SHE GOT GAME: Why Trump’s superfans dig Ocasio-Cortez.

“I aspire to be the conservative AOC,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told POLITICO. Gaetz, an outspoken 36-year-old in his second term who has achieved a measure of prominence as a highly visible Trump defender, said there’s just one problem with that aspiration: “I can’t dance for shit.”

“AOC has what I call ‘gameness’ or competitive heart — the combination of grit, determination, fighting spirit that you can’t coach,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, told POLITICO. “You either have it or you don’t, and she has it big league.”

Such admiration, in spite of vast ideological and demographic differences, is a testament to just how quickly the 29-year-old former activist and waitress has achieved political stardom.

Yes, but for how long?

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! Republicans seize on liberal positions to paint Democrats as radical.

Legalized infanticide, outlawing private insurance, a wealth tax, drastically increasing the income tax, taking control of the entire economy in order to micromanage the climate… nothing radical to see here, nope.

BREAKING: SPLC Hires High-Powered Defamation Lawyer to Defend Tax-Exempt Status in RICO Lawsuit.

SPLC could lose their tax-exempt status? That’s what I call punching back twice as hard.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, HATING-MEN EDITION: Harvard creates a ‘hostile environment against men,’ complaint says.

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GREAT AGAIN: US employers added 304,000 jobs in January, soaring past expectations.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Mysterious Trump Jr. calls revealed and much, much more. “Part of the crazy RUSSIA collusion conspiracy theory that Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff peddled to partnered media outlets is that Donald Trump Jr. briefed his father on the phone before and after the infamous Trump Tower-RUSSIANS meeting during the 2016 presidential campaign. Everyone has maintained that the President did not know about the meetings, but Schiff has been snorting and quacking on cable news that there were calls to a blocked number(s) and those numbers were the President! BOOM. POW. GOTCHA. TREASON. Quack.”

Their whole world is falling down.

DEAR DIARY: Exclusive: A sneak preview of Jim Acosta’s new book (ghostwritten by Roger Kimball).

OVERREACH: Kathy Tran: On second thought, ‘I really regret’ failing to condemn infanticide.

Related: Weird: No Democrats in Congress seem to have heard Ralph Northam’s abortion comments.

Plus:

Well you know,

ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS THE NARRATIVE: President’s Hispanic Pastors Roundtable Gets Zero Coverage on Latino TV Nets.

It doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention anywhere outside the few right-leaning press outlets.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Well, you know,

HYPOCRISY: Men run the news, 2 to 1, despite demands for diversity, equality everywhere else.

America’s big media, which has celebrated #MeToo, decried the lack of women in the Trump administration, and called for the recognition of female artists, appears to be run by a big boys club, according to a new newsroom survey.

The Women’s Media Center has just released its “Divided 2019: The Media Gender Gap,” and it found that the majority of news is produced by male journalists.

The key findings from the report:

69 percent of news wire bylines (AP and Reuters) are snagged by men, 31 percent by women — by far the biggest gender gap in news media.

63 percent of TV prime-time news broadcasts feature male anchors and correspondents; 37 percent feature women.

60 percent of online news is written by men; 40 percent by women.

59 percent of print news is written by men; 41 percent by women.

Across all media platforms, men receive 63 percent of bylines and credits; women receive only 37 percent.

In the print sector the widest gender gap was at USA Today, where 69 percent of articles were written by men and 31 percent by women.

Sad.

A CONSERVATIVE IS A LIBERAL WHO’S BEEN MUGGED: DC political comedian robbed at gunpoint changes stance on guns.

Tim Young was heading to one of D.C.’s newest hotspots—The Wharf—when his life changed.

He was walking down a well-lit section of M Street at about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday when two men approached him—one of them had a gun.

“Terrified. You know, when I talk to people about this… you’re scared. There’s no man card involved. I was defenseless,” explained Young, who’s a political comedian and host of ‘No Things Considered’ at the D.C. Examiner. The men ran off with his cell phone.

Now, he said he absolutely plans to apply for a concealed carry permit in D.C., but it won’t be easy. The District is one of the toughest places in the country to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A fact not lost on his muggers, I’m sure.

T-BONE TOLD ME THIS WAS COMING: Cory Booker 2020: New Jersey Senator launches presidential campaign.. Spartacus 2020!

PARTY OF ILHAN OMAR AND RASHIDA TLAIB: House Democrat warns ethics committee about Steve King promoting white nationalism website. But when the Republicans stripped him of his leadership posts, that was just the beginning. Notice that the Democrats won’t even denounce Omar and Tlaib, much less take any action against them.

FROM SIMMER TO BOIL: Venezuela and Bolton’s notepad cocktail — bottle of diplomacy with a dash of bitter military threat.

