SPACE NEEDS FEWER BUREAUCRATS, NOT MORE: Proposed NTSB commercial space regulation criticized by industry and FAA.

#OHSHUTUP: Biden Administration Revives Useless Obama-Era Tactic of ‘Hashtag Diplomacy.’

MORE BAD 2022 NEWS FOR DEMS: The polls keep showing Democrats have gotten themselves profoundly out of sync with the American public, as NBC finds three-fourths of its respondents think the country is going “downhill,” while a Fox survey’s respondents ranked Republicans as better able by 15 or more points to handle national security, border security, immigration, the economy and crime.

Meanwhile, over at The Lid, Jeff Dunetz is wisely warning against counting chickens that ain’t yet hatched: “In 2016 and 2020, Republicans didn’t believe the polls because they are usually wrong and have favored the Democrats. So now that the polls predict a good year for Republicans, are we supposed to believe them now? Many Congressional Republicans believe them and are counting their chickens before they are hatched.”

And I’m old enough to remember what happened to the GOP in 1998, as seen on this from C-SPAN. 

IN THE MAIL FROM WILLIAM MAYER: The Uses and Misuses of Politics: Karl Rove and the Bush Presidency.

JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO NORMALCY: Biden Admin Withholds Secret Iran Agreement From Congress.

Reports emerged late Friday that Russia proposed an interim nuclear deal to Iran with the knowledge of U.S. officials. The deal would reportedly lift some sanctions on Iran in exchange for a limited set of restrictions on the country’s nuclear program. Russia offered the deal to Iran on the sidelines of ongoing negotiations in Vienna, according to NBC News, which first reported on the document. Tehran is said to have rejected the interim deal, saying that it prefers a large-scale agreement that will provide it with billions in cash windfalls. Republican lawmakers say details of the agreement are being kept from Congress.

“Russia sent a secret agreement to Iran,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon on Friday during a press call. “Russia is trying to take the lead now in the negotiations with Iran. This is a secret agreement. We haven’t seen it.”

The existence of this document indicates that the United States and international partners are eyeing an alternative interim agreement with Iran as efforts to ink a revamped version of the 2015 accord stall due to Iran’s increasingly hardline stance. Republicans in Congress say that, during the past year, the Biden administration has ignored requests for briefings on the status of talks and what a new deal will look like. The Free Beacon first reported last week that the Biden administration is obstructing more than a dozen congressional investigations into the negotiations and sanctions relief.

It’s all very Obama 2.0 but without Obama’s mock-moderation.

BOB MCMANUS: Time’s up for NYPD bashers. “Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for New York City is a municipal treasure, but she’s not one to stir pots in public. Her startlingly uncharacteristic early criticism of Bragg sent a stern message: The community that had invested uncounted billions in the city’s post-Giuliani- Bloomberg resurrection wants no part of the DA’s brave new world. This attitude is something New York’s antipolice political class will ignore at its peril — for the city seems to be waking up. When a rookie cop, an accomplished career woman and a 19-year-old fast-food cashier are murdered by violent career criminals on successive weekends, people pay attention.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: White House Report Card: When it’s so bad only a margarita can help. “This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden and his agenda at the one-year anniversary dead in the water, his administration trying to clean up confusing messages on COVID-19 and Ukraine, inflation rising, the stock market tanking, and his polls sinking further. His biggest failure was to win support for the House-passed election legislation in the Senate due to opposition from two key members of his own party.”

Oh, I don’t think that was his biggest failure. Not even his biggest failure so far.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Pro-Life Movement Gains Momentum and Abortion Ghouls Panic. “As I was enjoying some coffee on Saturday morning this year’s local March for Life parade began passing in front of my house like it does every year. I went outside to wave to them, smile, and give them a thumbs-up. While talking to a friend later in the day I remarked that the group looked a lot bigger this year.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Granholm Failed To Properly Disclose Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Transactions. “Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm violated a law that requires her to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock trades. In 2021, Granholm made at least nine stock trades between April and October but failed to disclose them until months after the required deadline had passed, Business Insider reported on Thursday. The trades include companies like Gilead Sciences, whose value soared during the coronavirus pandemic.”

COLORADO: Gov. Polis makes cost of living a campaign issue, despite signing millions in new fees into law.

“What’s frustrating people is how costs have gone up faster than incomes,” Polis said at a recent event hosted by the Colorado Sun, adding that the main way he plans to drive down Coloradans’ costs is by providing relief from government fees. That includes reducing the price to register a car, eliminating the costs to start a new business in the state and reducing the amount of money people must pay to get licensed in certain medical occupations.

