CLAUDIA ROSETT: The Sky-High Stakes in Hong Kong. “The people of Hong Kong — in their efforts to stop this ruinous extradition law — deserve the strongest support we can muster. One reason is quite simply that it is the right thing to do, though in international politics that is often a backseat priority. The other reason– perhaps more compelling to those inclined to think of Hong Kong as a faraway foreign place and none of our business — is that it is a high-risk precedent for the Free World to abandon its own. It invites aggression by the likes of China (and Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc.) against us and our allies. Which is what it will boil down to, if the U.S., the U.K. and other democratic powers do not find some way to buttress the demands of Hong Kong’s demonstrators. It is vital that Washington persuade Beijing and its satrap in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, that it would be wise to scrap this proposed law, and moronic –or at least astoundingly expensive — to push it through.”

Indeed.

VIDEO: Marcia Fudge On House Floor: Trump Supporters Ignorant, Dumb, Immoral, Unpatriotic Racists.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Conservative Principles Do Not Require Us To Roll Over For Big Tech.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND: Brain chipping for good — brain chipping for bad.

Brain chipping to enhance mental acumen isn’t just Big Tech. It’s Big Government, Big Medical, Big Corporate, Big Military, Big Science. National Security, even.

First come the tiny, barely intrusive and inarguably beneficial electrical implants for epileptics — to those who already have devices inside their heads that track seizures. Then comes the fine-tuning of devices to fit and aide those with tragic brain injuries, with loss of the use of limbs and loss of physical limbs — with the motor skills needed for prosthetics, for instance.

Then come the medical patients with Alzheimer’s, with muscular dystrophy, with schizophrenia, with debilitating effects from sudden strokes and so forth.

And then?

Then come the pushing of boundaries, the ethical dilemmas.

Then come the Clockwork Orange considerations.

After all, if sociopathic behaviors that endanger all of society can be wiped clear with a simple chip to the mind, what’s the harm? Where’s the foul?

Then come the questions of whether it’s fair for a rape victim to suffer the memory. Or for a child traumatized by abuse to deal with the ongoing trauma. Or for a depressed person to have to deal with depression — a lonely person to have to deal with loneliness — a panicky person to have to deal with panic.

Zap, it’s gone.

The road to Hell and all that.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Why are the Western middle classes so angry?

One, illegal immigration and open borders have led to chaos. Lax immigration policies have taxed social services and fueled multicultural identity politics, often to the benefit of boutique leftist political agendas.

Two, globalization enriched the cosmopolitan elites who found worldwide markets for their various services. New global markets and commerce meant Western nations outsourced, offshored and ignored their own industries and manufacturing (or anything dependent on muscular labor that could be replaced by cheaper workers abroad).

Three, unelected bureaucrats multiplied and vastly increased their power over private citizens. The targeted middle classes lacked the resources to fight back against the royal armies of tenured regulators, planners, auditors, inspectors and adjustors who could not be fired and were never accountable.

Four, the new global media reached billions and indoctrinated rather than reported.

Five, academia became politicized as a shrill agent of cultural transformation rather than focusing on education—while charging more for less learning.

Six, utopian social planning increased housing, energy and transportation costs.

One common gripe framed all these diverse issues: The wealthy had the means and influence not to be bothered by higher taxes and fees or to avoid them altogether. Not so much the middle classes, who lacked the clout of the virtue-signaling rich and the romance of the distant poor.

Paying for other people’s stuff gets old even when the other people are worse off than you are. But paying for wealthy people’s stuff — particularly the “bitter-clinger” down-the-nose virtue-signaling — is the stuff revolts and revolutions are made of.

BLUE CITY BLUES: 12 White Male Cops Sue San Francisco for Gender and Race Discrimination.

FROM THE MAILBAG:

Hi Glenn,

I strongly encourage you to watch the attached video by Barrister Margaret Ng. She is very good in explaining the risks – and points out that US CITIZENS are at risk from this Bill. (this bill allows Hong Kong to extradite any US citizen residing in Hong Kong, visiting Hong Kong or transiting Hong Kong if China demands it).

This is very much about protecting Americans as it is in support of Hong Kong.

And here’s the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE7ytxPig64

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER PRIVACY FIASCO AT FACEBOOK: What Did Zuckerberg Know and When Did He Know It?

Facebook is “worried” about emails which might link company founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg to the company’s “questionable” privacy practices, according to a report on Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal. That’s a bit like saying my wife is “aware” that I’ve been seen enjoying the “occasional” martini, but we’ll get back to that in a moment. First, a few details from that WSJ story.

According to “people familiar with the matter,” as they say, “the unearthing of the emails in the process of responding to a continuing federal privacy investigation has raised concerns that they would be harmful to Facebook — at least from a public-relations standpoint.” Facebook has since 2012 been operating under a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission regarding user privacy, but according to the WSJ’s unnamed sources, “Zuckerberg and other senior executives didn’t make compliance with the FTC order a priority.”

Ya think?

Read the whole thing.

OH: Manchin eyes Senate exit.

In moments of frustration, the centrist senator has gone so far as to tell colleagues he may leave the upper chamber before the end of this Congress, or after the 2020 elections.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) keeps a close watch on Manchin, and the senators have a good working relationship. While Schumer recognizes that his West Virginia colleague can get exasperated by dysfunction in the Senate, he believes Manchin is content and engaged in his job.

But Manchin says he’s deeply irritated with the lack of bipartisan cooperation on Capitol Hill, where passing bills has largely become an afterthought in the 116th Congress.

