THAT’S WHAT TRUMP IS DOING. “Bring Back The Assholes.”

OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.

GOOD:

🚨New: Kash Patel delivers a new statement on becoming the FBI Director:

“I promise you the following: there will be accountability within the FBI and outside of the FBI, and we will do it through rigorous constitutional oversight starting this weekend.”
pic.twitter.com/nlT6t8oPJ1

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) February 21, 2025

Meanwhile, advice from a wired-in reader:

What Kash Patel needs to do is hit the ground running with a lightning strike round of firings, disciplinary actions, DOJ investigations and prosecutions. Which has already started but needs to be ramped wayTF up. Knock them back on their heels. Put every single senior agent in a personal defensive state. Plus a lot of the junior ones.

Go after them like … well, like the FBI. They’ll start turning on each other.

Put them on the receiving end for a change. A taste of their own medicine. With predawn raids and perp walks.
It’ll hamstring the agency at the upper levels, render it combat-ineffective. So political operations come to a complete halt. The lower level agents doing sometimes actually useful work in the field offices should be able for the most part to keep doing that. Unless any given agent here or there was involved in, you know, dirty unconstitutional gestapo-style work.

Knock them back on their heels with rapid fire firings, disciplinary action. Suspend all operations until they can justify those operations and their methods. What kind of coercion are they practicing, what use of criminal and other informants. Make them justify everything, because face it, their track record is spotty at best.

Treat the FBI like the corrupt, incompetent, partisan and criminal organization it is. Then work back from that. Get some of Elon’s 20-year-olds in there to apply the screws. You won’t see a lot of people shedding tears for dirty feds.

I highly doubt there is any worthwhile, legit FBI investigation or operation that will be harmed by a pause of a week or a month or two. Exempt counter-terrorism from suspension, not review. Not that they have that good a track record, but…

Oh, here’s a good one. Inform FBI agents they might be shown leniency if they rat out their rotten colleagues.
A few executions, I mean firings, should focus the minds of the others.

And don’t forget the pre-dawn raids and perp walks. Treat them as they have treated the American people.

Shock and awe. I’m pretty sure Kash is on the same page here. We’ll see.

ART OF THE DEAL: Zelensky surrenders to Trump and ‘will sign mineral deal within hours.’

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China readies Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return spacecraft for launch.

REGIME TOOLS:

NewsGuard's deep ties to the Biden admin have been EXPOSED. https://t.co/2FAbP6hBnC

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) February 22, 2025

I believe that NewsGuard was behind my demonetization.

I THINK THEY WERE WON OVER BY OUR WINNING PERSONALITY: Tomatoes Don’t Kill Humans, And We Just Figured Out Why.

TRUE: Why the Argument for Birthright Citizenship Is Not the Slam Dunk Many Say It Is.

Trump’s order would align U.S. policy with much of the developed world, including the European Union, Japan, and the world’s two most populous countries, China and India. But it would make the U.S. an outlier on this side of the Atlantic: Almost all of the estimated 33 nations that embrace what’s called birthright citizenship are North and South American nations that accepted waves of mostly European settlers and enslaved people.

The United States appeared to codify the policy with the passage of the 14th Amendment following the Civil War, which was intended to grant citizenship to freed slaves. A subsequent Supreme Court case from 1895, involving the son born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants who were here legally, has long been interpreted as making all babies born on U.S. soil citizens. That son would still be considered a citizen under Trump’s executive order. . . .

Supporters of Trump’s order argue that the inclusion of the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” transforms what would be a straightforward assertion, that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, into a fraught legal question. Although they appear to be the minority, various scholars have long doubted the validity of birthright citizenship because of that ambiguous phrase – and by applying what they see as basic common sense.

We’ll find out.

WAR: German Elections Sunday, Mass Stabbing in Berlin Today.

I wonder if this is how moments after @elonmusk spoke at @AfD conference w/ @Alice_Weidel…

1000s of quotes from EU politicians magically appeared condemning him — all sounding almost exactly the same… https://t.co/33uoao1KIX

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 21, 2025

WELL, ROBERT REICH:

Loser’s mindset https://t.co/9WnJeHgT9A

— Chris Camillo (@ChrisCamillo) February 21, 2025

A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN POINTING THIS OUT FOR YEARS: We’re Having Fewer Forest Fires – And That’s a Big Problem: Modern wildfires are less frequent but more severe due to fire suppression and fuel buildup. Scientists urge prescribed burns and fuel treatments to reduce wildfire risks. Greens, however, have blocked this most places. Then they blame the resulting mega-fires on “climate change.”

GIVEN ITS TRACK RECORD, COLOR ME UNIMPRESSED: CDC layoffs strike deeply at its ability to respond to current flu, norovirus and measles outbreaks.

PLUG-IN HYBRIDS ARE BETTER THAN EVs: Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Yearlong Verdict: Not Electric. Better for It?

HEH:

Not my idea but someone suggested DOGE should be renamed Federal Agency for Financial Oversight.

😆

— Jason Coursey (@JasonCoursey) February 17, 2025

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Round-Up: Rapid Access Safes for Long Guns.

CHANGE: Judge clears way for Trump administration to pull thousands of USAID staffers off the job.

HMM: How mosquitoes hear may inspire new ways to detect natural disasters.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Genetic therapy gives infants life-changing improvements in sight.

AT THIS POINT, I’M UNCONCERNED: Do you have high-quality sperm? What it can tell you about your health — and why it’s key to a healthy pregnancy and kid.

HMM: Malva nut residue could help heal wounds, improve medical devices, study shows.

ENDING DISCRIMINATION: CU Boulder ends ‘underrepresented minority’ med school scholarship after being sued.

CHANGE: Iowa state legislature considers bill cutting off tuition grants to private colleges and universities that promote DEI.

CHANGE: Trump DOJ Declares Multi-Layered Protections for Administrative Law Judges Unconstitutional, Dismantling Longstanding Shield for Unelected Bureaucrats. “The DOJ’s position aligns with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. decision, which struck down similar ‘multilayer protection from removal’ for executive officers. The Court ruled that such barriers were an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s authority to oversee executive officers.”

This has been coming for a while. If the president can’t remove them they’re not executive officers. If they’re not executive officers, they can’t be in the executive branch.

CHANGE: Top Law Schools Are Dropping ‘Diversity’ From Their DEI Branding.

RELIGIOUS ATROCITIES THE WESTERN MEDIA DON’T CARE ABOUT: 70 Christians Beheaded In Congo Church: “We don’t know what to do or how to pray; we’ve had enough of massacres.”

If you’ve had enough, arm yourselves and kill the offenders.