HARD TO KILL: U.S. Air Force Stealth F-22s and F-35s Battled F-16s in Mock Combat.

This part deserves breaking out:

The F-35 and F-22 could face an even more advanced threat in future war games, if the Air Force can convince Congress to let it proceed with plans to convert early-model F-35s into aggressor planes.

The Air Force in May 2019 announced it would re-establish a defunct F-15 aggressor squadron to operate the roleplaying F-35s. The service in 2014 shuttered the 65th Aggressor Squadron as a cost-saving measure.

The 65th Aggressor Squadron in its new form would operate nine early-model F-35A stealth fighters that the Air Force considers unsuitable for combat. The “red air” F-35s would help the Air Force to copy the tactics of Russian and Chinese squadrons respectively flying Su-57 and J-20 stealth fighters.

Smart. Except Congress has explicitly forbidden the Air Force from transferring any F-35s to the aggressor role (for a least this year), which seems like a dumb place to all parsimonious all of a sudden.

SNOWFLAKE: Vox Writer Triggered by Trump Tweeting a Video With Bad Words in It.

VICTORIA TAFT: Trump Says He Had ‘Nothing to Do’ With Changing Roger Stone’s ‘Disgraceful’ Sentencing Memo.

THANKS, NANCY! Rasmussen: 55% of Voters Say Impeachment Made Trump Stronger Politically; Only 16% Say it Weakened Him.

CREEPY: How the outbreak is testing China’s vaunted surveillance technology.

In recent years, aided by some of the world’s largest information technology companies and the rapid development of cutting-edge technology such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence, the Chinese government has built up one of the most advanced mass surveillance networks on Earth to monitor the daily activities of the country’s 1.4 billion citizens.

The network includes nationwide video surveillance systems such as Skynet, which uses more cameras than any other country.

Almost everything a citizen does nowadays, whether it is making a payment with a mobile phone in a grocery store, taking a high-speed train ride, paying a visit to hospital, sharing a photo on social media or simply walking on the pavement, leaves a trace in databases operated or supervised by the government.

At the beginning of the outbreak, the Chinese government thought these technologies could quickly help it track down suspected carriers of the disease; but the authorities soon realised that the fight against the epidemic, to quote President Xi Jinping, was a “people’s war”.

People find a way, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: New Hampshire Berns Down. “One thing is certain: Elizabeth Warren will soon be flipping through Hillary Clinton’s Book of Blame for excuses to explain away her myriad weaknesses as a candidate. Sexism will of course be Number 1 on the list, sure to be followed by ‘Something, something Trump,’ and the inherent patriarchal oppression spread through Tom and Jerry cartoons.”

THANKS, JOE! Joe Biden’s Campaign Was a Disaster For Liberalism and the Democratic Party.

Jonathan Chait sounds particularly bitter this morning, which is a nice shot of schadenfreude in my coffee.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Voter to MSNBC: Your Criticism of Bernie Made Me Vote for Him.

HEH: When You Hear About Joe Biden’s Horrible NH Primary Finish You’ll Know Why He Got the Hell Out of Town.

LIVE: Drunkblogging the New Hampshire Primary.

(Bumped.)

NICE: Trump Has Some Words for Bloomberg After Leaked ‘Racist’ Audio Goes Viral.

For what it’s worth, I covered this story for BillWhittle.com back in December.

WOULD THEY FEEL BETTER IF THEY KNEW THERE WEREN’T ANY CORRECT CHOICES ON THE DEM BALLOT? In New Hampshire, Democratic Voters Are Paralyzed by Fear of Making the Wrong Choice.

DON’T GET COCKY: Most Expect Trump Will Be Reelected; Sanders Overtakes Biden Among Dem Voters. “Enthusiasm up from 2016, but with a partisan gap.”

Mind the gap:

Currently, 39% of American voters say they feel more enthusiastic than usual about the 2020 election, 21% say they are less enthusiastic, and 40% say they feel about the same level of enthusiasm as they have in past elections. In August 2016, 21% were more enthusiastic, 46% less enthusiastic, and 31% about the same. All partisan groups feel more enthusiastic than they did four years ago, including Republicans (47% more enthusiastic now versus 32% in 2016), Democrats (36% now versus 20% in 2016), and independents (34% now versus 15% in 2016).

