ANALYSIS: FALSE. Powerful Photo Shows That Women Aren’t The Only Ones Who Get Periods.

MICHAEL WALSH: There’s a saying in the intelligence community: when David Ignatius speaks, the CIA’s lips move.

FIGHT THE FUTURE: US regulators just dealt a blow to the most hyped area in tech investing right now.

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that “ICOs” (Initial Coin Offerings) can sometimes be considered securities — and as such are subject to strict laws and regulations.

For the uninitiated, ICOs are a fancy new way of fundraising enabled by digital currencies like Ethereum — participants invest money and receive digital “tokens” in return. Thus far, it has been largely unregulated, with some ICO crowdfunding events raising hundreds of millions of dollars — leading some observers to argue that it is a massive bubble.

But the SEC’s warning means that this free-for-all may not last forever.

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

INEVITABLE: Singapore Startup Launches Cryptocurrency Debit Card.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Indie Doc Goes Where Hollywood Fears to Tread.

TV show after TV show altered its programming to embrace “The Resistance.” The progressive movement attempted to overturn the will of the people by removing Trump from office before he even set foot in the White House..

It all happened in less than a year. And we’ll be seeing the fruits of this new creative push for months, if not years, to come.

And then there’s ISIS.

The radical Islamist group’s barbarism is the stuff or our worst nightmares. And they’re on the march. ABC News succinctly captures ISIS’s impact on the globe last year:

…the world’s most brutal terrorist network, not only responsible for thousands of deaths in the Middle East but also linked to hundreds more in dozens of terrorist plots in the West.

It’s been that way since President Barack Obama dismissed the group as a “JV” threat in 2014.

The Democrat-Media Complex has had Obama’s back from the start — why would they stop now? That aside, City of Ghosts looks like great viewing, and believe it or not it’s from Amazon Studios.

And do read the whole thing.

OH: A White Woman Can’t Walk Down the Street Anymore Without Being Racist. Literally.

JAZZ SHAW: North Korea Within One Year Of Nuke ICBM.

Let’s just get the bad news out of the way up front. We’ve known for quite a while now that North Korea has been working on miniaturizing their nuclear weapons while simultaneously sharing technology with Iran to develop reliable ICBMs. Recent intelligence analysis seemed to indicate that they were making progress, but it was probably still a few years away, giving us time to work on a diplomatic solution. But now our own intelligence community is briefing the Senate and letting them know that the timetable has moved up. Kim Jong-un could have a reliable, nuclear tipped ICBM ready to go by next year. And yes, it could potentially reach the lower 48.

Shoot them down. All of them.

SALENA ZITO: Why the Rust Belt just gave Donald Trump a hero’s welcome.

Trump’s approval rating, according to Gallup, is 39 percent. Youngstown is the 39 percent.

On Monday, police said that the advance ticket request of over 20,000 had exceeded the 6,000-seat capacity of the center, prompting the event coordinators to put a large screen outside the center for the overflow crowd.

Dave Torrance, from Hermitage, Pa., had left early in the morning with three of his friends to see Trump. Torrance, 71, wore a blue ball cap with “American Patriot” embroidered across the top and a navy T-shirt with an American flag across the front.

Torrance, who is black, says he gets his fair share of criticism from folks when they find out who he supports. He got more when he told them he was driving to see him in person at the rally.

“They don’t understand why I think he is doing OK,” he said. “They don’t think because I am black that I should support him. I am polite about it, but I tell them that politics isn’t about color, it is about accomplishments, and I think Trump is doing the right things.”

Great reporting from Salena, as you’ve come to expect.

IT WILL NOT BE MOURNED: Adobe announces Flash is dead.

Flash is malware masquerading as an interactive content platform.

TEXAS CONGRESSMAN: ‘I Would Bulldoze Existing Wall’ at Border.

REPORT: Toyota set to sell long-range, fast-charging electric cars in 2022.

