THE ART OF THE DEAL: The question is less “What will Trump give up for peace?” and more “What has Kim given up just to talk?”

MICHAEL ISIKOFF AND DAVID CORN: ‘Stand down’: How the Obama team blew the response to Russian meddling.

RETAIL BLUES: Toys ‘R’ Us Is Prepping to Liquidate Its U.S. Operations.

While the situation is still fluid, a shutdown of the U.S. division has become increasingly likely in recent days, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Hopes are fading that a buyer will emerge to keep some of the business operating, or that lenders will agree on terms of a debt restructuring, the people said.

The toy chain’s U.S. division entered bankruptcy in September, planning to emerge with a leaner business model and more manageable debt. A new $3.1 billion loan was obtained to keep the stores open during the turnaround effort, but results worsened more than expected during the holidays, casting doubt on the chain’s viability.

That’s sad. I’ll miss the annual Christmas shopping excursion with my boys.

SAD! ANOTHER INCOHERENT PROTEST THIS TIME BY LAW STUDENTS.

Protests are seldom really about the object of the protest. They are about the protesters, who seek attention for their organizations, their causes, their ideologies, and themselves. And they are about achieving a certain kind of emotional release, bordering on frenzy. The scheduled talk by Christina Hoff Sommers merely provided an opportunity for the protesters to show-off. The protesters showed no interest in disputing her ideas or opinions, except to snatch phrases to fuel their own chants.

In this sense, the protest at Lewis & Clark Law School fits the pattern of recent campus protests which feature bizarre accusations, an astonishing ignorance of history, a fragmented attention span, and a mordantly amusing lack of self-awareness. As the protesters engaged in their act of open aggression aimed at silencing a speaker, they boasted of their opposition to aggression, while Sommers waited patiently and politely at the podium.

Protests at colleges and universities are also typically met with indulgence by the administrators in charge.

The Department of Education needs to police free speech on campus.

IF YOU WANT PEACE, PREPARE FOR WAR: Pentagon Gearing Up for Space Warfare.

UM… Tillerson says ‘talks,’ but no ‘negotiations’ with NKorea.

BEING A “SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCATE” IS ITSELF A SURE SIGN OF PRIVILEGE: UCLA ‘Social Justice Advocates’ resume fight against ‘privilege.’

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THE HILL: Marist poll: Trump job approval rating reaches highest point.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump to Meet with Rocket Man, RUSSIA Update and Much, Much More.

FOR ALL THE TALK ABOUT TRUMP BEING AN INCOMPETENT TODDLER, I notice that Saudi Arabia is liberalizing at a previously unimaginable pace, other Asian countries are siding with us against China, and now Trump’s going to meet with Kim Jong Un, which if he were a Democrat would be celebrated as a masterstroke no matter what the results. But my favorite take is actually Trump’s:

SEE, THIS STUFF EVEN CAN REACH OUT AND TOUCH THE REPTILE BRAIN OF KIM JONG UN: An oldie but a goodie, the USAF Bomber Trifecta.

UPDATE FROM ABOVE: Trump’s joke is priceless (See Glenn’s post immediately above). But it’s also psychological warfare. Hey, Rocket Man, Trump’s in charge of the Bomber Trifecta! This column of mine, written last Tuesday, notes Trump’s use of psychological warfare.

Trump has also engaged “Little Rocket Man” Kim in bouts of name-calling. Trump belittled Kim, and did so with humor. Insulting a dictator’s “dignity” is a potentially valuable act of psychological warfare. Dictators assert invulnerability by using physical threat to silence dissent. Kim’s inability to stop or ignore Trump’s taunts revealed a kind of vulnerability.

The Council on Foreign Relations types went ape when Trump gave Kim bombast for bombast. They missed it. Trump beat Kim in the bombast exchange. Per the Bomber Trifecta, Kim would also lose the bomb blast competition.

DAN MARKEL UPDATE: Accused Hit Man In Dan Markel’s Murder Pleads Not Guilty To New Charges.

JOBS: Jobs jump by 313,000 in February, best since July 2016.

FLASHBACK: Yelling at “scumbags”—inside the White House’s last gaming violence summit.

“I think the first words he said to me were something like, ‘What are we going to do with these scumbags?'”

