HOLLY SCHEER: Hillary Clinton Apparently Still Has No Clue Why She Lost.

Clinton compared herself to the mother of the country, trying to enforce something wholesome that the children aren’t fond of. She said, “She ran the presidential campaign like a mother who was telling the kids to eat spinach because it was good for health while the other guy was asking them to go eat fast food and have ice-cream,” India Today reported. Clinton may not have realized it, but this also sheds a lot of light on how she sees the average American. She views them as short sighted, more interested in junk than substance, and in her words, they’re “backwards.”

Clinton reduced huge populations that voted for and against her to caricatures, by describing them as: “optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign ‘Make America Great Again’ was looking backwards. You know, you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women, you know, getting jobs, you don’t want it, you know, see that Indian-American succeeding more than you are. Whatever your problem is, I’m going to solve it.”

She traveled overseas to talk poorly about Americans, instead of building up the people that she campaigned to represent. Rural America is dealing with a host of serious issues, including poverty, joblessness, an opioid epidemic, a staggering suicide rate, and she doesn’t touch on any of these problems or offer possibly solutions.

When Trump speaks openly of “shithole” countries, he’s talking about Third World countries which could accurately be described that way. When Clinton implies that there are shithole countries, she’s referring to the vast interior of America.

PRESIDENT FOR (A LONG) LIFE: Based upon his father’s lifespan Xi Jinping will be President of China until 2043.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Election Day, RUSSIA, Guns and Much, Much More. “There is a special election today in Pennsylvania between a sleepy Republican candidate and a moderate Democrat that appears far more conservative that the progressive nutters fighting to take back the House in other races around the country. We are told that these are ‘litmus tests’ for the #resistance but it will only be a litmus test if the Democrat wins. If the Republican wins, the race will be forgotten.”

Heh.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: To eat in Venezuela, children work and beg on the streets – to feed their families.

Miguel González, a 10-year old indigenous boy, walks barefoot through the crowded corridors of Maracaibo’s flea market in northwestern Venezuela. He holds a little plastic bag filled with a few pounds of beef skin while a nauseating smell of kept-in-the-open fish, meat and cheese fills the air below a rusty metallic ceiling.

“Please, give me some bones,” he asks, both hands extended to a woman selling meat, who refuses to hand him the leftovers and demands that he leave the premises.

Hunger triggers Miguel’s daily trips to beg for any food or money he can carry home to Carrasquero, a poor town located in the indigenous Wayuu district next to the Colombian border.

“I ask and ask until someone gives me something to prepare a soup at least. We have no food at all at home,” the child tells a reporter. His clothes are torn. His face, hair and feet are stained.

Even an inept and corrupt military junta is preferable to energetic socialists.

HMM: America Is Well Within Range of a Big Surprise, So Why Can’t It See?

It is 2020. Tensions have been rising steadily in Northeast Asia. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un resume exchanging insults as North Korea falls into another famine. U.S. attention is focused on the Korean Peninsula. As the United States reinforces its forward-deployed units in Japan and Korea, China begins moving troops toward Taiwan.

Early one Monday morning (Sunday Washington time), Japan, Guam, and Taiwan wake up to a half-dozen small drones orbiting each of their military air bases and several of their commercial airfields. The drones emit no signals. They identify parked aircraft and key command and maintenance nodes and mark them with paint. Having proved their point, they simultaneously scatter and crash in international waters. At the same time, harbormasters throughout Japan, Taiwan, and Guam report the presence of “gliders” surfacing in their ports. Upon examination, they are found to not be visibly armed, but clearly are capable of carrying significant payloads that could disable shipping. Similar devices appear in San Diego, Bremerton, and Pearl Harbor.

Through discrete channels, Beijing informs Washington and Tokyo that it will be occupying Taiwan immediately. Any effort by U.S. forces to engage from Japanese bases will result in drone swarms augmented by cruise and ballistic missiles strikes on U.S. facilities, runways, and ships in port. U.S. preparations to launch military aircraft will result in immediate attack.

China tells Japan that as long as her forces stay out of the fight, they will not be attacked. China also warns that if American aircraft or ships sortie from Japanese ports, China will shut down Japan’s airfields with drones and missiles and its ports with the already deployed smart mines.

