NOW HE TELLS US:

FRACK, BABY, FRACK: IEA Sees Significant Gains in U.S. Shale Oil as Prices Rise.

Which, of course, will help put a lid on prices.

REPORT: 300,000 Small Business Jobs Lost Due to Obamacare.

I’m old enough to remember when ObamaCare was spurring startups and creating small business jobs.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Prevent Another President Obama.

ABOUT THAT WAGE GROWTH: Real Average Weekly Earnings Growth Plunges To Weakest In 30 Months.

WHITES NOT WELCOME: ACLU Official Mocks Elderly White People, Tells Them They Have ‘Five Years Left’

Rialto, California, held a regularly scheduled city council meeting last Tuesday after a city councilman apologized for planning an event to discuss the possibility of Rialto becoming a “sanctuary city.”

Luis Nolasco, a community engagement and policy advocate for the ACLU of Southern California, stood up to speak at the city council meeting and attacked many of the white people present, saying they are not actual residents of Rialto.

Nolasco said, “This is my town.”

He said that the important part of the sanctuary city discussion is “who are the people we are talking about.”

The ACLU official said that “the people in this room are not representative of Rialto. Sorry to break it, but growing up here white people were the minority.”

“The reality is that black and Latinos are the majority of the city, and that is representative of the city, and that’s going to continue to be the case for future generations,” Nolasco, 26, added.

The city of Rialto is 72.4 percent Latino, according to a 2015 Census estimate.

“It’s kind of mean for me to say it but these people have probably like five years left,” Nolasco said while gesturing to the white attendees at the meeting. A video of the meeting shows that several of them were elderly.

Eliminationist rhetoric.

CONFIDENCE: British Consumers Keep Economy Humming Months After Brexit Vote.

British officials and most economists thought a vote to quit the European Union would persuade Britons to squirrel away more cash, causing growth in the wider economy to tail off. Some expected Britain might even tip into recession as uncertainty over the country’s future ties to its biggest trading partner paralyzed companies and households.

Instead, consumers embarked on a spending run in the second half of 2016 that underpinned a robust expansion. The International Monetary Fund said Monday it estimates the U.K. grew 2% for all of 2016, comfortably above its 1.6% growth forecast for the U.S.

This consumer resilience was unanticipated by economists, highlighting the difficulty of predicting how big, political surprises affect short-term growth.

It feels nice, getting the chance to win your country back.

CHRIS CILLIZZA: 10 years ago today Obama made a huge promise. He didn’t keep it.

Ten years ago today, then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois announced he was taking the first steps to run for president in 2008. In a three-minute video, he explained why — and what he hoped to accomplish.

It’s remarkable as a historic artifact — God bless YouTube! — but if you watch the whole thing (it’s only 187 seconds long!), you are reminded of the central reason Obama ran for president: to fix broken politics.

The big idea at the heart of Obama’s candidacy was that he — because of his background, proven résumé and the historic nature of his candidacy — was uniquely suited to solve the partisan gridlock that had seized our politics under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. That he could bring us all together through an appeal to our better angels and our shared values — and, in so doing, create a government that worked for all of us.

Another rube self-identifies.

THE OBAMA LEGACY IN ONE CHART:

Full story here, with most of the trend lines going in the wrong direction.

Obama himself remains personally — but inexplicably — popular.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: Maxine Waters’ Daughter Profits From Lucrative Campaign Operation.

Karen Waters has been on the payroll of her mother’s campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, since 2006. She has pulled in more than $600,000 for her services since that time.

Karen is in charge of endorsement mailers, known as “slate mailers,” for her mother’s campaign. The slate mailer operation has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars for Waters’ federal campaign committee in recent years.

In order to appear on a Waters’ slate mailer, candidates for political office must pay Citizens for Waters from their own political committees. If a candidate does not directly pay Waters’ campaign committee, they must credit their own campaigns with in-kind contributions from Waters.

The mailers are sent to almost 200,000 constituents in the South Central Los Angeles area, where Waters holds considerable sway. The mailers consist of an “official sample ballot” with quotes from Waters about candidates and measures she supports.

