HOW BAD WAS IT? THIS BAD. CNN Makes Shocking Admission on How Badly Democrats Did Against RFK Jr.

ANOTHER HAMAS HOSTAGE OUTRAGE: Richard Pollock’s latest on Substack provides an in-depth look at the chaos that erupted as Hamas released three more of the October 7 2023 hostages.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Nazi Killer Robots — Fact or Fiction? New video from Mark Felton:

FORMER FEDERAL RESERVE ADVISER ARRESTED FOR PASSING TRADE SECRETS TO CHINA, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SAYS:

A former senior advisor to the Federal Reserve, John Harold Rogers, was arrested on charges he conspired to steal Fed trade secrets for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China, the Justice Department announced Friday.

Rogers, who worked as a senior adviser in the Fed’s division of international finance from 2010 until 2021, allegedly shared confidential information with Chinese co-conspirators. He is charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements.

And from two weeks ago: Chinese hackers accessed Yellen’s computer in US Treasury breach, Bloomberg News reports.

THIS SEEMS ABOUT RIGHT:

Trump, in 2016, tried to do something outside of his comfort zone. Play politics.

Trump, in 2024, is doing what he was built for. A hostile takeover of a bankrupt and failing business.

— The Lectern Guy🇺🇸 (@lecternleader) January 30, 2025

CHOLESTEROL AND DEMENTIA: “Seniors whose cholesterol levels spike and plummet year-to-year could be at increased risk of dementia and failing brain health, a new study suggests. . . . However, research into the impact of cholesterol on brain health in seniors has yielded mixed results. Some studies have said cholesterol has no impact on the brain in old age, while others have found that low cholesterol might actually increase dementia risk.”

THE CRITICAL DRINKER ON DISNEY’S UPCOMING SNOW WHITE REBOOT: The Most Hated Movie Ever? (Video.)

The Drinker is referring to Disney’s full length trailer, which dropped on December 3rd, and by the following day, had the following number of downvotes:

As of shortly before this post was published, it is indeed over 1,000,000 downvotes on YouTube:

The teaser trailer, which has been online since August 9th has even worse numbers:

The teaser trailer screencap was from mid-December. As of now, it has gained a thousand more likes (to 101K), but the downvotes are apparently capped at 1.4 million. Does Google limit the number of downvotes something can receive? Did they anticipate this sort of visceral hatred to a woke remake of a beloved classic animated film?

CHUCK TODD EXITING NBC NEWS AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS AS TRUMP STARTS SECOND TERM.

The NBC chief political analyst and former “Meet The Press” moderator announced the news in a memo shared with staff Friday. The exit comes amid broad shifts in the TV news landscape as President Donald Trump begins his second term. In the memo to fellow NBC staffers, Todd teased his next chapter.

“There’s never a perfect time to leave a place that’s been a professional home for so long, but I’m pretty excited about a few new projects that are on the cusp of going from ‘pie in the sky’ to ‘near reality.’ So I’m grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter during this important moment,” Todd said in the memo obtained Friday by USA TODAY.

And so, as he flies the Blue Lady of the Skies into the sunset, we say “aloha” Five o’clock F. Chuck Todd, and return to our duties.  Let me remind you, the Weblog is open twenty-four hours for your dining and dancing pleasure.

UPDATE: Oceania has always been at war with disinformation:

Chuck Todd has left NBC News. Here's a good video to remember his news career by. pic.twitter.com/u1GAxsRSFA

— MAZE (@mazemoore) January 31, 2025

AND NO QUALIFIED IMMUNITY FOR OFFICIALS, WHICH MAKES IT A BIGGER DEAL: U Tenn Pharmacy School Pays $250K Settlement for Trying to Expel Student for Sexually Themed Tweets. “Unfortunately, Kim’s ordeal was not unique. For years, colleges around the country have wielded professionalism codes against students for their expression even when the student’s speech has no bearing on their ability to succeed in a given field.”

I’d have more respect for “professionalism” requirements if the people who ran our institutions acted more professionally.

