AND EVEN MORE FAKE NEWS: Yet Another Media Meltdown Turns Out To Be Totally Wrong.

News that President Donald Trump was easing sanctions against Russia was refuted almost immediately, like so many other stories.

The Department of the Treasury said Thursday that it would allow U.S. companies to make limited transactions with the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s intelligence agency. Possibly eager to establish a connection between the new U.S. president and Russia, numerous media outlets and journalists were quick to claim that Trump was easing, and even lifting, sanctions against Russia.

“I haven’t eased anything,” Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday.

“We’re not easing sanctions,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed, saying that, “It is a regular course of action.”

As it turns out, the move was a “technical fix” planned by the Obama administration.

These accidental mistakes always seem to break in the same direction.

MORE FAKE NEWS FROM CNN: Trump adviser cites non-existent ‘massacre’ defending ban.

But:

Maybe the problem is that there are just too many Islamist massacres to keep them all straight in your head all the time.

A PRACTICAL EDUCATION: Innovative Ohio Charter Schools Train Students for Oil and Gas Industry Jobs.

WELL, YES: Push for Maryland Fracking Ban Is Based on Bad Science.

Opponents of fracking claim it will contaminate water supplies, but a six-year, $29 million report studying the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing by the Environmental Protection Agency failed to produce any evidence suggesting fracking has caused widespread or systemic impacts on water supplies.

EPA estimates more than 110,000 wells throughout the nation have used hydraulic fracturing to produce oil or natural gas since 2011. Agency officials stated there have been specific instances where oil and natural gas production have led to contaminated water, but the number of cases in which fracking has negatively impacted water supplies is relatively low compared to the number of wells that have been drilled.

There have been instances of chemical or wastewater spills at Earth’s surface, and there have been some reports of leaking steel and cement well casings, but the low frequency of these events proves fracking can and has been done correctly. There simply is no reason to ban this highly lucrative practice because of fears of environmental harm or damage to water supplies.

If Blue States want to ban highly lucrative practices, that’s their business — or lack thereof.

TOO BIG TO… WHAT? Donald Trump Plans to Undo Dodd-Frank Law, Fiduciary Rule.

Mr. Trump will use a memorandum to ask the labor secretary to consider rescinding a rule set to go into effect in April that orders retirement advisers, overseeing about $3 trillion in assets, to act in the best interest of their clients, Mr. Cohn said in the White House interview. He said the rule limits consumer choice.

Mr. Trump also will sign an executive order that directs the Treasury secretary and financial regulators to come up with a plan to revise rules the Dodd-Frank law put in place.

Mr. Cohn said the actions are intended to pave the way for additional orders that would affect the postcrisis Financial Stability Oversight Council, the mechanism for winding down a giant faltering financial company, and the way the government supervises big financial firms that aren’t traditional banks, often referred to as systemically important financial institutions.

“This is a table setter for a bunch of stuff that is coming,” he said.

The changes Mr. Cohn described are sure to face a fight from consumer groups and Democrats, who say postcrisis regulations are protecting average borrowers and investors from abusive practices, while making the financial system more resilient and bailouts less likely.

I’ve often said that Dodd-Frank officiated the shotgun marriage between Washington and Wall Street. The divorce, if there’s to be one, promises to be bitter, messy, and perhaps very expensive.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: House votes to void Obama administration’s Social Security gun background check rule.

Under the rule, which got final approval as President Obama was heading out the door in December, the Social Security Administration was instructed to scour its records to spot people who were so mentally impaired that their checks were sent to a payment representative. Those names were then to be entered in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

The GOP-controlled House voted 235-180, breaking down almost entirely along party lines, to kill the new rule using the Congressional Review Act, which gives Capitol Hill a chance to swat down a lame-duck president’s last-minute regulations.

Gun-rights groups said the rule impinged on Americans’ Second Amendment rights, denying them the chance to buy a gun without good reason.

“This rule is a slap in the face of those in the disabled community because it paints all those who suffer from mental disorders with the same broad brush,” said Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

He said people who suffer from mental disorders are more likely to be crime victims, not perpetrators.

The lede is actually buried in this story.

The real news is that Congress used its CRA power to knock down an Obama regulation, which if Todd Gaziano has it right, we could be seeing a lot more of in the next few months — with Congress possibly eliminating regs dating back to the very beginning of the Obama Administration.

I’M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY: Senate advances DeVos’s nomination, setting her up for final vote.

Senators voted 52-48 to advance DeVos’s nomination. No Democrats voted yes.

The vote, which came during a rare Friday session, sets up lawmakers to take a final vote early next week.

Vice President Pence is expected to have to break a 50-50 tie, the first time a vice president will cast the deciding vote on a Cabinet nomination.

Senate rules require an extra 30 hours of debate before senators can confirm DeVos. If Democrats refuse to yield back time and drag out the procedural clock, they could push a final vote until Tuesday.

Republicans have no room for error to clear DeVos, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) saying they’ll vote against her.

If it weren’t for Harry Reid and his “nuclear option,” Trump would be shopping for a new Education nominee right now. Instead, it looks likely the DeVos will just squeak through.

