COOL: This App Automatically Cancels and Sues Robocallers. “Robo Revenge combines both features to automatically add you to the Do Not Call Registry, generate a virtual DoNotPay burner credit card to provide scammers when they illegally call you anyways, use the transaction information to get the scammer’s contact information, then walk you through how to sue them for as much as $3,000 per call under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a law already on the books meant to protect consumers from calls that violate the Do Not Call Registry. The app also streamlines the litigation paperwork by automatically generating demand letters and court filing documents.”

CHUTZPAH: Senator Manchin Voted to Convict Trump But Wants His Support for His Re-Election in 2024.

SHOCKER: Grown Men Won’t Dress Like Toddlers, RompHim Clothing Firm Goes Bust. “If I tried really hard, I might be able to squeeze out a tear for the people who came up with this, but I’d probably have to put Tabasco on my contact lenses and pull out a fistful of leg hair while remembering that scene when E.T. died in order to do it.”

And on a somewhat more serious note for PJMedia/Townhall VIP members: The Road to 1,990: Is It Bernie’s Race to Lose? “The temptation to write off Joe Biden’s chances of winning his party’s nomination is just like the temptation to order a second martini at lunch on a workday: You know you shouldn’t, but it feels so right.”

As always, there’s that VODKAPUNDIT discount code if you’ve been thinking of becoming a member.

“HELL NO” IS STILL MY FIRST CHOICE: ‘Not sure’ third in latest 2020 Democratic poll, ahead of Bloomberg.

CHINA: Rule in the Time of Coronavirus.

Xi Jinping may also be thinking of it as an opportunity. Remember that Xi is part of political party that killed an estimated 65 million of its own people, and was happy to put a couple of million Uighers in concentration camps in order to reeducate them about their racial inferiority to the Chinese. They had to hold off tiananmening a few thousand Hong Kong activists only because too much of the world was watching and too much money is at stake.

But now? Now they’ve got tens of millions of people under quarantine, they’re reportedly burning thousands of bodies that died from the virus without reporting them, so many that they’re showing up on satellite photos mapping particulates. With the quarantine and even heavier than usual censorship, the communist government has ideal circumstances for score-settling and purging “subversive” elements.

Authoritarian lefties (but I repeat myself) prefer not to let a crisis go to waste.

21ST CENTURY POLITICKING: Michael Bloomberg’s Campaign Suddenly Drops Memes Everywhere.

The Bloomberg campaign is working with Meme 2020, a new company formed by some of the people behind extremely influential accounts.

Mick Purzycki is the lead strategist of the Meme 2020 project. He is also the chief executive of Jerry Media, a media and marketing company that is a powerful force in the influencer economy. The company’s portfolio includes some of the most notable meme accounts on Instagram. Jerry Media was at the center of controversy last year after a debate around proper crediting in meme culture.

In January, Mr. Purzycki tapped a number of large influencers who he had formed relationships with through his association with Jerry Media. (Elliot Tebele, the founder of Jerry Media, has no involvement in the project.)

The campaign, which launched this week, has already placed sponsored posts on Instagram accounts including @GrapeJuiceBoys, a meme page with more than 2.7 million followers; Jerry Media’s own most popular account, with more than 13.3 million followers; and @Tank.Sinatra, a member with more than 2.3 million followers.

The accounts all posted Bloomberg campaign ads in the form of fake direct messages from the candidate.

The first real test of Bloomberg’s latest high-tech startup firm — his campaign — is on Super Tuesday, March 3. I’m very curious to see if he can buy his way to the nomination via TV and social media, rather than traditional campaigning.

HE HAS LEARNED NOTHING, AND FORGOTTEN NOTHING: Congressman Most Famous for Loud Fart Suggests He’s Game for Investigating Trump…AGAIN.

ENCOURAGEMENT NOT NEEDED BUT ALWAYS WELCOME: Why scientists are encouraging people to drink more coffee. “According to a new study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, there is a robust association between habitual coffee consumption and the prevention of bone fracturing later in life and the development of metabolic illnesses. In other words, more coffee for everyone!”

Coffee is the beer of nonalcoholic beverages: There’s nothing it can’t do.

AS SARAH HOYT WOULD SAY, “PUT DOWN THE CRACK PIPE”: ‘He would arrest us tomorrow’: Joe Scarborough says Trump would strip freedom of press if he could.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Is Liberal Media Finally Fed Up with Woke Hollywood?

Two major outlets shred more than just the Oscars telecast. Are they finally on to the con?

Quick question: name the outlet that wrote the following about Sunday’s Oscars telecast:

What I did mind was a sinking feeling that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for all its inclusiveness, had wound up excluding more viewers than ever. Couldn’t they have promoted that dual appearance by Steve Martin and Chris Rock? Bang that drum just a little, and another 3 million viewers might have watched. Shouldn’t they have done just a little bit more of what Renée Zellweger attempted when she said something nice about those in the Armed Forces, or Bong when he devotedly quoted Martin Scorsese?

National Review?
The Daily Wire?
American Greatness?

Wrong. Try the far-left Deadline.com.

Read the whole thing.

DRAIN THE SWAMP: Devin Nunes Links Trump’s NSC ‘Friday Night Massacre’ to General Mike Flynn and … Whoa.