When queried by Japanese and U.S. political leaders, military commanders admit they cannot protect their airfields or ports, nor can they preempt the mobile Chinese drone or missile launching systems.

It’s an interesting and dangerous scenario, and one we can hope the Pentagon is already working to defend against.

Then again, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the surprise start of the Korean War to 9/11, some of America’s adversaries attack on the premise that we’ll give in if they hit us hard enough and without warning, that we’ll just give in.

But that premise has been tested and found wanting — hopefully wanting enough to prevent Beijing from launching a costly and unnecessary war.

I THINK I’M OK WITH THIS: Mother Director Darren Aronofsky Says ‘Never Stick a Gun in a Movie Star’s Hands.’

Of course, he doesn’t want anyone else armed, either. Except maybe Hollywood security guards, I assume.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Stealth startup launches four unauthorized rogue satellites into orbit.

THAT’S NOT VERY COMFORTING: Facebook Really Is Spying on You, Just Not Through Your Phone’s Mic.

“Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed,” says Facebook.

Yeah, sure, and the government swears it isn’t keeping any pet aliens at Area 51. So I contacted former Facebook employees and various advertising technology experts, who all cited technical and legal reasons audio snooping isn’t possible.

Uploading and scanning that much audio data “would strain even the resources of the NSA,” says former Facebook ad-targeting product manager Antonio Garcia Martinez. “They would need to understand the context of what you are saying—not just listen for words,” says Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook operations manager.

I believe them, but for another reason: Facebook is now so good at watching what we do online—and even offline, wandering around the physical world—it doesn’t need to hear us. After digging into the various bits of info Facebook and its advertisers collect and the bits I’ve actually handed over myself, I can now explain why I got each of those eerily relevant ads. (Facebook ads themselves offer limited explanations when you click “Why am I seeing this?”)

Advertising is an important staple of the free internet, but the companies buying and selling ads are turning into stalkers. We need to understand what they’re doing, and what we can—or can’t—do to limit them.

If you must use Facebook — I’ve found it can be a real boon for promoting BillWhittle.com video segments — try deleting the app from your phone and/or tablet. Because that’s where much of the “spying” takes place.

Instead, limit your use to a desktop or laptop, and install what I call “a Facebook browser.” Whatever browser you regularly use, install Firefox or Edge or some other browser, and use that one exclusively for Facebook.

No, I don’t actually think they’re out to get me. But being followed around, even virtually, is inherently creepy.

RUMOR: NY Governor “Melting Down” Over Challenge From Sex And The City Star.

Enter Cynthia Nixon. You may remember her as the skinny, red-headed friend from the Sex and the City series some years ago. (Or, you know… so I am assured people who watched it… *cough*) A quick search shows that she has been politically active in recent years, and in 2016 characterized herself as “definitely a Hillary Clinton supporter.” (Not sure how well that will play this year, but so be it. ) She keeps dropping hints that she may be challenging Cuomo from the left and the buzz has grown to the point where the local media is asking Cuomo about it. He didn’t handle the question well.

Cuomo is doing his best to make jokes about this, but it certainly sounds like the idea of Nixon challenging him has gotten well and truly under his skin. Check out this short video from Spectrum News in New York where analysts play the audio of Cuomo commenting on her. His attempt at a joke winds up cracking him up to the point where he can barely speak, but it doesn’t sound as if he actually thinks it was funny. Frankly, he sounds deranged.

That was awkward.

TYLER O’NEIL: 5 Things to Know About President Trump’s Gun Reform Package for Schools, Mental Health, and the FBI.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is It Racist to Call Maxine Waters Stupid, Considering How Stupid She Is?

PAULA BOLYARD: Kasich Power Grab Could Give Unelected Bureaucrats Almost Unlimited Power Over Education.

DOING THE JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO: Arizona border officer falsely claimed to be US citizen; he is actually a native of Mexico.

IF IT MOVES, TAX IT: California’s first proposed per-ride city tax to raise Uber, Lyft prices.

If the effort is successful, Oakland could become the first city in California—Uber and Lyft’s home state—to impose such a tax. However, it’s not clear whether Oakland or any other city in the Golden State has the authority to do so under current state rules.

Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan told the East Bay Express that she wants the city council to put forward a ballot measure that would tax such rides.