RELATED: Cocktails from Hell, Chapter One — a menu of deadly power cocktails.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Citgo considers bankruptcy amid Venezuela turmoil.

Bankruptcy is one option executives and advisers at the large U.S. refiner are weighing to protect its assets as control over funding stirs global tensions between Washington and Caracas, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The U.S. is attempting to shift control of Venezuela’s energy assets from disputed President Nicolás Maduro to opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has been sworn in – and recognized by the U.S. – as the once-wealthy nation’s leader.

Filing for bankruptcy would allow the company to stabilize operations and restructure its debt in a court-protected forum even though its financial pressures aren’t necessarily critical, the Journal reported.

Citgo did not immediately return FOX Business’ request for comment.

This story comes on the heels of other reports that the Maduro regime might be shipping large quantities of gold to Russia and the UAE.

Is the endgame in sight?

SEA SPARROW EMERGES: In a flash as the USS Boxer conducts a live fire exercise in the eastern Pacific.

BREAKING NEWS FROM 1913: Socialism Is The Opiate Of The Democratic Party.

DEPLATFORMED: Amazon takes down Castalia House.

You may have noticed that you can’t find any Castalia House ebooks on Amazon right now. That’s because Amazon shut down our KDP account on the basis of a wildly spurious claim of publishing material to which we do not have the necessary rights. We happen to have some VERY bad news for them on that subject….

The book in question? You guessed it. Corrosion: The Collapsing Empire again. This is the second attack on that book this month, as ten days ago, they pulled the book itself down for the sixth or seventh time due to claims that it was “misleading”.

Not only have they shut down the account, but they sent us an email today declaring that they will not pay us any of the unpaid royalties, thereby screwing over each and every author we publish.

More at the link.

PLUS: “Amazon can’t even find the account information. It looks like whoever was responsible actually wiped all the data.”

UPDATE: They’ve been reinstated.. But without any explanation beyond something “incorrect” happened. It’s enough to make you wonder what’s going on behind the scenes.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: South Dakota Becomes Latest Permitless Gun-Carry State.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem (R.) signed the state’s permitless carry bill into law on Thursday.

The bill, SB47, eliminates the state’s requirement that residents obtain a permit in order to legally carry a firearm. Instead, so long as a resident is legally allowed to possess a firearm, they are legally allowed to carry it concealed on their person.

Noem said the new law is in line with the country’s founding principles and protects South Dakotans gun rights.

“Our Founding Fathers believed so firmly in our right to bear arms that they enshrined it into the Constitution,” she tweeted. “This constitutional carry legislation will further protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding South Dakotans.”

Everytown for Gun Safety described the law as “dangerous,” warned of it having “devastating effects,” and urged its members to contact their lawmakers in opposition to it. On the other hand, the National Rifle Association supported the bill and celebrated its passage.

“On behalf of the NRA’s five-million members, we would like to thank Governor Noem for her leadership on this critical issue,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA-ILA. “This law is a common sense measure that allows law-abiding South Dakotans to exercise their fundamental right to self-protection in the manner that best suits their needs.”

Let the record reflect that “Everytown for Gun Safety” is a Bloomberg-funded astroturf anti-civil-rights group.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey Launches Presidential Campaign.

Mr. Booker made his campaign announcement on Twitter and in a video emailed to supporters, saying, “Together, we will channel our common pain back into our common purpose.”

The African-American senator is the fourth Senate Democrat to launch a presidential campaign, joining Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Potential rivals such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke are considering entering the wide-open field.

While several Democrats are emphasizing their fights against Mr. Trump’s policies, Mr. Booker has stressed the need for unity among Americans who have become disillusioned with government and disconnected from their communities.

So he’s running the same campaign as the previous Democratic Oval Office-holder, but with an even thinner resumé.

Obama Lite.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Panics That Climate Change Will Force Canada To Grow Food.

Bill Nye, “The Science Guy,” appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball” this week to contradict President Donald Trump’s claims that the Polar Vortex is evidence that “global warming” is a hoax, but ended up making some outlandish claims himself, including that climate change would force Canada to begin engaging in agriculture.

“The agriculture in North America is going to have to move north into what would nominally be Canada and we don’t have the infrastructure,” Nye told host Chris Matthews, apparently under the assumption that Canada does not already do a significant percentage of North America’s farming.

“We don’t have the railroads and roads to get food from that area to where we need it around the world,” Nye added.

Shocking though it may be, my sources tell me that there actually are railroads above the 49^th parallel.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: By Redacting Columbus, the Fighting Irish Cease Fighting. “Notre Dame yields to the perpetually offended.”