NO. Are Hydrogen Cars Inevitable? Hydrogen isn’t a fuel, it’s an energy storage medium. It’s made by electrolysis — we’d need a lot of nuclear plants — or by steam reformation of natural gas, where it’s basically just a fossil fuel. I’m in favor of a lot of nuclear plants, but. . . There are other issues of storage, etc. I drove a hydrogen car for Popular Mechanics some years ago, but my objections there still hold: “The car advertises itself as petroleum-free, which is true. But—and here’s my problem with hydrogen cars—it’s not really fossil fuel free. Most hydrogen is made by ‘steam reformation’ of natural gas, which is still a fossil fuel. You can also make it out of water, via electrolysis, but unless you’ve got a non-fossil source of electricity the hydrogen is really just functioning as an energy-storage medium, rather than a source of energy. Of course, build lots of nice, clean nuclear plants, or orbiting solar power plants, or whatever, and that problem goes away.”

WHISTLEBLOWER: ‘Prolific Anti-Trump FBI Agent’ Broke Protocol To Spearhead Election Lawfare.

Former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Timothy Thibault, who was fired for violating the Hatch Act after Grassley exposed his public anti-Trump statements, authored the initial language for “Arctic Frost,” the investigation that would become former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lawfare case against Trump over the 2020 election.

“Thibault took this action despite being unauthorized to open criminal investigations in his ASAC role,” a joint press release from the senators stated. They also said the Justice Department and FBI had a “plot to pin Trump.”

The investigation was then advanced by Justice Department Public Integrity Sector official Richard Pilger, former head of the Election Crimes Branch, who was also the subject of a Grassley report stating he “undermined the department’s election-related efforts.”

Pilger’s authorization allowed the Justice Department to advance a full criminal and grand jury investigation.

Kash Patel has a full plate.

AYN RAND WROTE ABOUT THE “RETURN OF THE PRIMITIVE”: STUDY: Objectivism and Rationalism Now Signs of “White Supremacy”.

In some sense, she’s right: it’s not exclusively white by any means, but the sense of rationalism and science writ large is what has been supreme.

ALL FAMILY BUSINESS IS BEING SETTLED:

🚨 #BREAKING: The Trump admin has just FIRED David Sundberg, the FBI Assistant Director for Washington, DC

Sundberg led the WITCH HUNT against J6ers, and failed to find ANY “leads” on person who supposedly placed pipe b*mbs around on J6

CLEANING HOUSE! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/2MDhwBy45A

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 31, 2025

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™ — And Suddenly ‘Trump Proofing’ California Seems Like a Really Dumb Idea.

IT’S FUN EXPOSING THE HYPOCRISY BUT THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY REVEL IN IT: Jets and Luxury Cars: Reporter Exposes Rank Hypocrisy of Davos Elites.

BREAKING: Trump Administration Orders Federal Employees to Remove Pronouns from Email Signatures.

READER FAVORITE: Wrangler Men’s Regular Fit Comfort Flex Waist Jeans. #CommissionEarned

SAFETY: ICE Now Deporting Violent, Gun-Toting Illegals After They’d Been Released by Sanctuary State Judges.

JON CALDERA: FDA completely contradicts Denver council claims on flavored nicotine.

I quit smoking decades ago. I committed to smoke only after sex.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has officially declared the Denver City Council is working to kill people. This counters the council’s stated fib they want to help people stop smoking.

I know we’ve been over this before. But the timing of the FDA’s action is just too delicious, like a fine cigar, not to spend a moment celebrating it.

If you recall it was mere weeks ago when Denver’s City Council put aside such trifling issues as crime, homeless squalor and tens of thousands of immigrants sucking up city resources to ban the sale of flavored nicotine products.

Instead of focusing on how to keep mentally ill violent criminals behind bars and not running around town stabbing folks, the council banned the sale of products like Zyn, the popular tobacco-free nicotine pouch. We were told this was going to save lives by keeping people away from the evil gateway product that leads to deadly cigarettes.

How very embarrassing, then, that after years of rigorous study, the nation’s Food and Drug Administration has cleared the makers of Zyn to market their product, finding it leads to reducing tobacco use, not increasing it. Oopsie!

But by banning flavored vapes, Denver gives the appearance of DOING SOMETHING — something far more important to them than actually getting anything done.

