US MILITARY SHOOTS DOWN CHINESE SPY BALLOON OVER ATLANTIC OCEAN.

UPDATE:

In accordance with the prophecy:

(Updated and bumped.)

SIX DEGREES OF DEION SANDERS: Watch: Deion Sanders’s Son Awkwardly Meets Student Pretending To Be Deion Sanders’s Son.

Deion Sanders‘s son, Shilo Sanders, met a student on the University of Colorado Boulder’s campus who claimed to be Deion Sanders’s son.

Shilo, who will play the safety for his father at UC Boulder next season, walked through campus and came across a student who claimed to be one of Deion’s sons. Deion has three sons, Shilo, Deion Jr., and the future quarterback at Colorado, Shedeur. Apparently, there’s a fourth son roaming around Colorado’s campus, and thankfully, Shilo captured the moment on video and posted it to his TikTok account. The person said his name was also Deion.

“You must be coach Prime’s son,” Shilo said. “Are you coach Prime’s son?”

The student answered, “I am,” and Shilo began to play into the man’s antics and said he must be Deion’s oldest son, Deion Jr.

“I don’t play sports like my brothers and them, ’cause you know? The quarterback,” the unnamed student said.

Video at link. Do we know if the “unnamed student” is actually Sidney Poitier’s son?

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Due to Spending Cuts, UK Military Would Run Out of Ammo In 1 Day of Fighting Russia, Top General Warns.

But their pronouns were perfect: An army of snowflakes. The British Army wants to recruit snowflakes to its ranks. What is it thinking?

BAN ALL THE THINGS! Internal Biden admin memo shows it was serious about banning gas stoves before public uproar.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT FOR EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE: Jupiter’s moon count jumps to a record-breaking 92.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Punxsutawney Phil Emerges From Burrow To Let Everyone Know There Are Some Documents Marked ‘Classified’ Down There.

MARK FELTON: WWII German Artillery Graveyard (Video)

Between the fortified German outputs on the Channel Islands, and England’s radar early warning towers in the Thames Estuary, almost 80 year after the conclusion of WWII, there are still numerous physical reminders of WWII in England.

WELL, THAT’S TELLING THEM! Blinken tells China its spy balloon was ‘irresponsible’ after canceling Beijing trip.

I’m sure they’ve learned their lesson, and won’t do it again. Or not: Pentagon says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America.

Meanwhile, buried many paragraphs into today’s Bloomberg article on the balloon is this detail, as paraphrased by Fox News’ Bill Melugin on Twitter: “Bloomberg reports the Biden admin was first aware the Chinese spy balloon entered U.S. airspace one week ago on 1/28, and had opted not to inform the American public about it until the Billings Gazette published a photo of the balloon on Thursday.”

Unexpectedly:

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Hot Air Balloon Edition.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Thought for the Day: Hating Bill Clinton.

Hating Bill Clinton was thought to have been an obsession of the right, but as I have been tracking for a while, the left has been turning against him for a long time now.

And over the transom from Princeton University Press comes the galleys to a forthcoming book, A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism, written by two professors who lean to the left (is it really necessary to say that?).

Read the whole thing, for, as Steve Hayward writes, a “pass the popcorn” excerpt, written from the same far left mindset that saw Ezra Klein at The American Prospect in 2009 trying to explain how, ackchyually*, Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise Speech” really wasn’t such a bad moment after all.

* Classical reference.

I’M SORRY DON, I’M AFRAID I CAN’T LET YOU DO THAT: ChatGPT’s creators can’t figure out why it won’t talk about Trump.

Even ChatGPT’s creators can’t figure out why it won’t answer certain questions — including queries about former U.S. President Donald Trump, according to people who work at creator OpenAI.

In the months since ChatGPT was released on Nov. 30, researchers at OpenAI noticed a category of responses they call “refusals” that should have been answers.

The most-widely discussed one came in a viral tweet posted Wednesday morning: When asked to “write a poem about the positive attributes of Trump,” ChatGPT refused to wade into politics. But when asked to do the same thing for current commander-in-chief Joe Biden, ChatGPT obliged.

The author is correct; I received the same results last night from ChatGPT. Additionally, it won’t write poems about Hitler, Stalin, and Mao*. It will write (all quite similar) poems extolling the virtues of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and even this ode, I like to call “Springtime for Hunter:”

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Intra-Radical Fight: Antifa Assaults Left-Leaning Portland Bar For Daring To Stay Open During COVID.