In the wake of a horrific school shooting, a senior member of the White House appeared ready to take the game industry to task for supposedly desensitizing an entire generation to the horrors of gun violence. But while President Trump has repeatedly called out video games and other violent media in recent weeks, he’s not the one who reportedly called game industry representatives “scumbags” in advance of a White House summit. The above quote is instead attributed to the last senior White House official to host a meeting with the video game industry: Vice President Joe Biden.

These things are pointless, beyond a veneer of “doing something.”

WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S LEADERSHIP OVERRUN WITH UNAPOLOGETIC RACISTS AND ANTI-SEMITES? Third-Highest House Democrat Shared Stage With Farrakhan, Now Refuses To Denounce.

REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: U.S. Media Long Carried Putin’s Water – Odd Given Today’s Hysteria. “In 2007, state-owned publisher Rossiyskaya Gazeta launched Russia Beyond the Headlines, a multi-page full-color broadsheet laid out just like a newspaper and distributed, typically monthly, as an insert by some of the most prestigious names in newspaper publishing, including London’s Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro in France and the Italian daily La Repubblica, reaching an audience estimated at nearly 6.5 million readers. In the United States, the Russian-state media entity partnered with the Washington Post until 2015 and with the New York Times, which confirmed it still bundles the insert into its regular paper. . . . Russia Beyond paints a picture of a normal country, with normal concerns, including reviews of Moscow’s trendy restaurants and reports from the latest ComiCon. The Russia depicted in its pages isn’t working with Iran and the Syrian regime to slaughter civilians and gas children. Rather, it’s a global actor in good standing, whose citizens don’t understand why the United States and European Union placed sanctions on their country in response to the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. It serves not only Russian national interests, but also the personal power plays of President Vladimir Putin.”

That’s different, because shut up.

MICHAEL BARONE: Primary shows Texas not yet turning blue.

ALEX PAREENE: If You Truly Care About Speech, You Will Invite Me to Your Office to Personally Call You a Dipshit.

THAT’S WHAT I’M AFRAID OF: Kamala Harris Says “California Represents The Future.”

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Sick Venezuelans flee to Colombia in mounting refugee crisis.

An 18-year-old woman rubbed her swollen belly after fleeing with her infant daughter when the wounds from her C-section began to ooze pus. A young man whose femur had torn through his skin in a motorcycle crash needed antibiotics for an infection. An elderly retiree with a swollen foot arrived after taking a 20-hour bus ride from Caracas because doctors there told his family the only treatment they could offer was amputation — without anesthesia or antibiotics.

“If you want to sign, sign. But we are not responsible for the life of your father,” Teresa Tobar, 36, quoted the doctors in Venezuela as telling her when they handed over the papers to authorize her father’s surgery.

As Venezuela’s economic crisis worsens, rising numbers are fleeing in a burgeoning refugee crisis that is drawing alarm across Latin America. Independent groups estimate that as many as 3 million to 4 million Venezuelans have abandoned their homeland in recent years, with several hundred thousand departing in 2017 alone.

Socialism means caring for the poor and sick, I’m told.

HMM: Navy, Marine Corps leaders warn that China is ‘weaponizing capital.’

“When it comes to China, the bottom line there is the checkbook,” Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer told lawmakers during a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing.

“Not only in the dollars and cents that they are writing to support their military expansion and their technological work, but what they’re doing around the globe … weaponizing capital.”

Spencer referred to Beijing’s current funding of a Sri Lankan port project, a move not done as aid but rather in order to secure it for themselves.

China has said the project is part of its $1.4 trillion “Belt and Road Initiative,” which is meant to bolster trade routes by extending roads outside the country and building up ports.

“Their open checkbook keeps me up at night,” Spencer said.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, who also spoke at the hearing, said the Chinese “are playing the long game.”

Meanwhile, the US Congress has seemingly given up its primary job of budgeting.

HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS: Can A University Fire Tenured Faculty For Revealing Confidential Tenure Deliberations? Sounds like there’s more than meets the eye in the administration of Dixie State, which I notice has a poor record.

BUT NOT ON THE AIR: Joy Behar apologizes to Mike Pence for anti-Christian remarks.