I’VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG THERE’S A MEAN UNDERCURRENT TO HIS PREACHINESS: Pete Buttigieg Twists Christianity: ‘Salvation’ Depends on Being ‘Useful.’

CHINA: Former British consulate worker detained in Shenzhen claims he was tortured by mainland police.

FROM THE FORMER HOME OF DAN RATHER: Weld County Sheriff calls 60 Minutes’ reporting on Colorado’s Red Flag law “lazy.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Is Bobby Fischer Playing 3-D Chess As Impeachment Dems Play Checkers. “The only thing that has been crystal clear is that the Democrats aren’t getting what they want. The thing about the 2019 Dems is that they’re blissfully unaware of, well, most things. Thanks to the self-affirming noise their media mouthpieces can make for them, harsh realities don’t often reach them.”

The Boy in the Bubble couldn’t survive contact with the outside world.

BIG UBER IS LISTENING: Uber to test recording audio of trips in effort to improve security.

The feature was first unveiled at an event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, earlier this month, and will allow drivers and riders to record audio of their trip “before or during the trip in some regions,” according to an Uber blog post in Portuguese.

Uber confirmed to NBC News that it would be testing out the new safety feature in Latin America. The rollout will begin next month, according to The Washington Post.

It is unclear if and when the feature will make it to the United States.

The blog post stated that the audio is encrypted and stored on the user’s phone, but adds that only Uber will have access to the recording. Users will not be able to play back their recording.

I actually don’t have a problem with this, provided that either the data is eventually either deleted or anonymized, given the occasional safety issues inherent in ride-sharing.

HAS ANYONE SEEN HUNTER BIDEN RECENTLY? Burisma Founder Suspected Of Embezzling Ukrainian State Funds, Whereabouts Currently Unknown.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Will 2020 Dems Turn Off More Faith Voters in Fifth Debate?

Related (From Ed): Far-Left Rachel Maddow Demands to Know If Pro-Life Dem Belongs in the Party.

PRIVACY: Police can keep Ring camera video forever, and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator.

WaPo link if you’d rather not click, and anyway the headline tells the story.

TO BE FAIR, THAT SEEMS LIKE A LOW BAR: He Was Born a Poor Black Child: Biden Tries to Out-Black Booker at Dem Debate.

NO DEMOCRATIC DEBATE DRUNKBLOG TONIGHT due to it being the VodkaWife’s birthday. As she does every year on this day, she’s just turned 24.5 years old. So if you’ll excuse me, I have dinner to make and wine to pour.

Over at the PJMedia mothership, Tyler O’Neil and others will publish hot & fresh debate items throughout the night, which I’ll link to in between glasses.

YES. Dennis Miller on ‘Angels’ Flop: We Don’t Wanna Be Scolded.

DAVID SOLWAY: Feminism as Gender Terrorism: The Mortal Vendetta Against the Male Sex.

Impossible to excerpt, so you’ll just have to click over.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The World Is Falling Apart: It Always Is. “I keep an old map on my office wall, bought for nearly nothing at a used bookstore and then lovingly framed. It’s a National Geographic print from 1942, covering ‘Asia and Adjacent Areas.’ The legend informs you: ‘International Boundaries as of Sept. 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland.’ A map of the same super-region published just three years later would look much different. One published just 20 years after that would be far different still. The changes have kept coming and keep coming even as I write this. I keep that old map over my desk because I love old maps, and I love old maps because they remind us that Bob Dylan got it wrong: The times are always a-changin’.”

This is my midweek piece for VIP members. If you’re interested, the promo code VODKAPUNDIT is good for a nice little discount.

WELL, THEY SHOULD: After Google acquisition, some Fitbit users worry about privacy.

TRAILER: “Balloon” is a new film that tells the true story of two East German families who made a daring escape to the West via a homemade hot-air balloon.

Having been during the Bad Old Days to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie museum with all its escape exhibits, I’m really looking forward to this.

DON’T IT MAKE MY RED STATE BLUE: ‘Don’t Californicate Colorado’ calls rise as Democrats embrace Golden State policies.

