BUT OF COURSE: MSNBC’s Katy Tur And Her Twitter Followers Mock Americans Excited Over Tax Cuts And Bonuses.

PATRICK POOLE: FBI Investigating South Philly Hit-and-Run As Possible Terrorism.

SALENA ZITO INTERVIEWS JEFF SESSIONS: FBI needs ‘to have a fresh start.’

“Well, I have believed it was important to have a fresh start at the FBI, and actually, it was in my letter to the president when I recommended Comey’s removal. I used the words, ‘fresh start,’ and the FBI director is Chris Wray, a very talented, smart, capable leader.

“I think it will give them an opportunity to go straight to the American people and say, ‘we are gonna win your confidence,’ ” he said.

When asked if he was concerned that the FBI had become too politicized, Sessions said the agency needs to be careful.

“Well, I would just say it this way. The Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, we all, we tend to be defensive. At this point in time, I think we need to go the extra mile to make sure that everything we do is not political. Everything we do is based on law and facts. And, whether we like it or not, there’s been erosion some in the confidence of the American people at the FBI and Department of Justice,” he said.

“And we need to earn that back, and because the heart and soul of the Department of Justice is very good,” he said.

A generous estimate is that there’s yet a long way to go.

IF? What if the Iran Deal Was a Mistake? “I supported Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement. Now I think it may have made things worse.”

LIONEL CHETWYND: ‘They All Do It’: That Insidious Defense of the Elites. “They don’t all do it, and the guilty should meet justice.”

Off topic, but I’ve always thought that Lionel Chetwynd has the best-ever John Houseman name.

CHANGE: Navy USS America Amphib Gets New Tweaks for F-35B Attacks.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: Watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today.

The Falcon Heavy rocket is essentially a turbocharged version of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. It is the same height and its central booster looks the same. But attached on the sides are two additional Falcon 9 boosters, which triples the thrust at liftoff. That means that the Heavy will be able to lift far heavier payloads, up to 140,000 pounds, to low-Earth orbit.

The rocket is sitting on Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That’s the same starting point of some of NASA’s most famous achievements, including Apollo 11 in 1969, the first mission that took astronauts to the moon, and the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

SpaceX will broadcast the launch on its website, spacex.com, beginning at 1:10 p.m. Eastern, and on YouTube. We’ll add the live video feed to this page once it becomes available.

That’s just under an hour from now…

HMM: Russia’s retaliation for downed jet has just begun.

The downing didn’t make many headlines in the US, but the results might:

Franz Klintsevich, the first deputy chair of the Russian Senate Defense and Security Committee, didn’t mince words, saying he was “absolutely positive” the MANPADS, or man-portable air-defense systems, “had been supplied to the terrorists by the United States via third countries.” Also, he said, Western countries may be trying to provoke certain reactions.

“Today, we are undergoing a very complicated process, and provocations” are a useful tool. “The situation in the area is under Turkey’s control and [the downing of the jet] could have served to exacerbate the Russian-Turkish disagreements. I think Western intelligence services [also damaged] our further relations with the United States,” said Klintsevich, a hard-liner and a staunch critic of the United States.

“Our Defense Ministry is now conducting a serious investigation to find out who was behind this attack,” he said. “But in this complex configuration of military actions, the role of American intelligence is becoming clear. They want to discredit our work on the fight against terrorists, and such provocations will continue.”

This view is in line with earlier Russian statements regarding chemical attacks in Syria and possible US military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There’s a firm belief in Moscow that Washington has been seeking to derail Russian political initiatives. A recent Russian Foreign Ministry press release said, “The US’ stubborn desire to enact in Syria the scenario previously applied in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya is glaringly obvious.”

Whoever shot down and killed Russian Maj. Roman Filippov and however they did it, Moscow is making anti-US hay out of it.

TYLER O’NEIL: This is why we need evidence, not just memos.

Hell, just release everything but the launch codes and the NOC list.

WELL, GOOD: Trump Admin Thwarts Irish Effort to Boycott Israel, Criminalize Trade.

The Irish Parliament was poised last week to pass a major piece of legislation that would make it crime to engage in trade with Israelis. The bill, which was seen as part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, would have imprisoned Irish citizens who purchased souvenirs in Israel for a maximum of five years and subjected them to a fine of more than $310,000.

Upon learning of the effort, senior Trump administration officials in the State Department are said to have scrambled to open up channels to Irish leaders in a bid to scuttle the bill and avoid a standoff with the Irish government over the measure.

Trump administration officials are said to have made clear to Irish leaders that passage of the bill would put them starkly at odds with the United States and subject them to inclusion on a list of countries supporting boycotts of the Jewish state.

Given enough arm-twisting, someday European countries might give Israel the same level of respect now given by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

HMM: National GOP breaks glass in Pennsylvania race.

