess with Fergus Falls.

In 2017, the German magazine Spiegel sent a reporter to Fergus Falls, Minn., to write a story about Deep Trumplandia.

Unfortunately for Spiegel, Fergus Falls residents Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn read the story (which is no longer available, for reasons you’ll discover below), and wrote a stunning exposé on all the things he got wrong. “Got wrong” is too benign a characterization. The reporter, Claas Relotius, just made things up.

* * * * * * * *

How on earth did Relotius think he was going to get away with this stuff? Truth is, prior to the Internet, he probably would have, given that few if any of the town’s residents would have seen the article, which flatters the prejudices of liberal Europeans, and if they had seen it, who would have heard their protest?

There’s a happy ending: Spiegel fired Claas Relotius today for being a lying liar who has lied about more than Fergus Falls. 

Read the whole thing.

(Bumped.)

DOESN’T THIS MEAN HIS CONSENT WAS BASED ON FRAUD, AND THE WHOLE MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ONE LONG RAPE? My husband doesn’t know I’m trans. “Now, four years later, Carlos and I are happy and madly in love! It has been a roller coaster, but we couldn’t be happier. But it’s this happiness that is causing me such pain because Carlos feels that it is time to add to our happy family. He is excited to be a father and his face lights up at the very thought. So how do I break his heart? How do I tell him that all of our trying has been in vain because, despite my best efforts to be the person I always felt I was, I’m still not who he thinks I am?”

Actually, I’m sure that doesn’t apply to members of special protected groups.

VARIOUS TAKES: Trump Courts Catastrophe If He Leaves Syria.

If You Support Democracy and the Rule of Law, You Should Applaud Trump Getting the Hell Out of Syria.

I don’t know what I think, though it’s amusing to see the people who cheered Obama’s disastrous withdrawal from Iraq dragging Trump here. And the two aren’t comparable: Iraq was in good enough shape in 2010 that Obama’s operation was bragging about it, while Syria is still a mess. America had a huge investment in Iraq, and had made a difference, which was squandered on withdrawal. We have no such investment in Syria, and it’s not clear how much of a difference we’ve made, other than killing a few hundred Russian “volunteers,” which was admirable for the message it sent but made no major difference on the ground.

When Obama wanted to send large numbers of troops to Syria, basically no one here at home wanted to do it (except John McCain), and then Putin talked him out of it, so Obama let Russia in. We still wound up with a couple of thousand there, but the mission and strategy are unclear. And the “moderate” Syrians seem to mostly be Al Qaeda. So it looks like a mess, and a fairly low-stakes mess at present compared to other problems; Syria seems more like a quagmire for Putin than a win. This is especially true as the Middle East matters less now that the U.S. is a net oil exporter and the world’s largest oil producer. (Have you hugged a fracker today?)

So I can’t get too excited. Am I missing something? If so, tell me in the comments.

UPDATED: This was in the revered Weekly Standard: “Obama has accommodated leaders hostile to America, like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Bashar al-Assad in Syria.” But now we’re hearing — from people who praised Obama’s foreign policy skills — that it’s Trump who’s a Putin puppet. I’m willing to be convinced that pulling out of Syria is a mistake, but you’re going to have to convince me. You can’t just yell about Putin because that cuts more ways than you think.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s what may be driving a US troop withdrawal from Syria. “A confrontation between the U.S and Turkey, officially NATO allies, would create a geopolitical crisis at the heart of the world’s most powerful military alliance.”

I say, give the Kurds a few nukes to even the odds with Turkey, and say goodbye. We probably have a few of the old Soviet backpack models stashed away somewhere.

A HERO FOR OUR TIMES: Baltimore Woman Says She’ll Use Gun Buyback Cash to Pay for an Even Bigger Gun.

REMY: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas — EV Tax Credit Edition (Video).

JUST NBC THE FAKE NEWS: America Is Not the Fifth Most Dangerous Country for Journalists, You Idiots.

Second (and I don’t want to come across as glib here, because even one death is a tragedy), the grand total of journalists killed in the U.S. this year was six. The global total was sixty-three. The death of a journalist is a very, very rare event, rare enough that even a small number of unlikely incidents is enough to catapult a nation into the ranks of the “most dangerous.”

Of course, that’s exactly what happened. On June 28th, a deranged man with a vendetta against local Maryland newspaper Capital Gazette walked in and killed four employees in the single worst attack on journalists in modern U.S. history. The other two deaths were journalists covering Tropical Storm Alberto in North Carolina, killed when a tree fell on the highway. Both tragedies, but clearly outliers rather than barometers for the level of danger faced daily by American journalists.

Here we hit upon the third point; the number of journalists “killed” was compiled regardless of the manner of their death or the perpetrators. When it comes to calculating threats to journalism, no one would say that a freak accident like a tree falling should be treated like an ISIS execution, or that a local crazy is like a Saudi prince. But that’s the result if you use the raw number of deaths as a stand-in for “danger.”

Exit quote from Twitchy’s take on the above (non) story: “Obama spied on and tried to jail journalists: meh. Trump says mean things on Twitter about biased American media: ‘add the US to the list!’”