ONE CLICK: Bezos To Offer Amazon-Branded Checking Accounts.

BRIAN WANG: Venezuela oil workers are dying of hunger – a military coup in 2018 seems inevitable.

Are there enough non-Maduro stooges left in the officers’ ranks to pull off a successful coup?

BLUE WAVE? The coming Trump landslide.

Wayne Allyn Root:

The memory of my CNBC debacle came pouring back to mind last week because I saw Donny [Deutsch] made news as a guest on MSNBC. Donny was asked about Donald Trump’s re-election chances. For once, I agree with Donny.

Deutsch said Trump will be re-elected in 2020 by a landslide because the economy is booming and Americans have more money in their pockets. Most Americans vote on pocketbook issues, he explained.

Then Donny spoke more raw truth. He said, “That’s why Trump must be removed from office now.”

My old pal Donny revealed what liberals are all thinking, deep down. Trump is a lock for re-election by a wide margin. As Deutsch admitted, that’s why he must be stopped now.

Deutsch has to know that even if the Democrats win big in November, they won’t win enough seats in the Senate to remove Trump from office — so what does he have in mind?

I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER WHEN DEMOCRATS CARED ABOUT MINORITY RIGHTS: Colorado Governor ‘Can Count on One Hand’ Teachers Who’ve Wanted to be Armed.

PEAK OIL: U.S. Will Be the World’s Largest Oil Producer by 2023, Says IEA.

U.S. crude production is expected to reach a record of 12.1 million barrels a day in 2023, up about 2 million barrels a day from this year, said the International Energy Agency, which advises governments and corporations on industry trends. American oil output will surge past Russia, currently the world’s largest crude producer at about 11 million barrels a day.

The IEA’s closely watched five-year forecast showed the U.S. hitting new strides in its oil and gas boom, helped by technological advances, improved efficiency and a fragile recovery in oil prices that is encouraging shale companies to ramp up their drilling. Once heavily dependent on imports from the Middle East, the U.S. is getting closer to achieving its goal of producing enough crude to meet domestic demand for refined products like gasoline.

Of the 6.4 million new barrels of oil that will be pumped every day between now and 2023, almost 60% will come from the U.S., the IEA said.

American influence on global oil markets is also expected to rise, with U.S. oil exports more than doubling to 4.9 million barrels a day by 2023, according to the IEA. Until 2015, the U.S. didn’t export any crude oil by law, but in five years it is expected to be among the world’s biggest exporters.

Have you hugged a fracker today?

HEY, BIG SPENDER: Cash-Strapped DNC, DCCC Pay Hillary Clinton’s ‘Resistance’ Group Nearly $900,000 Combined for List Acquisitions. “DNC’s $300,000 payment was made as state Democratic parties were waiting on promised funding.”

The DNC, which is in the midst of facing financial hardships, conjured up $300,000 on Jan. 8 to pay Onward Together, Clinton’s group, for “list acquisition,” according to the FEC filings. The payment was made to Clinton’s organization as state Democratic parties were waiting on $10 million in funding for rebuilding efforts that was initially promised last July.

As of early January of this year, the money had never made its way to the parties, and the DNC did not even have $10 million on hand. In late January, after reports surfaced of its inaction in relation to the state parties, the DNC finally announced it would begin disbursing $1 million to 11 different state parties, with grants going to Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia.

The DCCC also paid hundreds of thousands to Clinton’s “resistance” group for “generic committee list rental” between mid-December and late January.

It says something about today’s Democratic Party that it is still in thrall to its losing presidential candidate — who is no longer an elected official holding any office.

I don’t recall Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, or John Kerry having much or anything to do with the party’s day-to-day affairs after their losses.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Another Award Show, Guns, RUSSIA and Much, Much More. “I’m very hopeful. President Trump has said background checks [are] needed. This bill of ours, the Manchin-Toomey bill, should be the base bill they work off of.”

CHUCK TODD: Mueller Indictment Contradicts McDonough’s Claim That Obama’s Warning to Putin Was ‘Impactful.’

Todd asked McDonough about Sen. Mark Warner’s (D., Va.) comment last July, acknowledging the Obama administration “choked” in its handling of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“It became very clear to us what the Russians’ intentions were, so we took a series of pain-staking steps, including the president directly confronting President Putin, us going to Congress to press them to work with us to make sure that the states were doing everything they could to protect the sanctity of every American’s vote,” McDonough said.

He said he believes the discussion between Obama and Putin was “very impactful,” adding that some of the things they feared Russia would do, it didn’t do.

Todd then played a clip of Obama from December 2016, recalling his direct conversation with Putin in September 2016 at the Group of 20 meeting in Hangzhou, China.

“I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out… and in fact we did not see further tampering of the election process,” Obama said.

Todd pushed back against this claim and said that based on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of the Internet Research Agency, Obama’s claim is “not true.”

If Putin took Obama seriously after his promise of “more flexibility,” it would be shocking. If Putin had taken Obama seriously prior to that it would be more shocking still.

