NOW THAT’S MEDDLING: Iran plays Hamas card ahead of Israeli elections.

“The heads of Israel’s defense establishment believe that Qatar’s financial grant to Gaza played a major role in preventing an armed conflict between Israel and Hamas, but now the third installment of that grant is at risk,” reports Shlomi Eldar. “As of Jan. 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given an order that the money is not to be transferred to the Gaza Strip, and Hamas is once again threatening Israel.”
…
The bottom line, adds Eldar, “is that $15 million were not transferred to Gaza this month. In response, either Hamas or some group acting on its behalf fired a warning rocket at Israel on the night of Jan. 6-7. The rocket was shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system. This is Hamas’ undiplomatic means of declaring its intent: If there is no money, there will be rockets instead.”

And here’s the Iran angle:

The pause in Qatar’s support for Hamas provides an opening for Iran. Tehran’s police chief has offered to train members of Palestinian armed groups, as Netanyahu blamed Iran for the lack of progress in peace talks.

“Further consolidation of relations between Iran and the Palestinian factions is possible, as Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] recognize that Iran is their main supplier of arms and money,” writes Adnan Abu Amer. “If that happens, it is likely these factions would enter a military battle in a unified front with Iran, Hezbollah and Syria against Israel. Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had warned of that possibility in October 2017.”

Thanks, Obama, for letting Iran out of the box.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Government Shut Down Continues and Much, Much More.

THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE: American Surplus Reaches Record High.

Over the past 10 years, milk production has increased by 13 percent because of high prices. But what dairy farmers failed to realize was that Americans are drinking less milk. According to data from the USDA, Americans drank just 149 pounds of milk per capita in 2017, down from 247 pounds in 1975.

Suppliers turn that extra milk into cheese because it is less perishable and stays fresh for longer periods. But Americans are turning their noses up at those processed cheese slices and string cheese — varieties that are a main driver of the U.S. cheese market — in favor of more refined options, Novakovic tells Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson. Despite this shift, sales of mozzarella cheese, the single largest type of cheese produced and consumed in the U.S., remain strong, he says.

“What has changed — and changed fairly noticeably and fairly recently — is people are turning away from processed cheese,” Novakovic says. “It’s also the case that we’re seeing increased sales of kind of more exotic, specialty, European-style cheeses. Some of those are made in the U.S. A lot of them aren’t.”

Novakovic also notes that imported cheeses tend to cost more, so when people choose those, they buy less cheese overall. The growing surplus of American-made cheese and milk means that prices are declining. The current average price of whole milk is $15.12 per 100 pounds, which is much lower than the price required for dairy farmers to break even.

“It’s the same as it is for everything else: If you’ve got too much of something, the price has to go down until consumption rises,” Novakovic says.

So why, after ten years and 1.4 billion pounds of surplus cheese, have prices not come down to equilibrium?

ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE: Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido briefly detained.

Venezuelan intelligence agents have released opposition leader and congress chief Juan Guaido after briefly detaining him on the way to a political rally, a congressional official has said.

A video posted on social media appears to show the moment Guaido was pulled from a car on a highway by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) on Sunday as he was travelling out of the capital, Caracas.

While it was not possible to identify the individual in the video, his wife and opposition legislators said that he had been detained.

He was released about an hour later, they added.

Message sent.

I LOVE A HAPPY ENDING: Huge Explosion Rocks Gaza As Hamas Terrorists Accidentally Blow Themselves Up At Rocket Warehouse In Rafah.

MARK PENN: Voters want RESULTS not resistance from new Democratic majority.

Echoing Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated 2016 strategy, the Democratic leaders so far have fully planted a flag in simply opposing legislation, funding and appointments under the theory that putting lead boots on President Trump is the best way to get him out of office, even if the country is put on pause for another two years.

This is a fundamental mistake, and just as going overboard with Spartacus moments opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh backfired and strengthened the Republicans in the Senate, this strategy too is likely to throw away the best opportunity Democrats had to build a lasting majority coalition by producing the results the Republicans failed to achieve.

