COMING ATTRACTIONS: “Mr. Jones,” a new film about Gareth Jones, the journalist-hero who first tried to warn the world about communist atrocities — and died for it.

BOY CAN’T HELP IT: Michael Avenatti Arrested By IRS Agents, Accused Of Committing More Financial Crimes While Out On Bail.

HEH: ‘Quid Pro Joe’ Comes to Times Square as Pro-Trump PAC Launches ‘Subpoena Biden!’ Billboard.

Take the fight to blue cities. Maybe you won’t win any votes, but you might just demoralize them.

BREAKING BAD: How to overcome online negativity. In Business Insider, the strategies that enabled one hotel in New York to dominate the TripAdvisor rankings. An excerpt from my new book, The Power of Bad. 

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Women’s March ‘Feminists’ Unable to Define ‘What a Woman Is.’

2020: A Closer Look At The Iraqi Immigrant Woman Challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Baghdad-born Dalia al-Aqidi says Rep. Illhan Omar ‘supports Islamists and enemies of America and Israel, and there are no exceptions’.”

WHAT’S THE SAYING? TO FIND OUT WHO RULES OVER YOU, ASK WHO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE? U. Minnesota still silent after student sentenced to six months in Chinese prison for Twitter posts.

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH PIERS MORGAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Piers Morgan responds to call for his firing for making a joke after being told there are more than 100 genders.

BLUE ON BLUE: Obama may release statement with Sanders climbing the polls.

People close to Obama point out that he has always said that he will support the Democratic nominee, whoever that may be. They also point out that Obama’s opinion of Warren has softened since November, and he is said to be growing comfortable with endorsing her fully if she should win the nomination.

But, these people add, he has recently grown even more wary of Sanders as the Vermont senator appears to be gaining momentum in polls and the Democratic primaries begin to heat up with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary both in February.

Obama has told people in private that Sanders is both temperamentally and politically unfit to beat Trump in the 2020 general election, these people say. Among his concerns are Sanders’ strident form of politics and confrontational manners where he was known not to seek compromise during his long years in the US senate. Meanwhile, Obama is said to worry that Sanders’ far-left policies, which include massive tax increases, free college tuition and massive student debt forgiveness, would alienate even traditional Democratic voters.

Bernie Bros thought Obama was too moderate, and don’t seem likely to listen to what he has to say about Sanders.

DON’T BE INTIMIDATED. BUT TAKE A BODYGUARD OR 12. Two years after violent attack, Charles Murray set for return to Middlebury.

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KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Party Harder—The Doomsday Clock Just Sprung Forward. “ICYMI — we’re all for real actually super duper no not kidding this time totes legit gonna die.”

Good to know!

BABSON COLLEGE IS A JOKE. A couple of years ago, it banned students from campus for yelling “Trump 2016!” and “Make America Great Again.”

Now they’ve fired a faculty member over a tweet “threat” that no one in his or her right mind would see as a threat. But then, not being in your right mind seems to be an essential for academic leadership today, especially at Babson.

Cost of attending Babson College: $69,384 per year.

ELIZABETH WARREN’S JOE THE PLUMBER MOMENT.

After waiting in line to get his moment with Warren, a voter “vent[ed] frustration that her promise to wipe out student loan debt would not reimburse him for the tuition that he’d already paid,” as the Hill report puts it.

I would put it slightly differntly. I would say he wondered if Warren understood that her proposal would make him a chump of the first order.

“My daughter is in school,” the man said, as captured in The Hill’s transcription of the exchange. “I saved all my money just to pay my student loans. Can I have my money back?”

“Of course not,” Warren responded.

“So you want to help those who don’t save any money and the ones that do the right thing get screwed?” he responded.

The Hill notes that the man cited his friend who makes more money than he does and, instead of paying off his loans, the friend bought a car and went on expensive vacations.

“I saved my money,” the man said. “He made more than I did. I worked a double shift, worked extra … so you’re laughing at me.”

“No I’m not,” Warren responded.

“Yes that’s exactly what you’re doing,” the man said. “We did the right thing and we get screwed.”

That is a sentiment that is widely applicable to the Democrats’ policy proposals.

Well, to be fair, the votes of people who didn’t do the right thing are plentiful, and easier to buy.

TREATING THIS IMPEACHMENT WITH ALL THE RESPECT IT DESERVES: Republican Senators Are Literally Playing With Kids’ Toys During The Impeachment Trial.

#JOURNALISM:

THE DEMS’ PROBLEM IS THAT THEIR FRONTRUNNERS ARE OLD AND UNAPPEALING, AND THEIR OTHER CANDIDATES ARE YOUNG AND UNAPPEALING: New danger: Younger voters not jazzed about Democrats, Yang 8%, Buttigieg 3%.

CONTAGION: ‘Lock suspected coronavirus patients in a room and leave straight away!’ UK doctors given extraordinary instruction by health bosses amid fears contagious Chinese disease has made its way to Britain.

AS I SAID, THEY EXPECT THE RIGHT TO CONTROL THE JUDICIARY AND THEY’RE TRYING TO CHANGE THE “ETHICS” RULES ON THEIR WAY OUT SO THE RIGHT CAN’T DO WHAT THE LEFT ALWAYS DID. Liberal legal establishment wrongly attacks conservative Federalist Society.

Related:

It’s an indication of just how partisan and politicized — by the left — the Judicial Conference is. It’s enough to make me doubt the integrity of the left-leaning judges involved.

GO AWAY. YOU’RE A HIGH-SCHOOL DROPOUT WHO KNOWS NOTHING, BEING USED BY EVIL PEOPLE. Greta Thunberg: ‘Immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction.’

HE’LL WIN AGAIN IN 2020 AT THIS RATE: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo Named 2019 U-Haul Salesman Of The Year As People Flee New York State. I mean, unless he loses to Gavin Newsom, which is entirely possible.

UGH: Man cleared of murder walks free after 28 years in prison.

Wilson was exonerated a month after his co-defendant, Christopher Williams, was cleared of the three 1989 killings. Wilson was a teenager when he was accused of participating in the slayings of Otis Reynolds and brothers Kevin and Gavin Anderson in north Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office called the case a “perfect storm” of injustice, writing in a court filing that the case was marred by serious misconduct by the prosecution, an ineffective defense and a witness who supplied false testimony.

The witness who testified against Wilson and Williams recanted, saying he had provided false testimony in exchange for a deal to escape the death penalty and in hopes of eventual release. At a 2013 hearing, forensic specialists testified that physical evidence contradicted his earlier account of events.

Williams remains imprisoned on a life sentence in a fourth murder, a 1989 slaying in which he and another man were convicted but in which both have maintained their innocence.

Wilson is the 12th person exonerated by the prosecutor’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

More to come, I’m sure.