YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Things I’ll Miss About Steve Bannon.

CONGRESS AND WHAT ARMY? Venezuela’s Congress declares ‘petro’ cryptocurrency illegal.

Venezuela’s opposition-run parliament on Tuesday outlawed a “petro” cryptocurrency promoted by socialist President Nicolas Maduro, calling it an effort to illegally mortgage the cash-strapped country’s oil reserves.

Maduro on Friday said his government would issue nearly $6 billion of petros as a way to raise hard currency and to evade financial sanctions imposed by Washington.

Cryptocurrency experts say Venezuela’s mismanagement of its own economy, combined with the ruling Socialist Party’s historic lack of respect for private property rights, will likely leave investors uninterested in acquiring petros.

“This is not a cryptocurrency, this is a forward sale of Venezuelan oil,” said legislator Jorge Millan. “It is tailor-made for corruption.”

Which of course is the whole point. But Maduro effectively neutered the opposition-held congress last year by creating the rubber-stamp “Constituent Assembly” via a widely-boycotted election.

PARTLY, YES: Is an ‘Empathy Gap’ to Blame for James Damore’s Problems at Google?

Compelling evidence supporting Damore and Gudeman’s lawsuit comes from a recent interview published in Quillette. Claire Lehmann interviews “Gideon Scopes” (a pseudonym), a software engineer who occasionally writes for the publication. Scopes has Asperger syndrome. He also has extensive experience navigating gender issues in tech:

I asked Gideon if he thought that the American media painted a distorted picture of the gender gap in tech. He told me yes. He chalked it up to three factors: a growing tendency towards collectivism in American culture, combined with a blank slate view of human nature and an empathy gap towards men.

… When women talk about being made to feel uncomfortable at work, or being sexually harassed, we feel empathy and want to punish the wrong-doers. But we don’t have the same reaction for “geeks,” or “techbros”. Because our understanding of neurodiversity is painfully lacking, our culture tends to view men as a homogenous category, seeing all men as inheritors of privilege and all men as possessing the masculine traits that foster toughness and resilience. We have a habit of ignoring those who don’t, and when they do talk about their vulnerability, we are inclined to ignore, or ridicule them for it.

Scopes believes Damore falls somewhere on the Autism spectrum, hence his ignorance in releasing such a highly charged memo, commenting, “If he didn’t get the message that the women in science movement wasn’t interested in dialogue and is glad to destroy anyone who questioned it then he must be [on the spectrum].”

Also to blame is the Bay Area’s notorious contempt for actual diversity.

HMM: Florida cut from future offshore drilling.

“President Trump has directed me to rebuild our offshore oil and gas program in a manner that supports our national energy policy and also takes into consideration the local and state voice,” Zinke said in a statement. “I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique and its coast is heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver. As a result of today’s discussion and Governor Scott’s leadership, I am removing Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms.”

Gov. Scott rejoiced in the decision. “By removing Florida from consideration, we can now focus on how we can further protect our environment, including our proposal for record funding for the Everglades, our springs, our beaches and our state parks. I will never stop fighting for Florida’s environment and our pristine coastline.”

Sounds like offshore drilling wasn’t playing well in a state which might be competitive in 2020.

THE INTERNET OF BATHROOM THINGS: Kohler launches Kohler Konnect smart home range of iPhone-configurable bathroom and kitchen fixtures.

The new line of connected devices using Kohler Konnect mostly centers around the bathroom experience, with each including some element that users can fine tune to their preference. The Kohler Konnect companion app can be used to alter presets, such as temperatures and lighting, and in some cases, to remotely turn on elements.

A key aspect is the inclusion of voice control, allowing for the user to operate a kitchen faucet or intelligent toilet, change the lighting in a bathroom mirror, run a shower, or automatically fill a bath to a specified depth and temperature, all through vocal commands.

Unless it can prevent someone else from flushing a toilet while I’m in the shower, I fail to see the utility.

BEN SHAPIRO: It’s A Good Day For Andrew Breitbart’s Legacy.

CHANGE? White House plans to destroy Trump election fraud commission’s voter data.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE… Russian historian who exposed Stalin’s crimes faces enforced psychiatric testing.

Yuri Dmitriev, 61, is on trial in northwest Russia on charges brought by state prosecutors of involving his adopted daughter, then 11, in child pornography, of illegally possessing “the main elements of” a firearm, and of depravity involving a minor.

Some of Russia’s leading cultural figures say Dmitriev was framed because his focus on Stalin’s crimes – he found a mass grave with up to 9,000 bodies dating from the Soviet dictator’s Great Terror in the 1930s – jars with the latter-day Kremlin narrative that Russia must not be ashamed of its past.

The narrative has taken on added importance ahead of a March presidential election which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin, who uses his country’s World War Two victory when Stalin was in charge to bolster national pride, is on track to win.

Putin asserted last year that what he called an “excessive demonization of Stalin” was being used to undermine Russia.

