THERE SEEM TO BE A LOT OF SECRET PUBLIC-PRIVATE ALLIANCES THESE DAYS: The Secret Public-Private Alliance to End Inflation and Save the Biden Administration. “By now you should be putting things together. The #metoo movement and the BLM pogroms in every major city became the pretext for a ‘re-imagining’ of long-standing IPs, in a way that made no sense as business decisions, but were perfectly rational if the goal was, in fact, to make money disappear.” Heh. A conspiracy so vast . . . .

Plus: “While I do not have what most skeptics would regard as ‘evidence,’ I do have plenty of hearsay and conjecture, which are kinds of evidence.”

LOL, BRUCE BARTLETT’S TDS IS SHOWING:

I'm not so sure. Trump's speech last night to a full house in Manchester was (I reluctantly realized) highly effective. He didn't ramble and he kept all the defects (eg grievances) in check or hidden. No signs of dementia. https://t.co/tZLaeOoCMt

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) January 21, 2024

To be honest, if I could wave my magic want and make DeSantis president I would. I don’t have a magic wand, and he can’t be elected. It’s Trump or Biden (or worse, Kamala, Michelle, Gavin Newsom, or several other worse choices). I choose Trump.

OPEN THREAD: How was your weekend?

DIVERSITY: ‘We have doubled the number of nationalities aboard’ ISS as all-European SpaceX Ax-3 astronauts dock at space station.

FRED HOYLE SMILES: What if Life on Earth Began When Interstellar Objects Crashed Here?

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: The Coldest Place. And the survival power of bitching.

FROM SPIKED, a report on the German Farmers’ Revolt.

THE DREAM SINCE HENRY FORD’S TIME: The Green Spark: A Catalyst Transforming Water Into Energy Wealth.

TAMARA KEEL: Volume of Fire: How do I get to Carnegie Hall? “Practice, practice. . .”

THIS SEEMS LIKE A TERRIBLE IDEA: Kevin McCarthy foe Tim Burchett could face primary challenge after voting for ouster. I know both Tim Burchett and Jimmy Matlock and I like them both. But I think that Tim was right to vote against McCarthy, and I don’t think we need a primary fight. Though it’s kinda late for that anyway. Perhaps this talk is more by way of a brushback pitch.

HOW IT STARTED: West Hollywood Defunds Police for ‘Safety Ambassadors.’

—Red State, June 29th, 2022.

How it’s going: Hollywood’s Walk of SHAME: Once-glamorous boulevard is filthy, overrun by homelessness and struggling to cope with soaring crime after police patrols were HALVED — but is it now finally getting a facelift?

—The London Daily Mail, today.

Gooder, and harder, California.

UPDATE:

NEW: The LA Times Editorial Board doubles down – endorsing progressive L.A. County DA George Gascon again, this time, for his reelection this year.

They write: “He is doing what he promised, and doing it well, despite intense and dishonest backlash.”https://t.co/C0tb7n1bWm

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 22, 2024

WHEN SECONDS COUNT, THE POLICE ARE MINUTES AWAY JUST NOT COMING: Sordid Lessons from Uvalde School Shooting; Justice Department Cites “Cascading Failures.”

STAY WARM: Thermajohn Long Johns Thermal Underwear for Men, Fleece Lined . #CommissionEarned Glenn ordered a pair of these and pronounced them a success. “They are comfortable, I like the fabric and they seem very warm.”

CHANGE: BREAKING: Ron DeSantis Suspends Presidential Campaign, Makes Endorsement. “Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge.”

IN DEFENSE OF BAD THIRD-ROW SEATS. The one in my SUV isn’t great, but it comes in handy sometimes. And it’s better than the one in the Mitsubishi Outlander, for sure.

READER FAVORITE: FORTEM Lumbar Support Office Chair. #CommissionEarned

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY: Demand and Production of 1 Billion Humanoid Bots Per Year.

SCOTT WANTS TREASURY’S ‘RELIGIOUS TEXTS’ SEARCHES DECISION TREE: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) got a lot of headlines this weekend for endorsing former President Donald Trump but something else did at the same time may well prove to be significant in the long term.

