SALENA ZITO INTERVIEWS JEFF SESSIONS: FBI needs ‘to have a fresh start.’

“Well, I have believed it was important to have a fresh start at the FBI, and actually, it was in my letter to the president when I recommended Comey’s removal. I used the words, ‘fresh start,’ and the FBI director is Chris Wray, a very talented, smart, capable leader.

“I think it will give them an opportunity to go straight to the American people and say, ‘we are gonna win your confidence,’ ” he said.

When asked if he was concerned that the FBI had become too politicized, Sessions said the agency needs to be careful.

“Well, I would just say it this way. The Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, we all, we tend to be defensive. At this point in time, I think we need to go the extra mile to make sure that everything we do is not political. Everything we do is based on law and facts. And, whether we like it or not, there’s been erosion some in the confidence of the American people at the FBI and Department of Justice,” he said.

“And we need to earn that back, and because the heart and soul of the Department of Justice is very good,” he said.

A generous estimate is that there’s yet a long way to go.

IT DOESN’T HAVE A FLAMETHROWER, THOUGH: DJI’s Mavic Air drone is the best flying machine you can throw in your backpack.

IF? What if the Iran Deal Was a Mistake? “I supported Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement. Now I think it may have made things worse.”

ROBO-WARSHIPS: The U.S. Navy Just Got the World’s Largest Uncrewed Ship.

LIONEL CHETWYND: ‘They All Do It’: That Insidious Defense of the Elites. “They don’t all do it, and the guilty should meet justice.”

Off topic, but I’ve always thought that Lionel Chetwynd has the best-ever John Houseman name.

ANNALS OF SEXISM: Making fun of the “mancold” — it’s sexist but it’s okay because it’s against men.

CHANGE: Navy USS America Amphib Gets New Tweaks for F-35B Attacks.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: Watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today.

The Falcon Heavy rocket is essentially a turbocharged version of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. It is the same height and its central booster looks the same. But attached on the sides are two additional Falcon 9 boosters, which triples the thrust at liftoff. That means that the Heavy will be able to lift far heavier payloads, up to 140,000 pounds, to low-Earth orbit.

The rocket is sitting on Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That’s the same starting point of some of NASA’s most famous achievements, including Apollo 11 in 1969, the first mission that took astronauts to the moon, and the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

SpaceX will broadcast the launch on its website, spacex.com, beginning at 1:10 p.m. Eastern, and on YouTube. We’ll add the live video feed to this page once it becomes available.

That’s just under an hour from now…

PRIME MINISTER ZOOLANDER ORDERS YOU TO UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY: Justin Trudeau interrupts woman to tell her to use ‘peoplekind’ instead of ‘mankind’ because ‘it’s more inclusive.’

I’ll let the great Doctor Dalrymple speak for me on this issue. Or to put it another way: No.

Related:

Heh, indeed.™

REMEMBER 2006: Democrats are outraising GOP House incumbents in dozens of races: The latest 2018 fundraising numbers look bad for Republicans. The press will be playing up Dem chances from now until November, of course, but I remember in 2006 telling folks in Washington that the GOP was in trouble and being ignored. And for ordinary folks, you can do a lot more by picking a race — even if it’s not in a state or district where you live — and volunteering/donating than by tweeting or posting blog comments.

HMM: Russia’s retaliation for downed jet has just begun.

The downing didn’t make many headlines in the US, but the results might:

Franz Klintsevich, the first deputy chair of the Russian Senate Defense and Security Committee, didn’t mince words, saying he was “absolutely positive” the MANPADS, or man-portable air-defense systems, “had been supplied to the terrorists by the United States via third countries.” Also, he said, Western countries may be trying to provoke certain reactions.

“Today, we are undergoing a very complicated process, and provocations” are a useful tool. “The situation in the area is under Turkey’s control and [the downing of the jet] could have served to exacerbate the Russian-Turkish disagreements. I think Western intelligence services [also damaged] our further relations with the United States,” said Klintsevich, a hard-liner and a staunch critic of the United States.

“Our Defense Ministry is now conducting a serious investigation to find out who was behind this attack,” he said. “But in this complex configuration of military actions, the role of American intelligence is becoming clear. They want to discredit our work on the fight against terrorists, and such provocations will continue.”

This view is in line with earlier Russian statements regarding chemical attacks in Syria and possible US military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There’s a firm belief in Moscow that Washington has been seeking to derail Russian political initiatives. A recent Russian Foreign Ministry press release said, “The US’ stubborn desire to enact in Syria the scenario previously applied in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya is glaringly obvious.”

Whoever shot down and killed Russian Maj. Roman Filippov and however they did it, Moscow is making anti-US hay out of it.

GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTHCARE WILL BE SO AWESOME: East coast residents receive false tsunami warning from National Weather Service.

PLACE YOUR BETS, FOLKS: Forcing bakers to make gay wedding cakes violates free speech, a California judge rules. The court said:

“A wedding cake is not just cake in Free Speech analysis. It is an artistic expression by the person making it that is to be used traditionally as centerpiece in the celebration of marriage. There could not be greater form of expressive conduct. Here… They plan celebration to declare the validity of their marital union and their enduring love for one another.”

Who wants to take bets that the Cal Supremes will flip this, or if they don’t, lawfare activists will try a writ of mandamus in federal court?

TYLER O’NEIL: This is why we need evidence, not just memos.

Hell, just release everything but the launch codes and the NOC list.

WELL, GOOD: Trump Admin Thwarts Irish Effort to Boycott Israel, Criminalize Trade.

The Irish Parliament was poised last week to pass a major piece of legislation that would make it crime to engage in trade with Israelis. The bill, which was seen as part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, would have imprisoned Irish citizens who purchased souvenirs in Israel for a maximum of five years and subjected them to a fine of more than $310,000.

