BIG SHRINK AT BIG TECH: Yahoo to lay off 20% of its workforce. “A Yahoo spokesperson told CNN that the company’s legacy ad tech division, Yahoo for Business, will be overhauled and transformed into a new division called Yahoo Advertising. As part of that change, Yahoo plans to cut nearly 50% of the division this year, ‘including nearly 1,000 employees this week,’ the spokesperson said.”

BECAUSE THEIR UNIONS OWN A BIG CHUNK OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. NEXT QUESTION? Why Exactly Does Joe Biden Think Teachers Deserve a Raise?

IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBT WHO WAS IN CHARGE AT THE BORDER: No One Crosses Unlawfully From Mexico Without Working With Cartels, Former Border Patrol Chief Says. “They’re either directly paying the cartels or the cartels are controlling their movements for another benefit, meaning to systematically overwhelm Border Patrol, create a gap in the border security, and then bring the narcotics across.”

EVERYBODY ON THE LEFT LIED ABOUT HIS TRUE CONDITION: ‘Fit to Serve’ John Fetterman Remains Hospitalized. “On Thursday, another stroke was officially ruled out. However, he is now being monitored for signs of other issues, including a seizure.”

THE ABUSE NEVER SEEMS TO END: ‘Detransitioners’ Are Being Abandoned By Medical Professionals Who Devastated Their Bodies And Minds.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Mess of an Address. “What could a president possibly tell a nation when he entered office inheriting a 1.4% inflation rate only to spike it to 7%? How did Americans’ 30-year mortgages of 2.7% soar to 6.5% in less than two years?”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: US credit-card debt increased by the most in 20 years. “More consumers are now relying on credit cards to get by, which has helped propel total credit card debt to $930 billion in the third quarter, just shy of the all-time record, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Credit card balances climbed more than 15% from a year earlier, the largest annual jump in more than 20 years.”

ROBERT SPENCER: Resurgent ISIS Calls on Muslims to Kill Jews, Reveals Overlooked Aspect of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT: ChatGPT AI predicts 2nd American Civil War — Probability ‘Is Actually 100%.’

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Rogue FBI Extremist Fever Dream Is Worried About Traddy Catholics at Latin Masses. “Of course, anti-Catholic bigotry is not only condoned, but also rampant on the left. It’s practically encouraged. The Roman Church is Public Enemy Number One because of its unwavering stance on abortion.”

CLOWARD AND PIVEN MARVEL AT THE BIDEN CABAL’S INGENUITY: ‘Not A Sustainable Model’: AZ Hospital ‘On Brink Of Collapse’ After Spending $20 Million On Migrants.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: It’s Time to Talk About How — and Why — Biden Lets the Chinese Commies Walk All Over Him.

CHINA: Asian Geopolitics Just Got Scarier.

Even as the United States and its NATO allies pledged to supply more weapons systems to Ukraine, Asian geopolitics was eclipsing European geopolitics with reports of Xi Jinping’s October “war council,” the shooting down of what was believed to be a Chinese surveillance balloon, and reports that South Korea is considering developing its own nuclear deterrent. The 21st century is indeed shaping up to be the “Asian Century.”

The most worrisome of the three developments is Xi Jinping’s war council, which was revealed by the Hill on Jan. 28 and elaborated on by the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz on Feb. 2. Gertz reported that U.S. Air Force Gen. Michael Minihan’s memorandum stated that the war council includes top members of China’s Central Military Commission. Gertz describes China’s Central Military Commission as “the Chinese Communist Party’s most powerful institution.” And the subject of the war council was Taiwan. Minihan predicted in the memo that the United States should be prepared for war with China by 2025. This comes on the heels of U.S. Admiral Philip Davidson’s prediction in 2021 that war over Taiwan could come anytime within the next six years, the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations’ warning that China may invade Taiwan before 2024, and recent Chinese military exercises around the island of Taiwan. Although the Pentagon distanced itself from Minihan’s prediction, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul agreed with Minihan’s assessment.

The October war council may very well have led to the launching of what many are calling the Chinese “spy” or “surveillance” balloon that was shot down by U.S. fighters near the South Carolina shore after it traveled from the Aleutian Islands across parts of Alaska, Canada, and the continental United States, including over U.S. ICBM fields. The best commentary on this development was written by James Holmes, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College and a fellow at the Center for Innovation and Future Warfare of the Marine Corps University, in the journal 19Fortyfive. Holmes believes that the Chinese balloon likely gathered intelligence but was mainly a “trial balloon” designed to “see whether it would elicit a response from the U.S. government and military, as well as from the American people.”

It sure doesn’t seem like Biden’s response made war any less likely.

RADICAL AND TRADITIONALIST? Whistleblower Says FBI Mined Bank Records for the J6 Probe as the Bureau Takes a Hard Look at ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholics.’

PROBABLY SOMEWHERE BETTER THAN THEY’D BEEN: Thousands of kids are missing from school. Where did they go? “An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee found an estimated 240,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn’t move out of state, and they didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data.”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Madonna Shrewdly Plays the Victim Card. “The superstar, globally adored and with all the resources western society can offer, is now a professional victim at the tender age of 64. She’s following in the footsteps of Meghan Markle, who proved you can claim victimhood status no matter your wealth, beauty or privilege.”

81 MILLION VOTES: Biden’s State of the Union Ratings Were Embarrassingly Bad.

DAVID STROM: Fauci: now he tells us. “What if I told you that Anthony Fauci knew all along that the COVID vaccine could not possibly prevent either infection with or transmission of COVID?”

CHARMING: ‘Lia’ Thomas Exposed His Junk to Female Teammates.

MOLON LABE: China wants spy balloon back: ‘It belongs to China.’

BEN BARTEE: It’s Time for Trump to Pass the Torch.

I don’t agree with anything close to all of Ben’s assessment. There’s nothing more American than a comeback story and, after a mess like 2020, it would be a real thrill to see Trump make a comeback once more. But his efforts since announcing his 2024 run haven’t been very focused and certainly not forward-looking.

We’ll see what happens over the next year or so, I guess.

UGH: I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle.

For almost four years, I worked at The Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases with teens and young adults who were HIV positive. Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning myself. I’m now married to a transman, and together we are raising my two biological children from a previous marriage and three foster children we hope to adopt.

All that led me to a job in 2018 as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, which had been established a year earlier.

The center’s working assumption was that the earlier you treat kids with gender dysphoria, the more anguish you can prevent later on. This premise was shared by the center’s doctors and therapists. Given their expertise, I assumed that abundant evidence backed this consensus.

During the four years I worked at the clinic as a case manager—I was responsible for patient intake and oversight—around a thousand distressed young people came through our doors. The majority of them received hormone prescriptions that can have life-altering consequences—including sterility.

I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to “do no harm.” Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.

Read the whole thing.

THERE’S NO ONE TO TAKE ON THE TERMITES INFESTING THE MOUSE HOUSE: Disney Actually Just Laid Off 2.4 Million People — Including Me. “Disney shares are up Thursday on news that the company is cutting costs and letting go of 7,000 employees. But the real news is that the formerly family-friend studio lost 2.4 million streaming subscribers — and has no plan to end the woke programming that drove them away. Including me.”

PRESIDENT MANCHIN? Is This Joe Manchin’s Next Big Move? “Now that he’s given his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden is expected to announce his plans for reelection. There’s another potential candidate generating buzz, though, despite how he might not even run as a Democrat. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) again sparked chatter about a potential run on Tuesday.”

This buzz wouldn’t exist if Biden were doing even half as well as Democrats pretend he is.

BREAKING: Sen. John Fetterman Rushed to Hospital During Democrat Retreat.