Waters’ campaign received more than 20 payments totaling $297,500 for slate mailer endorsements in 2016.

It would appear that Karen Waters is running a smooth and profitable pay-to-play operation for her mother.

TOP SECRET NO MORE: CIA publishes its history, nearly 13 million pages of documents online.

“Access to this historically significant collection is no longer limited by geography,” said Joseph Lambert, the CIA’s information management director in a press release.

The agency hoped in October 2016 to have the archive publicly available online by the end of 2017, according to a source with knowledge of the agency’s effort. The work was labor intensive, but the agency was able to complete this ahead of schedule as a result of significant advancements in technology and data management.

The archive touches on the CIA extensive history as an organization, from its inception up through the 1990s.

“None of this is cherry-picked,” said CIA spokesperson Heather Fritz Horniak. “It’s the full history. It’s good and bads.”

Here’s the link.

THE PARDON PARADE: Anti-American Spies and Terrorists.

There is so much outrage over President Obama’s commutation of the 35-year espionage sentence imposed on treasonous American soldier Bradley Manning (a/k/a “Chelsea”), that his commutation last night of unrepentant terrorist Oscar Lopez-Rivera is just beginning to attract attention. Lopez-Rivera is an FALN leader who was serving a combined 70 years in prison sentences for the Puerto Rican communist organization’s terrorist war against the United States and his multiple attempts to escape from custody.

The FALN carried out 130 attacks in the United States. Beyond the damage done, they resulted in six murders, including a lunch-hour bombing at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan in January 1975, as recounted by Joe Connor, whose father was one of four men killed in the attack.

Is it Friday yet?

JOSS WHEDON MORPHED INTO WARREN MEARS SO SLOWLY I HARDLY NOTICED: Joss Whedon Wants ‘A Rhino to F**k Speaker Ryan to Death’

ANDREW MCCARTHY: The Damage Done to America by Manning… and Obama.

The degree to which Obama has wielded executive power in favor of America’s enemies and against his own political opponents and scapegoats is breathtaking. The treasonous Manning gets an 80 percent shave off his sentence. Now we learn Oscar Lopez-Rivera, an unrepentant FALN terrorist convicted of waging war against the United States, has also had his sentence commuted. Taliban commanders are released, replenishing our jihadist enemies even as they continue prosecuting a terrorist war against our troops and allies, in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, a deserter who may, at least indirectly, have caused the deaths of American soldiers. Iran is enriched and empowered with tens of billions of dollars – including ransom cash – and a mammoth nuclear energy program (with the certainty that it will yield a nuclear weapons stockpile) even as it remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism calling for “death to America.”

But if you are Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative Obama critic, the Justice Department inflates an administrative violation into multiple felonies and aggressively advocates (thankfully, without success) for a stiff prison sentence. If you are a tea party group gearing up to fight Obama’s re-election, here comes the IRS. If you are “anti-Muslim video producer” Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Obama needs a scapegoat for his derelictions in Benghazi, you end up in the slammer. If you are a deep-pocketed financial institution that Obama wants to make the culprit for the government-driven financial meltdown, or to raid so the radical left’s legion of “community organizers” can be funded, prepare to pony up a 9- or 10-figure “settlement.” If you are a police department, be ready to be scandalized as a practitioner of racially malicious enforcement. If you are Israel, brace for the “international outlaw” smear.

Look at the way Obama treats America’s friends and compare it to the way he treats America’s enemies, and it’s obvious that Obama’s interests and America’s only rarely coincide.

Good riddance.

Duck Hunter Blasts Drone In Utah.

Aerial cinematographer James Allred wanted to get some beauty shots of steam rising from the surface of a lake hear his Utah home on January 6th, but instead, his brand-new DJI Inspire 2 drone was damaged by shots fired by a duck hunter upset about his activities.

The hunter now faces criminal mischief charges, and possibly more.

The website Digital Circuit reports that the temperature was -18 when Allred started flying the drone. He thought it was behaving erratically, so he landed the aircraft and waited for things to warm up a bit. The drone is only rated down to -4 fahrenheit. When he resumed flight … still below that threshold, the link between the aircraft and the controller was lost, he said.