Yet, these are new fees he himself supported while they were making their way through the legislature, and that he signed into law in just the past year. Moreover, they were signed into law at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic, while families were struggling to pay rent and businesses were shut down or limited, forcing more layoffs.

The biggest problem with Polis is that he seems to sincerely believe whatever was the last thing he was told.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Nicholas Wade: A Covid Origin Conspiracy? Newly released emails make more plausible the contention that Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins presided over the suppression of the lab-leak theory for political reasons.

From almost the moment the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the city of Wuhan, the medical-research establishment in Washington and London insisted that the virus had emerged naturally. Only conspiracy theorists, they said, would give credence to the idea that the virus had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now a string of unearthed emails—the most recent being a batch viewed by the House Oversight and Reform Committee and referred to in its January 11, 2022 letter—is making it seem increasingly likely that there was, in fact, a conspiracy, its aim being to suppress the notion that the virus had emerged from research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Anthony Fauci. The latest emails don’t prove such a conspiracy, but they make it more plausible, for two reasons: because the expert virologists therein present such a strong case for thinking that the virus had lab-made features and because of the wholly political reaction to this bombshell on the part of Francis Collins, then-director of the National Institutes of Health. . . .

A striking feature of the excerpts released in the committee’s January 11, 2022 letter is that the virologists had little doubt that the virus bore the fingerprints of manipulation. The focus of their attention was a genetic element called a furin cleavage site. This short snippet of genetic material is what makes the virus so infectious for human cells. Scientists sometimes add this element to laboratory viruses to make them more virulent, but in nature, viruses usually acquire runs of genetic material like this by swapping them with other members of their family. The furin cleavage site in the Covid virus sticks out like a sore thumb because no other known member of its family—a group called Sarbecoviruses—possesses a furin cleavage site. So how did the virus acquire it?

A member of the Andersen group, Garry of Tulane University, remarks in the latest emails on the fact that the inserted furin cleavage site, a string of 12 units of RNA, the virus’s genetic material, was exactly the required length, a precision unusual in nature: “I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature . . . it’s stunning. Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted.”

Another member of the Andersen group, Farzan of Scripps Research, apparently felt much the same way. “He is bothered by the furin cleavage site and has a hard time explain[ing] that as an event outside the lab (though, there are possible ways in nature, but highly unlikely),” the House committee’s letter says of his remarks. Farzan noted that viruses can acquire elements like furin cleavage sites when grown in cultures of human cells, so “instead of directed engineering . . . acquisition of the furin site would be highly compatible with the continued passage of virus in tissue culture.” Both routes— direct insertion of the cleavage site or tissue culture—would mean that the virus came from a lab.

The conferees were clearly aware of the possibility that the virus had originated in the Wuhan lab. “So I think it becomes a question of how do you put all this together,” Farzan wrote, “whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature—accidental release or natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40,” meaning he thought lab origin considerably more likely than not.

You might think that the senior administrators present at the conference would have rushed to investigate the startling inference that their expert advisers had drawn. But just one day after the teleconference at which his experts explained why they thought the virus seemed manipulated, Collins complained about the damage such an idea might cause. “The voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony,” he wrote on February 2, 2020, according to the new emails.

So as not to give the “conspiracy theorists” ammunition, let’s . . . have a conspiracy to suppress the likely truth!

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: U.S. food supply is under pressure, from plants to store shelves. “rizona, one in 10 processing plant and distribution workers at a major produce company were recently out sick. In Massachusetts, employee illnesses have slowed the flow of fish to supermarkets and restaurants. A grocery chain in the U.S. Southeast had to hire temporary workers after roughly one-third of employees at its distribution centers fell ill. Food-industry executives and analysts warn that the situation could persist for weeks or months, even as the current wave of Covid-19 infections eases. Recent virus-related absences among workers have added to continuing supply and transportation disruptions, keeping some foods scarce.”

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Paula Bolyard: My ‘Free’ Covid Tests From the Government Arrived in Record Time… But There’s a Problem. “My tests sat in my mailbox all day in frigid temperatures—well below the required minimum 36°.” (Same here.)

Rick Moran: In Minneapolis, Robbery Arrests Plummet as Stores are Hit Multiple Times. “This has apparently emboldened the thieves to rob some stores multiple times.”

