PAYBACK’S A… YOU KNOW: Maybe Men Will Be Scared for a While. “But maybe to fear women is to begin seeing them as people.”

Not everyone is online all the time. This is why it was only several weeks after the “Shitty Media Men” list first appeared, and disappeared, and engendered a frenzy of coverage that my husband found himself discussing the list with an older colleague.

Well, she said (as he recounted the conversation to me). Women have been scared of men for a long time. Maybe men will be scared of women for a while now.

He recounted this as a calm statement of fact, which interested me; it seemed accurate, and it also seemed like a stark contrast to the way I’d seen similar assessments delivered elsewhere. In general, in the weeks following the Times’ and The New Yorker’s reports on Harvey Weinstein, the prospect of men being newly scared of women tended to loom as a sort of horrifying, unnatural worst-case scenario. What if men were now too scared to take meetings with women? Too scared to professionally mentor women? Too scared to be friendly? Too scared to flirt? The price of any misstep: a life “ruined” (although what, exactly, it meant to “ruin” a life tended to pass without scrutiny).

Implied in these scenarios was less a fear of women’s power than a fear of their irrationality, their suggestibility, and their failures of understanding. The subtext seemed to be: So are women just going to get upset about whatever now? Are they going to start reporting men for “misconduct” willy-nilly, ignoring all subtleties and good intentions in favor of freaking out?

So far there are plenty of indicators pointing to Yes.

REAL NEWS ABOUT FAKE NEWS: President Trump Releases ‘Fake News Awards,’ GOP Website Crashes.

DAVID HARSANYI: Democrats Are Fooling Themselves About Tax Reform’s Unpopularity.

Yes, the tax bill is unpopular. Then again, I’m not sure you’ve noticed, everything Washington tries to do is unpopular. Nothing polls well. Not the president. Not congress. Not Democrats. Not legislation. Not even erstwhile popular-vote winning candidates. Certainly a bill being bombarded with hysterical end-of-world claims rarely debunked by the political media is not going to be popular. Republicans won’t pass anything if they wait around for it to be popular. But, funnily enough, they can be somewhat content knowing that voters will probably like it once they find out what’s in it.

Why do so many Americans believe that middle class is getting a tax hike? Because those they trust are constantly lying to them. Both in framing and content, the coverage of the tax cuts has been impressively dishonest. “One-Third of Middle Class Families Could End Up Paying More Under the GOP Tax Plan” writes CNN (They won’t). The Associated Press says, “BREAKING: House passes first rewrite of nation’s tax laws in three decades, providing steep tax cuts for businesses, the wealthy.” And so on.

Indeed. It’s one thing to be told (by Democrats) that you’ll pay substantially less for health insurance while keeping your plan and your doctor, only to find that you’re paying substantially more for health insurance while losing your plan and your doctor. It’s quite another thing to be told (again by Democrats) that you’ll pay more in taxes, only to find that your taxes have been cut — and maybe even a tax-cut financed $1,000 bonus coming your way.

BEN SHAPIRO: Stop feministsplaining sex to men.

Take, for example, “Grace,” an anonymous woman who went on a rotten date with comedian Aziz Ansari. According to Grace, Ansari treated her abominably: He took her to dinner, gave her white wine instead of red, pushed her to come to his apartment and then engaged in a vigorous round of sexual activities to which she apparently consented. She eventually said no — and when she did, he stopped. Later, she suggested that Ansari hadn’t obeyed her “non-verbal cues” — nonverbal cues that reportedly included undressing and then voluntarily servicing Ansari.

In the aftermath, Grace felt used. So she texted Ansari, explaining to him that she felt terrible about the date. “I want to make sure you’re aware so maybe the next girl doesn’t have to cry on the ride home,” she said.

This is feministsplaining sex. Here’s the problem: The condescension isn’t earned. From Grace’s story, it seems she was less than clear in her nonverbal communications but she wanted Ansari to read her mind — and that when he didn’t, she therefore had leeway to lecture him about his sins and, more broadly, those of all men.

It’s not just Grace. Rachel Thompson of Mashable explained: “The responses to the woman’s story are peppered with the word ‘should.’ She should have said no … For many women, uttering an explicit ‘no’ is not as easy or straightforward as you might think.” Well, as it turns out, reading minds is not quite as easy or straightforward as feminists might think. It was feminists who boiled down sexual relations to the issue of consent. Traditionalists always argued that physical intimacy and emotional intimacy ought to be linked. But they were accused of removing female agency with such linkage and condemned for “mansplaining.”