Thanks, Harry!

INCOME: ‘Superstar’ Companies Are Eating Into Workers’ Wealth, Study Finds.

“The aggregate share of labor falls as the weight of superstar firms in the economy grows,” the paper’s authors conclude. They are economists David Autor, Christina Patterson, and John Van Reenen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lawrence Katz of Harvard University; and David Dorn of the University of Zurich. The research was released in January as a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research [PDF].

The paper doesn’t name the superstars but notes that “firms may attain large market shares with a relatively small workforce, as illustrated by Facebook and Google.”

The study’s implications for policy are ambiguous. Donald Trump has promised to lift the wages of ordinary Americans but has also spoken positively about the contributions of U.S. tech giants—not just Facebook and Google but also Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and others. “I’m here to help you folks do well,” he said at a summit with tech chief executive officers in December. Superstar companies can make the pie bigger, so squelching them probably wouldn’t make workers better off.

“It’s not immediately obvious what the policy would be” to reverse the downward trend for labor, Autor said in an interview.

In Frank Herbert’s Dune, “thinking machines” had long been outlawed to protect mankind from their harmful effects, but the resulting oppressive empire ruled by shifting coalitions of noble families probably isn’t the political cure America is looking for.

UM… Sarah Silverman Asks Military to Overthrow ‘Fascist’ Trump.

EUGENE ROBINSON: Democrats Should Filibuster Gorsuch with 2018 in Mind.

I’m not counseling eye-for-an-eye revenge. I’m advising Democrats to consider what course of action is most likely to improve their chances of making gains in 2018, at both the state and national levels.

The party’s progressive base is angry and mobilized. Many Democrats are convinced that FBI Director James Comey and Russian President Vladimir Putin decided the election. The very idea of a Trump presidency sparked vast, unprecedented demonstrations in Washington and other cities the day after the inauguration.

In the two weeks since, Trump has only piled outrage upon outrage, as far as progressives are concerned. He took the first steps toward building his ridiculous wall along the southern border, but with U.S. taxpayers’ dollars, not Mexico’s. He squelched government experts who work on climate change. He weakened the Affordable Care Act in the hope that it would begin to collapse, which would make it easier for Congress to kill it. He displayed comic ignorance of our history (somebody please tell him that Frederick Douglass has been dead since 1895). He signed executive orders banning entry to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world, an action so appalling that huge crowds gathered at major airports in protest.

And Trump is just getting started. Democrats cannot even limit the damage, let alone reverse it, without more power than they have now.

When the Democratic base is setting fire to Berkeley, leading chants of “Genocide, racial hate, America was never great” at NYU, and practically begging Republicans to blow up what’s left of Senate congeniality, I’m not quite certain the American electorate is willing to trust them with more power than they have now. Certainly that’s been the message of almost every election since 2009.

MICHAEL WALSH: John McCain, Meddling Busybody.

ANALYSIS: US Setting up a Confrontational Approach With Iran.

What would we do without analysts?

TAQIYYA: Man Who Claimed Mother Died In Iraq Due To Travel Ban Lied.

As it turns out, the real reason why Hager’s mother wasn’t permitted to fly to the United States on Friday was because she had been dead for five days.

Hager’s Imam confirmed on Wednesday that the original story was not accurate and that Naimma had passed away on January 22. Fox 2 was able to confirm the date of death as well.

FASCISM IS ALWAYS DESCENDING IN THE UNITED STATES AND YET LANDS ONLY ON AMERICAN COLLEGE CAMPUSES: Amherst Walks Out Over Trump, Ignores Fellow Student Punished Without Trial.

SALENA ZITO: Grassroots rage and the Democrats’ crackup.

The base’s tack — arguing that Trump is akin to Hitler, when he takes actions that many of his voters find at least arguably appropriate, even if they have questions — cuts off debate. It’s a mistake Hillary Clinton made in trying to scare voters away from Trump rather than articulating why she was the right choice.

And now the angry left, thinking it’s learning from Clinton’s mistakes, is actually repeating one of her biggest. Essentially, the Clinton faction won the party’s nomination, but the Bernie Sanders faction won the day. Instead of offering independents, moderate Democrats or reluctant Republicans an alternative, those non-liberals see protests after protest, outrage after outrage — and they’re tuning the anger out and going on with the business of life.

It appears that the Trump team grasps that with a strategy zeroed on making the Democrats constantly play defense.

Says Sracic, “Trump issues an executive order beginning the process of dismantling the ACA, and Democrats respond by saying he is trying to ‘Make America Sick Again. People think, however, that the ACA needs to be improved. Where is the Democratic alternative?

“You can argue the same thing about immigration, taxes and regulations, all subjects of Trump executive orders.”

I’m not overly fond of rule-by-EO, but there’s a big difference between EOs used to circumvent Congress (“I have a pen and a phone”) and orders written in harmony with Congressional action (ObamaCare repeal).

I’M TORN ON THIS ONE: Chaffetz Kills Public Lands Bill After Backlash From Sporting Community.

