PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD, HADRIAN’S WALL EDITION: Roman boxing gloves unearthed by Vindolanda dig.

Experts at Vindolanda, near Hexham, in Northumberland, believe they are “probably the only known surviving examples from the Roman period”.

Dr Andrew Birley, Vindolanda Trust director of excavations, described the leather bands as an “astonishing” find.

The gloves were discovered last summer along with a hoard of writing tablets, swords, shoes and bath clogs.

Made of leather, they were designed to fit snugly over the knuckles and have the appearance of a protective guard.

Dr Birley said: “I have seen representations of Roman boxing gloves depicted on bronze statues, paintings and sculptures, but to have the privilege of finding two real leather examples is exceptionally special.

This is an impressive find, but not as impressive as the last line from the story: “It is understood they would have been used for sparring sessions as they do not have metal inserts used in ancient boxing bouts.”

Ouch.

THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO REPEAL AND REPLACE OBAMACARE: Republicans in Congress failed to repeal and replace Obamacare but President Donald Trump is still searching around the dark corners of the federal bureaucracy to root out as much of President Barack Obama’s “signature achievement” as possible.

One significant area is in allowing people to buy short-term health insurance coverage policies when that’s what they need, rather than being forced by Washington bureaucrats to pay unbelievably high premiums for benefits they don’t need. Obama closed off this option in the waning days of his administration. Now Trump is re-opening it. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is again predicting apocalypse.

IT’S COME TO THIS: CNN knocks on woman’s door, wants to know why she promoted a Russian-organized pro-Trump rally.

And because of the symbiotic relationship of big media and social media, the inevitable occurs:

That’s a mighty weak news hook. But what makes it worse is that CNN chose to name her in its report. (Her name’s not featured in the clip below.) And now, per Jerry Dunleavy, she’s being harassed by lefty trolls because of it.

But of course – the Central Scrutinizers at Time-Warner-CNN-HBO will dox any and all potential customers when they commit doubleplus ungood crimethink.

REMEMBER WHEN “FALLING ON YOUR SWORD” MEANT SOMETHING? Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova is calling for FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign in the wake of multiple revelations that his bureau was warned about Nikolas Cruz but still dropped the ball.

“These 17 young people would be alive today if a bunch of adults had done their jobs. And the fact is, they didn’t,” diGenova said, according to LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby. “You will wait until hell freezes over before he does it. Christopher Wray should be fired. This is an embarrassment. It happened on his watch.”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Five Woke Movies Deemed Not Woke Enough by SJWs.

There’s just no pleasing some people. And what Hollywood doesn’t get (well, what Hollywood doesn’t want to get) is that they’d make better movies if they’d stop trying to please those people.

OBVIOUS #FAKENEWS: Man Joins CrossFit Without Telling Anyone.

DOUBLE TROUBLE: Roger Simon explores How the MSM and Russian Trolls Are Destroying the Democratic Party.

CHRIS QUEEN: Meet the Olympic Athletes Who Probably Don’t Belong There.

VALENTINE’S DAY MEDEVAC DURING TET OFFENSIVE 1968: The helicopters are bringing wounded men to a field hospital near Hue City. A grim photograph.

ANTITRUST UPDATE: Amazon is on its way to becoming the next Standard Oil, amassing inordinate market power to set the terms by which goods are bought and sold in the United States.

Amazon, in just 23 years, has gone from a website offering books at a discount to a behemoth with revenues that now surpass all of America’s department, grocery store and restaurant chains combined. Most worrisome is that the company dominates all e-commerce, which grows five times faster than brick-and-mortar retail, and is going to enter the financial services and healthcare sectors. This is in addition to its recent entertainment ventures and its new entry into the $8 trillion industrial market, providing everything from valves to industrial motors and maintenance supplies.

The company has a market capitalization value of $602 billion, which is, ironically, bigger than was New Jersey’s GDP in 2016.

Heh.

WHY RELYING ON TWITTER IS JUST PLAIN STUPID: Chris Cuomo does it again, this time retweeting a totally bogus claim — without a lick of fact-checking — that some kid bought an AR-15 without valid ID. Twitter busts him on the fact that the same kid admitted he never bought the weapon, and Ben Shapiro adds that:

“When called on it, Cuomo tweeted, “Isn’t the point that the kid’s age and lack of ID wasn’t a deterrent? and this isn’t all gun shops. Place I bought my shotgun basically goes farther than the law requires and makes judgments about whom to sell to. Point is the system should be better.”

Again, we see an alleged journalist whose purported commitment to principles of accuracy are swept aside when there’s advocacy to be made. CNN’s own guidelines say:

“CNN does not try to appeal to a specific point of view or political constituency. To the contrary, the reporters, producers, editors and writers at CNN aim for comprehensive journalism.”

I wonder if he’s actually read this.