HEH: Putin tells U.S. to send evidence of vote meddling.

“I have to see first what they’ve done. Give us materials, give us information,” Putin said in an interview with NBC TV aired late on Friday, according to an English voice-over of his words.

“We can not respond to that if they do not violate Russian laws,” Putin told NBC’s Megyn Kelly, when asked whether Moscow would take action against the named individuals.

Kelly listed some of the accusations of Russian interference made by Mueller’s office and other U.S. officials, including the spreading of false information online.

“With all due respect for you personally, with all due respect for Congress, you must have people with legal degrees, 100 percent you do,” Putin said smiling.

He said U.S. authorities should send Russia’s general prosecutor an official request.

“This has to go through official channels, not through the press or yelling and hollering in the United States Congress,” Putin said.

The DNC is gonna get right on that.

WOW: Former slave and two-time Olympian becomes an airman.

Airman 1st Class Guor Maker fled war and slavery in South Sudan almost 20 years ago, came to the United States, and has become a college graduate, an Olympian, and, now, an airman.

As an 8-year-old, Maker, now 33, lost eight of his nine siblings in the Sudanese Civil War and was captured and enslaved twice, once by Sudanese soldiers and once by herdsman, according to a Joint Base San Antonio press release.

He escaped both times, and in 2001, he and his uncle’s family were granted permission to come to the U.S. He settled in Concord, New Hampshire, where he learned English by watching cartoons, and later received a running scholarship to Iowa State University.

Full story — and it’s an impressive one — at the link.

SOFT TARGET: 2016 School Shooter Chose Target For Lack Of Armed Security.

[Jesse] Osborn killed one 6-year-old at the school and his own father at home before going on the rampage. Two other students and a teacher were injured in the shooting.

Osborn wrote prior to the Sept. 28, 2016 shooting a reference to Sandy Hook killer, Adam Lanza, and noted that he wanted to kill “Atleast 40.” The information was revealed during a five-day hearing that began Feb. 12.

“My plan,” Osborn wrote through misspellings, “is shooting my dad getting his keys getting in his truck, driving to the elementary school 4 mins away, once there gear up, shoot out the bottom school class room windows, enter the building, shoot the first class which will be the 2d grade, grab teachers keys so I don’t have to hasle to get through any doors.”

Two days thereafter,Osborn told his chat group on Instagram he was unsure if he should shoot up his middle school, which he had already been expelled from. Additionally, he said that the elementary school would “be like shooting fish in a barrel” because there would be no armed security there.

Allowing concealed carry everywhere makes anywhere look like a potentially hard target.

BLUE WAVE? GOP Panic Spreads to Pennsylvania.

Josh Kraushaar:

Republicans are learning an uncomfortable reality about the political environment for 2018: Tax cuts, conservative culture-war staples, and even Nancy Pelosi herself probably won’t be enough to overcome the deep hole that President Trump has put them in. With the White House awash in scandal and struggling to articulate its agenda, the political mood has turned so grim that Republicans are in danger of losing an upcoming special election in the heart of Trump country.

That’s the lesson to draw from the surprisingly competitive campaign Democrat Conor Lamb is running in a Pittsburgh-area district Trump easily carried by 20 points, surviving millions of dollars in outside GOP attack ads portraying Lamb as a liberal in disguise. Even a close loss in such a reliably conservative area would raise red flags that Democrats are on the verge of a major landslide in the November midterms.

It doesn’t look good right now, but Democrat-Media Complex overreach on gun control (see last night’s Oscars — or better yet: Don’t) might change things in a hurry. Provided, of course, that the media onslaught doesn’t cow Republicans out of running on the issue.

A booming economy would help mightily, too, but last week’s steel and aluminum tariffs added unnecessary uncertainty to the mix.

A TYRANT IN FAVOR OF GUN CONTROL? BUT THAT’S UNPOSSIBLE! Iran’s Supreme Leader Weighs in on American Gun Control Debate.

HARRY KAZIANIS: The NRA Doesn’t Kill People, It Saves Lives. Just Ask My Family.

In the early 1990s, a member of my family was robbed at knife and gunpoint while trying to earn a living at his small business. The experience changed my family’s perception of our own safety and security forever. After several days of reflection, this family member made a heartfelt decision: he needed to protect his life, property, and our family by purchasing a firearm.

Such a choice did not come easy, but was guided by a fundamental truth. As someone who had never before considered purchasing a gun, he knew the police would never come to his aid fast enough if an armed assailant tried to rob him again—possibly costing him his own life. He made what he felt was the best decision for his family and his own safety, just like many other hard-working, honest Americans across our country do every single day.

Over the next few months he lived in libraries, talked with experts, and inquired with police and law enforcement to decide what type of firearm and safety courses he would need to arm himself and protect his business and our family in the safest possible manner.

This is where the NRA came in. When he did make a firearms purchase, it was NRA-trained and -certified instructors who spent hours of their own time to teach him how to safely operate his preferred method of self-defense. They did not talk politics or try to indoctrinate him in any way, but did what they could to teach him how to safely and effectively defend himself if the moment ever came.

