Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 2/11

[SVPete]

FCC to Newsom: Hey, Where'd the $450 Million Go?

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/02/11/fcc-to-newsom-say-whered-the-450-million-go-n4949367

FCC chair Brendan Carr has a pointed question for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, politely paraphrased as, "Where in the actual hell did the $450 million go, and where's that new 911 system it was supposed to buy?"

The same week he was first sworn in as governor, Newsom said, "The idea that it's 2019, and we are using analog systems designed decades ago is astounding, and we need to make investments to make sure the technology aligns with the devices people are using in their daily lives." He added that "California's antiquated, analog microwave network must be upgraded to a digital network to maintain safety operations."

That was seven years ago. Since then, Newsom spent $450 million to build a new system, "but when it came time to turn it on, it did not work," Carr wrote on Tuesday. This makes it even more astounding that California still relies on analog systems designed decades ago.
...
Progress is uneven, and not quite 20 states have fully implemented the NG911standard or been rated as "high-deployment." Some, like Indiana, have had NG911 in place since before COVID; others just have pilot programs in place.

But none except California has spent so much money only to report zero progress. California can't point to partial implementation, has no pilot programs in place — literally nothing to show for 450 million tax dollars. Newsom might as well have spent it on hair product, and for all I know, he probably did. Worse, California's antiquated system is literally failing, according to both the FCC and Sacramento.

New FCC rules are meant to speed along compliance among the laggards, which is why Carr on Tuesday reminded Newsom that "when first responders tried to activate your system, emergency 911calls were lost and misrouted, and a 12-hour outage followed when residents were unable to call 911. You are now scrapping the plan and going back to the drawing board."

[SVPete]

FBI has 'substantiated' irregularities in Georgia 2020 vote counts, probing if they were intentional

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/fbi-has-substantiated-irregularities-georgia-2020-vote-counts-probing-if

The FBI has "substantiated" some major irregularities in how votes were counted in Georgia's largest urban area in the aftermath of the 2020 election and is probing whether those failures were intentional efforts to violate federal election law, according to a bombshell affidavit unsealed by a federal court on Tuesday.

FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans first filed the affidavit last month to establish probable cause for a raid that seized about 700 boxes of Georgia 2020 elections ballots from a storage warehouse in the Atlanta area, after getting a referral from Trump White House election integrity czar Kurt Olsen.

The affidavit included information gleaned from FBI interviews with about a dozen unnamed witnesses recounting various allegations that dated back to the disputed 2020 election in Georgia in which Joe Biden was narrowly declared the winner over Donald Trump.

"Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County," Evans wrote. "This warrant application is part of an FBI criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws."

Here is the probable cause affidavit, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.355087/gov.uscourts.gand.355087.22.1_2.pdf

[SVPete]

EPA's Lee Zeldin signals end to controversial start-stop feature in cars will be announced this week

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/environment/epas-lee-zeldin-signals-end-controversial-start-stop-feature-cars-will

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin teased Tuesday that the agency will announce a significant change to the start-stop feature in automobiles sometime this week after receiving feedback from Americans.

"Countless Americans passionately despise the start/stop feature in cars," Zeldin posted to X. "So many have spoken out against this absurd start-stop-start-stop-start-stop concept. The Trump Admin has heard your calls and the announcement you have been waiting for is coming THIS WEEK. Stay tuned!"
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The feature is designed to be climate-friendly by automatically turning off a car when it has stopped in order to save fuel and reduce emissions, and then starting it back up again when the driver releases the brake or hits the accelerator.

The vehicle Mrs. SVPete drives has this wretched worthless "feature". She hates it and turns it off every time she drives the vehicle.

[SVPete]

Democrats Suddenly Oppose Law Enforcement Body Cameras They Demanded

https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/02/democrats-suddenly-oppose-law-enforcement-body-cameras-they-demanded/

Democrats are backtracking on their own demand that ICE agents wear body cameras. They’re suddenly concerned that those cameras will be used to track and surveil anti-ICE protesters, which seems like an admission that they know those people are their base voters.

This isn’t the first time this issue has backfired on Democrats. Following their anti-police push in 2020, Democrats wanted all law enforcement officers to wear body cameras, but that didn’t work out the way they planned. Instead of showing LEOs in a bad light, it showed them to be professionals who often deal with violence directed at them.
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Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used…

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who proposed a ban on ICE agents using facial recognition, also supported surveillance limits on body cameras.

“Obviously we want them to be wearing body cameras, but we would want restrictions placed on what that information could be used for,” Markey said. “We want to make sure that we have the accountability for how these officers conduct themselves on the streets of our country, but we don’t want it in turn to be used as a way of coming back and suppressing free speech.”

Evidently, Dems haven't made the awareness leap that body cams can also prove their and hate-activists' anti-ICE claims false.

[enslaved1]

Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval after 88 years

Gallup will no longer track presidential approval ratings after more than eight decades doing so, the public opinion polling agency confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday.

The company said starting this year it would stop publishing approval and favorability ratings of individual political figures, saying in a statement it “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership.”

“Our commitment is to long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “That work will continue through the Gallup Poll Social Series, the Gallup Quarterly Business Review, the World Poll, and our portfolio of U.S. and global research.”

The Gallup Presidential Approval Rating has for decades been the among the top barometers cited by media outlets measuring public opinion of the president’s performance.