The Assault on Free Speech on America's Campuses

It's Roger Kimball, at American Greatness:

Roger Kimball: Conservatives have rightly lamented the assault on free speech that is such a conspicuous and disfiguring reality of life in America today. https://t.co/BOSTFMx5ab https://t.co/WRSBEYNGva

— American Greatness (@theamgreatness) February 15, 2020

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Girls on Reddit

At Drunken Stepfather, "GIRLS ON REDDIT FOR VALENTINE’S DAY OF THE DAY."

Democrats Freak Out

At AoSHQ, "LOL: Democrats Panicking Over Prospect of Having to Run With Soviet-Loving Socialist Bernie Sanders at the Top of the Ticket."

Drawn-Out Fight Is More Likely Than Ever for Dems

It looks like it.

From Ronald Brownstein, at the Atlantic:

"Bernie’s got good-news bad news. He’s doing well, but he’s not doing well enough to win”: Compared with 2016, Sanders’s coalition in New Hampshire was both more narrow and more shallow, writes @RonBrownstein https://t.co/J0Mm4c0NFK

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) February 12, 2020

Senator Bernie Sanders’s unexpectedly narrow victory in New Hampshire underscored the splintering of the Democratic presidential field that was evident in last week’s murky Iowa caucus—and left two of his opponents facing grim questions about their future viability.

Just as in Iowa, the results illuminated the inability of any of the contenders to build a coalition broad enough to span the party or establish much separation from rival candidates. The roughly 26 percent share of the total vote that Sanders captured represents much less than half of his winning 60 percent just four years ago. And similar to former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s performance in Iowa, Sanders won the smallest share of voters ever garnered by a Democratic winner of the New Hampshire primary. (The previous low was nearly 29 percent, for Jimmy Carter in 1976.)

The New Hampshire results confirmed Sanders and Buttigieg as the field’s top-tier contenders and elevated Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who surged from a fifth-place finish in Iowa to a strong third here after a widely praised debate performance on Friday night. But the outcome may end up diminishing two of the field’s previous leaders more than it boosts the candidates who came out on top.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who were widely considered the race’s principal contenders for most of last year, were staggered by showings even weaker than anticipated. “I think everyone thought two weeks ago that Biden probably had the best chance of building the coalition that could pull everybody together,” Simon Rosenberg, the founder of the Democratic advocacy group NDN, told me. “And right now, assuming that Biden is weakened, it’s not clear that anyone is going to be strong enough” to amass a coalition that can produce a delegate majority for the convention this summer.

Biden’s campaign says it is ready to fight on in Nevada and especially South Carolina, with its large population of African American voters. But the extent of Biden’s collapse in New Hampshire, where he won less than 9 percent of the vote, has many Democratic strategists questioning whether he can forge a path back to relevance in the race. “I don’t see how he carries forward,” the veteran Democratic pollster Stanley B. Greenberg told me. “I think it’s too much of a repudiation.”

Biden’s precipitous decline will immediately shift more focus to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg among party centrists skeptical of Sanders. Yet the release yesterday of an audio tape capturing Bloomberg defending in stark language the controversial stop-and-frisk policing tactic he employed in New York City underscores the ideological and racial obstacles he may face as the media and other candidates zero in on his record.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the past four Democratic nominating contests, when the race effectively resolved to a two-person battle after Iowa and New Hampshire. This year, the party faces the prospect of sustained uncertainty not only after the first two states, but even after the Nevada and South Carolina competitions still to come in February—and maybe even after Super Tuesday on March 3, when 14 states will vote.

“We’ll head into Super Tuesday without a lot of clarity and with Bloomberg representing an entirely new dynamic in all of this,” the Democratic pollster Geoff Garin told me. “This race is very, very different, where these first four states are setting the table for Super Tuesday but they are not the main event.”

If anything, the New Hampshire results spotlighted the obstacles confronting each of the candidates...

Professor Patricia MacCormack Calls for Human Extinction

At the Other McCain, "Feminist Witch/University Professor Advocates Human Extinction."

Bloomberg's Memes

He's spending astronomical amounts of money. And the "meme community"? Pfft.

