THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: First XDR typhoid is on the verge of being untreatable, spreading globally.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Missouri’s Governor Was Already in Trouble. A New Felony Claim Adds to That.

SPACE: After Clash, House Science Panel OKs NASA Authorization.

The bill supports $20.7 billion in annual spending while backing White House plans to transition the agency’s human exploration focus from low Earth orbit to the Moon and deep space.

After a 26-7 vote, the bill now moves on to the full House, with an amendment backing a $471 million increase in Earth science spending. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the committee chair, pledged to continue discussions with panel members voicing concerns over future support for space-based weather and climate data gathering and climate change research.

The bill also was amended to call for the construction of a second Mobile Launch Platform at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the Space Launch System (SLS) and to assemble a second Interim Cryrogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) for the SLS. Those are both pacing items for the second test flight of the powerful rocket and the first currently slated to include an Orion capsule with astronauts.

As it stands now, the first uncrewed test flight of SLS and Orion, Exploration Mission 1, a three- to four-week voyage around the Moon and back, is planned between late 2019 and early 2020.

But what about Muslim outreach?

TOO MUCH TIME WORRYING IF THEY COULD, NOT ENOUGH TIME THINKING ABOUT WHETHER THEY SHOULD: Design Firm Wants to Make Air Travel More Dehumanizing Than Ever.

DO THIS: Republicans Push for Vote to Make Tax Cuts Permanent.

WHY IS COMEY ONLY NOW BEING ASKED ABOUT CLINTON’S OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE? The former FBI director was asked this morning by a Washington, D.C. all-new radio host if the former Secretary of State’s destruction of emails from her private server and her cell phones and servers by aides amounts to obstruction of justice. LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst wonders why today is the first time anybody in the mainstream media has asked that extremely relevant question.

CHANGE: Saudi Arabia Prepares for First Public Cinema Opening in 35 Years.

At roughly 9 p.m. in Riyadh (11 a.m. PT), around 600 guests will sit down in a refitted ultra modern conference hall in the King Abdullah Financial District to watch Black Panther usher in a new cultural era for the country.

The Marvel superhero blockbuster – already a major cultural landmark – will add another historic string to its bow when it becomes the first film to get an official public screening in the kingdom at the first movie theater to open there for 35 years. Saudi Arabia lifted its decades-long cinema ban in December.

Awwad Alawwad, Saudi’s minister of culture and information who first announced the end to the ban, is set to attend the event, alongside Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment, which won the first licence to operate movie theaters in the kingdom and runs the Riyadh cinema, one of 350 expected to open across the country by 2030.

THR understands from Disney’s regional distributor Italia Film that just 40 seconds of the film has been removed. While they wouldn’t elaborate on which scenes these came from, the censoring is believed to be in line with cuts made to Black Panther across the region.

Crown Prince Bin Salman’s baby steps towards reform are adding up.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. For Progressives, Moralizing Is Just A Way To Control People.

OFT EVIL WILL SHALL EVIL MAR: The GOP’s best hope for salvaging their congressional majorities is hoping their base turns out. Democrats are worried that their activists could make the GOP’s challenge easier.

TRADE: US Launches Anti-Dumping Probe Into Steel Wheels From China.

NEO-OTTOMANS: Erdoğan seeks to expand Turkey’s influence in the Middle East through diplomacy – and force.

On our third trip to Istanbul, my wife and I visited the 19th century Dolmabahce Palace, once the administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire. As we toured the 285-room palace my wife was struck with not just how well preserved it was, but that it was one of at least five palaces from the Ottoman era in Turkey that are now museums open to the public.

This is telling, because it is not something found across the rest of the Middle East and Arab world, where such palaces are still very much in use as palaces – for example, the nine palaces in Jordan. Turkey is a modern republic created from the heart of the former Ottoman empire, established since the 14th century. Few of the other former regions of the empire across the Middle East and North Africa can boast of such a long political history, with countries such as Jordan not yet even 100 years old.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is well aware of this fact, and does not distinguish between glorious empire and modern republic. “The Republic of Turkey is also a continuation of the Ottomans,” he declared in a recent speech.

Read the whole thing.

SPENGLER: A plea for solidarity with people who don’t order stuff at Starbucks. “The right thing to do in Starbucks is not to order anything, because the coffee is disgusting.”

