DAVID HARSANYI: The State Of American ‘Fact-Checking’ Is Completely Useless. “With a veneer of impartiality, fact-checkers engage in a uniquely dishonest style of partisanship.”

For this, take Politico’s insinuation that Donald Trump was lying to the public about abuse of women at the border. During the State of the Union, Trump claimed “one in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north.” This contention is only “partly true,” according to Politico, because a “2017 report by Doctors Without Borders” found that only 31 percent of female migrants and 17 percent of male migrants said they had been actually abused while traveling through Mexico.

Whether Doctors Without Borders’ scary statistic is accurate or not, is one thing. Trump, however, was being called out for asserting that “one in every three” illegal immigrants has been abused attempting to cross the border rather than “33.333 percent of women”––probably a rounding error in the poll. It is almost surely the case that every past president and every politician has used “one-third” or “one-half” rather than a specific fraction, and walked away without being fact-checked.

Narratives don’t further themselves, David.

BUT OF COURSE: Muslim Congresswoman Blamed Western World for Al-Shabaab Terror Attack in Kenya.

Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “blame America first” used to be an effective jab at certain Democrats, but now it’s a point of pride.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Oops, They Did It Again and Much, Much More. “Does anyone think that either one of these jokers, Northam or Herring, would be accorded any courtesy by the media if they were Republicans. No. There would be special theme songs on cable and network news, there would be special graphics, there would be people interviewing every person that ever went to school with these blackfacers. They would be parked outside their residences, following relatives around, going through trash, confrontations by angry activists captured on video, think of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing as a paradigm. Why aren’t we seeing this?”

MODERN PROBLEMS: Those annoying robocalls are about to get even worse.

Modern technology has made the annoying practice easy and cheap, and by the middle of the year, robocalls are expected to make up half of all calls that occur in the U.S. Some companies are working on a plan to curtail robocalling, but it hasn’t appeared to help much yet.

According to new data from Transaction Network Services (TNS), which facilitates calls for small and large carriers, April 15 – tax day – will most likely be the worst day of the entire year for robocalls. Call volume was up 13% over last year, so this year may see similar gains.

The analysis, which processed over a billion calls across hundreds of carriers, found that tax season is generally the most dangerous time when it comes to robocalls. Last year, tax day had the most robocall volume, a whopping 143 million “nuisance and high-risk calls,” according to the data.

We cut our landline years ago in no small part due to telemarketers. The spam problem has gotten so bad on mobile — 80% of the calls I receive, at a conservative estimate — that I’m tempted to ditch the iPhone for an iPod Touch (hot-spotted in to a cell-enabled iPad) and just go all-in on text messaging.

AT&T would miss my monthly payments a lot less than I’d miss AT&T, and “wireless cutting” is probably what it’s going to take to get the mobile companies serious about combating the endless spam.

CHARGE! The next generation of wall chargers is getting smaller and better.

Gallium nitride is replacing silicon in at least two new chargers:

It’s not magic: as my colleague Angela Chen explains, GaN is much more efficient, meaning that chargers that use it can be much smaller and waste less energy than ones based on silicon. The biggest obstacle is simply that companies are used to working with silicon, whereas GaN is relatively new; in an ideal world, we’ll probably start to see more products taking advantage of the tech in the near future.

It’s not perfect yet: Anker’s 30W Atom PD 1 struggles to power something as large as a 13-inch MacBook Pro — you can charge it while the computer is sleeping, but while actively running, it’ll still struggle to really keep pace with the power drain (although it’ll work in a pinch). And for anything smaller, like a phone, iPad, Nintendo Switch, headphones, or anything else with USB-C, it’s practically a no-brainer for the $29.99 price.

My 2016-vintage MacBook Pro (since sold off) came with a 61-watt charger, so expecting to charge it — or any laptop — with a 30-watt charger is a bit silly. But that aside, bring on the smaller, faster chargers… faster, please.

MODERN COMSTOCKERY: Bikini baristas appeal city ordinance issuing dress code, debate definition of ‘anal cleft.’

How much “anal cleft” is one allow to show while at work? That’s the question one Washington court is trying to answer.

A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing an ongoing legal saga between bikini baristas and the city of Everett over the anatomical phrase “anal cleft” and whether dress codes imposed on businesses violate their civil rights.

Both sides appeared in court Monday to further argue the city’s ordinance, which was passed August 2017, that restricts what employees of “quick-service” restaurants wear by requiring that the “bottom one-half of the anal cleft” be covered, Herald Net reported.

According to the ordinance, employees who work at fast food restaurants, food trucks and coffee stands are required to wear at least a tank top and shorts while at work.

The drive to force pretty girls to cover up and reduce their employment opportunities is designed to force them into the loving embrace of the white-clad, scowling Handmaids Crew.