The day after Conor Lamb won the Democratic nomination to run in a special election in this very pro-Donald Trump House district, Republican strategist Corry Bliss knew his party had another special election problem on its hands.

Bliss, who heads the main super PAC for House Republicans, arrived at his office at 6:30 a.m. and played an internet clip of Lamb, a telegenic 33-year-old former federal prosecutor and Marine veteran, speaking at a Democratic gathering. Then Bliss pulled up a video on social media of the Republican candidate he was tasked with helping, 59-year-old state legislator Rick Saccone.

“I realized this would be a race,” Bliss said.

Since that November morning, the Republican Party has launched a massive campaign to save a House seat here in the heart of Trump country. A loss in the March 13 contest — coming just months after its embarrassing defeat in the Alabama Senate race — would portend a potential blowout in the November midterms.

Nearly every corner of the GOP is involved. The White House is working closely with Saccone and dispatching President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to the suburban Pittsburgh district on his behalf. The House Republican campaign arm has begun a $2 million TV offensive and is aggressively pressing party lawmakers to help fund the candidate. Bliss’ group, Congressional Leadership Fund, is deploying dozens of field staffers, who braved frigid winds last weekend as they canvassed for votes.

If there’s a Blue Wave coming — and the data are mixed — unlike 2006, the GOP seems to be taking the possibility seriously this time.

SUPER SIZE ME: Chemical found in McDonald’s fries may be cure for baldness, study finds.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Battle of the Memos, Clinton Cartel Fed Into to Steele and Much, Much More. “HPSCI chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) revealed yesterday that the FISA warrant to spy on campaign volunteer Carter Page included a footnote to the court informing them that the dossier alleged to be the centerpiece of the FISA application ‘might be political’.”

It’s only February, but that might be the Understatement of the Year.

IT’S THE MANAGEMENT, STUPID (OR THE STUPID MANAGEMENT): How GE Went From American Icon to Astonishing Mess.

Since Donald Trump’s election in November 2016, during a stock market boom in which the Dow is up 41 percent, GE has lost 46 percent of its value, or $120 billion. A few months after Immelt retired as chief executive last summer, the company shocked Wall Street by announcing earnings that were barely half of analysts’ already lowered estimates. Soon after, GE said it would halve its once-sacrosanct stock dividend because it was short on cash. It also said it would sell or spin off $20 billion in businesses, including its lightbulb division. (The appliance business was sold to the Chinese manufacturer Haier Group in 2016, along with a license to use the GE brand.)
Then in January came news of a $6.2 billion charge related to costs incurred more than a decade ago by GE’s financial-services business, an announcement that triggered a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. GE’s new CEO, John Flannery, has grimly promised that “all options are on the table,” including the once-unthinkable option of dismembering the company entirely.

And yet, little of this has to do with the stuff GE makes. Its jet engines still dominate the global market. Its turbines, whether in gas, coal, or nuclear power plants, still provide a third of the world’s electricity. Its CT scanners and MRI machines are still the state of the art. So what happened?

And:

Immelt also publicly pledged to return GE to its industrial roots (with a new concern for environmental impact) and reversed the deep cuts Welch had made to research and development. Still, under Immelt GE Capital only grew. Its profits quadrupled as it gobbled up credit card companies, subprime lenders, and commercial real estate. These weren’t businesses GE had much experience in, but the company had long taught its young executives that they could manage anything.

The 2008 financial crisis revealed this not to be the case.

The company engaged in risky speculation in the finance field far away from its core competencies, while embracing progressive values in its fabled industrial divisions.

In other words, they got woke and went broke.

Related (From Ed): Speaking of the stupid management, back in 2007, then-CEO Jeff Immelt was flying around with his emergency backup spare private jet when GE still owned MSNBC and NBC, which frequently hectored (and still does) its viewers on global warming. Including this infamous moment in 2007, when a GE-owned company advised its viewers to turn off their GE-made light bulbs, while the klieg lights were blazing at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Stadium:

NOTHING GOOD FOR CHINA’S NEIGHBORS: What Happens When China Eclipses the U.S. in Asia.

The U.S. strategic position is eroding so quickly that even sharing the region with China isn’t really a valid option any longer, argues Hugh White, a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. America’s allies in Southeast Asia and Australia say they don’t want to choose between the U.S. and China, but underneath those platitudes, nobody in the region wants to make an enemy of Beijing. All the more so because officials increasingly doubt the U.S. will be there in the end, according to White.

White put these thoughts to paper and pixel with a much-debated essay in the Australian publication Quarterly Essay. “Without America” envisions a Situation Room scene where a fictitious U.S. president decides that, even with America’s superior conventional military, the risk of a confrontation with China just isn’t worth it. Even if the U.S. prevailed, all China would need to do would be to inflict a couple of glancing blows and it would, politically, have triumphed.