The public ultimately was fed up with Paul Ryan, and under him Congress had about a 20 percent rating. He couldn’t get anything done, leading a fractured caucus to nowhere. He ultimately quit, along with 40 other Republicans. They literally abandoned the House, and suburban swing voters – voters who for a long time voted Republican – switched over to the Democratic Party. These voters were turned off by Trump, and frustrated by Ryan, because they fundamentally support progress and compromise. They are moderate, not liberal voters. They are not dancing in the hallway with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

What’s most interesting about Penn’s analysis is that he was Bill Clinton’s chief political strategist, and his opening move was to come out swinging against Hillary.

I MISS LINDSEY 2.0: GOP Senator Pushes Temporary Deal to Open Government.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a close Trump ally, said he spoke with the president Sunday and recommended the government be allowed to open for about three weeks to pursue broader immigration legislation. Democrats have been proposing a variety of funding options to reopen the government, including a stopgap funding bill for the Homeland Security Department. Mr. Trump at a White House meeting last week rejected reopening the government without a commitment for funding a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mr. Graham has been one of many Senate Republicans working on ending the impasse, and moving to end it would give at least temporary relief to the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who late last week missed their first paycheck since the shutdown began. So far, none of the Senate GOP efforts has been successful.

“I tried to see if we could open up the government for a limited period of time to negotiate a deal, and the president says, let’s make a deal, then open up the government,” Mr. Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added: “He’s not going to give in,” Mr. Graham said.

“2.0” gag aside, this feels like Graham signaling to the Democratic leadership, “Hey, I tried my best — maybe you need to really negotiate with him.”

WHY NOT PRIVATIZE THE WHOLE THING? V.A. Will Spend Billions on Private Health Care. “The most significant change in caring for our veterans in decades.”

BRUCE BAWER: Another Day, Another Apology for Telling the Truth.

TIME FOR ANOTHER TEA PARTY: ‘Over 90 percent?’ Liberals eyeing White House vie for title of highest tax raiser.

COMMUNIST FRONT CORPORATION: Chinese Huawei Executive Is Charged With Espionage in Poland.

For years, Washington has labeled Huawei a national security threat, saying it could be forced by China to use its knowledge of the telecommunications equipment it sells around the world to tap into, or disable, foreign communications networks. Huawei has denied that forcefully through the years. Part of its defense has been that it hadn’t been implicated in overseas spying allegations.

Officers of Poland’s counterintelligence agency this week searched the local Huawei office, leaving with documents and electronic data, as well as the home of the Chinese national, said Stanislaw Zaryn, a spokesman for Poland’s security coordination office. The Chinese individual wasn’t named, but was identified by Polish state television as a graduate of one of China’s top intelligence schools, as well as a former employee of the Chinese consulate in the port city of Gdansk.

People familiar with the matter identified him as Weijing Wang. He is known in Poland as Stanislaw Wang, according to these people and a public LinkedIn page that matches his biographical details.

A person who knew Mr. Wang described him as a well-known figure in local business circles, often spotted at events sponsored by Huawei in Poland. “He spoke great Polish,” this person said. “He was a really well-known Chinese guy in Poland and was always around.”

That’s how effective espionage works.

COLLUSION: Fusion GPS-Linked Group Funded by Soros Worked with Tech Firm Behind Russian False Flag Against Roy Moore.

WHY WON’T PELOSI AND SCHUMER NEGOTIATE? Expired Security Certificates Put Government Websites at Risk as Shutdown Drags On. “There could be some realistic opportunities to undermine the security of all U.S. citizens.”

WHY DOES SHE TAKE SUCH ADVANTAGE OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE? Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Slapped With A Fine For Not Providing Proper Workers’ Comp.

DAVID HARSANYI: Angela Davis, Women’s March Honoree And Champion Of Terror, Prisons, And Tyranny. “U.S. Communist Angela Davis was an enthusiastic supporter of the largest and most lethal prison system the world has ever known.”

