IT’S NOT JUST THE VISUAL ARTS:  MUSIC: Remodernism Resonates with Composer George Pepper.

YES, THEY ARE DELIBERATELY TRYING TO SPLIT THE US:  Never Let A Tragedy Go To Waste.

YEAH, ABOUT THAT:  Newsweek: Definitely Believe All Women, But, By the Way, Al Franken Was Taken Out by RUSSIAN Bots Who Lie.

NANCY “CRUMBLES” FAILS TO GET IT:  Pelosi Heckled, Sidesteps Questions.

STAY CLASSY LEFT:  Teen Vogue Columnist Tells Billy Graham to “Burn in Hell”.

KILLING MAN AND BEAST FOR 2500 YEARS:  The reason why people suddenly died near ancient ‘portal to hell’.

HECKUVA JOB TODAY, CNN:

● CNN’s Tapper Sits Back as Student Equates Rubio to School Shooter.

● Good talk: Someone in CNN’s town hall audience yells, ‘You’re a murderer!’ at Dana Loesch.

● CNN confronts female Trump supporter to tell her she was part of Russia’s election meddling.

All of which is why Ben Shapiro explains why CNN’s ‘show trial’ won’t play out as gun control advocates think.

QED:

UPDATE: At Hot Air, Allahpundit explores “The very fair and balanced ‘students stand up to evil gun owners’ CNN town hall:”

Think I’m being snarky with the headline? The actual network-approved title of tonight’s event is “Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action.” This is an advocacy event, not a “news program,” and they’re making no bones about it. I did some cursory googling this morning to see if CNN has ever hosted something so overtly biased towards one side’s position on a hot-button issue and came up empty.

It’s the flip-side to 2009, when CNN employed a children’s choir to shill for Obamacare and heckled Tea Party members.

DEVELOPING: US Embassy ‘under attack’ by grenade throwing assailant in Montenegro.

AT AMAZON, save on Herbs Spices and Seasonings.

Plus, deals on Office Supplies.

COMMON-SENSE GUN POLICY: Trump’s solution to school shootings: arm teachers with guns.

IT’S LIKE “THE SHOOTING OF BUCKWHEAT” ALL OVER AGAIN: School board knew of Parkland shooter’s obsession with guns and violence, documents show. “Exclusive documents obtained by Local 10 News show the education plan for school shooter Nikolas Cruz; a plan that left clear signals that should have alerted officials of the danger he posed to the community, according to a former Broward County ESE specialist who reviewed the information at the station’s request. . . . Provenzano said that in 42 years of dealing with exceptional students she never saw a document with such obvious signs that a student might resort to violence.”

WAIT, THAT’S NOT THE NARRATIVE: Shooting Survivors Thank Trump For ‘Leadership.’

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, OUR MORAL GUIDES: “Madison high schools are erupting in chaos. Three high schools in one day, Monday, February 19, over the noon hour.” “Bad enough for the cop on duty to call for reinforcements. Police responded to melees at Madison West, Madison Memorial, and Madison East high schools. From what we can determine, the misbehaving students were not peacefully protesting for gun control, social justice, or better cafeteria food. They were just fighting.”

Plus:

My son said this was a very loud and aggressive happening involving a subset of the student population that he cannot help but notice and comment has also coincidentally been involved in all other altercations (including not just “verbal altercations” but also actual physical assaults and various melees including ones with torn-off hair strewn on the floor and a vast crowd of students teeming at the edges, filled with adrenaline, watching and getting thrills from the witnessing thereof).

… These altercations are seen as the NORM because students engaging in them are coddled and the peaceful majority of students are the real victims— living in constant awareness that for reasons unknown to them and that can and will never make sense to them — West High and the District are engaging in experimental, ill-advised, and dangerous tactics to essentially bend over backwards to not “offend” the OFFENDERS.

My son is also aware of and afraid, as are most students, that at any given moment, the PARENTS of the violent pupils can and HAVE enjoined the fray themselves, coming upon school grounds….

I blame the NRA.

TRUMP BUMP! YOU’D THINK LAW FACULTIES WOULD LIKE HIM BETTER SINCE HE’S SAVING THEM: LSAT Test-Takers Surge 29.7% In December; 19.2% Yearly Rise Would Be Highest In 16 Years.

And no, I’m not kidding.

WELL, HER AND OBAMA: Bernie Sanders blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Exclusive: Not A Single Lawyer Known To Work For Mueller Is A Republican.

THE HILL: Poll: Trump job approval gains as voters warm to tax bill.

OPEN THREAD: Make it a good one!

MICHAEL TOTTEN: The Russian Attack Against America You Didn’t Hear About.

You probably didn’t hear this because few media organizations have even mentioned it, but Russia committed an act of war against the United States a little more than a week ago. No, this is not about more social media and election shenanigans. Russia mounted an armed assault against American soldiers and our allies in Syria, including Kurdish security forces affiliated with the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, at a military base in the city of Deir Ezzor, the largest in eastern Syria. Russian combatants fought alongside Assad regime fighters and Shia militias armed, funded and directed by Iran.

Both the Pentagon and the Kremlin are going out of their way to keep this as quiet as possible. If you only read the New York Times story about the incident on February 13, you’d have to squint and zero in on the subtext. After the United States used air and drone strikes to obliterate incoming assailants, including dozens of Russians, American military spokespeople assured the press in calm tones that there was never any chance that Russian and American forces would clash directly in Deir Ezzor or anywhere else. The Kremlin, for its part, said any Russians who might have participated in the assault were mercenaries unaffiliated with the Russian armed forces.

The problem with the Kremlin statement is that Russian mercenaries in Syria are employed by the Wagner Group, which works for the Russian government, and specifically for Russia’s Ministry of Defense, not for the Syrian or Iranian governments. And the problem with the American statement is that the Pentagon is asking us to assume that dozens of Russians were killed not by the bombs it had just dropped but by somebody else…or perhaps by spontaneous heart attacks or a catastrophic series of vehicle accidents.

Read the whole thing.

FAKE NEWS ABOUT FAKE NEWS: Newsweek: Retracted: How An Alt-Right Bot Network Took Down Al Franken.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

THIS IS WHAT THE ROBOTS WANT YOU TO THINK: We’re told to fear robots. But why do we think they’ll turn on us? The robot uprising is a myth.

Luckily, I’ve got robot insurance from the Old Glory Insurance Company against just such an eventuality.

CHANGE: The tax cut gets more popular even though most Americans still don’t know they’re getting one.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON Trump’s Unlikely Populism.

CAN SOMEONE TELL SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND $133M IS MORE THAN $54.4M? The numbers are significant because the New York Democrat — who is expected to mount a bid for her party’s 2020 presidential nomination — thinks the NRA has a “chokehold” on Congress that blocks gun control.

In fact, as LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst explains, the NRA spent “only” $54.4 million in contributions to, mostly, Republican congressional incumbents and challengers, while Priorities USA, the liberal PAC created and run by two former Obama campaign veterans, spent $133 million on Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton.

Add the spending totals by three other liberal PACs and NRA was outspent in 2016 $393 million to $54.4 million. So tell us Mrs. Gillibrand, how does $54.4 million buy more of a chokehold in the nation’s capitol than $393 million???

THE ABOLITION OF BRITAIN, PART 1,237,324: London Police tell chicken lovers to stop calling them to report the KFC crisis.

(Classical reference in headline.)