It's Taylor Lorenz, at NYT, "Michael Bloomberg’s Campaign Suddenly Drops Memes Everywhere":

@CNNnewsroom if you’re going to do a whole segment on my story, quote my sources, and use people from my story, maybe at least mention I broke it? 😒🔪 https://t.co/SYB2Ubd2ds

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 13, 2020

Mike Bloomberg has contracted some of the biggest meme-makers on the internet to post sponsored content on Instagram promoting his presidential campaign.

The Bloomberg campaign is working with Meme 2020, a new company formed by some of the people behind extremely influential accounts.

Mick Purzycki is the lead strategist of the Meme 2020 project. He is also the chief executive of Jerry Media, a media and marketing company that is a powerful force in the influencer economy. The company’s portfolio includes some of the most notable meme accounts on Instagram. Jerry Media was at the center of controversy last year after a debate around proper crediting in meme culture.

In January, Mr. Purzycki tapped a number of large influencers who he had formed relationships with through his association with Jerry Media. (Elliot Tebele, the founder of Jerry Media, has no involvement in the project.)

The campaign, which began this week, has already placed sponsored posts on Instagram accounts including @GrapeJuiceBoys, a meme page with more than 2.7 million followers; Jerry Media’s own most popular account, with more than 13.3 million followers; and @Tank.Sinatra, a member with more than 2.3 million followers.

The accounts all posted Bloomberg campaign ads in the form of fake direct messages from the candidate.

“Mr. Tank:” an ad on @Tank.Sinatra begins, “I’ve been waiting for my meme for so long that I learned how to make memes myself in photoshop. What do you think of this one?” The message is followed by a photo of Bernie Sanders that has become a meme in recent weeks.

George Resch, a director of influencer marketing at Brandfire and founder of @Tank.Sinatra, has served as Meme 2020’s primary liaison with the meme community.

Mr. Resch has posted two ads so far on behalf of the campaign. On Sunday, he posted an ad in which a fake direct message from Mr. Bloomberg asks Mr. Resch to make him look “cool” for the Democratic primary.

Evan Reeves, a creative director for Jerry Media, was brought in as the head of creative to devise an unconventional campaign, and to build a self-aware ironic character around Mr. Bloomberg...

Still more.

Great Essay on Walking Away from the Democrat Party

It's Karlyn Borysenko, "After Attending a Trump Rally, I Realized Democrats Are Not Ready For 2020":

What an interesting reflection. "I’ve been a Democrat for 20 years. Here’s what I experienced at Trump’s rally in New Hampshire." by @DrKarlynB https://t.co/m3aC4ZsXKp

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 13, 2020

I think those of us on the left need to take a long look in the mirror and have an honest conversation about what’s going on. If you had told me three years ago that I would ever attend a Donald Trump rally, I would have laughed and assured you that was never going to happen. Heck, if you had told me I would do it three months ago, I probably would have done the same thing. So, how did I find myself among 11,000-plus Trump supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire? Believe it or not, it all started with knitting.

You might not think of the knitting world as a particularly political community, but you’d be wrong. Many knitters are active in social justice communities and love to discuss the revolutionary role knitters have played in our culture. I started noticing this about a year ago, particularly on Instagram. I knit as a way to relax and escape the drama of real life, not to further engage with it. But it was impossible to ignore after roving gangs of online social justice warriors started going after anyone in the knitting community who was not lockstep in their ideology. Knitting stars on Instagram were bullied and mobbed by hundreds of people for seemingly innocuous offenses. One man got mobbed so badly that he had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the hospital on suicide watch. Many things were not right about the hatred, and witnessing the vitriol coming from those I had aligned myself with politically was a massive wake-up call.

Democrats have an ass-kicking coming to them in November, and I think most of them will be utterly shocked when it happens. 

You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.

But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything. I started making a proactive effort to break my echo chamber by listening to voices I thought I would disagree with. I wanted to understand their perspective, believing it would confirm that they were filled with hate for anyone who wasn’t like them. 

That turned out not to be the case. The more voices outside the left that I listened to, the more I realized that these were not bad people. They were not racists, nazis, or white supremacists. We had differences of opinions on social and economic issues, but a difference of opinion does not make your opponent inherently evil. And they could justify their opinions using arguments, rather than the shouting and ranting I saw coming from my side of the aisle.