“Enthusiasm is up compared to 2016, but optimism has split along party lines. These conflicting findings in public opinion seem to reflect the muddled state of the race on the Democratic side right now,” said Murray.

That last line was a bit of unnecessary (not to mention lame) spin. If Democratic voters can’t get enthused about the huge field of candidates they have to choose from, that says more about the quality of the field than it does about anything being “muddled.”

THESE ARE SOME FUN VIDEOS: 50 BMG MK211 Raufoss Round vs…

ANARCHY IN THE NYC: NYPD Protesters to De Blasio: Don’t Blame Our Anti-Police Hysteria for Officers Being Shot.

HOW’S THAT SOUTH CAROLINA FIREWALL HOLDIN’ UP FOR YA? Nearly Half of Biden’s African-American Supporters Have Abandoned Him.

ANALYSIS: How Xi Jinping’s “Controlocracy” Lost Control.

When the true scale of the epidemic finally became, Chinese public opinion reflected a predictable mix of anger, anxiety, and despair. People took to the Internet to vent their rage and frustration. But it did not take long for the state to crack down, severely limiting the ability of journalists and concerned citizens to share information about the crisis.

Then, on February 3, after Xi had chaired the Standing Committee’s second meeting on the epidemic, the CPC’s propaganda apparatus was ordered to “guide public opinion and strengthen information control.” In practice, this means that cutting-edge AI and big-data technologies are being used to monitor the entirety of Chinese public opinion online. The controlocracy is now running at full throttle, with facial-, image-, and voice-recognition algorithms being used to anticipate and suppress any potential criticism of the government, and to squelch all “unofficial” information about the epidemic.

On February 7, Li Wenliang, one of the physician-whistleblowers who tried to sound the alarm about the outbreak, died of coronavirus, which unleashed a firestorm on social media. The Chinese public is already commemorating him as a hero and victim who tried to tell the truth. Millions have taken to social media to express their grief, and to demand an apology from the Chinese government and freedom of expression.

For the first time since coming to power, Xi’s high-tech censorship machine is meeting with intense resistance from millions of Chinese Internet users.

Read the whole thing.

A BILL WHITTLE PODCAST: The Cold War: What We Saw | Two Bombs – Episode 2.

THAT’S GOING TO GENERATE SO MANY CARBON EMISSIONS — HOW DARE YOU! Greta Thunberg to Get Her Own BBC Show.

Related (From Ed): BBC put presenter on a plane to interview Greta Thunberg.

TYLER O’NEIL: The SPLC’s Fall From Grace: How a Civil Rights Group Became a Threat to Free Speech.

Tyler’s been on this story since before it was a story.

WELL, WHEN THE CHOICE IS BETWEEN ARSENIC OR CYANIDE… Just hours to go, New Hampshire primary voters still can’t make up their minds

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: A Ruth Bader Ginsburg Opinion Helped Trump Beat The Democrats’ Emoluments Lawsuit.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Let’s Stop Calling Them Never Trump ‘Republicans.’ “The Nevers aren’t a resistance movement, they’re a statistical gnat, continually being swatted away by reality.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Democrats Achieve Total Buzz Kill in New Hampshire.

“I support impeaching (Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett) Kavanaugh,” fumed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“I’ll be damned if I’ll lose this election to this guy (Trump),” shouted former Vice President Joe Biden. “He doesn’t have a shred of decency in him.” Sometimes the Democrats’ fury is just directed in any old direction. When a young woman asked Biden whether his poor Iowa showing was a bad sign, he inexplicably called her “a lying, dog-faced pony soldier,” whatever that means.

This has been going on the entire primary season. Beto O’Rourke’s campaign sold t-shirts simply saying, “This is F—-d Up.” The former Texas congressman was so fond of that expletive that Politico published a story asking, apparently without irony, “Can the F-Bomb Save Beto?”

His fellow Texan, Julián Castro, must have noticed. In an appearance last spring on Bill Maher’s HBO show and he dropped two “bulls—s.” He used it on NPR, too, which struck his interviewer as inappropriate, but by then Cory Booker was spreading b.s. himself.

If they were doing any of this to be funny, that would be one thing. But these Democrats are all serious, all of the time. They are on a mission for change that doesn’t allow for the light touch.

Meanwhile, Trump always looks like he’s having the time of his life when he’s on the campaign trail.

CONTAGION: Hubei province reports 2,097 new cases and 103 new deaths.