It stopped over the duck hunter, who got annoyed and opened fire on the aircraft. He took three shots, and hit the drone up to 28 times.

Somehow the aircraft continued to fly. Allred recovered his drone, and called the sheriff.

It seems to me the only thing the hunter is guilty of is meting out a little rough justice to a negligent drone pilot.

QUESTION ASKED: Is the great American road trip ending?

You don’t have to be a futurist to connect the dots. Once autonomous driving technology is proven, it’ll be in every car. It’s not hard to imagine that motorists will soon secure sizable insurance discounts for letting the onboard computer do all the driving.

From there, you can envision a not-too-distant future in which you can’t even drive your own car to your vacation destination. So long, great American road trip. That sensation of steering your own vehicle down the road, of feeling the asphalt under your own tires, will be history.

“Technology is poised to disrupt the automotive industry,” says Amit Jain, director of strategic planning for Verizon Telematics. “And that means the way people interact with cars on a daily basis will dramatically change.”

Being behind the wheel is being in control of your own destiny — so it’s easy now to see it being mandated out of existence.

ALINSKY, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD, I READ YOUR BOOK: DisruptJ20 Dramatically Scales Back Plans to Sabotage Inauguration After Project Veritas Sting.

BRE PAYTON: Stop Pretending The Obama Administration Was ‘Scandal Free.’

So. Much. Spin. It’s almost as if Obama realizes that his legacy — which is comprised largely of executive orders that can easily be undone under a new president — is toast. To suggest an enduring legacy his team wants folks to fixate on his “scandal-free” administration because President-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to tear up the Iran nuclear deal and will work with Congress to repeal Obama’s signature health care law, effectively erasing two of Obama’s largest “accomplishments.”

The real scandal is that by and large, Obama is allowed to get away with it.

HARDER, PLEASE: Hungary set to turn screws on Soros-backed NGOs.

Hungarian NGOs have long felt the heat under strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban — but they now fear that, emboldened by Donald Trump’s victory, the right-wing premier will turn the screws even tighter.

First in line may be groups backed by Hungarian-born billionaire financier George Soros, whose foundation once funded the Oxford studies of a young Orban more than 25 years ago.

Last week the deputy head of Orban’s ruling party Fidesz, in power since 2010, said that non-governmental organisations should be “cleaned out of here”.

Szilard Nemeth said that criticism of government policies by “fake” civil organisations set up to “influence politics” by Soros and others was “impermissible”.

The remarks triggered alarm among beleaguered NGOs, many of which — in the absence of a credible political opposition — have long attacked Orban’s sweeping revamp of state institutions and hardline anti-immigration stance.

“This is a new level of NGO-bashing,” said Marta Pardavi, co-head of the Hungarian branch of the Helsinki Committee, a human rights group that provides free advice to asylum-seekers.

Nemeth name-checked the body as potential targets along with civil rights group TASZ and corruption watchdog Transparency International.

‘Tis a pity they can’t both lose.

IS IT FRIDAY YET? Days before Trump’s inauguration, State Dept. sends $500 million to United Nations climate fund.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Looser rules on beer sales to take effect in Pennsylvania.

BUT OF COURSE: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence.

FIT, SECURE, AND UNINDOCTRINATED IS NO WAY TO GO THROUGH LIFE, SON: Colleges Ramp Up Assault on Masculinity for Spring Semester.

THIS IS CNN: Does Trump’s diversity effort consist of “mediocre Negroes”?

WHAT ABOUT BOB? Earlier today Glenn asked, “Is anybody keeping track of Robert Creamer, Jan Schakowsky’s (D-IL) husband, who ginned up violence at Trump rallies on behalf of Hillary’s campaign?”

The only thing I could find is a week-old Breitbart item headlined, “Disgraced Democrat Operative Robert Creamer in Front Row of Obama Farewell Speech.”

So it’s a safe bet that, whatever he might be up to, it has the unofficial sanction of Barack Obama.