Under Brezhnev, when the Soviet Union had moved to a kinder, gentler totalitarianism, psychiatric “treatment” was often used to punish dissidents instead of labor camps or summary execution. After all, you’d have to be crazy to oppose the State.

And these days, you’d have to be crazy to oppose Putin.

PUSHBACK: Catherine Deneuve and 100 other French women sign public letter disavowing #MeToo ‘witch hunt.’

The letter, signed by renowned French actress Catherine Deneuve as well as writers, historians, journalists and entertainers, was published in Le Monde to “we defend freedom to importune, indispensable to sexual freedom.”

“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or back-handedly, is not — nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” the letter said.

“Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss.”

Or less.

HEATHER MAC DONALD: Tenuous accusations of sexual harassment against a portrait artist suggest that #MeToo has become a war on men.

Chuck Close is a darling of the contemporary art world; his massive, photography-based portraits have exhibited at virtually all major contemporary art venues. In 2005, he met a painter, Delia Brown, at a chic Hamptons dinner party. He said that he liked her work and asked her to pose for a photo in his studio. Brown immediately conveyed the invitation to one of her patrons, who was also a guest at the Hamptons party, as a sign of her election to the modern art-market firmament. When she phoned Close the next day to arrange the visit, he said that he wanted her to pose topless. This was hardly a novel proposal: Close’s photographs of male and female nudes are a known part of his output. Brown was insulted, however. She told Close over the phone that she needed to think about it. She then decided against the invitation. “I came to the conclusion that I was not being photographed as an artist but as a woman,” she told the New York Times. “You shouldn’t expect just because you go into an artist’s studio that you will be compromised. You should be allowed to have that experience, just like male artists who have that experience.”

Brown was not insulted enough, however, to forego trying to arrange a visit to his studio anyway. When she called a few weeks later to schedule such a visit, Close acted like he did not know her, she said.

Close had sexually harassed Brown, according to the New York Times and the Huffington Post.

Read the whole thing.

My first (and last) corporate sexual harassment seminar was 25 years ago, and even back then a man’s “guilt” was based on the non-objective standard of whether the “victim” felt as though she’d been harassed. The War on Men predates #MeToo by a long time.

BLUE ON BLUE: Senate Hopeful Challenging Five-Term Incumbent Feinstein’s Liberal Credentials.

PEOPLE POWER: How Millions of Iranians Are Evading the Internet Censors.

Authorities in Tehran have ratcheted up their policing of the internet in the past week and a half, part of an attempt to stamp out the most far-reaching protests in Iran since 2009.

But the crackdown is driving millions of Iranians to tech tools that can help them evade censors, according to activists and developers of the tools. Some of the tools were attracting three or four times more unique users a day than they were before the internet crackdown, potentially weakening government efforts to control access to information online.

“By the time they wake up, the government will have lost control of the internet,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, executive director of NetFreedom Pioneers, a California-based technology nonprofit that largely focuses on Iran and develops educational and freedom of information tools.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s handpicked FBI director insisted just yesterday that strong encryption is a “major public safety issue” requiring some kind of government backdoor.

Whatever keys we hand to Washington will be in the Tehran’s hands (or the Kremlin’s, Beijing’s, etc.) in less time than it takes to download a bootleg copy of The Last Jedi.

ALIVE WITH PLEASURE: Why Vaping Isn’t a ‘Gateway’ to Smoking.

There are ways to minimize the initiation of risky behaviors, but prohibiting one product in hopes of decreasing the use of another should not be one of them. At best, doing so directs time and energy away from a better solution. At worst, people who would otherwise benefit from the reduced harm posed by the alleged gateway product – like e-cigarettes – are put at risk of relapsing to a more dangerous product – like their combustible counterparts.

Unfortunately, we are not deprived of misleading research that threatens to steer users away from reduced-harm products, like e-cigarettes, and toward readily available yet more dangerous tobacco products. A slew of studies have recently concluded that e-cigarette use is a gateway to combustible cigarette use in teens, and one study in particular concludes that kids who use e-cigarettes are seven times more likely to use combustible cigarettes when compared to kids who don’t use e-cigarettes.

Read the whole thing. But understand that vaping gets a bad rap because Big Tobacco has to deal with upstart competitors, and politicians aren’t getting their cut.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Bannon Out, Fusion GPS Testimony Out and Much, Much More.

WINNING: United States To Leapfrog Russia In 2018 As The World’s Top Oil Producer.

NO ONE’S MAKING LOVE AND EVERYBODY CARES: Exchanging Dirty Jokes Is Now a ‘Sexual Relationship’ at George Washington University.

Strange days, indeed.

MAYBE THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK: Classified Military Satellite Goes Missing After SpaceX Launch.

WELL, GOOD: Campus Anti-Israel BDS Resolutions Falling on Deaf Ears.

INSHALLAH: Mohammed bin Salman’s Next Saudi Challenge: Curtailing Ultraconservative Islam.

Last month, authorities detained a senior prince, Khaled bin Talal, for opposing the government’s reforms such as the decision to curb the power of the religious police, according to people familiar with the matter.