I started to discover (or perhaps rediscover) the #WalkAway movement. I had heard about #WalkAway when MSNBC told me it was fake and a bunch of Russian bots. But then I started to meet real people who had been Democrats and made the decision to leave because they could not stand the way the left was behaving. I watched town halls they held with different minority communities (all available in their entirety on YouTube), and I saw sane, rational discussion from people of all different races, backgrounds, orientations, and experiences. I joined the Facebook group for the community and saw stories popping up daily of people sharing why they are leaving the Democratic Party. This wasn’t fake. These people are not Russian bots. Moreover, it felt like a breath of fresh air. There was not universal agreement in this group — some were Trump supporters, some weren’t — but they talked and shared their perspective without shouting or rage or trying to cancel each other.

I started to question everything. How many stories had I been sold that weren’t true? What if my perception of the other side is wrong? How is it possible that half the country is overtly racist? Is it possible that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing, and had I been suffering from it for the past three years?

And the biggest question of all was this: Did I hate Trump so much that I wanted to see my country fail just to spite him and everyone who voted for him?

Fast-forward to the New Hampshire primary, and we have all the politicians running around the state making their case...

RTWT.

Trump Revs Up Campaign

At LAT, "Flush with cash and confident after impeachment, Trump campaign revs up the road show":

WASHINGTON —  Four years after his hostile takeover of the White House, President Trump’s second campaign bears little resemblance to the first — he’s flush with cash, buoyed by an uptick in poll numbers, and brimming with confidence after surviving investigations, an impeachment and myriad controversies that have helped unite once-wary Republicans behind him. 

Unlike his slapdash, anything goes 2016 campaign, Trump now can rely on a massive, professionalized apparatus that has helped raise more than $200 million, deployed eager surrogates to early primary states, and built an extensive field operation and advertising network months before Democrats are likely to choose their nominee.

He also has found new ways to break political taboos, seeking to overshadow Democratic candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire just before they held their nominating contests and playing with voters’ already frazzled nerves. At a primary-eve rally in Manchester, N.H., the president even urged supporters in the state who were registered independents, and thus able to vote in either party’s primary, to vote for the weakest Democrat.

“My only problem is I’m trying to figure who is their weakest candidate — I think they’re all weak!” he said with a broad grin.

It’s an in-your-face strategy hashed out largely by campaign manager Brad Parscale and, of course, the president, an intense manager of his own brand who is determined to remain on offense and to create the appearance of dominance and popularity that, he hopes, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in November.

“He will not give the Democrats a free pass any day of this campaign. They don’t get to have their day where they dominate the news,” said Matt Schlapp, a veteran GOP operative whose wife, Mercedes, works for the Trump campaign. “He’s stepping into their days and talking about why he should get four more years.”

“The more Democrats smear President Trump, the more enthusiasm we see for him and his many accomplishments,” Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement.

There is some evidence for that. A Gallup tracking poll from the last two weeks of January, during the Senate impeachment trial, showed Trump’s approval rating at 49%, its highest point ever. And the campaign raised $1 million in online donations for 10 straight days during the trial. More recent polls show the president’s approval number back in the low-to-mid 40s, where it has hovered for most of his term, although his support among Republicans is sky high.

None of that makes his reelection as inevitable as his campaign suggests. He is running well behind the top Democratic contenders, according to a Quinnipiac University poll this week that showed the president losing a hypothetical head-to-head race to Michael Bloomberg by nine points, Bernie Sanders by eight and Joe Biden by seven.

He also trailed Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar by at least four points, according to the survey.

More.

Holy Cow Playmate Iryna!

Man, she's something.

32E TEXT here - https://t.co/M03maYOVmJ pic.twitter.com/DUZg2PTGZv

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) February 13, 2020

Sea Lion Pup Tried to Cross Long Beach Freeway (VIDEO)

The little guy swam up the San Gabriel river and tried to walk his way out.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

The Big Winner of Impeachment: Partisanship

An excellent piece, at LAT, "News Analysis: Trump’s impeachment and acquittal please partisans on both sides":

News Analysis: Trump's impeachment and acquittal please partisans on both sides https://t.co/3aAONcX2ON w/ @Noahbierman

— Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) February 5, 2020

WASHINGTON —  Minutes after President Nixon resigned in disgrace and left the White House in August 1974, Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as president and sought to heal a traumatized nation, declaring, “Our long national nightmare is over.”
Although President Trump was acquitted by the Senate on Wednesday and allowed to remain in office, a similar attempt at reconciliation or closure is difficult to imagine.