The South Carolina Republican told Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen he wants to know who made the decision for the department to join the FBI in “encouraging” banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions to search customers’ private accounts for transactions involving among many others the terms “religious texts,” and “MAGA,” “Trump.” He wants the information no later than Feb. 5.

“On what basis did Treasury/FinCEN conclude that purchasing or possessing of religious texts, may be indicative of extremism?” Scott said, adding “Who made the decision for Treasury/FinCEN to warn financial institutions that religious texts may indicate extremism?”

The senator also said “federal government efforts to target individuals and entities based on their political views is a blatant and egregious violation of our Constitution. Additionally, reported actions like these disrupt confidence in federal law enforcement and raise significant questions regarding the independence of federal financial regulators.”

The searches were part of the Deep State’s Jan. 6 investigation. Keep an eye on this aspect of the investigation of the investigation, as I have a hunch there is much behind these searches than is now known.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Research suggests European Alps eroding slower than >10,000 years ago.

HMM: Measles is most infectious disease known to science. Adults should consider getting another MMR vaccine. I’m afraid that the Covid debacle has produced a general distrust of vaccines, even proven and beneficial ones.

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Why Americans Have Lost Faith in the Value of College: Three generations of ‘college for all’ in the U.S. has left most families looking for alternatives.

For three generations, the national aspiration to “college for all” shaped America’s economy and culture, as most high-school graduates took it for granted that they would earn a degree. That consensus is now collapsing in the face of massive student debt, underemployed degree-holders and political intolerance on campus.

In the past decade, the percentage of Americans who expressed a lot of confidence in higher education fell from 57% to 36%, according to Gallup. A decline in undergraduate enrollment since 2011 has translated into 3 million fewer students on campus. Nearly half of parents say they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college after high school, even if there were no obstacles, financial or otherwise. Two-thirds of high-school students think they will be just fine without a college degree.

The pandemic drove home a sobering realization for a lot of middle-class American families: “College for all” is broken for most.

Plus: “Of 100 random freshmen enrolling in college today, 40 will not graduate. Of the remaining 60 that earn a degree in six years, 20 will end up chronically underemployed. In other words, for every five students who enroll in a four-year college, only two will graduate and find a job based on their degree.”

Perhaps college was always mostly a positional good, whose chief value was that only a few people could go. When so many people could go, it lost its value.

If only there had been some sort of warning.

READER FAVORITE: ComfiLife Knee Pillow for Side Sleepers. #CommissionEarned

HOW IT STARTED: Chuck Schumer Used Violent Rhetoric To Sic A Mob On Two Supreme Court Justices.

—Mollie Hemingway, the Federalist February 3rd, 2021.

How it’s going: The Chickens Come Home to Roost for Chuck Schumer As Pro-Hamas Radicals Target His Daughter.

Chuck Schumer and his daughter found themselves on the receiving end of pro-Hamas extremism on Friday evening. While the two ate dinner for Shabbat, “protesters” showed up at the apartment building shouting for a “ceasefire” and accusing Schumer of killing children.

The scene was a familiar one, with crazed Hamas supporters spending the months after the October 7th attack in Israel harassing people and shutting down infrastructure. All in the name of blood-thirsty terrorists who murdered babies, raped women, and beheaded people on camera because they are just so darn “oppressed.”

My feelings about this specific situation involving Schumer are complicated. On the one hand, these spoiled children cosplaying as concerned revolutionaries are disgusting. What kind of deranged psychos picket the apartment of a Jewish woman, screaming for a ceasefire with genocidal lunatics, just because her father is a senator? There’s nothing right and good about that, and the protesters themselves should be maligned and condemned.

On the other hand, Chuck Schumer wanted this. He has spent years excusing antisemitism in his own party, refusing to call out bigots like Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar. In lieu of that, he’s blamed all the world’s ills on nebulous, nearly non-existent “right-wing extremists” and “white supremacy.”

Straight out of the Book of Saul: When Alinskyites Collide: Anti-War Protesters Descend on John Kerry’s Townhouse.

Flashback: Riots for thee, but not for me.

IT’S NOT A “PROGRESSIVE PRIORITY” FOR THE KIDS’ SAKE: Does preschool help kids — or harm them?