How about this: no feministsplaining and no mansplaining when it comes to sex? How about we instead focus on communication between men and women?

Because that doesn’t present enough opportunities for emotional corruption and cultural graft.

OH: After Declaring Self-Funding Is “Wrong,” Wisconsin Dem Gov Candidate Andy Gronik Self-Funds His Campaign.

NOTE TO JEFF FLAKE: No Amount of ‘Alternative Facts’ Will Make Donald Trump Akin to Joseph Stalin.

SHOT: Navy to Deliver 2nd Stealthy Zumwalt-Class Destroyer in March.

CHASER: The Navy’s stealthy mega-destroyer still doesn’t have ammunition for its gun.

HANGOVER: No New Round Planned For Zumwalt Destroyer Gun System.

It’s a helluva warship that can’t be seen or heard.

HMM: Hillary Clinton confidant was interviewed by FBI in connection to the salacious dossier.

Sidney Blumenthal, a former journalist and a close friend of Clinton, was interviewed by the FBI in 2016 regarding the dossier that alleged Trump colluded with Russia, the sources stated. Department of Justice officials, however, declined to comment on Blumenthal or the dossier.

FBI officials declined to comment.

Blumenthal did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Blumenthal worked as a White House aide for Bill Clinton, and later worked with the Clinton Foundation after being denied a role by Obama Administration officials with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to reports. According to Politico he was being paid $10,000 a month by the Clinton Foundation.

The FBI has been leaking like a sieve with a hole in it; curious that we’re just finding out about this now.

RELATED: Clinton Corruption Update: It’s All One Scandal.

We’ve reached the scandularity.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Shut Down, FAKE NEWS Awards, RUSSIA Latest and Much, Much More.

THE AIR GAP: As America’s Nukes and Sensors Get More Connected, the Risk of Cyber Attack Is Growing.

“These nuclear systems are increasingly reliant on cyber-enabled components. The adversary has advanced its capability to threaten those nuclear weapon systems, including that cyber and supply chain. The demand for the capability to certify this advanced number … of new systems that will be coming online and be able to protect them in this new type of threat environment …there certainly were resource constraints that might limit their ability to certify that number of upcoming systems,” Chow told reporters.

When asked if more digital interlinks among weapons made it harder to certify and secure them, Chow took a diplomatic evasion. Difficult was not the right word. “It’s more complicated,” he said. “The proliferation of those sorts of technologies, its a fact of life of on our weapons systems. There are new tools to provide cyber resilience to reduce your risk… the study found we need to consider those and come up with metrics that can help the decision maker.” Resilience in the context of digital and computer program functioning generally means ensuring that programs or systems continue to function as designed even when under cyber attack.

When our own NSA is using Russian antivirus software, this whole effort should give you pause.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s Oil Production Is Collapsing. “Sharp drop in output increases the odds of a debt default, worsens economic crisis.”

Production fell 216,000 barrels a day to 1.6 million in a month to December, the 15th consecutive monthly decline, according to data reported by Venezuelan government to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries released Thursday. During 2017 as a whole, Venezuelan output fell 649,000 barrels a day, a decline of 29%.

This ranks among the deepest declines in the industry’s recent history. Russia’s output slid 23% during the fall of the Soviet Union, and Iraq’s output dropped by the same share after the 2003 U.S. invasion, according to data from OPEC and BP Statistical Review.

The decline has been caused by a deep economic crisis and widespread corruption and mismanagement, compounded by a purge of state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA by President Nicolás Maduro that has paralyzed the oil giant. U.S. sanctions have scared off some of the last remaining investors.

“In Venezuela there is no war, nor strike, but what’s left of the oil industry is crumbling on its own,” said Evanán Romero, a former PdVSA director.

Since the country exports little else, Venezuela’s centrally planned economy relies on oil exports for 95% of its hard currency, according to the latest official data. That means the output decline will add more pressure to the government, which has drastically cut back on imports of everything from machinery to food and medicines to make ends meet. The economy has shrunk an estimated 40% in the past four years.

And yet I had been assured just last week that Venezuela’s oil production was in full recovery, and as recently as yesterday that Venezuela was suffering a mere recession due entirely to low oil prices.

ALL WITHIN THE STATE, NOTHING OUTSIDE THE STATE, NOTHING AGAINST THE STATE, EH: A church’s ‘core mandate’ must be pro-choice to access summer jobs grant.

