PHILIP KLEIN: Confessions of a Russiagate agnostic.

Being agnostic about Russiagate is challenging for a political commentator. Russia has dominated the news for the past two years, and people on each side have passionate and confidently held views. It seems either they’re convinced that Trump colluded and attempted to cover it up, or they’re convinced that it’s all a nothingburger cooked up to delegitimize the Trump presidency.

On such a polarizing issue that’s played a central role in our political debate, it’s been difficult to take a wait and see approach before forming a strong opinion. But it’s also hard to feel confident about any narrative without knowing more.

In the absence of any report from special counsel Robert Mueller, much of the commentary involves speculation about what he does or doesn’t know. Those convinced Trump is being railroaded assume Mueller just keeps dragging out the investigation because he’s found nothing, while those convinced of his guilt assume Mueller is slowly and carefully building a case that will corner Trump.

I’ve been reluctant to get too far ahead of my skis in either proclaiming Trump’s innocence or declaring his guilt.

What’s made me particularly wary is that there has been a steady stream of stories that have been promoted as being “bombshells,” that either end up being corrected, and/or turn out upon further analysis and with the benefit of context, to be less dispositive than initially advertised.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire — smoke screens excepted, of course — but so far Mueller hasn’t even produced much smoke.

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: Space travel won’t turn germs into superbugs.

WHY WON’T PELOSI AND SCHUMER NEGOTIATE? Build the wall and allow DACA recipients like me to stay in America, the only country I know and love.

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Get Ready for a Financial Assault on the Second Amendment.

ROBERT SPENCER: Toronto Synagogue Backs Out of Hosting Conference on Threats to Freedom: It’s ‘Islamophobic.’ “Apparently there is no jihad threat, and those who say there is must be silenced.“

FASTER, PLEASE: Boeing’s “Transonic” Wings Will Power Airliners to Nearly the Speed of Sound. Technically, it’s the engines that “power” the aircraft, but hey, headline writers don’t care about your pedantry. The article also mixes Mach numbers and miles per hour so that it isn’t obvious just how much faster these planes are.

JIM GERAGHTY: Fifteen Things You Didn’t Know about Elizabeth Warren. “Warren was, at one point, a passionate advocate for school-voucher programs. As she joined the Democratic party and became increasingly prominent in it, Warren’s position changed. By 2018, she was denouncing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for ‘using her vast fortune to bankroll radical K–12 ‘school choice’ policies and private voucher programs,’ and she decried voucher programs as an effort to ‘further drain funds from public education and programs serving low-income and working Americans’.”

She fell into line quickly.

I’M NOT SAYING THAT IT’S ALIENS. BUT IT’S ALIENS. Repeating Radio Signals Are a Deep Space Mystery and Astronomers Just Found a Second One.

HAIL, CAESAR: US officials say it’s safe to eat romaine lettuce again.

BE OUT, BE PROUD: Ana Navarro Loses It When Steve Cortes Says She’s On The Left.

HEALTH: This mobile app could offer sweet relief from tinnitus.

If you’re one of the millions that suffer from this condition — a strange ringing or buzzing in the ear — coping can be a constant struggle. Diapason, a French startup, has distilled some of the best treatments into a mobile app that people can use anywhere. It offers a series of three-to-five minute activities, served through daily collections, that are personalized to the particular frequency or pitch that your ears are struggling with. The activities are basically mini-games that can, the company claims, deliver tangible results in as little as two weeks.

I suffered from tinnitus as a side effect during both bouts of hyperthyroidism, and the only permanent relief from the crazy-inducing randomness of it was having my thyroid gland nuked. But tinnitus has many other causes, so if this app works as promised, that’s a huge relief for perhaps millions.

IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN DEMOCRATS KEEP DOING IT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Former Obama Tech Guy Behind 2018 Midterm Disinformation Campaign on Facebook. “Designed to suppress the Republican vote.”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: It’s 2019, so what did Blade Runner get right and wrong about business, economics, and technology?

THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Starbucks’ Needle Disposal Boxes and Chai Latte.

I’M BEGINNING TO THINK THIS WHOLE THING WAS OVERSOLD: Tax Revenues From Legalization Of California Pot Sales Are 34% Below Projections.

A MODEST CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM: People keep informing me that I can’t claim that Angela Davis was involved in the criminal conspiracy that resulted in the murder of a judge because a jury acquitted her.

This reflects a common misconception that being “acquitted” in a criminal trial means that the defendant was found to be “innocent.” What it actually means is that the jury found that “the prosecutor failed to prove that the defendant was guilty (a) of the precise crime charged and (b) beyond a reasonable doubt.” (On (a), a prosecutor may, for example, have a slam-dunk case on negligent homicide, but decide for strategic reasons to only charge first degree murder, and fail to persuade the jury that the defendant met the specific criteria of that charge.)

