JOHN ALTHOUSE COHEN: Why I’m Still Talking About Covington.

You could give various responses about the larger significance of the debacle, that some people haven’t adequately recanted, etc.

But I want to add something, which is that this feels personal because it could so easily happen to any of us. The encounter was so mundane that you have to wonder what other non-events will be used to try to destroy you or me. It happened to be video-recorded not because it mattered, but because that’s just so easy with 2019 technology.

I didn’t have to worry about that when I was 16, but I can’t help thinking: what would it have been like if this had happened to me when I was 16? Are some people not having that thought because they see him as the Other, and consequently lack empathy for him?

I also think about what will happen if I ever have a kid. Would my 16-year-old always stay on the right side of the face police? Or might he occasionally be awkward at that age? What if he had some kind of a mental or physical disability that caused him to have facial expressions or body movements that people took the wrong way? (I say “he” because so much of the vituperation that’s been directed at the Covington kids has been explicitly based on their gender.)

In the past few days, I’ve been under the weather (getting better now, so don’t worry about me), and sometimes as I’ve stood around in a public place, I’ve stopped to think: hey, I might have had an inappropriate facial expression just now, because of a combination of feeling a little out of it and feeling physically uncomfortable. If someone were video-recording me, could they find one still that made it look like I was “disrespecting” the wrong person?

When I see a post saying the kid’s “smirk” (always that same exact word choice) is proof that there’s something bigoted or wicked about him, I wonder if the person saying that has gone through life always making an appropriate facial expression for every social situation. Presumably not, but let’s say that is the case — would you want to be someone who always makes what others consider just the right expression? That sounds like someone who’s very safe and inoffensive and well-scripted, not someone spontaneous and flawed and quirky.

I grew up in a far-left college town, and I’ve known so many young people who were free spirits, who were nonconformists, who were determined to be themselves no matter what anyone else said, who had a passion for noisy music and experimental art, who listened to the color of their dreams . . . And back then, it didn’t seem incongruous that they were mostly on the left. Today, I see so many people on the left sternly admonishing a 16-year-old for having the wrong smile in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s a prissy attitude which seems like the antithesis of so many lefties I’ve known.

Well, people sticking it to the Man is all very well, until you’re the Man. And the Left thinks it’s in charge now.

Related: Seen on Facebook:

THE INSTA-WIFE ANSWERS A QUESTION: How Do You Deal with Family Members who are Sexist?

WAIT, I THOUGHT THEY WERE ALREADY BOYCOTTING STARBUCKS OVER THEIR BATHROOM POLICIES: Lefties Threaten To Boycott Starbucks If CEO Runs For President.

As Ashe Schow writes, “Starbucks is about as progressive an establishment as one can get (remember their ‘conversation about racism’ and opening up bathrooms to non-paying customers to appear inclusive?), so boycotting them is pretty much a sweet self-own. As a non-coffee drinker, I look forward to the ensuing progressive-on-progressive battle.”

Bring your own bullhorn.

I MENTIONED PHILIP K. HOWARD’S NEW BOOK EARLIER. He was interviewed by Jim Meigs and Richard Davies for the How Do We Fix It? podcast.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: The European Space Agency Is Taking Steps To Mine Moon Dust.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: If You’re All About Agave, Check Out the Best Tequilas Under $20.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Good Morning America’s Cecilia Vega Tears Into Tom Brokaw for Hispanics Remark, Shrugs at Racist GOP Part.

NBC’s elder statesman certainly had quite a “whack” day yesterday.

BOOM: U.S. Authorities Unveil Sweeping Set of Actions Against China’s Huawei.

The Trump Administration unveiled a sweeping set of actions—including criminal charges—against China’s Huawei Technologies Co. in its latest salvo against the telecom giant, with authorities unsealing a set of indictments just days before U.S.-China trade talks are set to resume.

In a pair of cases unsealed Monday, federal prosecutors accused Huawei of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran and of stealing trade secrets from a U.S. business partner, portraying the company as a flouting U.S. laws while trying to do business in the country.

More details to come.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Hillary reportedly not ruling out 2020 presidential run.

VIDEO: Ann Coulter Launches Into Anti-Gingrich Tirade Over ‘Fantasy Land’ Comments. “How do you break Newt Gingrich’s nose?”

NEW: Sol Invictus AA-12 Semi-Auto Shotgun.

MAXINE WATERS: More Diverse Financial Institutions Needed, Particularly in Management. “I probably will” support reparations bill after studying, Waters said following her speech at a Center for American Progress event.

“Probably.”

THE REAL AMERICA: Thousands respond to viral appeal to attend service for Air Force veteran. He had no friends or next of kin to attend, so the cemetery posted a note and, well. . .

Thousands of people streamed into the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery Monday in Killeen to pay their final respects to Air Force veteran Joseph Walker, although it’s unlikely any of them knew him.

“We are overwhelmed at all this love and support, officials said in a post on the cemetery’s Facebook page Monday.

The Texas Veterans Land Board announced the service last week after officials were unable to locate any family members.

But a post about the service on the cemetery’s Facebook page went viral over the weekend.

“We have the distinct honor to provide a full military burial for unaccompanied United States Air Force veteran Joseph Walker,” the post said.

“We do not leave veterans behind us.”

The response on social media was quick; thousands of people around the nation shared the story.

A KWTX reporter at the scene said the line to get into the cemetery was miles long and initial reports indicate some 5,000 to 6,000 vehicles were in the line.

That’s very moving.

SPACE: Under Armour is Making Spacesuits for Virgin Galactic: But they won’t be making conventional, pressurized suits. “Rather, the spokesperson said that outfits will cater to a shirt-sleeve environment, meaning an aircraft or spacecraft that doesn’t call for specialized protective clothing, like a commercial flight. As such, it remains unclear how much protection the Under Armour suits will actually provide beyond the company’s typical athleisure threads.”