Analysis: True.

PRETTY PLEASE: Please Stop Predicting the End of Trump’s Presidency. “Unless you can explain exactly how he gets impeached or why he resigns.”

The Professional Left hasn’t done rank-and-file Democrats any favors by keeping them whipped into a “President Hillary could really happen!” frenzy for the last year or so.

ACTUALLY, THAT’S A PRETTY LOW BAR: “Mayor de Blasio and workers from the Housing Authority were outwitted by the rodent.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, ENTITLED-TWITS EDITION: Duke protesters upset THEY were scolded, say alumni at event should have been rebuked. “Instead of actually going to the alumni and saying ‘that’s not appropriate’ or removing them from the space, they were more worried about us.” It’s quite revealing that the students just assumed administrators would take their side and “remove” anyone who contradicted them “from the space.”

DAVID HARSANYI: No, Republican Presidents Aren’t Responsible For Most Of America’s Debt.

Leonhardt, for example, makes a bunch of inconvenient debt that resulted from spending liberals deem “necessary” simply disappear. The stimulus bill championed and signed by President Obama was pegged at $787 billion, but the cost grew to around $2.6 trillion when “automatic stabilizers” — Keynesian spending increases embedded into law — were included. The above graph discounts “automatic stabilizers,” which are both supported by Democrats and a reflection of economic conditions.

While ignoring $1.8 trillion might be politically convenient, the fact is that the day Obama left office, the debt was almost $20 trillion, nearly double what it was when he got there. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the deficit went from just over 52 percent of gross domestic product at the end of fiscal year 2009 to 77 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2016. With all that spending, Obama still oversaw the weakest recovery in American history.

The only other way a person can argue Obama “lowered deficits” is by comparing his first year of historically high deficits — fueled by outlays that he either signed into law, voted for, or supported — to his other years (akthough deficits were again rising by the end of his term). That is deceptive, to say the least.

Many presidents are guilty of growing the debt, but no president in history had ever taken on more than Obama did. And when we stop tipping the scale, and solely compare debt to the percentage of total economic output under all these presidents, we are left with a far different picture than Leonhardt’s selective framing.

Similar trickery was used to minimize American deaths to terrorist attacks, by ignoring the attacks of 9/11/2001.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. John Podesta: Comey Is An ‘Idiot.’

He’s far too kind.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sociology prof swears at conservative student during class. “The student said he had contended that sexual abuse was not a problem exclusively dealt with by women, and that men can be affected too, causing the professor to shout ‘f— your life’ at him.”

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Barbara Bush, RUSSIA, Immigration and Much, Much More.

WARS FOR THE MINERALS YOUR CELL PHONE AND PRIUS NEED.

MICHAEL MUKASEY: Trump, Cohen, and Attorney-Client Privilege: The protection has limits, but is it worth testing them over a possible campaign-finance offense?

After anthrax spores killed five people, infected 17 others, and showed up in envelopes mailed to U.S. senators and media organizations in 2001, the current special counsel, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, spent years chasing and destroying the reputation of a microbiologist named Steven Hatfill, zealous in the belief that Mr. Hatfill was the guilty party. Another zealot, James Comey, then deputy attorney general, said he was “absolutely certain” no mistake had been made.

After Mr. Hatfill was exonerated—he received more than $5.5 million in damages from the government—Mr. Mueller then decided that another microbiologist, Bruce Ivins, was the culprit. When Ivins committed suicide, Mr. Mueller pronounced the case closed. A subsequent investigation by the National Academy of Sciences suggests Ivins too was innocent.

Mr. Mueller is not a bad man, nor is Mr. Comey. It’s just that both show particular confidence when making mistakes, which makes one grateful for safeguards like the attorney-client privilege.

Well, I wouldn’t say that Mueller and Comey are good men. And neither has faced any significant accountability for his mistakes and misbehavior.

SNAKE AND SNIPER CAMOUFLAGE: A southern black race snake slithers over a sniper’s rifle barrel — photo taken at Eglin Air Force Base earlier this month.

THE REAL PROBLEM, AS ELSEWHERE, IS THAT THE ADMINISTRATION ALLOWS DISRUPTIONS BECAUSE IT BASICALLY AGREES WITH THE DISTRUPTORS: CUNY Law School’s First Amendment Problem.