Americans are instead left with toxic images from Trump’s State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, with Trump refusing to shake House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s outstretched hand, and Pelosi later publicly ripping up the text of Trump’s speech in disgust.

A nation stewing with partisan fury has grown angrier, with Democrats bitter over a president they believe got away with abusing his office and Republicans incensed that he was impeached at all.

The final Senate votes reflected that vast gulf: No Democrats broke ranks, and only one Republican — Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee —condemned what he called “an appalling abuse of the public trust” and voted to convict Trump on one of two articles of impeachment.

Yet many caught in the maelstrom of the last 4½ months — first in a rancorous House impeachment inquiry and then an acrimonious Senate trial — believe their party emerged victorious, exciting passion among their core constituencies.

“The politics in America are so polarized right now that I think both sides probably think they’ve done well politically,” said Tad Devine, who served as a senior advisor to three Democratic presidential campaigns. “They’re talking to entirely different audiences.”

The lack of a consensus has left the long-term lessons of this impeachment unsettled, at least until Trump and Republican lawmakers face the voters in November, and perhaps beyond that.

Nixon resigned before he was impeached over the Watergate scandal after public opinion turned against him and senior Republican senators warned they would vote to remove him from office if he did not leave first. In 1999, President Clinton survived impeachment, publicly apologized, and saw his popularity rise as Americans largely decided he should not be removed for lying about an affair with a White House intern.

But Democrats paid a price the following year when Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, lost the presidential election to George W. Bush by a razor-thin margin ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

“In the Nixon case, the president left office ... because of a national bipartisan sense that he should,” said Timothy Naftali, founding director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. “So there was a resolution of the scandal, as much as you can have in a complex republic. There was a consensus he needed to be removed before the end of his term. That consensus doesn’t exist today.”

No president before Trump has been impeached and then gone on to seek reelection. That gives Americans a chance to weigh in more directly, but it also widens the political and social divisions that have defined the turbulent Trump presidency.

“What’s at stake is not just Trump’s reelection or the future of the Republican Party,” said William Howell, a University of Chicago professor who has written extensively about executive power. “It’s about Congress’ ability to check presidential power.”

Historians, constitutional scholars and Democratic lawmakers say Trump’s acquittal in the Senate has almost certainly weakened the authority of Congress to oversee and provide a check on the executive branch. Even if Trump isn’t reelected, future presidents are likely to cite his precedent in refusing to honor congressional subpoenas, blocking witnesses and evidence, without consequence.

Not only did the stonewalling thwart House investigators during the impeachment inquiry, but the Trump administration has also regularly declined to attend routine oversight hearings in Congress.

“Unfortunately, yes, that’s the precedent and everybody seems to love precedents more than they love laws,” said Brenda Wineapple, author of “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.” “Suspending the issue of right and wrong, when people get away with things, it’s incentive to do it again.”

The result, in some ways, is likely to be the reverse of the post-Watergate experience.

After Nixon resigned, Congress moved to sharply curtail the president’s authority and create direct oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies for the first time, among other reforms. But many of those changes have weakened in recent decades as Congress has handed more power back to the White House, giving Trump a freer rein than his predecessors.

Few scholars think Trump’s episode heralds a new “age of impeachment,” as former special prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr argued in his defense of the president. The most zealous partisans on each side often threaten impeachment but seldom muster the political power to force the grueling process.

Pelosi resisted several attempts to impeach Trump before acceding to her base in September when a White House whistleblower accused Trump of seeking Ukraine’s help in smearing Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, while withholding a White House meeting and $391 million in military aid as leverage...

Megan Parry's Low Temperature Forecast

It's been cold!

Here's Ms. Megan, at ABC 10 News San Diego:

Bernie Sanders Internal Numbers

CNN's reporting the Iowa results right now, as are the other networks, no doubt.

Bernie's leading the popular vote totals, but Buttigieg has won more voters around the state, and hence took a larger share of the delegates.

Joe Biden absolutely crashed last night, and I expect he'll bomb in New Hampshire as well. (And Nia-Malika Henderson, on CNN earlier, questioned the strength of Biden's "wall" in the South Carolina primary coming later this month.

I love it.

In any case, at the Intercept, "SANDERS CAMPAIGN’S INTERNAL CAUCUS NUMBERS SHOW THEM LEADING IOWA, WITH BIDEN A DISTANT FOURTH."