Upon learning of the effort, senior Trump administration officials in the State Department are said to have scrambled to open up channels to Irish leaders in a bid to scuttle the bill and avoid a standoff with the Irish government over the measure.

Trump administration officials are said to have made clear to Irish leaders that passage of the bill would put them starkly at odds with the United States and subject them to inclusion on a list of countries supporting boycotts of the Jewish state.

Given enough arm-twisting, someday European countries might give Israel the same level of respect now given by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Lefty Fantasies of Cutting Off Red State Subsidies Aren’t Reality:

I have lost count of the number of times in the past few weeks I’ve seen someone complain that the new tax law makes the disparity between donor blue states and recipient red states even worse. Turnabout is fair play, they said: If you want to jack up our taxes, then you should darn well wean yourself off of the federal teat.

Which got me thinking: Is it even true that red states are net recipients of blue state largess?

In fact, it’s not as clear as liberals think that the system consists of “Makers and Takers,” with the blue states making the money, and the red states taking it. That belief seems to come from a years-old graphic, based on data that dates back to the middle of the George W. Bush administration.

Plus, the danger that red states won’t mind:

Maybe the system is now so unfair to rich liberals that this is the way we should go. And given how impossible it is for them to get anything done in the federal government these days, blue-state liberals might want to offer Republicans a compromise: We’ll get rid of federal taxes and programs, and it’s every state for itself. If you genuinely think it’s an outrage that red states collect so much federal money, you should probably be eager for the trade.

But think carefully before you make that proposal. Because if liberals offer to dismantle the New Deal and return to genuine federalism, they might just find that Republicans are eager to take that deal.

Endorsed.

HMM: National GOP breaks glass in Pennsylvania race.

The day after Conor Lamb won the Democratic nomination to run in a special election in this very pro-Donald Trump House district, Republican strategist Corry Bliss knew his party had another special election problem on its hands.

Bliss, who heads the main super PAC for House Republicans, arrived at his office at 6:30 a.m. and played an internet clip of Lamb, a telegenic 33-year-old former federal prosecutor and Marine veteran, speaking at a Democratic gathering. Then Bliss pulled up a video on social media of the Republican candidate he was tasked with helping, 59-year-old state legislator Rick Saccone.

“I realized this would be a race,” Bliss said.

Since that November morning, the Republican Party has launched a massive campaign to save a House seat here in the heart of Trump country. A loss in the March 13 contest — coming just months after its embarrassing defeat in the Alabama Senate race — would portend a potential blowout in the November midterms.

Nearly every corner of the GOP is involved. The White House is working closely with Saccone and dispatching President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to the suburban Pittsburgh district on his behalf. The House Republican campaign arm has begun a $2 million TV offensive and is aggressively pressing party lawmakers to help fund the candidate. Bliss’ group, Congressional Leadership Fund, is deploying dozens of field staffers, who braved frigid winds last weekend as they canvassed for votes.

If there’s a Blue Wave coming — and the data are mixed — unlike 2006, the GOP seems to be taking the possibility seriously this time.

SUBLIBERAL ADVERTISING: “While watching TV advertising, I often get the feeling I’m being lectured to. The Super Bowl [this past Sunday] was a series of lectures with this message: ‘As often as we’ve tried to educate you people out there in flyover country, you remain resistant to our efforts to civilize you. We continue to detect traces of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in your makeup; and so it’s our moral imperative to disabuse you of those ideas.’…These lectures are so important to the woke folk on Madison Avenue that the corporations—and the ad agencies that do their bidding—spend untold millions of dollars in which the products themselves never make an appearance. There was nary a phone in the T-Mobile ad, and no macaroni showed up in the Kraft ad.”

It’s likely no coincidence the T-Mobile ad pounded home one of Obama’s favorite word in 2008, with the slogan “Change Starts Now,” and Hyundai’s maudlin cancer-themed ad included his other favorite solipsism in its title, “Hope Detector.” And then there was Dodge’s remarkably unseemly tone-deaf notion to sell four-wheel drive pickups with a Martin Luther King speech.

Last year, pre-Weinstein, when Meryl Streep used her lifetime achievement award speech at the Golden Globes as an anti-Trump manifesto, Rod Dreher wrote:

It looks as if we are becoming a culture where if you aren’t 100 percent in favor of something, then you are ipso facto the enemy. It reminds me of Milan Kundera’s writing about “kitsch” in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

Whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch. When I say “totalitarian,” what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree “Be fruitful and multiply.”

… In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it.

And while the media, Madison Avenue, and likely many in the Fortune 500 despise Trump, their overreach (once again) in response to him — and more importantly, his supporters — has done much to expose the oikophobic worldview that lies behind our not so elite “elite.”

SUPER SIZE ME: Chemical found in McDonald’s fries may be cure for baldness, study finds.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, MANDATORY-INFLATING EDITION: New Mexico considers forcing students to apply for college. “Two state legislators in New Mexico are looking to make high school students submit a college application in order to graduate. Students who do not wish to file an application–which costs $25 at the University of New Mexico–would have to document alternative post-graduation plans, such as an internship or military service.”

Remember, kids, you belong to the state, not to yourselves.

AT AMAZON, Save on Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.

Plus, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

Also, Kindle Daily Deals, and today’s Digital Deals.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Second Amendment law lessons: Look beyond the courts for freedom.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Battle of the Memos, Clinton Cartel Fed Into to Steele and Much, Much More. “HPSCI chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) revealed yesterday that the FISA warrant to spy on campaign volunteer Carter Page included a footnote to the court informing them that the dossier alleged to be the centerpiece of the FISA application ‘might be political’.”

It’s only February, but that might be the Understatement of the Year.