I always thought the Senate’s primary job was to act as a brake on Congress’s worst instincts, and Mitch McConnell seems to agree.

I’VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS: Chief Justice John Roberts is about to show his cards.

INEZ FELTSCHER STEPMAN: Campus Insanity Is Migrating To Society, And Republicans Had Better Stop It Before It’s Too Late.

While the right wrestles with how to deal with big technology companies’ hostility to conservative voices on their platforms, the source of that enmity goes mostly unremarked upon: Google’s highly credentialed workforce has roughly the personal politics of a faculty lounge. Regrettably, universities don’t live up to the Las Vegas adage–what begins on campus definitely does not stay there. It spills over into every aspect of our broader culture, from complaints about actors not precisely matching the intersectionality profile of the characters they portray, to the leftward tilt of America’s corporations.

That’s all the more reason for Republicans on campus to take the ideology that threatens free speech in universities seriously and advance legislation to protect one of America’s most cherished freedoms. Without strong, smart pushback at the academic source, the country will soon be dealing with even more censorious consequences of an ideology that does not recognize its opponents’ rights to speak.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

DANIEL A. KAUFMAN: Peak Woke Philosophy. “Woke philosophy is reminiscent of those histrionic, scripted WWF feuds I used to watch on WPIX in the early 1980’s, by which I mean that it’s such transparently melodramatic bullshit, performed by such a manifestly absurd group of clowns that a six year old should be able to see through it. But this is academic philosophy in 2019, where it seems that there is nothing so stupid or disingenuous or juvenile that a sizable portion of the current members of a discipline that once counted the likes of Wittgenstein, Quine, and Rawls among its leading lights won’t embrace it.”

As Glenn says, when the people get tired of subsidizing this nonsense, they’ll be accused of anti-intellectualism.

MATT MARGOLIS: Biden Claims There Wasn’t A ‘Hint of a Scandal’ During the Obama/Biden Administration, Here are Ten.

KRUISER: Pelosi Still Resisting AOC’s Nonstop Impeachment Tantrum.

FASTER, PLEASE: Drug to replace chemotherapy may reshape cancer care.

THE TRUTH HURTS:

RELATED: Rep. Amash stokes talk of campaign against Trump.

Good luck with that, if he’s already struggling to win a primary in his own district.

BREAKING: Gulf of Oman tanker attacks: everything you need to know.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL SMART DIPLOMACY: Trump Admin Sanctions Iran to Disrupt Arms Network. “Iran running $100m arms-smuggling operations in Iraq.”

THE HOUSING COST OF LIBERALISM (INTERNATIONAL EDITION): Tokyo proves that housing shortages are a political choice.

Compared to skyrocketing housing costs in many Western cities, Japan has seen remarkable success in supplying affordable housing – even in cities with lots of economic growth. While average mean rents in London are upwards of £2,000, average rents in Tokyo are about £1,300 – even after Brexit-related depreciation of pound sterling.

This isn’t caused by social housing or danchi – less than 5 per cent of homes across Japan are socially rented, compared to about 17 per cent in England. And it’s not because Japan’s population is shrinking either – Tokyo’s population is still growing due to migrants from other parts of Japan and abroad.

Instead, it’s because the supply of housing in Japanese cities is responsive to local demand. While the UK saw about 194,000 houses start construction last year, Japan saw 942,000 housing starts last year.

Their secret? “Get the hell out of my way!” as the wise man once said.

THEN SHE SHOULD PROBABLY PLAY IT SAFE AND FLEE THE COUNTRY, GO INTO HIDING: Circumstances of Trump’s America ‘more dangerous’ than Hitler’s Germany.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Panicked CIA Turns to PR Firm The New York Times. “Before I get into the details of this press release written by and published in the NYT, take a moment and ask yourselves, should there be oversight for the CIA? Who conducts that oversight? The CIA ‘sources’ referenced in the NYT press release seem a little miffed that some folks want to check their math.”

BOSTON, I THINK WE GOT YOUR NUMBER: 15 emotional photos from Blues’ celebration of first Stanley Cup in franchise’s 52-year history.

PLUS: Laila Anderson, 11-year-old St. Louis Blues superfan, joins team in Stanley Cup celebration.

(Neoclassical reference in the headline.)

THAT DOESN’T FEEL VERY RESTRAINED: ‘Very restrained’ – Hong Kong police say 150 rounds of tears gas, 20 bean bag shots fired during anti-extradition law ‘riot.’

NOTHING TO SEE HERE… ANYMORE: Obama White House Deleted Online Speeches About The Immigration Crisis Hours Before Trump Entered Office. “The removal of the ICE speeches collection represents the loss of a primary source history of the early days of ICE, dating back to its creation during the George W. Bush administration in 2003.”

A collection of 190 transcripts of speeches on ICE’s website was deleted on Jan. 18 and late in the evening on Jan. 19, 2017, according to research conducted by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for government transparency. Statements made by high-ranking ICE officials regarding controversial immigration topics such as sanctuary cities, E-Verify, treatment of detainees, and other issues were included in the reported deletions.

“With a couple of clicks of a mouse, access to a federal government web resource containing 12 years of primary source materials on ICE’s history was lost,” the Sunlight Foundation wrote, noting that archived speeches dating back from 2004 were among those deleted.

Speeches from former acting ICE Director Thomas Homan, a public supporter of Trump’s immigration policies, were among those prominently included in the deletion list.

I don’t want to hear one more goddamn word about how Obama’s tenure was “remarkably scandal-free.”

HMM: Mysterious Blazes on Six Iranian Ships in Iranian Ports.