BRIDGET JOHNSON WITH JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM: Flynn Pleads Guilty to Lying to FBI, Cooperating in Mueller Probe.

MARK STEYN: Steinle Verdict a ‘Miscarriage of Justice’ in the Profoundest Sense.

IT’S ALWAYS THE JEWS: Liberal Hero Linda Sarsour Blames Her Bad Image On Jewish Controlled Media.

UGH: Argentina’s missing submarine: ‘No one will be rescued.’

The submarine had 44 people on board. Luis Taglapietra, whose son Damián was a 27-year-old trainee on the submarine, told the TN news channel: “This is perverse and impossible to understand. They’re playing word games,” referring to the navy announcing it was calling off rescue efforts while agreeing to continue searching for the submarine as long as it is not in too deep waters. “What they are really saying is that they’re not going to be looking for it any more.”

The San Juan went missing on 15 November when it lost radio contact with the naval base in Mar del Plata, but it was not until two days later that the navy announced publicly that the submarine had gone missing.

“More than double the number of days than it would have been possible to rescue the crew have passed,” Balbi told reporters.

The huge sea and air rescue effort for the German-built submarine will now be reduced to trying to locate the vessel itself.

Relatives of the crew had already abandoned hope that they would be found alive. “They lied to us from the start,” Taglapietra said to the Guardian. “We don’t know what happened and it’s impossible to tell the truth from fabrication.”

Probably nothing worse than typical bureaucratic ass-covering, which in this case is more than bad enough.

CHANGE: Trump to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel on Wednesday.

That’s a bad headline. Israel declared Jerusalem the country’s capital in 1950. POTUS is merely recognizing the fact.

HUSH MONEY: Matt Lauer wants $30 million from NBC after his firing for sexual harassment, report says.

WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY THINKING? Philly Lawmakers Seek to Ban Bulletproof Glass in Liquor Stores.

HMM: NBC’s shifting statements on Lauer draw scrutiny.

The initial Wednesday morning memo on Lauer’s firing, signed by NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack, referred to a woman who had come forward to complain about Lauer on Monday night, saying that it was “the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he’s been at NBC News.”

NBC’s second statement, released later Wednesday, said, “We can say unequivocally that, prior to Monday night, current NBC News management was never made aware of any complaints about Matt Lauer’s conduct.”

Employees at NBC News especially noted the wording shift from “in 20 years” to “current NBC News management,” according to a network staffer. Lack’s current tenure at NBC News began in 2015, though he had previously headed the news division from 1993 to 2001. The tweak raised questions over whether NBC brass was suggesting that past executives may have heard of inappropriate behavior.

At least one, CNN president and former “Today” executive producer Jeff Zucker, addressed the issue on Thursday. At Business Insider’s Ignition conference, he denied any knowledge of bad behavior by Lauer.

What did management know and when did they know it?

THAT’S ONE DECIOBAMA: G.O.P. Seeks More Offsets After Analysis Says Tax Bill Adds $1 Trillion to Deficit.

YUGE: This Trump Decision Is A Major Blow To The Administrative State.

The Trump administration switched sides Wednesday in a case pending before the Supreme Court that could retroactively nullify tens of thousands of agency decisions.

The case, Lucia v. SEC, has major implications for the process by which federal agencies try or punish those in violation of laws or regulations.

The litigation concerns an agency’s decision to allow career bureaucrats to preside as the functional equivalent of judges during enforcement proceedings. These officials, called administrative law judges (ALJs), are hired by career bureaucrats. They are not appointed by the president, a court or an agency head, but they exercise significant authority on behalf of the U.S. government in official proceedings.

ALJs can, among other things, issue subpoenas, make decisions about the credibility of witnesses or the admissibility of evidence, and issues provisional rulings that are generally upheld on final review — if a final review occurs at all.

The professionalization of the bureaucracy has proven far more corrupt than the spoils system it was supposed to clean up.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Steinle Verdict, Today’s Harassment Allegation Advent Calendar and Much, Much More.

HEALTH: Apple Watch will alert heart-study participants if they have an irregular beat.

The company, in collaboration with Stanford Medicine, launched the Apple Heart Study app on Thursday that uses the heart rate sensor inside the Apple Watch to collect data on irregular heart rhythms. The study had been previously announced back in September.

If an irregular heart rhythm is detected, participants in the study will be notified through the Apple Watch and on their iPhones. Should that occur, you’ll be offered a free consultation with a study doctor, and possibly an electrocardiogram (ECG) patch for additional monitoring.

Of course, at that point you’ll likely also wish to consult your own physician.

Indeed. It isn’t about wearing a cure on your wrist, but about getting vital information quickly enough to make a difference.