That’s what Japan thought in 1941, too.

I THINK HE’S VERY PRO LEGAL-IMMIGRANT: Boston Mayor Says ‘Deep Down’ Trump is ‘Very Pro-Immigrant.’

This report is from Bridget Johnson, whose unexplained and unacknowledged Twitter banishment remains unexplained and unacknowledged by Twitter management.

UGH: Nursing homes sedate residents with dementia by misusing antipsychotic drugs, report finds.

Children complained about parents who were robbed of their personalities and turned into zombies. Residents remembered slurring their words and being unable to think or stay awake. Former administrators admitted doling out drugs without having appropriate diagnoses, securing informed consent or divulging risks.

The 157-page report, released Monday, estimates that each week more than 179,000 people living in US nursing facilities are given antipsychotic medications, even though they don’t have the approved psychiatric diagnoses — like schizophrenia — to warrant use of the drugs. Most of these residents are older and have dementia, and researchers say the antipsychotic medications are administered as a cost-effective “chemical restraint” to suppress behaviors and ease the load on overwhelmed staff.

I’m not sure there are any humane treatments for certain dementia-related behaviors, even without the (likely permanent) understaffing of nursing homes. Although the field might be promising for builders of lifelike “carebots” to fill in for overworked humans without threatening the patients.

INTERVIEW: Rupert Darwall on the Alarming Roots of Environmentalism.

If you look at what the Nazis were doing in the 1930s, in their environmental policies, virtually every theme you see in the modern environmental movement, the Nazis were doing. It happens to be historical fact that the Nazis were the first political party in the world to have a wind power program. It also happens to be a fact that they were against meat eating, and they considered…it…terribly wasteful that so much grain went to feed livestock rather than to make bread. It’s also the case that they had the equivalent of fuel economy rules because they had the most expensive gasoline in Europe and so they basically had very few people driving cars…I think actually the most extraordinary thing that I came across was this quote from Adolf Hitler where he told an aide once, “I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in changing people’s lifestyles.” Well, that could be…That’s extraordinarily contemporary. That is what the modern environmental movement is all about. It’s about changing people’s lifestyles.

That intro should be familiar ground for readers of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, but there’s much more to chew on in the rest of the conversation.

GREEN WAVE: Democratic cash swamps House Republicans.

More than 40 House Republican incumbents were outraised in the final quarter of 2017 by one — or several — of their Democratic opponents, according to the latest round of fundraising numbers. And of that group, more than a dozen had less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers.

For the GOP, here’s the really disturbing part: The trendline is getting worse, not better. Despite the myriad advantages of incumbency and control of Congress, there are more House members with less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers than the quarter before.

“Those numbers should be concerning for all Republicans,” said Mike DuHaime, a GOP consultant based in New Jersey. “This is going to be the most challenging political environment since 2006, so you have to be ready. And lot of these members came in after 2006, so for many, this will be the most challenging environment they’ve ever run in. And that’s going to prove difficult.”

A flood of Democratic money poured into House races across the country in 2017, provided in large part by small-dollar, online contributors animated by opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress. More than 80 Democratic challengers in Republican-held districts have at least $250,000 in cash on hand at the end of the year — a sign that the House battlefield may be wider than previously thought.

I’m getting the feeling that this is going to be a long, hard slog.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Buying Twitter Followers a Firing Offense?

TONI AIRAKSINEN: ‘Feminist Business School’ Teaches Students To Shun Profit-Seeking.

WHEW: Doomsday Predictions About Earth’s Magnetic Pole Reversal Overblown.

CHRISTAN TOTO: The Sad Transformation of Jimmy Kimmel Is Complete.

DAVID SOLWAY EXPLAINS The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon.

WINTER GAMES: Linguistic divide poses problem to Korea hockey team.

The Canadian coach of the joint women’s hockey team said Monday her squad has made a three-page dictionary that translates key hockey terms from English into South Korean and then into North Korean for better communication among the players and herself.

“In North Korean, there are no English words so everything is totally different. So we actually made like a dictionary, English to Korean to North Korean. So we can communicate and hopefully learn how to speak each other’s languages,” Sarah Murray told reporters following her team’s first practice after arriving at the Gangneung athletes’ village earlier Monday.

Murray’s Team Korea was formed only 11 days ago as a result of the Koreas’ abrupt decision to cooperate in the Olympics, which start Friday.

South Korea has incorporated many English words and phrases into its language, while North Korea has eliminated words with foreign origins and created homegrown substitutes, which many South Koreans feel sound funny. Experts say about a third of the everyday words used in the two countries are different.

North and South Korea are divided by much more than just a demilitarized zone and different governments.