UGH: NASA ‘still working toward’ 2020 launch of massive SLS rocket. “Multiple concerns remain: cost, schedule, management, delayed upper stage.“

Multiple sources have told Ars that while NASA is still targeting sometime later in 2020 for a test launch of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, known as Exploration Mission-1, this flight is likely to slip into 2021.

This week, in response to a query about potential delays, a spokeswoman for the agency’s exploration program, Kathryn Hambleton, said the agency is not ready to discuss a new schedule yet. “NASA is still assessing impacts as a result of the shutdown, but we are still working toward a launch in 2020,” she told Ars.

I’m about to turn 50, but I’m not quite old enough to remember when NASA could launch as much weight to LEO as the SLS is supposed to be able to lift, someday, eventually.

SOCIALISM MEANS CARING: German journalist detained in Venezuela since November starts new hunger strike in prison.

Billy Six has been in custody since Nov. 17, as BBC News World reported at the time. He was detained by agents of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence in Santa Cruz de Los Taques, a coastal town about 310 miles west of Caracas.

The journalist was taken to the Helicoide prison in the center of the Venezuelan capital, home of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin, for its initials in Spanish), and remains there today, said Espacio Público, a civil association dedicated to the promotion and defense of freedom of expression and the right to information in Venezuela.

On Dec. 13, Six began a hunger strike to demand that he be allowed to communicate with his family, with the German Embassy in Caracas and with a lawyer he trusted, the organization said.

Six is usually described as a “right-wing” journalist, which is probably why I had to go to a non-MSM website to find an update on his status.

But I suppose if “Democracy dies in darkness,” then socialism thrives in it, conveniently provided by the major outlets.

UPDATE: VA Lt. Fairfax’s “F*** the b****” accuser has released a statement detailing the alleged assault.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

WHAT A LONG, STRANGELY COMFORTABLE TRIP IT’S BEEN: Fiat Chrysler Celebrates 35 Years of the Minivan.

CALIFORNIANS GOTTA CALIFORNICATE: California Push for More Gun Control Goes On Hyperdrive.

DRINKABLE POT? I’ll have a scotch and so duh.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘America the Beautiful’ Drowns in Trump Hatred. “This micro-indie suggests there’s a MAGA hat lover in all of us.”

CRIME OF THE CENTURY: Thieves caught hours after stealing GPS tracking devices from tech company.

JOHN ELLIS: S. Carolina Police Agencies Defend Raking in Extra Revenue Through Use of Civil Forfeiture Laws as Extra Revenue Streams. “Innocent citizens shouldn’t have to go to court to get their property back.”

Indeed.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Canada has too many pot companies.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES!

WHEN IT COMES TO SOCIALISM, BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. Ocasio-Cortez, progressives accuse Trump of using socialism as scare tactic.

COCAINE MITCH COULD USE A LITTLE PICK-ME-UP: McConnell Cautioning White House a National Emergency Would be ‘Contentious’ Process.

SURPRISING EXACTLY NO ONE: Report Finds Kim Hiding Nukes, Selling Weapons as Trump Announces Vietnam Summit.

I don’t know if Trump can actually accomplish anything here, but Kim earned a seat at the negotiating table by developing nukes while the previous three Administrations kicked the can.

COLD WAR II: Chinese student sentenced to prison for taking photos of US military installation in Florida.

HMM: Pentagon walks back Trump idea of using Iraq base to counter Iran.

Iran’s imperial ambitions run through Iraq to Syria, and their constant meddling in Yemen’s troubles is just a proxy war against Saudi Arabia. Not to mention support for international terrorism, nuclear threats against Israel, and remains one of the two surviving members of the still all-too-real “Axis of Evil.” In short, Iran is the biggest single obstacle to peace in the entire region. So it sure would be nice to see more creative thinking out of the Pentagon for a change.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Psychotically incoherent with cookies, dog poop and much, much more. “Women enjoy record level unemployment, more women than ever are in public office and have more opportunities available to them and these chicks are playing dress-up in the 1800s. The true state of affairs was revealed when the white ladies stood up in cheered the president’s job statistics for women. That’s right, you can thank President Grab-a-P*ssy for that, handmaidens.”

FASTER? PLEASE! Boeing joins with Aerion to bring world’s first supersonic business jet to market. “One significant player in the race to build the first Son of Concorde is the Reno, Nevada-based Aerion, which is developing a 12-passenger business jet that can fly at Mach 1.4 (1,038 mph, 1,671 km/h) using a GE Affinity engine, but with a significantly reduced sonic boom thanks to an advanced fuselage design. If things go according to schedule, the AS2 could fly by 2023 and enter service in 2025 to become the world’s first supersonic business jet.”

If you have the means…