THE CRITICAL MINERALS LIST: Compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey. “…a draft list of minerals considered critical to the economic and national security of the United States.”

RELATED: Congo and the corrupt cobalt crisis. (Scroll down to February 10 post.)

BLUE WAVE? Trump rebound has Democrats fretting over midterms.

This one comes from Politico:

House Democrats are heading into the throes of the election haunted by many of the same problems that dogged them in 2016: a Trump-dominated news cycle, a message that’s struggling to break through and sharp divisions within the party about how to fix it.

Now many Democrats say they’re watching nervously as polls start to trend in Republicans’ favor — and worry they’re witnessing the beginning of a slow-motion train wreck that they have no idea how to stop.

There are still widespread disagreements within the diverse 193-member caucus about what campaign message Democrats should rally around in the final months before the midterms and even who should be the party’s chief messenger.

I’m usually loathe to give advice, but if anyone in the Democratic caucus is reading this, please take my suggestion of running against tax cuts and in in favor of radical identity politics.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Event on ‘white supremacy’ organized in response to Shapiro. And they’re really weaselly about it: “‘We do not know whether Ben Shapiro is a white supremacist,’ organizers of the event told Campus Reform. ‘What we know is that we have received an outpouring of support.'”

I don’t know whether the organizers of this event are child molesters, but I do know that Ben Shapiro’s will draw a bigger crowd.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Kill the NRA, Mueller Gets Another One and Much, Much More. “Speaking of RUSSIAN troll farms, according to The New York Post, the RUSSIANS ‘hired two actors in an abortive bid to fake a sex tape of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’.”

Rule 34 always applies, even in presidential politics.

DEEP STATE STASI: When School-Voucher Foes Called in the Feds … and Called the Shots. “It was a prolonged mystery that struck Wisconsin education reformers as more akin to a Kafka novel than American due process: Who was behind cryptic demand letters sent under the aegis of the Obama Justice Department, intimating without specific evidence that Milwaukee’s school-choice program was illegally discriminating against disabled kids? Now, after a six-year bureaucratic and legal tangle in which school voucher advocates said they were stonewalled by Washington, the mystery has been solved. And the answer, they say, is alarming: The federal operation was sparked and practically run behind the scenes by liberal opponents of the program.”

RICH LOWRY: THE RUSSIANS DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO US THAT WE WEREN’T ALREADY DOING TO OURSELVES: “The larger goal was to sow discord, yet we had already primed ourselves for plenty of that. Does anyone believe, absent Russian trolls on Twitter and Facebook, that we were headed to a placid election season involving an incendiary, mediagenic former reality TV star bent on blowing up the political establishment and a longtime pol who had stoked the enmity of Republicans for 30 years and was under FBI investigation?”

The Russians didn’t make Hillary skip Wisconsin, and they didn’t make her stage a late, and grudging, concession.

MORE THAN CRUMBS: Heckler confronts Pelosi over her wealth: ‘How much are you worth, Nancy?’

BILLY GRAHAM HAS DIED, at 99.

He, my dad, and Richard Nixon had an episode together, which you can read about here.

BYRON YORK: Devin Nunes’ 10 questions about the Trump dossier.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes has sent a series of questions about the Trump dossier to a number of current and former government officials. The committee did not specify to whom Nunes sent the questions, but a spokesman said the letter has gone to more than 20 recipients.

The questions concern when the recipients first became aware of “the information contained in the Steele dossier,” referring to the compilation of anti-Trump allegations compiled during the 2016 campaign by former British spy Christopher Steele. The letter asks who the recipients may have shared dossier information with. They ask when the recipient first learned that the dossier was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. They ask when President Obama was made aware of the information in the dossier. And more.

Interesting.

IT’S IN A COUNTRY WESTERNERS DON’T CARE ABOUT, AND IT MAKES MUSLIMS LOOK BAD, SO IT’S NOT GOING TO BE A STORY: A Slaughter In Nigeria Goes Unreported.. “One attack took place in broad daylight, as people were about to go to church. The assailants chased and killed the villagers and burned down nine churches and many more houses.”

CHANGE: Dems fume as Trump pushes low-cost, ObamaCare alternative health plans.

The proposed regulations would allow insurers to sell individual consumers “short-term” policies that can last up to 12 months, have fewer benefits, and come with lower premiums.

The plans also would come with a disclaimer that they don’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protection requirements, such as guaranteed coverage. Insurers could also charge consumers more if an individual’s medical history discloses health problems.

But at a time of rising premiums, Trump administration officials touted the option as a boost for those who need coverage but don’t qualify for the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies and would otherwise face paying the full premium cost.

“We need to be opening up more affordable alternatives,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters. “It’s one step in the direction of providing Americans with alternatives that are both more affordable and more suited to individual and family circumstances.”

Good.