BREAKING: The Iowa Democratic Party has released 62% of its caucus results.

Pete Buttigieg leads with about 27% in the State Delegate Equivalent count.

Bernie Sanders follows with about 25%.

More here:

BREAKING: The Iowa Democratic Party has released 62% of its caucus results.

Pete Buttigieg leads with about 27% in the State Delegate Equivalent count.

Bernie Sanders follows with about 25%.

More here: https://t.co/glyEmOk8dS pic.twitter.com/Kjej9p4q5y

— NPR (@NPR) February 4, 2020

Democrats Are Decadent and Depraved

It's true.

At the Other McCain, "Disaster in Iowa: The Democratic Party Is Decadent and Depraved":

The way Democrats run their Iowa caucuses is difficult to explain briefly, but the result Monday was clear. Within an hour of the beginning of the complicated process, the totals of the first-round voting began to be reported via social media, and from precinct after precinct came the same phrase: “Biden — not viable.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden has based his campaign on the argument that he’s the most “electable” Democratic candidate, but the voters of Iowa shot a torpedo through the hull of that argument. Due to a technical glitch that delayed the state Democratic Party’s counting process, we still don’t have official results. But by 10:30 p.m. Eastern time Monday, it became apparent to caucus-watchers that Biden was headed for a fourth-place finish in the Hawkeye State, behind Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Buttigieg’s strong second-place showing is a big story — the young mayor out-performed expectations — but Biden’s humiliating defeat is much bigger. . .

Superbowl Halftime Show (PHOTOS)

I liked it.

Conservatives got their panties in a wad, sheesh.

At Drunken Stepfather, "SHAKIRA PANTY FLASH FOR THE SUPERBOWL OF THE DAY."

Watch the Super Bowl LIV Live visual album now & relive your favorite moments from the @Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime show w/ @JLo, @Shakira, @JBalvin & @sanbenito, the National Anthem w/ @ddlovato and America the Beautiful w/ @YolandaAdams: https://t.co/TegS1UhgC6 #SBLIV pic.twitter.com/D0vQCHC9Vz

— NFL (@NFL) February 3, 2020

How China Implements Quarantine

What a nightmare.

At NYT, "China, Desperate to Stop Coronavirus, Turns Neighbor Against Neighbor":

Bounties, informant hotlines, barricaded doors and a lot of harassment: China authorities are doing everything to hunt those from Wuhan. In the process they risk eroding trust, establishing new stigmas and scattering scared carriers of the coronavirus. https://t.co/dfxtc6mJ5n

— Paul Mozur 孟建国 (@paulmozur) February 4, 2020

GUANGZHOU, China — One person was turned away by hotel after hotel after he showed his ID card. Another was expelled by fearful local villagers. A third found his most sensitive personal information leaked online after registering with the authorities.

These outcasts are from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, which is at the center of a rapidly spreading viral outbreak that has killed more than 420 people in China and sent fear rippling around the world. They are pariahs in China, among the millions unable to go home and feared as potential carriers of the mysterious coronavirus.

All across the country, despite China’s vast surveillance network with its facial recognition systems and high-end cameras that is increasingly used to track its 1.4 billion people, the government has turned to familiar authoritarian techniques — like setting up dragnets and asking neighbors to inform on one another — as it tries to contain the outbreak.

It took the authorities about five days to contact Harmo Tang, a college student studying in Wuhan, after he returned to his hometown, Linhai, in eastern Zhejiang Province. Mr. Tang said he had already been under self-imposed isolation when local officials asked for his personal information, including name, address, phone number, identity card number and the date he returned from Wuhan. Within days, the information began to spread online, along with a list of others who returned to Linhai from Wuhan.

Local officials offered no explanation but returned a few days later to fasten police tape to his door and hang a sign that warned neighbors that a Wuhan returnee lived there. The sign included an informant hotline to call if anyone saw him or his family leave the apartment. Mr. Tang said he received about four calls a day from different local government departments.

“In reality there’s not much empathy,” he said. “It’s not a caring tone they’re using. It’s a warning tone. I don’t feel very comfortable about it.”

Of course, China has a major incentive to track down potential carriers of the disease. The coronavirus outbreak has put parts of the country under lockdown, brought the world’s second-largest economy to a virtual standstill and erected walls between China and the rest of the world.