Well, none, unless they’re skinsuits, a technology that’s been around as long as I’ve been alive, but is mostly known to science fiction readers.

LINES ON THE MIRROR, LINES ON HER FACE: Aging: Yes, Life in the Fast Lane Kills You. “There’s a cost to living; there’s a cost to doing everything. That cost depends on the speed at which we’re living, to some degree. If we are living our lives at a very fast rate, we tend to wear out sooner. There is a strong relationship between metabolic rate—the rate at which we’re taking in oxygen and burning up food—and lifespan.”

ANDY KESSLER: Strike Back Against Every Cyberattack: The U.S. can keep foreign hacks at bay by showing its ability and will to retaliate.

Another week, another data breach. The latest is 773 million online accounts for sale, many with passwords included, known as Collection #1. More are likely to come—go ahead and check your status at HaveIBeenPwned.com. All this the same month Marriott admitted that five million unencrypted passport numbers were snatched from its system, probably by the Chinese. Oh, and the Russians might have hacked the Democratic National Committee again after the 2018 midterms. How do we stop this?

The foreign hacks are the most disturbing. Last month members of a Chinese espionage ring known as Advanced Persistent Threat Group 10 (a k a “Godkiller” and “Stone Panda”) were charged by the Justice Department with hacking NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and even IBM . Earlier last year the Chinese were caught stealing submarine data from a U.S. Navy contractor. And horror of horrors, in 2017 an Iranian national hacked HBO and threatened to release unaired episodes and plot summaries from “Game of Thrones.”

The U.S. has done close to nothing in response. Sure, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers last summer. I’m sure they’re quaking in their boots. Maybe those “Game of Thrones” episodes could have taught our leaders something about retaliation and revenge.

So what is America’s policy? That’s unclear. But a good start would be to heed the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told the press last week that his state has a permanent policy of hurting “everyone who is trying to hurt us.” The U.S. needs a similar stance to halt cyberattacks.

John Yoo, a Berkeley law professor and former Justice Department official, sees a parallel between deterrence in cyber and nuclear warfare. “Offensive nuclear weapons are relatively cheap,” he explains to me: “It’s defensive systems that are expensive.” Think about it. Each mission to drop one nuclear bomb would cost the U.S. about a quarter-billion dollars. But we’ve spent trillions on our defense and deterrent system. The nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers and subs ain’t cheap.

Mr. Yoo continues: “Similarly, offensive cyber weapons are cheap. It’s defensive cybersecurity tools that are expensive.” The cybersecurity market is estimated at $125 billion, and it gets bigger with each successive hack. Government and private firms have ramped up spending on encryption, firewalls, malware and virus protectors, intrusion detectors—it’s an arms race. Yet we’re still vulnerable.

We need a shift in strategic thinking. So where is our Herman Kahn? Kahn was the author of “On Thermonuclear War” and the father of the massive-retaliation plan for nuclear deterrence. If the Soviets knew the U.S. had a second-strike capability, Kahn argued, there would be no first strike. Mutual assured destruction—peculiarly, a term that was coined by the father of computer architecture, John von Neumann—works as a deterrent. Or it has so far anyway.

Washington should commit to use its weapons against all aggressors.

Why haven’t we done so already?

ANGELO CODEVILLA: Desperate Embrace At Europe’s Core.

Glenn linked to this a couple of days ago, but one part stuck in my head all weekend:

The United States will now be faced with continental Europe’s two major powers asserting not so much a common affirmative defense policy as a common non-defense policy. When it comes to foreign affairs, the United States is far less likely to enjoy automatic joint support than automatic joint attempts at backseat driving. At the U.N.—for all that matters—the United States is likelier than ever to be completely isolated, leading Americans to value that institution ever less.

In sum, the new Franco-German core is sure further to erode the EU, NATO, and the United Nations. But even as the French and German alliance is poised to disrupt so many international institutions, it is soft inside because it arises from both regimes’ alienation from their own peoples.

It was revealed that Trump privately mulled over the U.S. role in NATO, and the whole world freaked out — or at least pretended to. France and Germany have very publicly and successfully worked to undermine the entire postwar order, and hardly anybody could be bothered to do so much as yawn over it.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: PETA Grills a Dog as a Publicity Stunt.

PETA morphed into a division of Kim Jong-un’s army so slowly, I hardly even noticed.

IF A BUSINESS DID THIS, WE’D BE HEARING ABOUT THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM: Exclusive: D.C. Exchange Website Misled Customers About Individual Mandate.

Last year, in response to Congress repealing the Obamacare individual mandate penalty beginning this January, the D.C. Council established its own requirement for District residents to maintain health coverage. If D.C. leaders wished to replicate Obamacare on the local level, they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations—right down to the non-functioning website.

For nearly six months—including the first month of open enrollment—the District failed to inform visitors to its online insurance exchange about the new coverage requirement. When District officials finally discovered their webpage fail, what did they do to admit their fault, and tell the public? Nothing.

When Congress took steps to try and defund the D.C. insurance mandate last summer, District officials complained, calling it an intrusion on their authority. But after having bungled their website and failed to tell the public about the mix-up, how can they now claim competence to manage their own affairs?

Well, it’s the District, so . . . . And note that if a business had done this, it would be facing all sorts of liability.

HMM: Many cancer patients have undiagnosed hepatitis.

DEVIN NUNES: ‘The Process of Discovery Is Going to Be Fascinating’ in Roger Stone Case. “I think the Mueller investigation is really at the bottom of the barrel.”

Video at the link.

CYBERWAR: DHS: Multiple US gov domains hit in serious DNS hijacking wave.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for January 28, 2018.