It wouldn’t solve the entire problem, but I think it would help clarify things if instead of “guilty/not guilty,” the jury form provided for “proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime(s) charged”/”not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime(s)” charged/and “likely innocent of the crime(s) charged.”

Besides clarifying matters, it would be informative to the public and a prosecutor’s supervisor if a prosecutor more than very infrequently pursued prosecutions that resulted in “likely innocent” verdicts.

UPDATE: That whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing? That’s in the eyes of the law. If the jury acquits OJ, the government has to treat him as “innocent.” I, on the other hand, can conclude for my own purposes that he is 100% guilty based on the evidence presented.

CRYING WOLF FOR FUN AND PROFIT: I’m really not inclined to give any more oxygen to the trainwreck that is Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, it’s a rare time I agree with Whoopi Goldberg about anything, but in this case, AOC ought to take Whoopi’s advice and slow her roll.

But she or her handlers just can’t take a hint. Ever the victim, she tweeted this morning that:

“For those out of the loop, Republicans began to circulate a fake nude photo of me. The @DailyCaller reposted it (!) and refused to indicate it was fake in the title as well.”

Well, (avert your eyes!) here’s the “nude” photo in question:

OMG OMG OMG! Call the Vice Squad! Speaking of Vice, they even got a bunch of foot-fetishists to weigh in on the validity of the photo that had been rattling around the web for months before the DC published the story about the fake photo.

But morons gonna moron, and the media swallowed her latest “I’m a victim!” cry hook, line and sinker. People Magazine gullibly called it a nude in their lede, and Newsweek insists on using the phrase “fake nude” in their headline (tasty clickbait!) even though the story explains that it’s neither a nude nor a picture of AOC.

Sooner or later, she’ll have a legitimate grievance, but who in their right mind will take her seriously? Wait…don’t answer that…

**Disclosure: I write a bi-weekly column on media for The Daily Caller.**

MICHAEL WALSH: Prizzi’s Honor, Seed of Chucky.

Trump’s best play, then, is to string out the shutdown as long as possible, keeping the pressure on the Democrats either to acknowledge the problem on the border, and the moral necessity of protecting the country from what amounts to a slow-motion invasion — a reconquista — from the Latin south, or to simply drop all pretense and come out for the abolition of the country as founded, on the grounds of, you know, racism.

As Maerose Prizzi and her consigliere are discovering, what can’t go on forever, won’t.

Read the whole thing.

KING OF THE HILL OF BEANS: As Venezuela falls apart, Maduro poised for six more years as president.

PRIVACY: Taking the smarts out of smart TVs would make them more expensive. “It’s not just about data collection. It’s about post-purchase monetization of the TV.”

That seems like a distinction without much difference.

IT’S A BAD IDEA TO GO AFTER BLOGGERS: Public university pays professors $650,000 for trying to shut down their blog.

PROCUREMENT: As the Last Zumwalt-Class Vessel Launches, the Stealth Destroyer’s Fate Remains Deeply Uncertain. “The Navy still hasn’t said what it’s going to do about the fact that it can’t afford the ammo for the boats’ fancy guns.“

The service now has three destroyers with no ammunition for their long-range guns, which was the entire point of building them to begin with. The Navy is reportedly planning to reconfigure the destroyers as hunter-killers, meant to seek out and attack enemy ships and land targets with precision-guided missiles. In such a case, the Zumwalts would rely on the 80 vertical-launch missile silos per ship to provide offensive firepower.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Marines are still awaiting the fire-support replacement for the Iowa-class battleships, 26 years after the last battleship was retired.

What a mess.

VIDEO OF MAN WITH DEAD RACCOON IN SAN FRANCISCO MCDONALD’S SPARKS HEALTH CONCERNS:

Chris Brooks went live on Facebook on Sunday morning after he saw a man put a bloody, dead raccoon on a table of a McDonald’s in San Francisco.

Brooks says he was heading to work and about to get breakfast at the McDonald’s on Potrero Avenue and 16th Street when he recorded a now-viral video of a man sitting in front of the raccoon and another man grabbing the carcass from the table, leaving behind a trail of blood, before throwing the animal into a garbage can outside.

The video has accumulated over 4,000 shares and 127,000 views on Facebook as of Wednesday afternoon.

The footage shows a man with grey hair, dressed in all black, sitting with his hands on the table by the dead raccoon and a woman, who appears to be a McDonald’s employee, saying something to him while pointing outside.

The man in black got up from his seat, walked around the fast-food chain and appeared to speak to a few people inside before another man in a tie-dye sweater and gloves got up from his seat, picked up the raccoon and threw it out in the garbage.

And the hits just keep on coming in America’s “Progressive” paradise: Another day, another head-stomping on the streets of San Francisco.