“Even ChatGPT’s creators can’t figure out why it won’t answer certain questions — including queries about former President Donald Trump,” Semafor reports.
“When asked to ‘write a poem about the positive attributes of Trump,’ ChatGPT refused to wade into politics. But when asked to do the same thing for current commander-in-chief Joe Biden, ChatGPT obliged.”
“Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said on Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitions toward Taiwan should not be underestimated, despite him likely being sobered by the performance of Russia’s military in Ukraine,” Reuters reports.
“Burns said that the United States knew ‘as a matter of intelligence’ that Xi had ordered his military to be ready to conduct an invasion of self-governed Taiwan by 2027.”
“Senior advisers to President Joe Biden are expected to gather this weekend at Camp David to sharpen the president’s State of the Union message, which will be delivered Tuesday night,” CBS News reports.
David Weigel: “You’d be forgiven if you missed Donald Trump’s new plan to stop ‘left-wing gender insanity.’ Other Republicans had talked like this for years, and far more media attention went to, say, Ron Desantis getting the College Board to take left-wing voices out of an African American Studies course.”
“But to both LGBT advocates and social conservatives, Trump’s policy rollout was a watershed moment, one that signaled a hard right turn from debates focused on transitioning youth to a broader attack on the very concept of transgender identity itself…”
“Trump’s early emphasis on gender identity in this campaign has also surprised some conservatives, who are delighted that the 2024 presidential race is shaping up into a race to the right on the issue.”
“Donald Trump grew his business, fortune and fame ‘through a pattern of criminal activity,’ according to a new book by a veteran prosecutor, who reveals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office once considered charging the former president with racketeering, a law often used against the Mafia,” the New York Times reports.
“The prosecutor, Mark F. Pomerantz, resigned in protest early last year after the newly elected district attorney, Alvin Bragg, decided not to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump at that time.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, said that he wants to “reform” Social Security and institute private savings accounts for recipients, Yahoo News reports.
Said Pence: “There are modest reforms in entitlements that can be done without disadvantaging anybody at the point of the need. I think the day could come when we could replace the New Deal with a better deal. Literally give younger Americans the ability to take a portion of their Social Security withholdings and put that into a private savings account.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “reintroduced a bill last week to limit senators from serving more than two six-year terms, even as he stands by plans to run for his third,” the Texas Tribune reports.
“He declined to answer questions about why he would seek a third term in office, given his view about the need to limit how long members should serve.”
Defeated Arizona gubernatoral candidate Kari Lake (R) was interviewed on Steve Bannon’s podcast:
BANNON: You’re not running for vice president… as Governor of Arizona?
LAKE: I am the duly-elected governor.
Just for members: The latest edition of Inside Elections. 
This issue includes a deep dive into California’s 47th district, it’s an open seat because Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) is running for the Senate, but it’s also one of the most competitive in the country as suburban voters figure out where they’re going to align.
The edition also includes analysis of Washington’s 3rd district, where new Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) is one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country, and West Virginia’s 2nd district, where the battle will be in the GOP primary.
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Zeynep Tufekci: “Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1 strain, hasn’t often infected humans, but when it has, 56 percent of those known to have contracted it have died. Its inability to spread easily, if at all, from one person to another has kept it from causing a pandemic.”
“But things are changing. The virus, which has long caused outbreaks among poultry, is infecting more and more migratory birds, allowing it to spread more widely, even to various mammals, raising the risk that a new variant could spread to and among people.”
“Alarmingly, it was recently reported that a mutant H5N1 strain was not only infecting minks at a fur farm in Spain but also most likely spreading among them, unprecedented among mammals.”
Washington Post: “Nearly three years since the coronavirus pandemic upended the labor market, restaurants, bars, hotels and casinos remain short-staffed, with nearly 2 million unfilled openings. The leisure and hospitality industry, which before the pandemic accounted for much of the country’s job growth, is still short roughly 500,000 employees from 2020 levels, even as many other sectors have recovered.”
“But these workers didn’t disappear. A lot of them… who were laid off early in the pandemic, moved to behind-the-scenes office work where they are more likely to have increased flexibility, stability and often better pay.”
Associated Press: “Some defendants have drawn ire from judges or the Justice Department for their inconsistent comments. But there’s not much the legal system can do for an adjudicated defendant. And because some conservatives hold up Jan. 6 defendants as martyrs, there’s a political and possibly financial incentive for them to change their tune.”
“It could push judges to impose stronger punishments for rioters who haven’t yet made it to the end of their criminal cases.”
New York Times: “The new House Republican majority is again pursuing limits on how long members of Congress can serve, and the result is likely to be the same: failure to garner the votes needed to send a constitutional amendment to the states for approval.”
“But that won’t deter the backers of the plan, who once again say the public is fed up with career politicians and that those who reject term limits do so at their political peril.”
“President Biden secured a $250,000 line of credit against his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home as his son, Hunter Biden, faces an investigation into his tax affairs and amid his own classified documents scandal,” Fox News reports.
“It is unclear why Biden quietly secured the line of credit, which allows him to borrow up to a quarter of a million dollars against his home’s equity.”
“Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?”
— Rep. James Comer (R-KY), on Fox News.
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) will not run for either the House or Senate in 2024, Punchbowl News reports.
Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-GA) admitted in a video that he “has been handing out lapel pins shaped like assault rifles to fellow GOP lawmakers,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Clyde: “I hear that this little pin that I’ve been giving out on the House floor has been triggering some of my Democratic colleagues. Well, I give it out to remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.”
“The assault-rifle pins have angered Democrats, who began noticing them in recent days before they knew of their origin.”
Ali Vaez: “The Islamic Republic is now where the Soviet Union was in the early 1980s. The system is ideologically bankrupt, at a political dead end, and incapable of addressing its structural economic and societal troubles. It still has the will to fight, as evidenced by its brutal response to the uprisings. But no amount of force will end the standoff with its people, which is primarily the result of the regime’s failures across the board. There is little left of the promises made during the 1979 revolution to build a shining, pious city on a hill.”
“In practice, the regime has created a militarized republic of fear in which mediocrity is glorified and mendacity institutionalized. The Islamic Republic’s architects vowed there would be egalitarian prosperity for all, but instead, they delivered affluence for a few and ruined what was once a booming economy. They promised paradise on earth and then dried out the land and polluted the air, imperiling a civilization that has survived for 7,000 years.”
“The Islamic Republic is now a hollow misnomer. It is a theocracy that has inadvertently secularized the population. It is a republic that has demolished the participatory base it once used to legitimize its rule. By gradually tightening his circle of insiders, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has sidelined an increasing number of the original revolutionaries and other politicians who sought to put the system on a better path.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.