10% DECREASE IN COVID RISK:  Coffee consumption linked to lower risk of COVID-19 infection.

Given my daily consumption, I’m probably a mobile anti-covid zone. I mean, you’re probably as good as vaccinated if you stand next to me for a few minutes.

THE ‘ELITES’ ARE DETERMINED TO CRASH THIS COUNTRY WITH NO SURVIVORS. From Politico:

Democrats for years have pushed the agency responsible for Fannie and Freddie to expand homeownership and narrow the racial wealth gap….

[President and CEO of the National Housing Conference David] Dworkin, and other housing advocates want FHFA to allow Fannie and Freddie to take on more financial risk — meaning more government intervention backed by taxpayers — in the name of expanding access to mortgages.

Among their ideas: Giving Fannie and Freddie free rein to purchase mortgages with lower credit scores, allowing private lenders to make more of those loans…

Dworkin said the companies today have “almost no measurable risk in their book of business,” which includes borrowers who hold “extraordinarily high” credit scores and very few first-time homebuyers with low down payments.

So, 2008 all over again, but this time after we already printed $4 trillion in a single year. Folly of this magnitude simply cannot be chalked up to stupidity. Better grab your original Hunter Bidens if you want to ride out the storm, as they are one asset we know will be made to hold their value.

THIS. IS. CNN.

#METOO ENDED WHEN BIDEN WAS NOMINATED: “Louis C.K. tickets sell out in Madison despite comedian’s sexual misconduct.”

#MeToo was always just political gimcrackery, and it’s expired now that it’s devoured more Democrats than Republicans.

‘FLEEBAGGERS:’ A History of Democrats Running Away to Deny a Quorum.

ROGER KIMBALL: Remembering What Was Done to the Trump Administration.

It begins back in 2015, when the resources of the federal government were mobilized to spy on the Trump campaign, and then to frame various people close to candidate, then President Trump, and eventually to launch a full-throated criminal investigation of the Trump administration.

Cooper gets it exactly right: “The FBI/etc spied on the 2016 Trump campaign using evidence manufactured by the Clinton campaign. We now know that all involved knew it was fake from Day 1.”

Remember the Steele Dossier, the fantastical document confected by the “well-regarded” British spook Christopher Steele?

It was the only relevant predicate for ordering FISA warrants against Carter Page and other American citizens.

But the dossier was oppo research covertly paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was a tissue of lies and fabrications.

Everyone involved (but not the media, which gleefully circulated and commented on it) knew all along it was garbage.

But it was nonetheless used to deploy the awesome coercive power of the state against a presidential candidate of whom the ruling bureaucracy disapproved.

It was OK to subject Carter Page and others to secret FBI investigations, to mount dawn-raids (carefully coordinated with CNN so they could televise them) against the president’s colleagues.

Cooper limns the evolution of the story: “We only learned the DNC paid for the manufactured evidence because of a court order. [James] Comey [disgraced former director of the FBI] denied on TV knowing the DNC paid for it, when we have emails from a year earlier proving that he knew.”

Penalty for that? Comey gets a huge book deal and tours the country denouncing Trump to the gleeful satisfaction of his anti-Trump audiences.

Cooper is right: what was true of Comey was true of “everyone, from CIA Dir[ector John] Brennan & Adam Schiff—who were on TV saying they’d seen clear evidence of collusion w/Russia, while admitting under oath behind closed doors that they hadn’t—all the way down the line. In the end we learned that it was ALL fake.”

It was all fake. Recollect that.

One guy who wasn’t a member of the political establishment got elected President, and virtually the entire political establishment — from both parties — united to destroy him. What does that say about the political establishment?

I think it says they’re deathly afraid that the great mass of Americans will find out what’s been done to them.

OPEN THREAD: What’s got wrong with you?

IT’S COME TO THIS: Report: Cuba’s dictator says US government pressured ex-porn actress Mia Khalifa into calling him a tyrant.

