#RESIST: Maryland Sheriffs Won’t Enforce New Gun Law Say It’s A “Suicide Mission” For Cops.

UGH: State lawmakers pushing for laxer vaccine rules despite measles outbreaks.

THEY AREN’T ANTI-IMPERIALIST; THEY’RE PRO-TYRANNY: Anti-imperialists from across the world issue rallying cry in defence of Venezuela.

HITLER GAVE A SPEECH. TRUMP GAVE A SPEECH. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT! Former Obama Admin. Advisor Compares Trump’s CPAC Speech to Hitler.

JOHN HAWKINS: 7 Reasons Conservatives Are Losing the Culture Wars.

UGH: FDA Hands Over Plans to the WH to Restrict E-Cig Sales. “Why on earth would the government want to make it harder for people to quit smoking?”

Two reasons. The FDA often shows a Mrs. Grundy mindset, and seeks to regulate or eliminate pleasure for the sake of any health benefit, no matter how small or illusory. And government and Big Tobacco don’t get enough of a cut from vaping sales.

WELL, GOOD: Trump, RNC Courting African-American Voters Ahead of 2020.

There are five kinds of voters:

• The core die-hards who will turn out and vote for anyone with your party affiliation.

• Near-core voters who lean towards your side, but will need some convincing and/or GOTV effort.

• Swing voters, who might vote D, R, third party, or not at all.

• The other side’s near-core voters, who similarly will need some convincing and/or GOTV effort.

• And the other side’s core die-hards.

Every vote you can take from the last two categories is effectively two votes for your side, by adding one to your column and taking one from the other side’s. Trump is the first Republican president I can think of since Reagan who has made a point of aggressively courting core Democrat voters.

EFF: Massive Database Leak Gives Us a Window into China’s Digital Surveillance State.

Earlier this month, Gevers discovered an insecure MongoDB database filled with records tracking the location and personal information of 2.6 million people located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The records include individuals’ national ID number, ethnicity, nationality, phone number, date of birth, home address, employer, and photos.

Over a period of 24 hours, 6.7 million individual GPS coordinates were streamed to and collected by the database, linking individuals to various public camera streams and identification checkpoints associated with location tags such as “hotel,” “mosque,” and “police station.” The GPS coordinates were all located within Xinjiang.

This database is owned by the company SenseNets, a private AI company advertising facial recognition and crowd analysis technologies.

A couple of days later, Gevers reported a second open database tracking the movement of millions of cars and pedestrians. Violations like jaywalking, speeding, and going through a red-light are detected, trigger the camera to take a photo, and ping a WeChat API, presumably to try and tie the event to an identity.

China may have a working surveillance program in Xinjiang, but it’s a shockingly insecure security state. Anyone with an Internet connection had access to this massive honeypot of information.

I wonder if this leak might have been intentional — an electronic version of 1984′s every-present “Big Brother Is Watching You” warnings.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A massively intrusive surveillance apparatus with inadequate security seems like a great opportunity for opponents — say, the US — to sow discord and unrest in the event of conflict.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Democrats brag about upcoming investigations and much, much more. “And no investigation threat is complete without Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) meowing for the media on the Sunday spin shows. This idiot has been spitting about crimes and all the evidence of Trump crimes for more than two years and has produced not one scintilla of evidence. And yet the media continues to give him a platform to make his baseless accusations.”

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER: Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet.

In 2002, shortly after I turned 30, I decided I wanted to dedicate myself to addressing climate change. I was worried that global warming would end up destroying many of the natural environments that people had worked so hard to protect.

I thought the solutions were pretty straightforward: solar panels on every roof, electric cars in every driveway, etc. The main obstacles, I believed, were political. And so I helped organize a coalition of America’s largest labor unions and environmental groups. Our proposal was for a $300 billion dollar investment in renewables. We would not only prevent climate change but also create millions of new jobs in a fast-growing high-tech sector.

Our efforts paid off in 2007 when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama embraced our vision. Between 2009–15, the U.S. invested $150 billion dollars in renewables and other forms of clean tech. But right away we ran into trouble.

Read the whole thing.

OH: Bernie Sanders Hires An Illegal Alien As New Campaign Spokesperson. “Sisa defies the commonly used trope from the open borders crowd that illegal aliens live in the shadows of American society and are afraid to go about their daily lives. She boldly goes about her life and is a political activist to boot. She’s been arrested twice yet she’s still living her best life in America and now being rewarded for her civil disobedience with a high profile political job.”

WE NEED COMMONSENSE BAKING SUPPLIES CONTROL: Students are getting drunk off vanilla extract, school warns.

COLD WAR II: Canada will allow US extradition of Huawei CFO to move forward.

Huawei financial chief Meng Wanzhou is one step closer to facing sanctions-related fraud charges in the US. Canada’s Department of Justice has issued an Authority to Proceed measure that greenlights the extradition process for Meng, making it that more likely she’ll head south. A British Columbia Supreme Court will set the date for the extradition hearing at a March 6th court date where Meng will appear.

Meng will remain under her strict bail conditions throughout the process, including GPS tracking and constant monitoring by security staff. The Justice Department stressed that this wasn’t a trial, and that it didn’t extradite people if it believed the move would violate Canadian civil rights.

The US’ bid to extradite the CFO is part of a larger US legal battle against Huawei, including allegations the firm stole US trade secrets and violated sanctions against Iran.

With capitalism, albeit of the crony variety, fully embraced by China and Russia, this new Cold War (if that’s what it really is) has all kinds of interesting parameters we didn’t get the first time around.

HEH: Anti-CNN Billboard Appears Next to CNN’s Hollywood Headquarters.

THOM NICKELS REVIEWS ‘Islam: The Essays,’ Bruce Bawer’s Magnum Opus on ‘The Religion of Peace.’

MILLER HIGH LIFE: GMO Beer that Can Produce a High Like Marijuana. “Researchers at UC Berkeley have produced brewers yeast that contains THC and CBD.”

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Former Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper expected to announce presidential bid next week.

DR. HELEN: What’s Under the Hood of the APA Guidelines for Men and Boys?

ISRAEL: Prime Minister Netanyahu to Be Indicted for Bribery. “With the election six weeks away and Likud trailing in the polls, many are questioning the timing of the announcement.”

Ya think?

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Ex-transgender man now wants to live as sexless ALIEN and has had nipples removed.

NEW BLOGS: My friend and conservative political consultant/commentator Kelly Maher left Denver for the Colorado countryside a while back, and has turned her experiences into a new lifestyle blog, RealBestLife.

Lots of good stuff there. Check it out.

THE POWER OF THE WALK-AWAY: Kim Jong Un willing to sit down with Trump again, North Korea state media says.

HOPES FOR A FULL AND SPEEDY RECOVERY: The Sheldon Adelson I got to meet.

HMM: U.S. offers $1 million bounty in hunt for bin Laden’s son.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Navy Declares Initial Operational Capability for F-35C Joint Strike Fighter.