“He was complaining about the reforms. He thought that would give him [political] credibility,” said a person briefed on the event. The prince, who has limited political clout, is kept at the high-security prison of al-Ha’ir.

Since the clampdown, many clerics have publicly endorsed the social reforms, while others have kept silent. “They are government decisions and it is part of our religion to accept that,” said Sheikh Mohammed al-Hodithy, 87, who until his retirement was the chief justice in Asir region.

The government is also setting up a new center to vet the interpretations of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, or hadiths, in a bid to prevent the teachings from being used to justify violence.

“It will purify Islam from any inventions, clean the hadiths from the liars’ deliberate misquotations and present Islam in a better image,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Hassan al-Sheikh, the chairman of the new entity and a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, the kingdom’s highest religious body.

I keep waiting for the other — bloody — shoe to drop. So far though, bin Salman seems to have put the fear of God, so to speak, into the Kingdom’s religious leadership.

RICHARD GOLDBERG AND DENNIS ROSS: On Iran, Trump Should Be Like Reagan.

The Iranian protesters are making a statement and we should not ignore it. The president would be well within his rights under the JCPOA and international law to follow President Reagan’s example and answer them with action. Just as the Iranian regime feels free to spread its power and reach within the region notwithstanding the JCPOA, so should the United States and Europe feel free to impose sanctions tied to human rights, terror and missiles notwithstanding the same.

The sanctions relief provided under the JCPOA should not be interpreted as a blanket immunity for Iranian officials, banks and other government instrumentalities to expand their illicit activities. If such a person or entity is found to be connected to the Revolutionary Guard, terrorism, missile proliferation and human rights abuses, it most certainly can and should be subject to sanctions—even if sanctions for that person or entity were initially suspended by the JCPOA.

The JCPOA must not prevent us from fulfilling our international obligations on human rights, terrorism and proliferation. It cannot handcuff the United States and its allies from using all available means of state power to stop these illicit activities. Indeed, the American people were repeatedly assured by then-Secretary of State John Kerry that nothing in the JCPOA precluded the United States from imposing sanctions for such non-nuclear activities.

Many international agreements throughout history were hatched by adopting vague language that could be interpreted in different ways by different parties. That is especially true for arms-control agreements, and the JCPOA is no exception. The administration would be wise to try to persuade the Europeans that non-nuclear sanctions are an acceptable and highly effective way of raising both the internal and external costs to the Iranian regime for its aggressive behavior.

Trying to move Europe seems like a waste of effort, now that European firms have gotten a renewed taste for Iranian oil money. And putting the squeeze on Iran via the JCPOA might also be futile, since Obama’s deal essentially gave away the store in exchange for little more than a promise that Tehran would try to do a better job of hiding its nuclear program.

The best that can probably be done is what Glenn suggested on Monday: “Now is the time to hit the Iranian regime with lower oil prices: For the sake of the Iranian people and global stability, we need to lead the effort in suppressing oil prices beyond what Tehran can bear.”

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Has Xi Fully Consolidated His Power Over the Military?

Recently, multiple signs have shown that Chinese President Xi Jinping, who also holds the positions of chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) — the highest body that controls China’s military — and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, has further consolidated his power over Chinese military.

On December 27, 2017, the CCP Central Committee announced that the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), which had been overseen by both the State Council and the CMC since 1982, would be put under the command of the CMC alone from January 1, 2018.

The PAP is currently responsible for domestic stability, civilian policing, border defense, fire rescue, and supporting the military during wartime. From 1966 to 1982 — during the period of China’s Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong — the original PAP was solely controlled by the then-CMC. In 1982 — after Deng Xiaoping issued the “opening up and reform” policy — the Chinese authorities decided to reshuffle the military and transfer part of the power of controlling the paramilitary functions to the government. That was how the current PAP was formally established.

Plus:

Besides centralizing his control over China’s 660,000-strong PAP, Xi has also appointed a series of military officials to fill in the positions in local provinces in recent weeks.

It has been a tradition for top military officials to also take senior positions in provincial standing committees — the highest decision-making body at the provincial level. However, since Xi launched sweeping military reforms, those positions that used to be saved for military officials had remained unfilled for a whole year, from 2016 to 2017.

Most of these empty positions — in more than 16 provinces across the country — have been suddenly filled in recent weeks, according to the Beijing Daily (Xinjing Bao).

If Xi wanted to be China’s first Leader for Life since Mao, there’s really nothing different he’d have done over the last few years.

JIM TREACHER: Attack of the Pizza Robots.

INTERESTING BUT NOT SURPRISING:

More to come.

MORE (HAT TIP TO ACE):

I can’t read the Greg Sargent tweet Strassel was responding to without jumping through a hoop or two, because Sargent has me bravely blocked. But here’s the link if you haven’t been.

LEAKED MEMO: DREAMers Are ‘Critical’ To Dems ‘Future Electoral Success.’

Surprising exactly no one, but give the Democrats credit for working consistently and longterm (if not always exactly ethically) to grow their base.

PAULA BOLYARD HAS ​some salient questions about the Bannon announcement.