Toyota’s new electric car, to be built on an all-new platform, will use all-solid-state batteries, allowing it to be recharged in just a few minutes, the newspaper said, without citing sources.

By contrast, current electric vehicles (EVs), which use lithium-ion batteries, need 20-30 minutes to recharge even with fast chargers and typically have a range of just 300-400 kilometers (185-250 miles).

Toyota has decided to sell the new model in Japan as early as 2022, the paper said.

Toyota spokeswoman Kayo Doi said the company would not comment on specific product plans but added that it aimed to commercialize all-solid-state batteries by the early 2020s.

Toyota thinks they can beat the range and charging time problems in just five years, and if they can, then the price problem should solve itself quickly enough through economies of scale.

Master those three problems, and the age of the electric car will have arrived.

AMERICA’S LONGEST WAR: Taliban Seizes 3 Districts From Afghan Government.

Bill Roggio:

The loss of the three districts shows that the Taliban is capable of conducting operations in all regions of the country. Even as the three districts fell, the Taliban is on the offensive in all of the other regions. Afghan security forces, which are sustaining record highs in casualties and desertions, is largely on the defensive in most areas of the country.

The state of play of Afghan districts is often difficult to determine. Often, some districts switch hands multiple times over a short period of time. For instance, Nawa district in Helmand province has gone back and forth between the Taliban and the Afghan government four times over the past year. The Afghan government retook it just last week, but the Taliban are fighting to regain control.

In some cases, such as with Jani Khel or all of the districts in Uruzgan province, the Taliban controls all of the district except for the district center, which hosts the government facilities and police headquarters.

Estimates issued by the US military and the Taliban are not that far apart.

Positive spin? At least we agree on something.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Jeff Sessions Lets Cops Be Robbers.

Jacob Sullum:

In theory, the government can forfeit a seized asset only after proving it is a tool or fruit of crime, typically drug trafficking. But the burden of proof is much lighter than in a criminal case, and it applies only if the owner challenges the seizure in court, which often costs more than the asset is worth.

Recognizing how easily innocent people can lose cash, cars, and homes to money-hungry cops, two dozen states and the District of Columbia have reformed their forfeiture laws since 2014. The changes include mandating data collection and reporting, strengthening standards of proof, and requiring a criminal conviction before some or all forfeitures.

By reviving federal “adoption” of forfeitures initiated by state or local agencies, Sessions is offering cops who chafe at these restrictions the option of ignoring them. Adoption, which Attorney General Eric Holder mostly eliminated in 2015, lets police and prosecutors evade state limits on forfeiture and keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds.

Seven states prohibit or restrict such circumvention. But in the rest, cops who do not like reforms aimed at protecting innocent property owners from legalized theft can once again easily dodge them with help from the Justice Department.

Washington is where bad ideas go to achieve immortality.

ERIC HOLDER: ‘Elections are Officially Rigged’ by Republicans, Not Voter Fraud.

DAVID HARSANYI: So-Called Fact Checkers Keep Butchering The Facts About Obamacare.

“Fact checking” has evolved from an occasionally useful medium to an exercise in revisionism and diversion. Take The Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler’s recent article titled “President Trump’s mangled ‘facts’ about Obamacare.” Headline readers might assume it’s just Trump doing what Trump does most of the time. I almost passed myself. Yet it turns out that all these supposedly “mangled” contentions about Obamacare are, at the very least, debatable assertions.

Kessler, for example, doesn’t approve of this Donald Trump statement: “Americans were told that premiums would go down by $2,500 per year. And instead, their premiums went up to levels that nobody thought even possible.” Other than the hyperbole (“nobody thought even possible”), this statement is substantively true.

Kessler’s ostensive debunking of the “premiums are soaring” claim is really just a confirmation that premiums have indeed risen, augmented by an argument that it wasn’t Obamacare’s fault. Kessler blames the vagaries of modern life and demographics—because these things apparently didn’t exist when Democrats were making their big unrealistic promises in 2009.

Think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines, and you’ll have it exactly right.

