HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Now is the time to hit the Iranian regime with lower oil prices: For the sake of the Iranian people and global stability, we need to lead the effort in suppressing oil prices beyond what Tehran can bear.

FAUSTIAN BARGAIN: It was very wise for the Golden Globes to hand Oprah an award last night; instead of discussing the embarrassment of the first major awards show in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and Pervnado, the MSM gets to dangle the possibility of Oprah running for the presidency to coastal elite audiences exhausted from nearly two years of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Not to mention, Oprah versus Trump would be ratings gold for the news media, which was in its glory making Obama happen in 2007 and 2008.

For Hollywood, it’s a chance to at least temporarily rebrand from one of its worst scandals. “Remember, they’re not making a big deal because they found out what was going on in Hollywood,” Glenn noted, “They always knew. They’re making a big deal because you found out what was going on in Hollywood.”

However, if this is indeed the high visibility launching point for Oprah 2020; associating herself with the aftermath of Pervnado seems like very poor personal branding: “Actress: Weinstein used Oprah and Naomi[Campbell] to seduce me,” the New York Post reported in late November 28, 2017. And Weinstein and Oprah were quite chummy, as this photo of the two attending the 19th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards back in January 16 of 2014 attests. It quickly made the rounds on Twitter last night. Oprah co-starred in the 2013 film The Butler, produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, whose company distributed the movie.

As Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon writes in his recap of last night, “Oprah kicked off her presidential campaign last night, apparently, so 2020 should be fun. Or horribly depressing. As much as she might want to be president, I can’t imagine Oprah has any interest in campaigning for president—it’s such a slog and the Democratic primary will be a cluttered knife fight and I shudder to think at the nicknames Trump would hurl at her. But I digress. (Important side note: no one who voted for Trump gets to complain about “celebrity candidates” ever again.)”

RETAIL BLUES: JCPenney is going straight for the jugular of its embattled rival.

“We’re going after Sears and we’re going after market share that we think is going to be available not only now but as they continue to contract,” JCPenney CEO Marvin Ellison told Fortune’s Phil Wahba.

Sears has been closing hundreds of stores amid a years-long sales decline. The company said this week it was planning to close 103 Sears and Kmart stores by April, on top of the 63 store closures scheduled at the end of this month. Last year, the company closed nearly 400 stores.

Ellison said JCPenney is gearing up to swallow what remains of Sears’ business, and he suggested that Sears may eventually close all of its brick-and-mortar locations.

“When and if they decide to get out of the brick-and-mortar business we have a very clear understanding of where those locations are,” Ellison told Fortune. “We’re not going to be caught off guard.”

Sears did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What’s left to say?

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Here’s a novel idea: If you don’t like Jeff Sessions’ marijuana decision, change the law.

SARAH HOYT ON TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES:

If you never had to second guess yourself in a professional situation before you refer to current events, for fear you give away your political affiliation, you must be suffering from liberal privilege.

Read the whole thing.

OH: Cleveland Billboards: ‘Abortion Is: Good Medicine, Gender Equality, Life-Saving, Sacred.’

REMINDER: China Hasn’t Won the Pacific (Unless You Think It Has).

In Australia, for instance, White is hardly alone in publicly questioning his nation’s continuing reliance on the U.S. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has voiced similar ideas. And in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has ostentatiously repositioned his country between Beijing and Washington on the thesis — exaggerated, no doubt, but nonetheless telling — that “America has lost” its strategic duel with China.

It would be foolish, then, for U.S. policymakers to simply dismiss the concerns that are emanating from Australia and other Asia-Pacific countries. But it would also be dangerous for U.S. and allied leaders to accept the thesis that China is destined to dominate the region and simply give up on countering Beijing’s ambitions.

China appears imposing today, but it is hardly 10 feet tall. As I discuss in my new book, “American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump,” Beijing is still no match for the U.S. in aggregate national power: Its military budget is still less than half that of the Pentagon’s, and its per capita gross domestic product remains roughly a quarter of America’s, even as its overall GDP approaches parity.

Moreover, China is almost certain to encounter serious economic and political difficulties in the coming years because of the rapidly approaching limits of its existing growth model and the inherent instability of authoritarian rule. It is a fantasy to believe, as U.S. observers sometimes have, that China will collapse or democratize before it is able to make a serious bid for geopolitical supremacy in the Asia-Pacific. But it is hardly preordained that China will be able to maintain, over a period of decades, the impressive trajectory needed to decisively overtake America as the region’s leading power.

In fact, the U.S. and its allies can make it enormously difficult for China to accomplish that objective.

Read the whole thing.

China’s rise, as a local power with territorial ambitions, should practically require its neighbors to gravitate towards the US, which is a far-off power with no territorial ambitions.

It would take a genuine and sustained effort to screw that up, but we did have eight years of Obama.

THE SUICIDE OF EXPERTISE: Psychologist: Having best friends should be banned because it’s ‘exclusionary.’

HMM: Mexico’s Trumpian populist could mean trouble for Donald Trump. “If the left-leaning nationalist wins Mexico’s presidency, it could boost tensions over immigration, trade and border security.”