The Disposal of Excess Federal Lans Act of 2017 (or H.R. 621) would have directed “the Secretary of the Interior to sell certain Federal lands in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, previously identified as suitable for disposal, and for other purposes.” This would have encompassed 3.5 million acres– roughly the same size as the state of Connecticut.

Many saw this as a threat to access to hunting and fishing on public lands, so Chaffetz felt it was wise to withdraw the bill and let it die in the House Natural Resources Committee.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE: Oregon Governor Kate Brown Forms Trump Resistance Team.

THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK: GOP Defectors Have Received Thousands From Teachers Union.

The two Republicans who broke ranks with their party and announced they would vote against education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos have received thousands of dollars from the nation’s largest teachers union.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) have each benefited from contributions from the National Education Association. Collins received $2,000 from the union in 2002 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Murkowski, meanwhile, has received $23,500.

The NEA represents 3 million members, making it the wealthiest and most influential union in the country.

The NEA represents public school employees, not public school students.

YOU CAN’T SAY THAT ON TV! Dutch Politician Jan Roos: Stop Building a ‘Little Middle East’ in Europe.

CHARLIE MARTIN: In the Trump Era, truthful news is replaced by fashionable lies.

• The Trump Administration was muzzling the EPA and USDA. The reality? It was, again, a customary step at the change of administration.Science, among others, debunked this fashionable lie.

• The famous Muslim ban. Reality? It was a (temporary) ban on entrance from seven countries that had been identified as being so chaotic as to make effective vetting difficult — under a law passed in 2015, modified in 2016, and signed by Obama (remember him?). The law itself had been supported by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — who was in tears this weekend after it was implemented. Look folks: if the Executive Order blocks Christians from Iraq, but it doesn’t block a Muslim cleric from Mecca, where only Muslims are permitted to enter by law, it just isn’t a Muslim ban. “It’s a Muslim ban” is just another fashionable lie.

• Trump excluded countries from the “Muslim ban” (see above) that he has business dealings with. Reality? Let’s look back at that same law: the list of countries comes from 2016. I think it’s pretty clever of Trump to arrange for the Obama Administration to craft that list to give Trump’s businesses an advantage, don’t you? But lying about Trump’s Executive orders has become fashionable.

There are a lot more examples, but that’s enough. Everett Mickey on Facebook said (I’m paraphrasing because I didn’t save a link) that people should learn to read news stories like a reformist judge reading search warrant applications from a corrupt police department.

He certainly got the “corrupt” part right.

THE BENEFITS OF A BERKELEY EDUCATION:

I hope he didn’t borrow any money for that education he’s receiving.

THE HOWLING: Scott Pruitt, Trump’s E.P.A. Pick, Is Approved by Senate Committee.

A day after Democrats on the Senate environment committee boycotted a planned vote on Mr. Pruitt’s nomination, the panel’s Republicans reconvened on Thursday and temporarily suspended the committee’s rules, which require the presence of at least two Democrats to hold votes, and approved Mr. Pruitt.

The Democrats’ boycott and the Republican response followed the same pattern that played out this week on the Senate Finance Committee, as Democrats sought to block action on the nominations of Representative Tom Price of Georgia to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and of the financier Steven T. Mnuchin to lead the Treasury Department.

Tip for Democrat Senators: When you’ve made Orrin Hatch willing to suspend his beloved rules, you might need to rethink a few things.

PUTINESQUE: Kremlin Critic Hospitalized With Similar Symptoms To 2015 Poison Scare.

A Kremlin critic whose sudden and severe illness in 2015 led to suspicions that he was poisoned has been hospitalized in Moscow with similar symptoms, his wife told RFE/RL.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized early on February 2 and placed in an intensive care unit “with symptoms similar to those he had two years ago,” Yevgenia Kara-Murza said in a Facebook message.

“His doctors describe his condition as critical,” she said. “He has low blood pressure [and] respiratory insufficiency, and the reason for this is yet again unclear.”

Kara-Murza abruptly fell ill on May 26, 2015, and was in critical condition for several days. He spent about two months in hospitals in Moscow and outside Washington, D.C.

Kara-Murza’s wife says that he is just back from several weeks in Russia.

HOW IS IT I AM NEVER ON THESE FLIGHTS? Busty Woman Kicked Off Spirit Airlines for Showing Too Much Cleavage.

There’s video evidence at the link.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Our Sore Loser Elites Are Losing Their Minds.

People are literally losing their minds over the mere thought of him sitting in the Oval Office.

A mental faculty failure that is driven, I fear, by sore loser syndrome.

The protestors wanted, and expected, Hillary Clinton to sweep this ghastly man to crushing defeat in the election two months ago and become the first female president.

When it didn’t happen, mainly because Hillary was a terrible candidate who fought a terrible campaign, they were collectively struck down by Post Trump Success Disorder.

This is an awful affliction that causes victims to lose the power of calm, rational thought and instead resort to uncontrollable, unrelenting outbursts of shrieking, screaming, wailing and teeth-gnashing.

Every single thing President Trump now does, says or tweets or is greeted by instant paralysis of perspective.

He is, and must remain, a ‘MONSTER!’

The author of this piece is Piers Morgan.