QUESTION ASKED: How Cheap Does Geothermal Need to Be Before It Becomes the Next Solar?

“The next solar” is setting the bar awfully low — or considering the price, perhaps I should say “awfully high” instead.

YUGE: Trump says that “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”

And Tyler O’Neil has full details of the new policy.

RUSSIAN STOOGES: House Passes Sanctions with Administration Rollback Restriction 419-3.

J. ROBERT SMITH: Fire Mueller.

Two words describe the Russian collusion accusations and investigation of President Trump: Sham and injustice. Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor, knows it. Rod Rosenstein, the Obama holdover Deputy Attorney General who appointed Mueller, knows it. Jeff Sessions, a decent man and attorney general who recused himself, knows it.

The Democrats know it. The left knows it. The mainstream media knows it. DC-owned and spine-free Republicans know it. Paul Ryan knows it.

Everybody knows it.

Well, yes. But this is about the Democrat-Media Complex trying to reestablish its dominance by taking down a President on the flimsiest of pretexts, and they do mean to take back what they’ve lost.

THIS WILL END WELL: Erdogan urges Muslims to ‘visit’ and ‘protect’ Jerusalem.

“From here I make a call to all Muslims. Anyone who has the opportunity should visit Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa mosque,” Erdogan said in Ankara. “Come, let’s all protect Jerusalem.”

He was referring to a site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the mosque compound, which also contains the Dome of the Rock, following an attack on July 14 that killed two Israeli police officers.

Palestinians viewed the security measures as an Israeli attempt to assert further control over the site, and large protests led to deadly clashes.

“They are attempting to take the mosque from Muslim hands on the pretext of fighting terrorism. There is no other explanation,” Erdogan said in a speech to ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmakers in parliament.

Erdogan’s line seems to be that the only real terrorists are the imaginary ones conspiring against his regime.

HMM: Senate Judiciary Committee withdraws subpoena for Manafort.

PUTIN’S RICHES, SESSIONS’ CRACKDOWN, AND TILLERSON’S VACA: All that and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

WINNING? Trump Says Apple CEO Has Promised to Build Three Manufacturing Plants in U.S.

Mr. Trump, in a 45-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal, said Mr. Cook promised him Apple would build “three big plants, beautiful plants.” Mr. Trump didn’t elaborate on where those plants would be located or when they would be built.

“I spoke to [Mr. Cook], he’s promised me three big plants—big, big, big,” Mr. Trump said as part of a discussion about business-tax reform and business investment. “I said you know, Tim, unless you start building your plants in this country, I won’t consider my administration an economic success. He called me, and he said they are going forward.”

Apple declined to comment.

Apple almost always declines to comment on its business or product plans.

AWFUL: Jordan releases video showing US troops surrendering before deadly shooting.

A Jordanian military guard hunted down and ruthlessly killed three U.S. Special Forces soldiers as the men held their hands up in surrender, newly released video of the controversial November incident shows – contradicting the Jordan military’s original claim the American troops didn’t follow proper protocol when trying to enter the military base.

Security camera footage released Monday revealed details of the Nov. 4 shooting at King Faisal Air Base in southern Jordan where Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, were gunned down. The video had previously been shown to the families of the U.S. Army Green Berets.

Jordanian 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha is seen in the video firing at the four-vehicle U.S. convoy, continuing to pull the trigger even though the American soldiers desperately wave their arms in surrender during the six-minute gun battle. Two of the men get out of their vehicles and take cover behind a barrier – but al-Tuwayha keeps shooting.

Eventually, the Jordanian guard closes in on the men and guns them down.

Jordan has charged al-Tuwayha with premeditated murder.

VIDEO: John Boehner Says Republicans Are Never Going to Repeal & Replace Obamacare.

The vitriol spewing from the Left, and the Right’s mostly tepid response to it, has me half-convinced that there won’t even be any meaningful reform to Obama’s Rube-Goldberg-on-a-Vegas-bender monstrosity.