I hate to have to break this to Politico, but I’m pretty sure those are all already longstanding tensions.

IF YOU CAN’T READ THIS, BLAME A TEACHERS’ UNION: A couple of years ago, my organization published a series of studies that showed that strong union laws depressed states’ economic outcomes. Now, researchers from Cornell have looked at the effect of collective bargaining by teachers’ unions on educational outcomes. The results?

We find robust evidence that exposure to teacher collective bargaining laws worsens the future labor market outcomes of men: living in a state that has a duty-to-bargain law for all 12 grade-school years reduces male earnings by $1,493 (or 2.75%) per year and decreases hours worked by 0.52 hours per week. Estimates for women do not show consistent evidence of negative effects on these outcomes. The earnings estimates for men indicate that teacher collective bargaining reduces earnings by $149.6 billion in the US annually. Among men, we also find evidence of lower employment rates, which is driven by lower labor force participation. Exposure to collective bargaining laws leads to reductions in the skill levels of the occupations into which male workers sort as well. Effects are largest among black and Hispanic men, although white and Asian men also experience sizable negative impacts of collective bargaining exposure. Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we demonstrate that collective bargaining law exposure leads to reductions in measured cognitive and non-cognitive skills among young adults, and these effects are larger for men.

My children’s old middle school principal (a real innovator) used to say that he loved teachers’ union states – because he could visit them and recruit good, hungry young teachers whose careers were stymied by union rules.

ACCOUNTABILITY: A prominent Antifa activist has been ordered to pay $11,100 in attorney fees to the former president of the Berkeley College Republicans for filing a frivolous restraining order against him.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Here’s a novel idea: If you don’t like Jeff Sessions’ marijuana decision, change the law.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: THE BOOK, Hollywood Hypocrites, Miller v. Tapper and Much, Much More.

“THE BOOK” is the new “RUSSIA” and it seems both are a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

ALLIES ONCE MORE: Israeli PM backs Trump critique of Palestinian UN aid agency.

Netanyahu suggested UNRWA’s budget should be transferred to the more far-reaching United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where it would be allocated to those truly in need.

“UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem. It also perpetuates the right of return narrative in order to eliminate the state of Israel. Therefore UNRWA must become a thing of the past,” he said.

Netanyahu voiced a common Israeli criticism that UNRWA was created specifically for the Palestinians, while the UNHCR deals with the rest of the world’s refugees.

“This of course creates a situation where great-grandchildren of refugees who are not refugees are treated as such by UNRWA. And 70 more years will pass and they will have great-grandchildren, so this absurdity must be stopped,” he said.

Maybe something can change, now that the Sunni Arab states need Israeli cooperation against regional threats more than they need the Palestinian thorn in Israel’s side.

IT’S WEIRD HOW TRUMP’S CRITICS KEEP POINTING AT STUFF HE SAYS, WHILE THE STUFF HE DOES SEEMS FINE: Mike Pompeo: North Koreans ‘trying to come up for air’ as they’re being ‘strangled’ by Trump.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo says the North Koreans have reached out to South Korea to begin talks because they’re being “strangled” by President Trump who has made clear their behavior is “unacceptable.”

“The North Koreans are in a tough spot,” Pompeo told “Fox News Sunday.” “President Trump has made very clear that the U.S. policy is denuclearization of the peninsula and that we are going to achieve that. You see the North Koreans doing what they have historically done, reaching out, trying to find space, trying to come up for air when they are being strangled by a president who’s made very clear that their behavior is unacceptable.”

You know?

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT? Good Fight to Explore Impeachment of President Trump by ‘Shameless’ Means.

CBS All Access’ The Good Fight will explore the process in which Democrats — smelling blood in the water after the midterm elections — might seek to impeach President Trump, and the firm of Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad is solicited to help in that endeavor.

Previewing the seventh episode of Season 2, which is tentatively titled “Shameless,” series co-creator Robert King said at the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Saturday, “We’re satirizing the Democratic [party] licking their chops at the possibility of turning the House over, and impeachment. They want to have their ducks in a row when they [potentially regain a majority] in November, so they’re auditioning a lot of law firms to see who would be best to prosecute in an impeachment.”
Enter Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad, which as an African-American firm offers the Democrats an interesting option. “It’s really a satire of Democrats wanting to impeach a sitting president in a way that would make them angry if it were Republicans going after Obama. A lot of it is, ‘If you wanted to execute the 25h Amendment, how would you do it?’”

If The West Wing’s President Bartlett was Hollywood’s fantasy version of President Clinton, then this is Hollywood’s fantasy version of President Trump.

But I wonder who will explain to the producers that invoking the 25th Amendment is not impeachment, nor does it require a Democratic majority in the House.

What a mess.

“MISSPEAKS:” Roll Call: Democratic Candidate Misspeaks When Asked About Potential Influence.

The prominent cancer researcher and political newcomer said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, a top member of leadership, told him he would like to give Keirstead an “early appointment” on the influential Appropriations Committee, and that leaders wanted to make him chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

It turns out that wasn’t the case.

