FAIL, BRITANNIA: Woman billboard removed after transphobia row.

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull told the BBC she paid £700 to have “woman, wʊmən, noun, adult human female” put up.

But it was removed after an LGBT activist complained Ms Keen-Minshull’s campaign represented a “hate group”.

Ms Keen-Minshull denied the allegation, but said the idea that trans women were women was “preposterous”.

When asked why the poster was erected in Liverpool, where the Labour Party’s annual conference is taking place, Ms Keen-Minshull said it was in response to the city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, who recently voiced his support for the trans community.

Dr Adrian Harrop, whose complaint led to the poster’s removal, said the billboard was a “symbol that makes transgender people feel unsafe”.

If dictionary definitions make you anxious, you might have other mental health issues.

HE MUST BE NEW THERE: Councilman “mind-boggled” by Baltimore City IT department ineptitude. “In a report to a committee of the Baltimore City Council last week, City Auditor Josh Pasch said that the city’s Information Technology department could not provide any documentation of its work toward meeting agency performance goals because the only copies of that data were kept on local hard drives and never backed up to a server or the cloud.”

But you can trust the government with a backdoor to your data, honest.

‘TIS A PITY THEY CAN’T BOTH LOSE: Zuckerberg Calls Warren’s Plan an ‘Existential’ Threat to Facebook. But Is It Really?

Or maybe they both can…

CHRISTIAN TOTO: How One ‘SNL’ Joke Brutally Exposes Cancel Culture.

I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Air Force New B61 Mod 12 Nuclear Bomb Hits Targets in Testing.

THE END OF WOMEN’S SPORTS (CONT’D): UK Rugby Referees Quitting Over Transgender Players Breaking Women’s Bones.

A MOST DANGEROUS GAME: Red State Democrats Wary That Impeachment Witch Hunt Will Prevent Dems Winning Majority.

IAN LI: The U.S.-China Rivalry as Seen in the Cold War’s Rear-View Mirror.

China has its own problems. While Beijing’s narrative of an ascendant China is an attractive one, and one it would like to propagate, it must be properly contextualised. China’s rise is a geopolitical fact, and it remains on an upward trajectory. Unlike the Soviet Union, which was largely restrained by ideological dogma from integrating into the global economy, China’s more flexible approach has seen it become an irreplaceable node of the international system. This has added to China’s allure as a strategic partner. Yet, China’s relative inexperience in managing international relations has led to miscalculations in its dealings overseas.

China’s lack of sensitivity in dealing with the recipient countries of its Belt and Road Initiative has resulted in much unhappiness, hampering efforts to extend Chinese influence beyond its borders. In addition, China’s own version of a regional manifest destiny has led it to exert power where diplomacy might have otherwise been more prudent, unnecessarily generating mistrust and hostility where amity should have been preferred. As a result, it has few clear friends in its own backyard, with Asian governments increasingly wary of Chinese influence. At the same time, China’s resources are vast but not unlimited, and continual growth is required if it is to maintain its current trajectory. This can only be achieved through greater cooperation, not confrontation, with the outside world. These faults can of course be rectified, but it requires a certain degree of introspection that is at the moment not forthcoming.

To put it mildly.

This is a longer piece, but I found it worth my time.

“SHUT UP,” SHE EXPLAINED: Kamala Harris: Trump’s Twitter Account Should Be Suspended.

UM, NO: Woman who sleeps in $500 EMF-blocking sack wants area-wide Wi-Fi limits. “Seems like a good time to remember that EMF sensitivities are not real.”

AS DAVE BARRY WOULD SAY, I SWEAR I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP: How Far Will the WaPo Go to Generate Clicks? Meet the Trump Georgia Butt Peach Story.

CHANGE: Read The FBI 2018 Crime Report- You Will Ask ‘What Gun Violence Epidemic?’

HMM: Bernie Sanders Is in Trouble. “Up close and personal with a candidate in decline — and seemingly stuck in his ways.”