And a James Bond 60th Anniversary twofer…

Chris Queen: 60 Years of James Bond Theme Songs: Part 002. “We’ll start with the worst of the worst. These range from cringeworthy to truly bizarre.”

Yours Truly: Ranking the Bond Movies: Part 002 (The Ones That Really Blofeld). “It’s true that the franchise has been uneven over the decades, but there have been only five genuine stinkers.”

ON SUNDAYS I RUN A POST ON MY BLOG, IN WHICH I PROMOTE MOSTLY INDIE AUTHORS: Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

There is also a fun vignette challenge run by three fans.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Last Leg Universities Stand On Is Collapsing.

They have long ceased being the best way to gain knowledge.

More recently, the degrees they confer have ceased being the best way to signal employability; the only exception being jobs that legally require them. (Such jobs are increasingly stodgy, unattractive, bureaucratic, backwards, and subservient to tyrannical governments).

The final leg universities stand on is the mythology of social status. That’s it. That’s what gives them what waning power they have.

I can’t count the number of parents I’ve talked with who recognize that college is one of the worst places to learn and degrees are one of the weakest ways to try to get hired, but who still needlessly bite the bullet and send their kid anyway.

I’ve noticed a real change in attitudes over the past decades, even among academic/professional types.

I’VE READ THIS AND READ THIS, BUT THERE’S NO INDICATION SHE WAS EVER IN FLORIDA:  Woman rode motorbike naked, got fingered in the street and punched a blind man.

A GROUP DEMONIZED BY DOMESTIC ENEMIES:  Who are the Oath Keepers?

NOT EVERY MD IS INSANE:  Integrity. Dignity. Community.

Meanwhile, I just want to register that while most of my friends  are now catching Winnie the Flu, my entire family lost 3 weeks to some generic, unspecified URI.
Figures, doesn’t it? Other people get the brand-name virus. We get the Safeway Select of respiratory viruses.
I wouldn’t even mind, except that we’re still suffering from lingering tiredness and congestion though — everyone who asked, thank you! — rest assured we’re all much, much better. (And for a change I was never as sick as the guys.)

I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER WHEN THE GOAL OF A COLLEGE EDUCATION WAS TO EXPAND YOUR THINKING: University language guide says ‘grandfather,’ ‘housekeeping,’ ‘spirit animal’ are ‘problematic’ words.

Okay, fine, I’m not that old. But I do remember when they used to pretend that was the goal. In fact, they were already crazy Marxists intent on indoctrinating us.

MEH – EVEN IF THEY’D REMAINED THE VOTE WOULD HAVE BEEN 2 TO 1 IN SUPPORT OF THE BAN:  Black Mississippi lawmakers walk out of Senate in protest of critical race theory ban.

Also, Mississipi, you need better educated less indoctrinated awmakers. Do better!

THEY CAN’T GIVE MY MONEY TO THE RUSSIANS:  Ukraine: Biden State Department Preparing Partial Embassy Evacuation Amid Fears of Russian Invasion.

They already gave it to the Taliban.

WE’VE NOTICED:  Supply Chain Crisis Poised to Worsen as Vax Mandate Impacting Truckers Takes Effect.

ONLY BECAUSE THERE WAS NO QUESTION RELATED TO BEING SANE:  NBC Poll: Biden’s “worst marks came on being competent and effective”.

FROM CHRISTIAN TOTO:  Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul.  #CommissionEarned

Inside Hollywood’s Descent into Dreary, Dull Leftist Groupthink

Hollywood’s Dream Factory is now a nightmare of woke restrictions, Identity Politics run amok, and freedom-snuffing rules and regulations. The Oscars are unwatchable, as are many films and television shows thanks to the woke revolution. Virtue Bombs breaks down where Hollywood went so wrong, illustrates the slow-motion disaster infiltrating the industry, and offers a glimmer of hope for a woke-free tomorrow. Award-winning film critic Christian Toto has all the receipts, showcasing Hollywood’s virtue-signaling follies and how it could get much, much worse before it gets better.

THERE IS A NIGHTMARE FUTURE IN WHICH WE DEAL WITH OUR OWN CRAZY AND THEN:  Quebec descends deeper and deeper into COVID tyranny.

And then…. we have to go and liberate Canada. I don’t want to. I mean, some beautiful scenery, but the parts that aren’t frozen speak French.

And yet, I can’t say it’s an unlikely future.

<grumbles. This is the stupidest timeline.