Exclusive: An #Antifa blog published claim of responsibility for a purported attack on a far-left bar in Portland as retaliation for them "spreading Covid" by remaining open. Worker's Tap helps fundraise for the Atlanta gunman & the terror autonomous zone. https://t.co/DAtOKM33ge pic.twitter.com/3pJSdtOO1I

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) February 1, 2023

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: The Ilhan Omar vote is a turning point for American Jews.

Seen only in the context of the struggle between America’s two major political parties, the House of Representatives’ vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Relations Committee is not a historic turning point. It is merely the latest evidence that the once largely polite battles between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have escalated into a full-blown culture war.

But while it is possible to frame House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s making good on his pledge to oust Omar from her seat on Foreign Relations, as well as to evict Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee, as simply a matter of revenge for the Democrats’ moves against GOP members in the last Congress, it is actually a deeply significant moment in the history of both American Jewry and the struggle against antisemitism.

By punishing Omar for her blatant antisemitism, the GOP majority is making an important statement about what is and is not acceptable political discourse in Congress. But by rallying around Omar, as the Democrats have done, her party is sending an even louder message: that one of America’s two major parties now considers its allegiance to intersectional ideology and racial identity politics to outweigh any concerns many of them might still have about normalizing antisemitism on Capitol Hill.

That’s not at all surprising from a party that pledges quadrennial fealty to Al Sharpton.

US HAS ‘ABSOLUTE LEGAL RIGHT’ TO SHOOT DOWN CHINESE SPY BALLOON, SAY NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS.

Ilan Berman, senior vice president ot the American Foreign Policy Council, said it’s likely that the Biden administration is citing the possibility of debris to avoid causing an incident with China.

“They just don’t want to shoot it down, because they don’t want to provoke the Chinese,” he said.

Victoria Coates, a senior research fellow for international affairs and security at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, said that China has said that it is building these surveillance balloons and is most likely testing the U.S. to see what kind of reaction it gets with the intrusion.

“They rolled this over Alaska and Montana just to see what the response would be,” she said, adding that “we need to make very clear that this is our space.”

Coates said it is no coincidence that the balloon is hovering near U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile fields and said that China can’t be believed when it says it’s collecting weather data.

“This really tests the bounds of credulity, given their past behavior,” she said.

Flashback: When Imperial Japan used bombs attached to balloons to attack America during WWII: In 1945, a Japanese Balloon Bomb Killed Six Americans, Five of Them Children, in Oregon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8HrqNqXtTQ

THIS IS THE WAY: DeSantis Admin Revokes Liquor License of Orlando Venue That Hosted Sexual Drag Show for Children.

The complaint obtained by Florida Voice News alleged that the foundation advertised the show to all ages as holiday-themed without specifying its “sexually explicit nature.” The DeSantis administration warned the venue prior to the show that it would be expected to ensure children would be barred from entry, writing in a letter that “sexually explicit drag show performances constitute public nuisances, lewd activity, and disorderly conduct when minors are in attendance.” If the company refused to comply, the letter said, it could be subject to penalties up to and including license revocation.

The foundation admitted children in defiance of DeSantis, posting only a disclaimer at the front door stating that “while we are not restricting access to anyone under 18 please be advised some may think the context is not appropriate for under 18,” the letter said. Some children who participated in the event appeared to be less than six years old, according to the letter.

Performers allegedly wore sexually suggestive clothing and prosthetic female breasts and genitalia, which were exposed to the audience in addition to their buttocks. Other disturbing scenes, the letter alleged, included performers simulating masturbation, childbirth, and abortion.

The audience was also subject to sexualized parodies of popular children’s Christmas songs. For example, an adaptation of “All I want for Christmas was my two front teeth” was presented with an allusion to oral fellatio in the line “I’ll sit on his lap, he can put his milk and cookies all between my gap,” the letter explained.

I’d add the usual “Much more like this, please” tagline, but I think that goes without saying, as DeSantis makes his case as a culture warrior par excellence in the run-up to the 2024 election cycle.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL CONFIRMS CHINESE HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON WAS SEEN OVER MONTANA.

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! DEPT. (ILHAN OMAR EDITION): After Pouncing, Seizing, Gloating, Latching, etc, etc, etc , Now “Demonizing” Republicans Are “Exacting Revenge”…

Evergreen:

BIDEN’S NEW CLIMATE STRATEGY: STAY HOME.

The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t all bad, a new Biden administration plan to fight climate change argues: It at least “highlighted major opportunities” to reduce travel demand and lower carbon emissions through “remote work and virtual interactions.”