CELEBRATE CONFORMITY: Transgender Mafia Puts Disabled Vet on Unemployment.

WINNING: Apple announces plans to repatriate billions in overseas cash, says it will contribute $350 billion to the US economy over the next 5 years.

The headline from Apple is that it will make a $350 billion “contribution” to the U.S. economy over the next five years, although it’s unclear exactly how the company came to that number.

The company also promised to create 20,000 new jobs and open a new campus.

It said it expects to pay about $38 billion in taxes for the horde of cash it plans to bring back to the United States. This implies it will repatriate virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash.

That’s quite the windfall, for Washington, for American consumers, and for the economy as a whole. And it doesn’t remind me at all of the heady days of the early Obama Administration, when we were told that “business climate” was just a myth.

TITLE IX BLUES: If Aziz Ansari Were a College Student, He Could Have Been Expelled for Less.

Robby Soave at Reason:

Consider a few Title IX cases where young men suffered severe consequences for engaging in behavior quite similar to Ansari’s, or even less obviously bad.

At Occidental College, a male student, “John Doe,” had sex with a female student, “Jane Roe.” Jane had every intention of sleeping with John—she had asked him to keep a condom handy. Later, she felt badly about the experience, and was persuaded by a sociology professor that because she was impaired by alcohol during the encounter, she couldn’t have given consent. John was eventually expelled.

At Amherst College, two intoxicated students, “John Doe,” and “Jane Roe,” retired to a dorm room, where Jane performed oral sex on John. John would later claim he blacked out while this was happening, and had little memory of it. Amherst administrators deemed his story “credible,” but noted that drunkenness was never an excuse for engaging in nonconsensual sex—which is what Jane accused John of, two years later. He was expelled.

Two Michigan State University students, “Nathan” and “Melanie” agreed to meet up for sex in the summer of 2014. According to Bridge, Melanie was interested in an emotional, romantic relationship, while Nathan just wanted casual sex with a friend. They were interrupted during their sexual encounter—they were doing it in a car—which made Melanie extremely upset, and called to mind a traumatic experience from her past. Nathan, according to Melanie, did a bad job of comforting her, and then tried to resume the encounter by reaching under Melanie’s shirt and touching her bra. She said no, and he stopped—and that was the end of their relationship. A year later, Melanie underwent surgery to transition to a man. Afraid of running into Nathan in the men’s restroom at MSU, she filed a Title IX complaint alleging that he had violated the university’s sexual misconduct policy during the rendezvous in the car. Nathan was found responsible.

There’s more at the link, unfortunately.

THEY JUST CAN’T HELP THEMSELVES, CAN THEY? Nuclear Anxiety Is Becoming A Hallmark Of The Trump Era. Here’s What Would Happen In The Worst-Case Scenario.

That’s the BuzzFeed headline for what is actually a useful article on preparations, or lack thereof, for a high-yield ballistic nuclear attack of the kind North Korea might soon be able to launch.

The headline writer seems to forget (or perhaps is to ignorant to have known) that the North suckered the Clinton Administration into a useless nuclear deal 20 years ago, became a nuclear power late in the second Bush Administration, and that Barack Obama kicked the can down the road for eight years while the North tested bigger bombs and longer-ranged missiles.

But our “anxiety” is somehow a “hallmark of the Trump Era.”

Because BuzzFeed.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Hillary Clinton Could Still Become President, According to Sci-Fi Fans at Newsweek. “But she’d have to travel to an alternate universe where people actually like her.”

There may be an infinite number of possible universes throughout the multiverse, but I’m not certain that’s one of them.

LAUREN SPAGNOLETTI: 10 Best Sitcoms of the ’90s.

The Larry Sanders Show belongs at or near the top of any best TV shows listicle, and I can’t imagine what Wings is doing on there at all.

THIS IS CNN: Sanjay Gupta disputes Trump’s personal doctor: ‘He does have heart disease.’

O! NO: Oprah 2020 gets low ratings from voters.

HMM: Bitconnect, which has been accused of running a Ponzi scheme, shuts down.

THERE’S AN OOPS FOR THAT: A contraceptive app is under fire after more than three dozen users experienced unplanned pregnancies.

SKYNET SMILES… KNOWINGLY: Male sex robots with unstoppable bionic penises are to go on sale

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Watch Cory Booker Manterrupt and Mansplain to a Woman for 10 Solid Minutes.

CHANGE? Make Chinese Media Register as Foreign Agents, Senators Urge Sessions.