Still, even some government officials called for understanding as concerns about prejudice spread. Experts warned such marginalization of an already vulnerable group could prove counterproductive, further damaging public trust and sending those who should be screened and monitored deeper underground.

“We are paying attention to this issue,” Ma Guoqiang, the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Wuhan, said at a news conference there last Tuesday.

“I believe that some people may label Hubei people or report them, but I also think most people will treat Hubei people with a good heart.”

While networks of volunteers and Christian groups have been vocal about offering help, many local leaders have focused efforts on finding and isolating people from Hubei. On big screens and billboards, propaganda videos and posters warn people to stay inside, wear masks and wash hands.

In the northern province of Hebei, one county offered bounties of 1,000 yuan, or about $140, for each Wuhan person reported by residents. Images online showed towns digging up roads or deputizing men to block outsiders. Some apartment-building residents barricaded the doors of their towers with China’s ubiquitous ride-share bikes.

In the eastern province of Jiangsu, quarantine turned to imprisonment after authorities used metal poles to barricade shut the door of a family recently returned from Wuhan. To get food, the family relied on neighbors who lowered provisions with a rope down to their back balcony, according to a local news report.

Scared for the safety of his children as conditions at home worsened, Andy Li, a tech worker from Wuhan traveling with his family in Beijing, rented a car and began driving south to Guangdong, an effort to find refuge with relatives there. In Nanjing, he was turned away from one hotel before getting a room at a luxury hotel.

There he set up a self-imposed family quarantine for four days, until local authorities ordered all people from Wuhan to move to a hotel next to the city’s central rail station. Mr. Li said the quarantine hotel did not seem to be doing a good job isolating people. Food delivery workers came and went, while gaps in the doors and walls allowed drafts in.

“They’re only working to separate Wuhan people from Nanjing people,” Mr. Li said. “They don’t care at all if Wuhan people infect each other.”

To help, he stuffed towels and tissues under the door to block the drafts.

“I’m not complaining about the government," Mr. Li said. “There will always be loopholes in policy. But in a selfish way I’m just really worried about my children.”

Across the country, the response from local authorities often resembles the mass mobilizations of the Mao era rather than the technocratic, data-driven wizardry depicted in propaganda about China’s emerging surveillance state. They have also turned to techniques Beijing used to fight the outbreak of SARS, another deadly disease, in 2002 and 2003, when China was much less technologically sophisticated.

Checkpoints to screen people for fevers have popped up at tollbooths, at the front gates of apartment complexes and in hotels, grocery stores and train stations. Often those wielding the thermometer guns don’t hold them close enough to a person’s forehead, generating unusually low temperature readings. Such checks were worthless, for instance, against one man in the western province of Qinghai, whom police are investigating on suspicion that he covered up his symptoms to travel.

Authorities have used computerized systems that track ID cards — which must be used to take most long-distance transport and stay in hotels — to round up people from Wuhan. Yet one article about the ID system in The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, included a plea to all passengers on affected flights and trains to report themselves...

Media Roundup Slams Democrats for Iowa Disarray (VIDEO)

Via Free Beacon:

Impact of the Iowa Chaos

From Jonathan Last, at the Bulwark, an excellent analysis.

It's been a perfect storm burying Iowa in negative coverage, and even the experts are saying the Hawkeye State's special role as "first in the nation" is at risk.

Iowa: Ded https://t.co/MTydnoHpQd

— Jonathan V. Last (@JVLast) February 4, 2020

Added: See also AoSHQ, "The Soyciety Pages: Bill Kristol Declares, 'We Are All Democrats Now'."

Democrats Are Facing Disaster

There's too much to report on the Iowa chaos (check Memeorandum).

But one thing's for sure, things are going terribly for the Democrats.

For example, Gallup is out this morning with the best presidential approval number for President Trump --- he's at 49 percent approval, and more than 6 in 10 approve of his handling of the economy, a death knell for Democrat prospects this fall, especially if those number hold up.

More at AoSHQ, "GALLUP: TRUMP JOB APPROVAL RISES TO HIGHEST LEVEL EVER, AT 49%."

Donald Trump’s job approval rating has risen to 49% in a new Gallup poll. https://t.co/aspVxbbTaS

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) February 4, 2020