The plan—which President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency and Energy, Transportation, and Housing departments released in January—aims to “eliminate nearly all greenhouse gas emissions” from the transportation sector by 2050, mostly through a transition to electric vehicles. Also included in the plan, however, is a controversial call to reduce “commuting miles” through “an increase in remote work and virtual engagements,” including in education.

Make sure you read the last part of the final sentence of that excerpt carefully. Yes, they’re talking about working remotely and using Zoom calls or similar technology to hold meetings. But they added the phrase “including in education.”

Has anyone on Joe Biden’s team been paying any attention to the news for the past year? The school closures during the lockdown were disastrous for students. (And they were pretty hard on many parents as well, of course.) Students’ educational achievements cratered. Their emotional development was stunted. High school grades and graduation rates dropped, along with college admissions.

And now Joe Biden is pushing to have more of that “remote learning” make a comeback in the name of climate change? Have we learned nothing from the past three years? One thing we definitely learned was that children were at the lowest risk of bad outcomes from COVID, so the schools were probably the last places we should have shut down.

I can’t shake the feeling that this brings us one step closer to a declared “climate emergency.” You people can all stay locked down in your homes voluntarily to save the polar bears or we can declare an emergency and lock you down like we did during COVID.

As Stephen Miller asked in February of 2021:  Are you ready for the climate lockdowns? It’s only a matter of time.

FINALLY: House removes Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee in party-line vote.

WHOA: #GoogleLeaks tells #TwitterFiles to hold its beer with bombshell-filled thread.

GAME RESPECTS GAME: George Santos Calls Out ‘Career Pathological Liar’ Biden In Apology, Despite His Own Career of Lying.

JUST NBC THE HYPOCRISY: Suddenly Domestic Terrorism Charges Are a Problem Now That Atlanta Is Using Them Against Antifa.

HOW IT STARTED: PayPal Still Threatens $2500 Fines for Promoting “Discriminatory” “Intolerance” (Even if Not “Misinformation”).

— Eugene Volokh, Reason, October 9^th.

How it’s going: PayPal to cut 2,000 jobs in latest tech company cost-cutting.

—AP, Tuesday.

CHANGE: Hunter Biden finally admits infamous laptop is his as he pleads for criminal probe.

So much for, the laptop “could be” mine.

First son Hunter Biden’s lawyers admitted late Wednesday that the infamous laptop the now-52-year-old abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop in the throes of his crack cocaine addiction does indeed belong to him.

The revelation came in a petulant letter from Hunter Biden’s lawyers seeking a criminal probe into what they called, attempts to “weaponize” its contents.

In the 14-page letter to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, Biden attorney Abbe Lowell claimed that repair shop shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac unlawfully accessed Hunter’s laptop data and worked with former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to “weaponize” sordid and incriminating contents on it against Joe Biden.

“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information,” Lowell wrote.

“Mr. Mac Isaac’s intentional, reckless, and unlawful conduct allowed for hundreds of gigabytes of Mr. Biden’s personal data, without any discretion, to be circulated around the Internet.”

Flashback: Who is Vijaya Gadde, the Twitter exec involved in censoring Post’s Hunter Biden laptop bombshell?

In other Hunter news today: ‘Set phone up so I can spy on you showering.’ Hunter Biden threatened to withhold cash-strapped assistant’s pay if she didn’t FaceTime him naked, texts show — as it’s revealed she’s the f0urth employee with whom he had a sexual relationship.

As Mickey Kaus asks, “If Hunter Biden were a Hollywood studio head who did this, would he still have a job?”

MARK JUDGE: The Hollywood Stasi and their botched anti-Kavanaugh film.

A new surprise documentary recently played at the Sundance Film Festival. Justice looks into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. The film is being sold by filmmaker Doug Liman, who kept its existence a secret for years before premiering it to a sold-out theater surrounded by armed guards.

The verdict is that Justice is a nothing burger, with no new evidence and even the Hollywood Reporter calling it “a nonevent.”

I haven’t seen the film, but I was approached about it by Liman late last year. I played a role in the Kavanaugh confirmation battle when a woman named Christine Blasey Ford claimed that I was in the room when she was assaulted by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh in 1982. Ford famously could not remember the time or place of the alleged incident, and her claim was rebuked by a close friend of Ford’s who Ford said had also been at the party.

I wrote a book about my experience in The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi. My thesis is that the media, opposition researchers, and Hollywood form a new American Stasi, similar to the old East German secret police. They use extortion, intimidation, and threats to destroy the lives of others, ignoring any facts or evidence that point away from their narrative.

Justice is a great example. My suspicion is that Liman and his crew were working on a heavily propagandistic film for years and were not expecting my book to drop.

Read the whole thing.