When the Women’s March honored the Stalinist cheerleader Angela Davis in 2017, there was almost no pushback from Jewish or liberal groups. You can forgive members of the Resistance, concerned with the impending Trumpian dystopia, for not yet comprehending the bigoted and extremist positions of those leading the Women’s March.

Those who participate in the march going forward, however, have no excuses, since it’s now well documented that Jew-haters, theocrats, and other harebrained fanatics litter that movement. Davis’s continued presence is merely another reminder that the progressive left will tolerate the most odious characters as long as they seek “justice” for a favored cause — in this case Palestinians.

In this regard, Davis isn’t a useful idiot. Just as Davis wasn’t merely a communist sympathizer but a champion of the most reprehensible Soviet regimes, she’s not merely a supporter of boycott, divestment, sanction’s Jewish boycotts but a champion of men like Marwan Barghouti, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades leader who coordinated suicide bombings targeting Jewish civilians.

Yet, somehow, Davis claimed to be “stunned” when, after objections from Holocaust remembrance organizations and other Jewish groups, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute recently rescinded their award that was meant to honor her. The incident spurred the usual suspects to say the usual things. Though most of defenses were predictably vacuous, the habit of ignoring her biography is also journalistic malpractice.

Well, there’s a lot of that going on.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Harpy Acosta Helps Sell Trump’s Wall and Much, Much More. “The Democrats have made it clear that they will not negotiate with Trump over the wall so it is likely that Trump will declare a national emergency to build the wall. Now the Democrats are getting ready to challenge that authority, which was used by Obama without issue. Now do I like expanding executive power? No I don’t but we all need to play by the same rules. We can’t have the Democrats doing anything and everything to ‘fundamentally transform’ America while we sit back and insist we are bound by rules from fighting back.”

FIRE THEM: Due to TSA absences, Miami airport will temporarily close one terminal early for 3 days.

HMM: Demand For Oil In Transportation Sector To Peak In A Decade.

NEXT UP, SELF-REPLICATING ROBOTS FOR TERRAFORMING MARS? Robots can now carry out plutonium production process for space exploration.

PRIVACY: I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone. “T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers’ location data, and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country.”

More:

The bounty hunter sent the number to his own contact, who would track the phone. The contact responded with a screenshot of Google Maps, containing a blue circle indicating the phone’s current location, approximate to a few hundred metres.

Queens, New York. More specifically, the screenshot showed a location in a particular neighborhood—just a couple of blocks from where the target was. The hunter had found the phone (the target gave their consent to Motherboard to be tracked via their T-Mobile phone.)

The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found. These surveillance capabilities are sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks.

And:

Although many users may be unaware of the practice, telecom companies in the United States sell access to their customers’ location data to other companies, called location aggregators, who then sell it to specific clients and industries. Last year, one location aggregator called LocationSmart faced harsh criticism for selling data that ultimately ended up in the hands of Securus, a company which provided phone tracking to low level enforcement without requiring a warrant. LocationSmart also exposed the very data it was selling through a buggy website panel, meaning anyone could geolocate nearly any phone in the United States at a click of a mouse.

Carriers should be on the hook for serious civil and maybe even criminal liability for this reckless selling of confidential information.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: ‘Venezuela is a cradle of terrorism,’ member of underground resistance group tells i24NEWS.

CHARLIE MARTIN: The Stupidest Argument of the Week. “Among the many many stupid arguments this week is the one about walls and tunnels.”

JACOB WOHL CLAIMS ON TWITTER THAT HE HAS sources saying Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will resign tomorrow.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: If the Dems Want to Lose the Wall Fight, All They Have to Do Is Keep Talking. “I’m a #BuildTheWall skeptic, but the Dems are really starting to bring me around.”

RABBI CHONI MAROZOV On Walls and Overcoming Challenges.