SCHIFTY: House Republicans Boycott Intel Committee Hearing Due to Schiff’s Refusal to Hold FISA Abuse Hearings.

GOOD: Majority of Americans would vote against socialist candidate for president, poll finds.

IT’S OVER: Prominent Elizabeth Warren supporter says ‘she’s done’ after her poor New Hampshire results.

Warren supporters’ outlooks ranged from disappointed to defeatist in the wake of her distant 4th place finish in New Hampshire, with the surrogate arguing that the tail end of Warren’s New Hampshire operation was bungled and less organized than it had been for most of the cycle.

“She couldn’t find/doesn’t have a lane — die hard progressives went with Bernie when they saw his health scare wasn’t lasting,” the surrogate, who asked for anonymity because they weren’t authorized by the campaign to speak publicly, said in a text message. “She couldn’t be the woman/centrist candidate with Klobuchar already there.”

Mixed signals were sent about visibility for the campaign, they said, with the surrogate and others feeling held at arms-length at times and hastily courted at others.

It’s time to quit, but the DNC needs her to keep siphoning votes away from Bernie Sanders.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Granny Winebox Is Going to Hand This Election to Trump.

There was a time when I used to have nothing but praise for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s political instincts and acumen, despite the fact that she represented the other side. In her first incarnation as Speaker of the House, Pelosi was extraordinarily shrewd and powerful. She managed to get members of her own caucus to give up their careers for Obamacare.

Her second turn in the job is making me seriously consider that some sort of intergalactic space invader body-snatching may have happened here.

“Pod people” makes more sense than anything else I can think of.

BYE, BYE BIDEN: Inside Mike Bloomberg’s big play for black voters.

SUSTAINABILITY: U.S. Budget Deficit Grew 25% in First Four Months of Fiscal 2020 on Calendar Quirk.

The U.S. budget gap totaled $389 billion from October through January, compared with $310 billion in the same period a year earlier, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday. Federal outlays rose 10%, to $1.6 trillion, and federal tax receipts grew 6%, to $1.2 trillion—both record highs for the four-month period.

Spending rose sharply because Feb. 1, the date on which certain benefits are paid, fell on a Saturday, shifting those payments into January. If not for that shift, the deficit would have been only 6% larger, and receipts and outlays each would have risen 7%.
…
As a share of gross domestic product, year-over-year deficits were 4.9%, compared with 4.3% in the previous 12 months. That was the highest deficit/GDP ratio since May 2013, when the unemployment rate was 7.5% and real GDP grew just 0.12% from the previous quarter.

Meanwhile: Without a budget, how will Democrats communicate their fiscal priorities?

POTEMKIN MEDICINE: What China’s empty new coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system.

The gulf between the vision of vast new hospitals created and thrown into action within days and the more complicated reality on the ground is a reminder of one of the main challenges for Beijing as it struggles to contain the coronavirus: its own secretive, authoritarian system of government and its vast censorship and propaganda apparatus.

Communist party apparatus well honed to crush dissent also muffles legitimate warnings. A propaganda system designed to support the party and state cannot be relied on for accurate information. That is a problem not just for families left bereft by the coronavirus and businesses destroyed by the sudden shutdown, but for a world trying to assess Beijing’s success in controlling and containing the disease.

“China’s centralised system and lack of freedom of press definitely delay a necessary aggressive early response when it was still possible to contain epidemics at the local level,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in the US.

For many Western businesses, theft of trade secrets and other intellectual property just seemed like a cost of gaining access to a billion or so Chinese consumers. But this is something else entirely.

I FEEL LIKE I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO SAY DON’T DO THAT, BUT DON’T DO THAT: Chinese man covers himself in gasoline while strapped to firecrackers after coronavirus cancels birthday bash.

YOU STAY CLASSY, DEMS: Sarah Sanders Calls Bloomberg’s Stop-and-Frisk Comments ‘Atrocious,’ So Naturally, Democrats Call Her ‘Fat.’

BLUE ON BLUE: The Left Comes to Kick the Corpse of Joe Biden’s Campaign.

That one is just for our PJMedia/Townhall VIP members (you can sign up here if you wish with that VODKAPUNDIT discount code), but Matt Margolis has non-members covered this hour with: 5 Times Barack Obama Protected His Allies from Justice and Democrats Didn’t Care.

YA THINK? ‘We Did It Wrong’: Aurora Admits Mishandling Drunk Officer Nate Meier.

THE DEEP ONES ARE UP TO SOMETHING: Gigantic mystery ‘skeleton’ found washed up on beach by Storm Ciara baffling locals.

UP NEXT: A TAX ON THINGY. Connecticut Democrats Want to Tax Insulin… Oh, Wait. It’s a Fee, Not a Tax. Or Something.

I’D MISSED THIS NEWS: The Lion Sleeps Tonight. “Bummed to hear of the passing of the founder of Ladysmith Black Mombazo. Here’s them teaming up with an all-girl acapella group for a great version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Like most Americans, I’d never heard (or heard of) Ladysmith Black Mombazo until Paul Simon brought them to fame here on Graceland. But I did get to see them live (at the Fox Theater in St. Louis, IIRC) and on video as part of Simon’s excellent “Graceland: The African Concert.” They always put on a great show, and Joseph Shabalala will be missed.