Related: The Democrats’ Governance Problem. “Think about it. If you wanted safe streets and public order would your first impulse be to turn to…a Democrat? Or if you wanted a secure, actually-enforced border? How about efficient, effective delivery of public services? Or rapid completion of public projects and infrastructure? Or nonideological public administration?”

And that’s from Ruy Teixeira, a Democrat — or at least he used to be one.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Drag Queen ‘Tot Mom’ Friend Threatens Trump on Facebook. “Today’s headline report doesn’t sound much like a Florida Man Friday story, but I promise you it is. This week we also have a lesson learned about ankle monitors and how to lose that Teacher of the Year award.”

FLASHBACK: In light of Tulsi Gabbard’s comments on Edward Snowden, Don’t Fear the Leaker.

Related: The full length article on Bureaucracy and Ethical Whistleblowing.

And here’s a video of me speaking on the topic before the Information Systems Security Association.

READER FAVORITE: Airmoto Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor. #CommissionEarned

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Data Republican’s Federal Government Grant Award Search database has moved here after hitting GitHub’s bandwidth limits.

WELL, I’M CONVINCED — RUN HER AGAIN:

BREAKING: Outgoing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison believes Kamala Harris can win in 2028.

— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) January 31, 2025

They won’t always stay this stupid but on days like today, it sure does feel like it.

OH, MAN: Oscar-nominated Emilia Perez star Karla Sofía Gascón issues apology over historic [sic–Ed] tweets.

In a statement to Variety, Gascón said: “I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalised community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”

In one post from 2020, she wrote: “I’m sorry, Is it just my impression or is there more muslims in Spain? Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”

Another post from 2020 said: “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler, but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”

Gascón is the first transgender actress to receive an Oscar nomination, and Emilia Perez secured the most nods this year with 13, including best picture. She is also a Bafta nominee for best actress.

At least two tweets from Gascon referencing Hitler have surfaced:

Google translates the second tweet as saying, “Hitler believed that his people were divine and belonged to a superior race. They all wiped him out, now the swastika can’t even reproduce itself. The church, Islam, etc., etc. have caused millions more deaths throughout the history of humanity and they are still there. It makes you think.”

Earlier: John Podhoretz on Emilia Perez:

The title character is El Chapo with his male machinery removed—and once El Chapo becomes a she, they become social justice warriors for the poor and oppressed.

No, I am not kidding. No, this is not a comedy. But it is a musical (again, no I’m not kidding), mostly in Spanish but a little in English, featuring an immortal exchange in recitative between El Chapo’s lawyer and a doctor in a clinic in Thailand:

Lawyer: Hello, very nice to meet you, I’d like to know about a sex change operation.

Doctor: Man to woman or woman to man?

Lawyer: Man to woman.

Doctor: Penis to vagina!

You would know this yourself. You could. You almost certainly have a Netflix subscription and Emilia Perez has been available on Netflix for months. You might even have watched some of it. Many people have. The thing is, I haven’t met a single person who has made it past the 60-minute mark of this two-hour movie because (with the exception of Zoe Saldana, the blockbuster franchise actress who does a wonderful job playing the lawyer) its awfulness doesn’t even rise to the level of “this is a camp classic, I just gotta see how bad this is going to get the longer it goes on.” Rather, everybody shuts Emilia Perez off and then goes and takes a shower. Or puts on a real estate flipping show.

Why did it get 13 Oscar nominations? Guess why. You know why. It’s the same reason the movie nobody has seen about Donald Trump got Oscar nominations for the guy playing Trump and the guy playing Roy Cohn. Hollywood is trying to tell us things again. Emilia Perez got the same number of nominations as All About Eve because it’s about the wonders of sex change operations and how they will solve all the problems of our planet. The person playing Emilia Chapo, Karla Sofia Gascón, is nominated for Best Actress. If she wins, in part by defeating Mikey Madison, it will be a scandal—but hey, if actresses in Hollywood don’t have the courage to complain about their awards being taken away by biological males, then those awards should be taken away by biological males. It’ll serve them right.

March 2nd could be a night to remember for Hollywood — in every sense of the phrase.