Stories like his never make the news, but they happen every day.

CHANGE: Taylor Force Act would end U.S. aid to Palestinian Authority as long as its leaders incentivize terrorist attacks.

JAYVEE UPDATE: ‘As ISIS Metastasizes Around the World, the Threat Becomes More Complex.’

Obama had the chance to knock this terror group out in 2013, 2014, but that would have disrupted his narrative of victory in Iraq.

NOT DECLINE SO MUCH AS COLLAPSE: D.C. Public Schools graduation rate on track to decline this year.

Data released Thursday by D.C. Public Schools shows that 42 percent of seniors attending traditional public schools are on track to graduate, while 19 percent are considered “moderately off-track,” meaning they could still earn enough credits for a diploma.

The likely drop in the graduation rate is the latest fallout from an investigation that cast doubt on the validity of diplomas awarded last year. The graduation rate in 2017 was 73 percent, but the probe revealed that one in three graduates received their diplomas in violation of city policy. Those students had walked across graduation stages despite missing too many classes or improperly taking makeup classes.

Even if all of the students regarded as “moderately off-track” receive diplomas, the graduation rate would stand at about 61 percent — 12 points below last year’s.

As was noted on Twitter, “One of the highest per-pupil spending districts in the country. Great work, everyone.”

PUTTING OUT FIRE (WITH GASOLINE): Venezuela hikes its minimum wage again.

Venezuela’s repeated wage hikes haven’t kept up with the country’s runaway inflation. In January 2017, Maduro raised the monthly minimum wage 50% to 104,358 bolivars. At the time, that was worth $31.17, according to the unofficial exchange rate that millions of Venezuelans follow closely.

In other words, despite all the increases, the new minimum wage will be worth less than a fifth of what it was worth a year ago.

Corruption, mismanagement and price freezes have caused Venezuela’s economy to collapse. To try to appease voters, Maduro has raised the minimum wage several times in the past few years. Critics say the hikes amount to printing money and only exacerbate Venezuela’s hyperinflation.

“Critics.” No, that’s what reality says.

BREAKING: 2 killed at Central Michigan University, gunman ‘armed and dangerous.’

OUR DIGITAL GATEKEEPERS: Facebook Threatens Satire Site Babylon Bee over CNN Story That Snopes Rated ‘False.’

THE VAPORS: Condoleezza Rice stuns ‘The View’ audience with amazing story about 2nd Amendment rights.

“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment,” she began.

“I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late fifties, early sixties,” she explained. “There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police were going to protect you.”

“And so when White Knight Riders would come through our neighborhood,” she said, “my father and his friends would take their guns and they’d go to the head of the neighborhood, it’s a little cul-de-sac and they would fire in the air, if anybody came through.”

“I don’t think they actually ever hit anybody,” she continued. “But they protected the neighborhood. And I’m sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were he would have rounded them up.”

“And so, I don’t favor some things like gun registration,” she said to a suddenly silent crowd.

Video at the link.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO DO ANY OF THIS (CONT’D): Married middle school teacher arrested for having sex with 14-year-old student, buying him drugs.

IRONY ALERT: Tesla touts its emissions-free cars; its factory got fined for polluting.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: NRA Meets with Trump, ‘Andy’s Office’ Targeted in DOJ Report and Much, Much More.

JAMIE METZL: Why We Must Prepare for the Coming Collapse of North Korea.

Because North Korea’s continued nuclear weapons push will justify the U.S. military’s ongoing rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific, the acceleration of missile defenses in South Korea and Japan that will undermine China’s nuclear deterrent, and Japan’s active reconsideration of its military capabilities, China’s need to keep a lid on North Korea’s nuclear program will ultimately conflict with the DPRK’s nuclear drive. Moreover, China will rightly come to perceive the North’s nuclear program as being designed primarily to limit Beijing’s influence over Pyongyang. This will likely prove unacceptable to the Chinese, who will be forced to increase economic pressure on North Korea by reducing aid, making China-DPRK relations decline even more than they have since the 2013 execution of Jang Song-Taek, Kim Jong-Un’s uncle and the then-point person in North Korea-China ties.

Recognizing the potential for reduced Chinese assistance, Pyongyang has begun looking for other financial options. Its longtime friend Russia, relishing these days in poking the West, would be a good choice but for its ongoing financial crisis. South Korea, which once provided significant aid to the North for little in return under former President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy,” will not be fooled again without significant concessions. With few options for aid, economic reform will by default become the North’s only real choice.

In fact, North Korea’s leaders have recently come to this realization and minor economic reforms allowing managers to set wages and farmers to keep more of their harvest have begun. Economic reform, however, cannot work in North Korea without political reform.

Whatever political and military compromises might be necessary to bringing the two Koreas back together (or at least much closer) following a collapse, the financial, logistical, and humanitarian costs are almost unimaginable.