FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: US, UK hold rare joint drills in the South China Sea.

FIGHT FOR FIFTEEN: Maduro raises minimum wage in Venezuela to $6 per month.

The minimum wage was raised from 4,500 to 18,000 Bolivares, equivalent to just $6 in the parallel (unofficial) market, El Pais reported Tuesday. Economist believe that with ongoing hyperinflation, it will lose its value within days. The amount would only be enough to buy about three pounds of chicken, the newspaper noted.

Maduro’s announcement, along with others like greater reserve requirements for banks, are likely to worsen inflationary pressures and contract the economy, Venezuelan economist and opposition lawmaker Jose Guerra told El Pais.

But other than that, it’s a brilliant and righteous diktat.

SANCTIONS: Senate Republicans break with Trump on Russia sanctions. “11 Senate Republicans joined with Democrats to advance a measure Tuesday that would stop the Treasury Department from relaxing sanctions on three Russian companies with ties to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin ally. The Senate voted 57-42 to proceed to a resolution from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that would reverse the Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on the firms, a vote Schumer forced under a provision in a 2017 Russia sanctions law.”

THIS SEEMS EXCLUSIONARY AGAINST PEOPLE WHO WOULD CHOOSE “Y” OR “Q” OR ANY OTHER LETTER THEY PREFER: NYC Adds Third Gender ‘X’ Option to Official City ID Cards. “Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today that ‘in the fairest big city in America, we have a mandate to further our commitment to justice’.”

TYLER O’NEIL: Jewish Groups, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, YWCA Silent on Continued Women’s March Support. “Why do they remain, when EMILY’s List, the SPLC, and the DNC have jumped ship?”

LET’S NOT DO ANY OF THESE: The 4 Things That Could Hobble the Commercial Space Revolution.

STIMULUS ACT, NORTH CHINA EDITION: Chinese workers may get 2½-day weekend to go shopping, but public services users aren’t buying it.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Dems Dump Women’s March and Much, Much More. “[Women’s March] Leader Tamika Mallory appeared on the trash show The View and defended Jew-hater and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Mallory had called Farrakhan the GOAT, Greatest of All Time for his work in the black community, like spreading antisemitism and racism. Terrific work.”

BLUE STATE BLUES: Disappointing photos show what living in San Francisco on a tech salary really looks like.

It’s a genuine loss when such smart, ambitious people have to devote so much of their smarts and ambition just to finding a place to live, but this bit from the photo essay is just too precious:

And so tech workers, both seasoned and newly minted, have had to get creative with how they can outsmart the city’s notoriously absurd rental costs.

Maybe they could, I don’t know, try voting Republican?

THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF GIVING AN ECONOMIC ILLITERATE SO MUCH POWER OVER THE ECONOMY: As economy sours, Erdogan’s party could lose grip on big cities in local polls.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. China Is a Dangerous Rival, and America Should Treat It Like One. “Enough with the endless talks and handshakes. We need to untie the American economy from China.”

After years of unsuccessful talks and handshake deals with Beijing, the United States should change course and begin cutting some of its economic ties with China. Such a separation would stop intellectual property theft, cut off an important source of support to the People’s Liberation Army and hold companies that are involved in Chinese human rights abuses accountable.

This will be no easy task. Some industries will have problems finding new suppliers or buyers, and there are entrenched constituencies that support doing business with China. They argue that any pullback could threaten economic growth. But even if American exports to China fell by half, it would be the equivalent of less than one-half of 1 percent of gross domestic product. The cost of reducing Chinese imports is harder to assess, but there are multiple countries that can substitute for China-based production, none of them strategic rivals and trade predators.

The United States economy and its national security have been harmed by China’s rampant theft of intellectual property and the requirement that American companies that want to do business in the country hand over their technology. These actions threaten America’s comparative advantage in innovation and its military edge.

Indeed. Trade is much better than war, but allowing a Communist autocracy into the WTO and to control such a huge chunk of our technology stack were huge mistakes.

WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE? IRS Says It Will Issue Tax Refunds, But Not Audit, During the Shutdown.

WSJ paywall, but the headline says it all.

NEWS THIS PARENT OF A TEENAGER CAN MOST CERTAINLY USE: New App ReplyASAP Locks Kids’ Phones Until They Message Their Parents Back.

Available now for Android, coming soon to iOS.

BEGUN THE 2020 PROGRESSIVE PURITY CONTEST HAS: The MSN-DNC Unsheathes the Long Knives for Tulsi Gabbard.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are You Neglecting Your Meat?

BRUCE BAWER: ‘Understanding’ Ourselves to Death.

WOW: In Major Blow, Democratic National Committee Withdraws Women’s March Sponsorship.

TYLER O’NEIL: Trump’s Popularity Rose Despite 90 Percent Negative Media Coverage in 2018. “Trump-Russia was still the top topic on ABC, CBS, and NBC.”

