NEITHER LIVE NOR MEMOREX: Grimes invites AI artists to use her voice, promising 50 percent royalty split.

Canadian synth-pop artist Grimes says AI artists can use her voice without worrying about copyright or legal enforcement. “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with,” she tweeted on Sunday. “Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”

The musician’s declaration comes in the wake of streaming platforms removing an AI-generated song using simulated voices of Drake and The Weeknd. Universal Music Group (UMG), which represents both artists, called for the purge after “Heart on My Sleeve” garnered over 15 million listens on TikTok and 600,000 on Spotify. UMG argued that publishing a song trained on its artists’ voices was “a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law.”

Grimes takes a considerably more open approach, adding that she has no label or legal bindings. “I think it’s cool to be fused [with] a machine and I like the idea of open sourcing all art and killing copyright,” she added.

So much music — since the widespread adoption of AutoTune — is computer-generated or -enhanced, anyway, I’m not sure AI will make things any worse or more mundane sounding.

UKRAINE WAR [VIP]: So Where Is That Counteroffensive We Were All Promised?

EVERYONE KNOWS HE ISN’T UP TO THE JOB: Whopping 70 Percent Think Biden Shouldn’t Run Again, Days Before He’s Set to Announce Reelection Bid.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Fox News Has Been Hitting the Bud Light a Little Hard. “It appeared that Carlson had been taken to the Fox News woodshed regarding [Jan 6] coverage. Worse yet, it appeared that Rupert Murdoch and the higher-ups at FNC were caving to the screeching coming from the Democrats about the footage.”

COLORADO: Legislature paying off special interests with taxpayer refund dollars.

With the public distracted by gun control, abortion, and other hot-button issues, the Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature is quietly advancing nearly two dozen bills to redistribute your taxpayer refund to special interests.

The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) in Colorado’s Constitution requires the state to refund excess tax revenue back to taxpayers. The state cannot spend this surplus revenue without asking voters at the ballot.

But there’s a loophole.

If legislators give your refund to someone else as a special tax benefit, it’s not considered spending. It’s considered a tax revenue reduction, so they can do it without asking you.

Any time certain people get a special tax break, that reduces total state revenues. If revenues go down, the surplus goes down. If the surplus goes down, your refund goes down.

That’s how legislators are stealing from all taxpayers to give to a few politically favored interests. And they’ve been doing it for years, but never on the scale being proposed by Democrats this year.

Full — and infuriating — details at the link. If you’re a Coloradan, this might be a good time to contact your state representatives.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Dem Bigwigs Caught Hobnobbing With Secret Chinese Police Mole.

THIS KIND OF THING WILL BECOME MORE COMMON: Pennsylvania school board closes ALL locker rooms amid controversy over trans student. “Students that take Physical Education classes, or P.E., have been directed by Superintendent Julia Vicente to come to school wearing gym clothes.”

THEY RIGGED IT AGAINST BERNIE SANDERS TWICE: I Love This Guy: RFK Jr. Slams Dems for Rigging the System.

HMM: Here’s the Reason Tucker Carlson Is Out at Fox News.

TAKING A BOLD STAND: Yes, you should stand up when your plane lands. “The standard objection to the immediate-standers is not only dumb, but self-damning.”

VICTORIA TAFT: We Could See Tucker Carlson’s Split With Fox Coming. “Carlson’s January 6 coverage coincided with the battle within Rupert Murdoch’s family to re-make Fox News.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: San Francisco Target puts entire inventory on lockdown amid shoplifting crisis.

A San Francisco Target store has been putting all of its products on lockdown amid a shoplifting crisis that has crippled retailers in the Golden Gate City.

Footage of the store’s interior posted to TikTok Thursday showed aisle after aisle of toiletries and cosmetics under lock and key in the megachain.

While it’s common for stores to lock up small valuable items like razors, heaps of inexpensive large items like mouthwash, shampoo and lotion were also being kept out of reach of the grubby hands of would-be shoplifters, the clip showed.

Enjoy all the convenience of Soviet-style shopping but without the artificially low prices!

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Netflix’s ‘Black Cleopatra’: More Problems Than the Obvious.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ‘Trans Rights’ Means No Rights at All.

GOOD RIDDANCE: Susan Rice to step down as Biden’s domestic policy chief. “The move brings to a close Rice’s prolific, wide-ranging and at times controversial tenure overseeing Biden’s domestic agenda — including some of the thorniest political issues, such as immigration policy. During her more than two years in the role, Biden has signed executive and legislative actions on health care, gun safety, student loans, policing and other key priorities for Democrats.”