Hoyer’s office denied that the whip made such assertions.

“No, neither of those statements is remotely true,” the Maryland Democrat’s spokeswoman Katie Grant said in a statement.“The idea that Mr. Hoyer would promise a candidate either a chairmanship or a seat on Appropriations is preposterous.”

Weird that he misspoke then.

MICHAEL WALSH: Dear Al Franken: About that Forced Resignation…

APPLE IN THE ERA OF TIM COOK: Tim Cook Stumbles at His Specialty, Shipping Apple Products on Time.

As Apple Inc.’s longtime chief operating officer, Tim Cook was known for ensuring that new products hit the market on schedule.

With Mr. Cook as CEO, though, Apple’s new gadgets are consistently late, prompting questions among analysts and other close observers about whether the technology giant is losing some of its competitive edge.

Of the three major new products since Mr. Cook became chief executive in 2011, both AirPods earbuds in 2016 and last year’s HomePod speaker missed Apple’s publicly projected shipping dates. The Apple Watch, promised for early 2015, arrived late that April with lengthy wait times for delivery. Apple also was delayed in supplying the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, two critical accessories for its iPad Pro.

The delays have contributed to much longer waits between Apple announcing a product and shipping it: an average of 23 days for new and updated products over the past six years, compared with the 11-day average over the six years prior, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Apple public statements.

Longer lead times between announcement and product release have the potential to hurt Apple on multiple fronts. Delays give rivals time to react, something the company tried to prevent in the past by keeping lead times short, analysts and former Apple employees said. They can stoke customer disappointment and have cost Apple sales.

I’ve found the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Apple to be comically ignorant of how the company operates, but this story is a valid critique.

ME IN TODAY’S WALL STREET JOURNAL: Why Do Federal Judges Need Clerks Anyway?

Getting rid of law clerks would eliminate the harassment problem and get judges doing their own work. Justice Louis Brandeis, who served from 1916-39, is said to have observed that the high court’s members “are almost the only people in Washington who do their own work.”

That’s not true anymore. The Supreme Court decided 160 cases in 1945, when each justice had a single clerk. Nowadays it decides about half as many cases with four clerks per justice. Law clerks were unknown for roughly the first century of the American judiciary, and the courts seemed to do fine. As my law students often comment, the older opinions are shorter and more intelligible than the newer ones.

So I propose eliminating law clerks for the lower federal courts. If the workload is too burdensome, we can always add more federal judges, as some are already suggesting. The federal courts already have excellent librarians to help with research, and staff attorneys to deal with frivolous petitions.

The Supreme Court has the additional burden of wading through thousands of certiorari petitions and deciding which cases to hear. That’s probably too much for justices to do on their own, but I’d limit the justices to one clerk each, as in 1945. That would ensure that justices do their own work again—and encourage those who aren’t up to the task to take retirement instead of grimly hanging on while their clerks do all the writing.

As an added advantage, for those concerned with inequality in America, this would break up a chummy system in which elites in academia trade favors with elites in the judiciary for the benefit of select elite graduates.

I hope Congress will pay attention.

RAND PAUL: Recovery after attack ‘was a living hell.’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) discussed his recovery after he was attacked by his neighbor outside of his Kentucky home in November, calling the process “a living hell.”

“It was sort of a living hell for the first four or five weeks,” Paul told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“Couldn’t get out of bed without assistance. Six broken ribs, damage to my lungs two bouts of pneumonia,” he continued. . . .

The incident marked the second time Paul had been attacked last year after he and other members of the GOP congressional baseball team were shot at during practice in June.

The senator was not shot in the attack.

Paul went on to discuss the safety of elected officials while not in the capitol.

“I was also at the baseball field when we were shot at with semiautomatic fire,” he said.

“People don’t want to think it is open season on our elected officials.”

Well, only the Republican ones. Related: Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History.

And not just the elected Republicans: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai canceled his appearance at CES because of death threats.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Federal Investigators Couldn’t Illegally Buy Guns Through Legitimate Websites Despite 72 Attempts.

Between July 2015 and November 2017 investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), following up on a congressional request, tried to make the illegal private gun purchases through a number of online forums and market places. They made 72 attempts over that time but couldn’t complete a single sale using legitimate sites.

In 29 attempts the gun sellers refused the sale after being asked to illegally ship the gun to the buyer. Twenty-seven sellers refused after being told the potential buyer was a felon, domestic abuser, or otherwise prohibited from buying a firearm. Eleven sellers attempted to scam the investigators after finding out they were prohibited from buying firearms with two successfully obtaining money from investigators but never sending the promised firearm. Another five attempts to illegally purchase firearms were ended when the investigators’ accounts were shut down due to suspicious activity.

“Tests performed on the Surface Web demonstrated that private sellers GAO contacted on gun forums and other classified ads were unwilling to sell a firearm to an individual who appeared to be prohibited from possessing a firearm,” Seto J. Bagdoyan and Wayne McElrath of the GAO’s Forensic Audits and Investigative Service section said in a report on the investigation released in November.

I’ve never met a firearms dealer who didn’t take his trade with deadly seriousness.