OPEN THREAD: Heaven can not wait forever.

DESANTIS BANKS YET ANOTHER BIPARTISAN ENDORSEMENT! Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell follows AOC’s lead by going maskless in mandate-free Florida, days after blaming Republicans for ‘canceled vacations’ and going back to wearing ‘masks everywhere.’

As DeSantis recently said: “If I had a dollar for every lockdown politician who decided to escape to Florida over the last two years, I’d be a pretty dog-gone wealthy man, let me tell ya.”

SPACE BUREAUCRATS AROUND THE WORLD SEEM TO HAVE GOTTEN PUSHIER: Starlink’s lead executive in India said he resigned Friday for personal reasons, a month after the country’s government ordered SpaceX to stop preselling the satellite broadband service until it gives regulatory approval.

CHANGE! For the First Time Ever, the Best-Selling Carmaker in America Isn’t an American Carmaker.

Toyota has been at the top of global sales for a decade, partly because General Motors began ceding foreign markets during the Obama years. This followed the Obama administration’s takeover of GM in 2009, under the guise of rescuing it from bankruptcy and saving American jobs, earning the carmaker the derisive nickname “Government Motors.” The once-proud iconic American manufacturer has never been the same since.

Toyota’s victory over GM caps a year when the American carmaker’s sales shrank 12.9% as it sold 2.2 million vehicles in the United States. By contrast, Toyota’s sales increased 10.4% in 2021 compared to 2020, as it sold 2.3 million cars to Americans.

Analysts believe Toyota was able to sell 114,034 more cars in the states than did General Motors because the domestic company had supply chain issues. Gearhead site The Truth About Cars says that GM “claimed its numbers were down due to the global semiconductor shortage that continues to disproportionally impact American automakers. While there are a few sound logistical reasons for that, the chip deficit also becomes a convenient excuse for brands that cannot seem to get their general supply chains under control. No matter how you slice it, GM looks to have screwed up managing inventory and Toyota is picking up the slack.”

Note that GM had previously led US sales every year since 1931.

MICHAEL ANTON: Fighting the impulse for national divorce with spousal abuse.

Blue America’s message problems don’t stop there. The remainder boil down to the ruling class’s stance on democracy—both with respect to specific issues and to the overarching concept itself.

As to the former, Blues insist that any policy Reds want that Blues don’t is ipso facto illegitimate, or worse. Border wall? Workplace enforcement? Skills-based immigration? All not merely unacceptable, but “racist” and evil. Tariffs or some form of protection for American workers and industries? Unacceptable, unworkable, economically illiterate—and also racist, if only because everything Reds want is. Ditto the Red desire to stop fighting endless, pointless, winless war and to reduce America’s overseas commitments. Strategic folly, a betrayal of allies and of our “core values,” collusion with our enemies, even “treason.” (And, of course, it’s racist to doubt the efficacy or strategic value of democracy wars in the Third World.)

It’s important to understand, lest one fall into a common Blue propaganda trap, that these policy positions favored by millions of Reds are not “conservative” as that term has been understood for at least a generation. The “conservatives” have consistently supported open, or at least lax, borders, rigid free trade, and ground troops wherever a single Islamic extremist might wistfully contemplate striking the West. As for the slander that these positions are somehow “far right,” one need only be over 40 to remember a time when Democrats were the party of protectionism and peace, when even Bill Clinton and the New York Times professed support for limiting immigration.

Suddenly all that is not merely unacceptable; it’s fascism. Blue America makes very clear to Red: you deserve and will get none of this. There will be no compromise. You are evil merely for wanting it, much less voting for it. Should you manage, against our every effort and precaution, to elect people who threaten to enact these things, we will be justified in “resisting”—i.e., blocking implementation by any means necessary—to protect “our democracy.”

On New Year’s Day, the New York Times—arguably the most powerful institution of any kind in America—thundered that all opposition to the Blue agenda is violent insurrection. Hilariously, the Times intones that a “healthy, functioning political party faces its electoral losses by assessing what went wrong and redoubling its efforts to appeal to more voters the next time.” Really? Was that the Democratic response to 2016? Or that of Stacey Abrams and all her supporters—none of whom, including the vice president of the United States—has ever conceded that she lost in 2018?

Read the whole thing.

BATTLEFIELD PREPARATION FOR THE MIDTERMS: Six Things to Expect From Jan. 6 Committee in 2022.

Related: Federal authorities won’t say why armed Capitol rioters disappeared from FBI’s most wanted list.

Federal authorities won’t explain why three men who participated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, have mysteriously disappeared from the FBI’s Capitol Violence Most Wanted list.

One unidentified man wore an earpiece during the riot and was filmed carrying what appeared to be a concealed handgun on his left hip. The man was pictured on the FBI’s most wanted list for over five months until he was removed without explanation on the same day the New York Times reported an FBI informant was at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

More: Actually, Democrats Are Less Accepting of Presidential Election Defeats Than Republicans.

HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? A Giant Asteroid Bigger Than The Empire State Building Is About to Zip Past Earth. “At 1 kilometer (3,280 feet) long, it’s roughly two and a half times the height of the Empire State Building, and it’s been classed a ‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroid’ due to its size and its regular close visits to our planet.”

OUR RULING CLASS IS CLOSELY ATTUNED TO STYLE, BUT VERY WEAK ON SUBSTANCE. By design.

Plus:

Well, one of them has been making Covid policy for the past two years. And another is currently residing in the White House.

UPDATE (From Ed): Biden played big role in promoting convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

(Updated and bumped.)

IF YOU MISSED THIS ONE LAST WEEK (AS I DID), IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO READ IT:  “Disrobing the Aboriginal Stalinists on a Canadian Campus.”

YOU REALLY SHOULD READ THIS:  The Price of Dissent:  A Reuters Data Scientist Questioned the Black Lives Matter Narrative–So the Company Fired Him.

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Study in Puerto Rico finds lower risk of breast cancer with more sun exposure. And it’s not just Vitamin D: “Sun exposure also affects the body in a number of other helpful ways, with effects on inflammation, obesity and circadian rhythms. While recent recommendations have been to limit sun exposure to prevent skin cancer, there may also be a benefit to some sun exposure, especially exposure without sunburn.”

BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE: Sixth Circuit Panel Refuses to Stay Injunction Against Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors: The panel rejects the argument that the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act allows the federal government to require vaccination for nearly one-fifth of the American workforce. “This afternoon a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the Biden Administration’s request for a stay of a lower court injunction barring enforcement of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for employees of federal contractors in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.”

MORE PRESSURE, PLEASE: Under Pressure From His Right, Georgia Governor Announces Renewed Support for Constitutional Carry.

WILL TED CRUZ BE JOINING THE LINCOLN PROJECT OR THE BULWARK NEXT? Ted Cruz Calls January 6 Riots “A Violent Terrorist Attack on the Capitol.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): C’mon, Ted. Really?

INSURRECTION: Revolt in Kazakhstan: As protests in the oil-rich Central Asian country gain momentum, the events threaten to reverberate across the region. “Video posted online Wednesday showed people storming the main government building in Almaty, the largest city, while protesters set police vehicles on fire, as well as the regional branch of the governing Nur Otan party. The protests were sparked by anger over surging fuel prices. But they have intensified into something more significant and combustible: widespread discontent about the suffocating authoritarian government and a sharp critique of endemic corruption that has resulted in wealth being concentrated within a small political and economic elite.”

Protesting high fuel prices that could destabilize a government?

Related, spotted by a reader in Kingman, AZ:

IS YOUTH CULTURE LITERALLY KILLING PEOPLE?

The participants’ average age at the start of the survey was 63 years old and soon after joining they were asked to give their views on ageing. For example, they were asked to rate their agreement with the statement: “As you get older, you are less useful”. Quite astonishingly, Levy found the average person with a more positive attitude lived on for 22.6 years after the study commenced, while the average person with poorer interpretations of ageing survived for just 15 years. That link remained even after Levy had controlled for their actual health status at the start of the survey, as well as other known risk factors, such as socioeconomic status or feelings of loneliness, which could influence longevity.

The implications of the finding are as remarkable today as they were in 2002, when the study was first published. “If a previously unidentified virus was found to diminish life expectancy by over seven years, considerable effort would probably be devoted to identifying the cause and implementing a remedy,” Levy and her colleagues wrote. “In the present case, one of the likely causes is known: societally sanctioned denigration of the aged.”

Obviously, we need strict public health regulation to ensure that older people receive proper respect. A seven-year sentence for saying “Ok, Boomer,” for example.

Or do you just want Grandma to die?

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Colleges Shutting Down for Spring Semester are Betraying Students.

WHAT DID PELOSI DECIDE AND WHEN ON JAN6: That’s the question House Republicans are asking with increasing intensity these days as the Speaker refuses to cough up requested documents about her role in the days leading up to and including January 6.

HOW BIG CAN THE “PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS” BE IF YOU’RE FIRING HEALTH WORKERS? So long, heroes: Mayo Clinic fires 700 workers over vaccination mandate.

GET IN SHAPE: 5-Minute Core Exercises for Seniors: Daily Routines to Build Balance and Boost Confidence. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)

GOVERNMENT MOTORS PROCEEDING AS YOU’D EXPECT: Toyota Beats GM in U.S. Sales; GM Had Led Every Year Since 1931.

DON’T WEEP FOR THE POLAR BEARS: Jeff Dunetz at The Lid kept seeing a World Wildlife Foundation saying the big white beasts of the North face a grim future because the Artic Iceshelf is melting. But that’s not what Jeff found when he investigated the claim.

BOB ZUBRIN: Biden Slouches towards Catastrophe in Ukraine.

To be fair, he’s slouching toward catastrophe all over the place.

DE-POLICING AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Violent Crime Spike: COVID ‘Shined a Bright Light’ on the Divisions in American Society. That’s not the lesson leftist activists are touting, though.

SPACE JUNK — BETTER PUT UP MY UMBRELLA: Russian rocket is in uncontrolled descent to Earth.