With just four months until the first-in-the-nation caucuses, Sanders is in trouble. As he delivered his populist gospel to large crowds of camouflage-clad high schoolers, liberal arts college students, and trade union members across Iowa last week, a problematic narrative was hardening around him: His campaign is in disarray and Elizabeth Warren has eclipsed him as the progressive standard-bearer of the primary. He’s sunk to third place nationally, behind Warren and Joe Biden, and some polls of early nomination states show him barely clinging to double digits. He’s shaken up his staffs in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s lost the endorsement of the Working Families Party, a left-wing group that backed him in 2016, to Warren.

Dismissed out of the gate in 2016 as a nonfactor against Hillary Clinton — only to single-handedly shift the Democratic Party’s ideological center of gravity — Sanders is quite familiar with being left for dead. His top brass’ official line is that pundits and political elites are writing him off because they have no clue what’s happening at kitchen tables and picket lines across America. Sanders and his team have argued some polls that are bad for him are out of whack and several polls that are good for him are ignored by the media.

Meanwhile, his aides say, Sanders remains a fundraising and organizing juggernaut.

Well, he is all about other people’s money.

But more seriously, at four months out and in this wide a field, fundraising might be a better indicator than some of these polls.

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! Trump cranks up grievance machine. “Trump’s campaign has turned impeachment into an organizing tool for supporters primed to back a president they see as under siege.”

I can’t tell if the Left is outraged, astounded, or just flummoxed that Trump isn’t sitting there and taking it like a Bush or a Romney.

Or is this a time to embrace the healing power of “and?”

GRANDMA STILL THINKS THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN: Hillary Condemns Backlash Against Greta Thunberg by Those Living in a ‘Fact-Free World.’

HOW CAN WE MISS HIM IF HE WON’T GO AWAY? Jeff Flake Pens Op-Ed to Remind Everyone Why He Was Run out of Office.

HMM: McConnell says he’d have ‘no choice’ but to take up impeachment articles if House approves them. “How long you’re on it is a whole different matter, but I would have no choice but to take it up based on [the] Senate rule on impeachment.”

Sounds like McConnell is signaling that he’ll treat anything coming out of the House with as little seriousness as the House is treating it.

AN UNFORTUNATE CHOICE OF HEADLINES: Why Nancy Pelosi Is Screwed.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Enough with the Existential Crises, Already. “When they’re not making their prom pitches to Republicans with grandiose visions of saving the country, the MSM and Democrats are concern trolling for the future of the GOP.”

EVERYTHING IS PROBLEMATICAL: Castro campaign, Latino group call out his absence in ‘SNL’ sketch.

WELL: Ukraine Mystery: Schiff Staffer Made August Visit for Think Tank Backed by Hunter Biden’s Old Employer.

BLUE STATE BLUES: Colorado legislature has hiked costs, partisan staff pay by nearly 23% in 3 years.

The Colorado General Assembly has upped its budget by nearly 23%, or $4 million, in the past three sessions, part of an effort to put the skids on poaching of partisan legislative staff.

At the same time, the House had to make a lower offer to the new chief clerk, Robin Jones, because what his predecessor was paid (and what he was initially offered) exceeded state-imposed salary limits, according to several sources.

It’s an odd conundrum.

Pay for state employees — and that includes the non-partisan staff — has to follow a set pay range. The same rule does not apply to partisan staff, meaning they can be paid whatever lawmakers think they’re worth.

And to Speaker of the House KC Becker of Boulder and House Minority Leader Patrick Neville of Castle Rock, those partisan staff are worth a lot more than they used to be.

Read the whole thing.

MARK LEVIN: Republicans must ‘make the Democrats pay a price’ for Pelosi’s ‘hijacked’ impeachment process.

This is the first time there hasn’t been a vote on the House floor respecting an impeachment inquiry of a president of the United States, where all members’ votes are recorded,” Levin explained.

“There’s a reason every member is to vote: So you know, on the record, all over the country, where your member of Congress stands. So Nancy Pelosi has violated the tradition and the process that is used for impeachment inquiries involving presidents in this country,” Levin said. “And what has she done? She’s hijacked the process.”

“She is the most fascistic speaker of the House we have ever had,” Levin concluded of Pelosi.

If the jackboot fits…

IMPEACHMENT PORN: Washington Post Fantasizes About President Pelosi.

BLUE STATE BLUES: New York judge dismisses blue state suit over SALT tax deductions.

The rest of the country is done subsidizing the coastal elites’ spendthrift governments.