SPACE: America’s permanent and resilient presence in space will be nuclear powered.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Coffee consumption linked to lower risk of COVID-19 infection.

CUBAN ACTIVIST EXPLAINS WHAT’S REALLY MOTIVATING THE CUBAN PEOPLE’S UPRISING:

“The [regime] controls the means of production,” [Cuban freedom activist Marcell Felipe] said. “The flip side to the government providing everything is that you depend on the government for everything. So they have every means of control and not just with bullets and threats, but with food. If you protest, we take away your food. And part of what we are seeing is that the government’s inability to provide even the most basic foods is now resulting in the people no longer having anything to lose.”

No matter what media spin suggests, Felipe insists that the protests are a rejection of socialism and communism. “The Cuban people have rejected socialism and the socialist regime for the longest time, both in exile, here in Miami, and directly on the islands.”

The entire affair is yet another painful reminder that “socialism never works,” as Senator Rand Paul noted. “Here’s hoping Cubans will one day get their freedom back.”

Meanwhile, this is CNN: CNN’s Havana bureau chief tweets from Cuba that it’s impossible to know the real picture there because of the internet blackout:

STRIKE A POSE, THERE’S NOTHING TO IT:

Flashbacks: Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?

Well, it’s a start, as Steven Chu, former President Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

In September of 2019, after CNN’s seven hour “climate change town hall,” Bryan Preston wrote, “Seriously, if you see all of the above — which is just a sample — and vote for any of these people for any office at any level, it’s on you. If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela.”

And as Kate of Small Dead Animals wrote after the CNN horror show, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t mean it.”

QED: Biden Permanently Kills Keystone XL Pipeline, Developer Abandons Project After Permit Pulled.

● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

● 2012 CNN headline: “Rising gas prices aren’t as bad as you think.”

Exit quote: “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

SKYNET SMILES: A universal approach to tailoring soft robots.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Donna Brazile Doesn’t Understand Why It’s ‘Criminal’ to Violate Election Laws.

Flashback: Donna Brazile finally admits she shared debate questions with Hillary’s campaign.

NOW ON SALE: The whole dang game. 410 cards total.

JOE BIDEN TURNED INTO THE CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER SO QUICKLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Report: Biden, DNC Want SMS Carriers to Monitor Private Text Messages for Vaccine Lies.

UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY AND VIOLATING FEDERAL MASK REGULATIONS IN ONE PHOTO:

I just got off a plane a couple of hours ago, and the flight attendants were lecturing us nonstop about having to wear a mask at all times. Just more evidence that the mask stuff is all just hygiene theater. And that Democrats will do anything to avoid anti-voting-fraud laws.

(It may be a chartered plane, but the federal mask rules for aviation apply to those, too.)

UPDATE: Say, if the filibuster is awful, why isn’t this just as bad?

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Endometriosis Takes a Toll on The Careers of Women, Finnish Study Reveals.

WELL, GEORGE CONWAY: He’s telling the truth about himself and everyone else — and he’s doing it with brilliantly casual humor, which his audience easily gets, while the George Conways of the world stand at a distance and tsk.

THE CLOWN SHOW CONTINUES: DOJ Retracts Claim It Seized ‘Fully Constructed’ Lego Set From Accused Capitol Rioter.

So even the Lego Insurrection’s Legos weren’t as advertised. This is a disgrace. End it.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW. Marine Corps corporal gets 3D-printed teeth with jaw reconstruction.

EVERYTHING IS RACIST: Now Belief in Creationism Is ‘White Supremacy.’ News Flash: We Won’t Bow to Your Secular Idols.

BETTER TO WAIT IF YOU CAN: You Would Be Crazy to Buy a Used Car Right Now.

BUT OH-SO VERY HARVARD: Harvard’s anti-Asian bias is unAmerican.

THEY CAN’T STOMACH LIBERTY: The Left Can’t Stomach This Symbol That Inspires Freedom Fighters in Cuba, Hong Kong, Venezuela.