Not that you should expect her successor to be any better…

JUST APOLOGIZE, TAKE THE L, AND MOVE ON: Anheuser-Busch Really Thinks This Can Save Them.

PRIORITIES: Unprepared for long war, US Army under gun to make more ammo. “The factory — built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad just after 1900, when the city was a rising coal and railroad powerhouse — has produced large-caliber ammunition for the military going back to the Korean War. But the buildings are on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places, limiting how the Army can alter the structures.”

UH-HUH: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Says the ‘Migrant Crisis’ Has ‘Destroyed’ the City.

CIVIL RIGHTS WIN: Colorado House committee kills assault weapons ban after 12-hour testimony.

As introduced, the bill would have prohibited the manufacturing, sale and purchasing of so-called assault weapons in Colorado like AR-15 rifles, which have been used in many mass shootings in the United States in recent decades. That is the bill over 500 people signed up to speak about on Wednesday, with opponents criticizing it as an unconstitutional attack on their Second Amendment rights and supporters saying it is a necessary, overdue measure to reduce the carnage during shootings.

Epps, however, offered amendments following testimony, which she hinted at during her opening comments. The amendments would have narrowed the bill to apply to rapid-fire trigger activators, such as bump stocks. It was an attempted concession to win over support from Democrats opposed to the sweeping, controversial total ban.

Neither amendment passed, essentially sealing the deal that the bill itself would also fail.

But: Colorado closer to establishing waiting periods, new age restriction for firearm purchases.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: RFK Jr. Is the Thorn We Need in Joe Biden’s Side for 2024. “His presence in the 2024 Democratic campaign puts every bit of COVID fiction that Joe Biden ran on in 2020 on political trial. RFK Jr. is running as a throwback to his ancestral Democratic heritage. Yeah, they were lefties, but they weren’t fascists. COVID Joe Biden is a fascist. Whether he says is or not, RFK the Younger is heavily implying it.”

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: New Mexico still charging ‘Rust’ armorer in death of Halyna Hutchins after dropping charges against man who pulled the trigger, Alec Baldwin.

RFK JR: ‘Every Totalitarian Regime in the History of Mankind’ Has Sought ‘Total Control.’

UNEXPECTEDLY: Shock revelation: Afghanistan is back as terrorist central! “To be honest, it’s not even news that this happened. Everybody with half a brain knew that it was going to happen, so while the details are indeed important and worth diving into, the real news is that the Washington Post is reporting on an obvious failure of the Biden Administration.”

As Glenn wrote on Saturday about the New York Times doing some actual reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story: “I mean, the other possibility is a sudden appearance of journalistic integrity, but the way to bet is that the establishment wants an excuse to ease Biden out and replace him.”

MAKE THE USSR GREAT AGAIN: China’s French Ambassador Doesn’t Think Old Soviet States Have a Claim to Sovereignty.

Of course he doesn’t. Admitting Ukraine and the other former (and unwilling) Soviet Socialist Republics could be sovereign would call into question Beijing’s brutal rule over Tibet, Xinjiang, and other non Han Chinese regions.

PETER LAFFIN: How America’s literacy crisis will cripple our ability to combat China.

The past year alone has seen Chinese President Xi Jinping boldly advance Chinese international priorities, which suggests that he no longer fears the consequences of bucking the U.S.-led West. Among other things, he’s brokered a detente between ancient rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, entered the foray in Ukraine with deepening military ties to Russia, created distance between the U.S. and its European allies about Taiwan policy, and struck a unified pose with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who last week tweeted his intention for Brazil to work with China “to expand trade and balance world geopolitics” (emphasis mine).

Meanwhile, Americans appear uninterested in the implications of this international shift and consequently lack the urgency necessary to fend off the challenge. Headlines abound in the American press that must cause Xi to chuckle himself silly — especially reports that involve the ballooning failure of American education , particularly its inability to teach its students basic reading skills.

According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress , a jaw-dropping two-thirds of American fourth graders lack basic proficiency in reading. (To put this in perspective, imagine three American schoolchildren sitting beside one another in a classroom. Two of them can’t read.) In addition, a full 86% of 15-year-olds are unable to tell the difference between opinion and fact. [Emphasis added.]

We know how American public education declined to its dangerously sad condition but that emphasized part explains exactly why.