THIS WOULD DO THE PROFESSION A WORLD OF GOOD:

Stephen adds, “I’m a firearms instructor and teach a gun safety class to the interested reporters at the Free Beacon as a perk.”

RIP: Co-founder of Ice Bucket Challenge dies after ALS battle.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: City Official Reportedly Spent $8,000 of City Money Buying Himself Guns, Tracking Devices. He allegedly used the purchases to stalk his former mistress.

D’OH: Donald Trump’s ‘working visit’ to UK dropped as tensions with Theresa May grow over president’s far-Right retweets.

THIS INTERVIEW WAS OVER A YEAR AGO: Meredith Vieira Found A “Huge Bag Of Sex Toys” In Matt Lauer’s Office.

“I went into your office once. Do you remember this?” asked Vieira. “Snooping. And you had a huge bag of sex toys–do you remember this?” Lauer immediately tried to shift the narrative, asking “if we can explain what happened” before launching into a ridiculous story about having a sex therapist who gifted the hosts sex toys after her appearance on Today.

As you can tell from the video below, Guthrie and Vieira didn’t buy his story. Guthrie shook her head and had a “can you believe this guy?” smile on her face the whole time, and Vieira repeatedly contradicts him, telling viewers that she remembers a very different version of the day’s events.

After Variety reported yesterday that Lauer once gave an NBC employee a sex toy as a gift, we have to wonder if what Vieira actually found is something much less innocent than Lauer would have us believe.

In Lauer’s defense, you never know what a young intern might agree to once you’ve locked her in your office.

ED DRISCOLL COVERED MARK HEMINGWAY’S VITAL “Why Liberals Have Such A Hard Time With ‘Monstrous Men’ And Their Art” essay last night, but this bit still sticks out:

Frankly acknowledging this might suggest that the liberals have endorsed ideas — e.g. oxymoronic notions of “sexual liberation” — that have been deeply harmful to women, all for the sake of knocking down obstacles to political power. I wonder how much betrayal [Woody] Allen must feel now. He did his part to push a liberal sexual and political agenda, was celebrated for it, and now he’s being drummed out of polite society for enjoying the fruits of these efforts?

I’d just add that perhaps the saddest part about Woody Allen et al. is that they never understood they’d become disposable once they were no longer useful to the cause.

BUT OF COURSE: Dem Senator Hirono Runs Interference for Franken and Conyers.

NOT VERY: ‘Hey Alexa, how secure are voice-activated assistants like you?’

Imagine what someone in the room could do with your digital assistant when you step away to go the bathroom. That mischief ranges from a prank — setting your system to play loud music in the middle of the night — to a serious privacy violation — asking about your doctors’ appointments.

If the purchasing option is turned on, they could go shopping. Echo has this enabled by default. You can set a four-digit PIN (highly recommended) or disable the feature.

Earlier this year, it was reported that a six-year old girl in Dallas made a $170 purchase when she asked Alexa for a dollhouse and cookies. To her parent’s great surprise, an expensive doll house and four pounds of sugar cookies showed up on their doorstep.

I’ve always been a gadget freak and an early adopter, but it’s going to be a long while before I put one of these in my home — if ever.

HERE XE COMES TO SAVE THE DAY: Disney Debuts ‘First Boy Princess’ in ‘Star vs. the Forces of Evil.’

AD-BLOCKING: Facebook disables ethnicity advert targeting system.

CRIME OF THE CENTURY: Man suspected of stealing $300,000 Ferrari arrested after asking for gas money.

Imagine how quickly they’d have caught him if it had needed a tuneup.

BREAKING: Naked Selfie GOP Congressman Decides Not to Run Again in 2018.

If Joe Barton’s decision helps to legitimize the use of revenge porn as a political weapon, it will be a huge mistake.

MORE MARKET SHARE FOR AMERICAN FRACKERS: OPEC agrees oil cut extension to end of 2018.

Two OPEC delegates told Reuters the group had agreed to extend the cuts by nine months until the end of 2018, as largely anticipated by the market.

OPEC also decided to cap the output of Nigeria at around 1.8 million bpd but had yet to agree a cap for Libya. Both countries have been previously exempt from cuts due to unrest and lower-than-normal production.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has yet to meet with non-OPEC producers led by Russia, with the meeting scheduled to begin after 1500 GMT.

Before the earlier, OPEC-only meeting started at the group’s headquarters in Vienna on Thursday, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said it was premature to talk about exiting the cuts at least for a couple of quarters and added that the group would examine progress at its next meeting in June.

“When we get to an exit, we are going to do it very gradually … to make sure we don’t shock the market,” he said.

OPEC is being aided in its efforts, quite accidentally, by socialist member state Venezuela.