The Colorado-based Freedom to Drive Coalition filed a lawsuit this month against the state’s adoption of California’s zero-emissions vehicle standards, arguing that the rules violate state law and would add thousands of dollars to the cost of the heavy-duty vehicles favored by drivers navigating Colorado’s snowy roads.

Meanwhile, supporters of the Electoral College are balking at the lopsided flood of cash pouring in from California to prevent Colorado voters from overturning the National Popular Vote bill, which Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed into law in March.

Figures compiled by Protect Colorado’s Vote show that more than 98% of the donations to Yes on National Popular Vote have been from Californians, while Coloradans have contributed 99% of the revenue raised to exit the compact.

We’re becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sacramento.

HMM: British Mom Long Targeted by Trans Activists Denied Entry to the U.S.

GEN Z ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Teen uses remote-controlled car to smuggle drugs across border, officials say.

BLUE SKIES, NOTHING BUT BLUE SKIES: Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough.

Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius.

Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven — one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you’d find on the surface of the sun.

The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes. In other words, carbon-free sunlight can replace fossil fuels in a heavy carbon-emitting corner of the economy that has been untouched by the clean energy revolution.

“We are rolling out technology that can beat the price of fossil fuels and also not make the CO2 emissions,” Bill Gross, Heliogen’s founder and CEO, told CNN Business. “And that’s really the holy grail.”

That’s genuinely impressive, but still dependent on the weather.

LAWSUIT: Schiff Colluded With Politico To Leak False Info To Further Sham Impeachment. “On Monday, Kash Patel, a White House official serving on the National Security Council (NSC), filed a $25 million lawsuit against Politico, alleging that Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, leading the sham impeachment against President Trump, ‘weaponized the media’ with defamatory information to advance his goal of removing the president from office.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Navy Wants to Eject SEAL from His Elite Unit, Despite Trump Pardon. “Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher might be forced out of the Navy’s elite SEAL unit, despite being acquitted in July on nearly all charges and a recent pardon from President Trump on the one minor charge that did stick.”

A lot to chew on in this case.

MATT MARGOLIS: Ten Reasons Vindman’s Testimony Was Bad for Democrats.

11. Hardly anyone outside the MSN-DNC bubble gives a damn.

CYBERSECURITY: Hundreds of millions of Android phone cameras can be hijacked by spyware.

Rogue Android apps can hijack the default camera apps on Google and Samsung smartphones, and probably the camera apps on many other brands of Android phones, to take photos and record video and audio without the device users’ permission.

The apps can also view phone locations and other apps’ files, turning the phones into perfect spying devices. Even the best Android antivirus apps might not be able to protect you.

This flaw has been patched in Google and Samsung devices, according to Checkmarx, the Israeli security firm that found the vulnerability. But it’s not clear how many other phone makers have taken similar steps.

Check your manufacturer for security updates.

HMM: ‘Bro-like’: Schiff aide was White House friend of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella.

Alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella was close friends at the White House with an official who is now a key aide to Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman leading the Democratic push to impeach President Trump.

Sean Misko, 37, was the director for the Gulf States at the National Security Council from 2015 until the first half of 2018. Ciaramella, 33, a career CIA analyst, was Ukraine director on the NSC from at least 2016 until the summer of 2017. Both officials arrived during the Obama administration and left during the Trump administration.

In September, the whistleblower accused Trump of abusing the presidency by asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. The complaint is now the focus of Democratic-led impeachment proceedings.

Schiff initially denied he had any knowledge about the complaint prior to its filing in mid-August, saying on Sep. 17: “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to.” But it was later found that this statement was false and a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before the complaint was filed on Aug. 12.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: It’s Mayor Pete’s Turn in the Debate Spotlight. “Of the top four, Buttigieg is the least commie and least insane. That’s a relatively low bar to clear, but it does provide him with an opportunity to win over some of the flyover country voters who are desperately clinging to Biden because they find Sanders and Warren so distasteful.”

If Biden’s South Carolina primary (Feb. 29) firewall holds, it’s probably a better-than-even chance that he’s the nominee. If not, all bets are off.