Despite or because?

SHE’S JUST A POOR GIRL FROM A POOR FAMILY: A Virtue Signaling Nancy Pelosi Is STILL Receiving Pay When Federal Workers Aren’t, And Trump Wonders Why.

SATIRE… OR IS IT? Conservatives Selflessly Raise $12 Billion For Ginsburg Retirement Fund.

J.E. DYER: The Real Deal With Steele, An Actual BOMBSHELL From House Testimony Of Lisa Page.

It is extraordinary to discover this next passage in Lisa Page’s testimony from 13 July 2018, when she was asked about the events of August 2016, and pressed as to whether she knew Steele was talking to Fusion GPS or others outside the FBI:

Rep.: “Were you aware that Christopher Steele had conversations or multiple conversations with Fusion GPS and others outside of just working special intel for you?”

Page: “As of August of 2016, I don’t know who Christopher Steele is. I don’t know that he’s an FBI source. I don’t know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life. So let me just sort of be clear. When the FBI first receives the reports that are known as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele’s handler in September of 2016 at that time, we do not know who—we don’t know why these reports have been generated. We don’t know for what purpose.”

With this response, Lisa Page seems to put in question the basic narrative about Steele’s longstanding value to the FBI.

It may undoubtedly be the case that in-house attorneys for the investigative branches of the DOJ and FBI don’t know the actual identities of all of the agencies’ confidential sources. But Steele was supposed to have been a particularly valuable source, on whom the U.S. agencies placed particular reliance. His expertise was in Russian government, business, organized crime affairs, and the nexus between them – the nexus, in other words, of the suspicions in both the UK (where Steele was hired as an investigator by the football association) and the U.S. that the World Cup venues for 2018 and 2022 had been selected through a bribery operation.

The FIFA case has explained throughout the Russiagate narrative Steele’s prominent role in the “Russia-Trump” investigation and the personal links and trust he had with the DOJ and FBI. The connections Steele provided insight on in working FIFA were ones with which Bruce Ohr’s office was familiar. And Lisa Page would have had at least some expert knowledge of them, given the background outlined for her in the Wired blurb, even if she didn’t perform dedicated work on the FIFA case during her time with Ohr.

So it seems quite curious that she had “never heard of Steele in all her life” before the cognizant CI officials at the FBI became aware of the Steele dossier in September 2016.

Much more at the link.

NANNYSTATISM, ALL TOO LITERALLY: Oregon could become first state with universal home visits for families of all babies.

READINESS (OR LACK THEREOF): One-Third of Britain’s Air Force Can’t Fly.

“Figures unearthed by freedom of information campaigners show 142 of 434 of the air force’s planes have been sidelined,” said the British tabloid Daily Mirror .

Some planes and helicopters have been mothballed, while others are down for major maintenance. The problem spans numerous models, including the Royal Air Force’s flagship fighter, the Eurofighter Typhoon.

“Military top brass revealed 55 of the 156 Typhoon jets are in the RAF’s ‘sustainment fleet’ – and not in its ‘forward fleet’ ready to be deployed on operations,” the Mirror said. Even aircraft in the forward fleet, which should be available for operations, are down as “short-term unserviceable aircraft.”

In addition to the Typhoons, “five out of 20 Atlas A400M transport planes are in the sustainment fleet – despite the first of its type only being delivered in 2014,” said the Mirror.

Almost half of the RAF’s jet trainers are down. “Some 44 of 81 Hawk T1 jets – used by trainee fast jet pilots and the world famous Red Arrows [RAF aerobatics team] – are in storage or maintenance,” the Mirror said.

Glenn commented earlier about the USS Fitzgerald probe that “this is what a Third World navy looks like.”. Well, the RAF as a whole is looking more like a Third World military. Poorer nations are notorious for buying lots of shiny new equipment, which looks intimidating on parade, but then can’t afford the training, maintenance, and spares which turn men and equipment into an actual fighting force.

GLENN GREENWALD: It’s Not the FBI’s Job to Criminalize Policy Differences.

When he’s right, he’s right.

COCAINE MITCH: The Senate majority leader’s low-key shutdown strategy is working.

William McGurn:

In the received wisdom, because Mr. Trump infamously welcomed a shutdown in December’s televised and contentious Oval Office meeting with Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, he gets all the blame for it. It’s only a matter of time, it follows, before skittish Republicans abandon him and he is forced to cry uncle. Naturally this is feeding regular news stories about “cracks” in the GOP coalition.

Enter Mr. McConnell. By making clear he won’t send up a bill the president won’t sign, the Kentucky Republican has empowered Mr. Trump while sparing his Senate GOP caucus the pressure that would come from the meaningless votes to reopen government that his Democratic counterpart, Mr. Schumer, is so desperate to have. It works even better because Mr. McConnell isn’t a grandstander.

Read the whole thing.