“The power to tax is a separate power regardless of whether or not you can regulate something,” said Kaplan in an interview with the alt-weekly. “They’re using our streets to do business, and we don’t currently have any revenue from it.”

Your typical politician exhibits a level of greed which would make most businessmen blush.

BUT OF COURSE: Giving a Stellar Example of Dishonesty, Daily Show Uses Deceptive Editing of CPAC Conservatives to Brand Them as Mindless Buffoons.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Italy: The Political Laboratory of the West.

TRADE: How Europeans Are Saving the Ford Mustang. “Buyers abroad are proving more faithful than Americans who grew up worshipping the pony car.”

THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE WEB: We need a ‘legal or regulatory framework’ to save the Web from dominant tech platforms.

The British computer scientist issued an open letter today, 29 years to the day after he first proposed his idea for the online information management system that would later become known as the Web. In the letter, he outlined what he thinks we need to do to save the Web from the concentration of power of a “few dominant platforms” that has “made it possible to weaponize the Web at scale.”

The likes of Facebook, Google, and Twitter have faced increasing scrutiny over the roles they play in disseminating fake news — while also serving as easy vehicles for third parties, including foreign governments, to manipulate public opinion.

“The Web that many connected to years ago is not what new users will find today,” Berners-Lee noted. “What was once a rich selection of blogs and websites has been compressed under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms. This concentration of power creates a new set of gatekeepers, allowing a handful of platforms to control which ideas and opinions are seen and shared.”

In the meantime, keep getting your news from friendly bloggers instead of from soulless algorithms developed by gazillion-dollar tech giants.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Jeff Bezos Is Smiling: Regulators Approve “Limited Drone Deliveries.”

RICK MORAN: Warren Says She’s Not Running in 2020. “She also refuses to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry.”

SHARYL ATTKISSON: For press and public, big risks lurk behind ‘opposition research.’

U.S. intel officials used political opposition research (that relied on Russia) to justify wiretaps to investigate Donald Trump’s Russia ties.

Congress and an inspector general are investigating the federal investigators who investigated Trump.

Congress and the Justice Department are investigating the federal investigators’ use of political opposition research.

The latest punchline?

The political “oppo research” group in question is reportedly oppo-researching the congressional investigators who are investigating the federal investigators who used the oppo research.

In simpler terms: Congressional investigators are being targeted by those they’re investigating.

Shut down this whole sham — and maybe look into obstruction charges.

HMM: Tesla paused Model 3 production for planned upgrade in February.

The company did not provide specifics about the production upgrade, but it said there could be more periods of downtime in coming months.

Last month, Tesla said in a shareholder note that it continues to target weekly Model 3 production rates of 2,500 by the end of the first quarter and 5,000 by the end of the second quarter.

The company, however, said in the note that while it has plans to achieve those goals, “our prior experience on the Model 3 ramp has demonstrated the difficulty of accurately forecasting specific production rates at specific points in time.”

That’s not very reassuring.

MICHAEL WALSH: Will the wall pay for itself? “Nothing but upside to cutting the influx of illegal-alien public charges.”

MORE LIKELY THEY’D RATHER GIVE ONE TO EVERYONE THAN TAKE FARRAKHAN’S AWAY: Twitter May Give Everyone A Blue Checkmark To Weed Out The Robots.

POWER, UNLIMITED POWER: ‘Proton’ battery uses cheap carbon instead of lithium.

The batteries are a hybrid between a chemical battery and a hydrogen fuel cell. During charging, water is split to produce protons, which then pass through a cell membrane and bond to the carbon electrodes, without producing hydrogen gas. To tap the stored energy, the hydrogen ions are released and lose an electron to re-form the protons. The electrons supply power, while the hydrogen protons combine with oxygen and other electrons to re-form into water.

The big advantage with proton batteries compared to fuel cells is efficiency. The latter must produce hydrogen gas then split it back into protons, which creates losses. But a proton battery never produces hydrogen gas, so the energy efficiency is comparable to lithium-ion batteries. And even though the system is far from optimized, energy density is also comparable to lithium ion, the team said.

The researchers built a small, 1.2 volt battery, so the next step is to scale it up and improve efficiency.

Faster, please.