SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Conditions Treated With Cannabis Often Lack Good Evidence. “Many conditions that are considered qualifying conditions for cannabis use under state laws have no or insufficient evidence of efficacy, and some have evidence of inefficacy, according to an analysis published online February 4 in Health Affairs. Such conditions include dementia, glaucoma, hepatitis C, cachexia, irritable bowel disease, and numerous others.”

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update.

“WHY IS HE TALKING OVER A BLACK WOMAN?” Some Democrats Are Mad at Bernie Sanders for Daring to Give SOTU Rebuttal—After Stacey Abrams Gives Hers. “For each of the last three years, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has delivered his own response to President Trump’s State of the Union speech. Tonight he will do the same. But this year, some Democrats have a problem with it. That’s because the party chose Stacey Abrams, who recently lost her bid for governor of Georgia, to deliver the official Democratic response.”

My fave lefty take: “We already have to listen to one old white male traitor advance the Kremlin’s interests, we don’t need two.”

2020 is going to be lit.

LAWFARE: Wasserman Schultz Vows to Take a Trump National Emergency to Court. “Military construction subcommittee chairwoman says ‘the president would deprive and starve the members of our military if he takes this act’.”

HMM: It’s not that sporty, but it is rather good—the 2019 Lexus ES350 F Sport.

VIRGINIA CLOWN SHOW UPDATE: “Fairfax softens on claiming Northam is behind the sexual assault claims, but hints in second gaggle that Richmond mayor [Levar Stoney] — his would-be rival for governor in ’21 — had a role.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan Last explores “The Awful Game Theory Behind Ralph Northam,” and asks, what incentive does he have to resign? “History shows he might be better off staying the course.”

Jim Geraghty adds that “The Virginia GOP is in no rush to remove the Democrats’ albatross. And state legislative Dems who called for Northam’s resignation may not want to spend weeks or months on a nasty impeachment battle.”

SAFETY: One School District’s Security Upgrade: Facial Recognition, Tracking IDs and AR-15s.

The school district here uses a facial recognition system to scan for people not allowed on school grounds. IDs track the whereabouts of students and staff. Teachers have cellphone panic buttons to alert police and soon will have special locks on classroom doors that can be activated remotely. A newly expanded security team keeps 22 AR-15 rifles in their offices.

The district has spent $6.3 million in eight months on these and other security measures to keep students safe from potential shooters.

“My philosophy is you fight fire with fire,” said Mike Matranga, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who was hired as head of security for the school district and is leading these changes.

Broward County, take note.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD, THE MUSICAL-HISTORY VERSION: Historians irked by musical ‘Hamilton’ mounting a counter-attack play.

Ever since the historical musical “Hamilton” began its march to near-universal infatuation, one group has noticeable withheld its applause — historians. Many academics argue the stage musical portrait of Alexander Hamilton, the star of our $10 bills, is a counterfeit. Now they’re escalating their fight.

Ishmael Reed, who has been nominated twice for a National Book Award, has chosen to fight fire with fire — collecting his critique of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed show into a play. . . .

Reed, whose play had a recent reading in New York and who is raising money for a four-week production in May, is part of a wave of “Hamilton” skeptics — often solitary voices of dissent amid a wall of fawning attention — who have written journal articles, newspaper op-eds and a 2018 collection of essays, “Historians on Hamilton.”

Miranda’s glowing portrayal of a Hamilton who celebrates open borders — “Immigrants, we get the job done!” — and who denounces slavery has incensed everyone from professors at Harvard to the University of Houston to Rutgers.

They argue that Miranda got Hamilton all wrong — the Founding Father wasn’t progressive at all, his actual role as a slave owner has been whitewashed and the pro-immigrant figure onstage hides the fact that he was, in fact, an anti-immigration elitist.

“It’s a fictional rewrite of Hamilton. You can’t pick the history facts that you want,” said Nancy Isenberg , a professor of American history at Louisiana State University who has written a biography of Aaron Burr and is the author of “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.”

I wish them luck, but as Martin Luther commented, the Devil has all the good tunes.

SPY SATELLITES ARE FOR EVERYONE NOW: How Small Satellites Will Help Police Earth’s Vast Oceans. “Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing nets up to 26 million tons of fish each year, which adds up to almost a quarter the profits of legal fishing. Powered by a shadow fleet, this multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise hurts legit fishermen and wreaks environmental havoc through overfishing. The vastness of Earth’s open waters allow such a black market to thrive. But in a world increasingly surveilled by satellites in low-Earth orbit, technology is making a once impossible mission a little less impossible.”

Back this up with a letter-of-marque type system and you’ll put an end to the practice pronto.

SPENGLER: Netflix as death cult. “A well-informed friend explains why Netflix hopes to be the dominant power in entertainment: The culture has changed so radically that no-one can watch an old-fashioned film again. After Buster Scruggs, who can watch John Ford? The film libraries of MGM, Disney and Fox will become worthless, the remnants of the old world of misogyny, racism, imperialism and—even worse—optimism. Netflix hopes to capture the cultural shift and become the main purveyor of entertainment that appeals to the new morbidity.”

THE LEFT’S INSTINCT TO SHUN IS ONE OF ITS LAMEST FEATURES: High School Students Disqualified From Debate After Quoting Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson. “The other team, during the cross-examination section of the debate, said Moreno and his partner could not talk about fairness because they were ‘white males’.” This was in Utah. What has happened to Utah?

HMM: Senate votes to keep troops in Syria, Afghanistan.

Senators reportedly sided with Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sponsored the amendment, and voted 70-26 in favor of keeping US forces in both countries.

The Kentucky lawmaker believes ISIS and al Qaeda militants should still be considered a threat, and he’s worried that “a precipitous withdrawal” may only bolster their efforts.

“I’ve been clear about my own views on these subjects,” McConnell told reporters last week after the Senate pushed his amendment through.

“ISIS and al Qaeda have yet to be defeated,” he said. “Withdrawal of the United States forces from the ongoing fight against these groups . . . could allow terrorists to regroup, destabilize critical regions, and create vacuums that could be filled by Iran or Russia, to the detriment of United States’ interests and those of our allies.”

President Trump announced in December that he would be pulling troops out of Syria, saying ISIS “has been defeated.” Reports later emerged saying he would be removing roughly half of the 14,000 US forces stationed in Afghanistan, though sources noted how there were no set plans in the works.

Sen. Rand Paul, a fellow Kentucky Republican, blasted McConnell’s amendment on Monday evening after the vote — accusing him and other senators of forming a “war caucus.”

It feels more like an inertia caucus.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Runner kills mountain lion that attacked him on Colorado trail. “In the event of a lion attack, you need to do anything in your power to fight back, just as this gentleman did.”

Though apparently he somehow suffocated the mountain lion, rather than just punching it.

“ONE WORD: PLASTICS”: One this day in 1909, Belgian-born Leo Baekeland announced the invention of Bakelite at a meeting of the New York Section of the American Chemical Society, thus beginning the Age of Plastics. Bakelite was the first plastic to retain its shape at high temperatures. It was used for telephones, auto parts, electrical appliances and lots of colorful jewelry.

LINDSEY 2.0: Sen. Graham Predicts GOP ‘War’ if Trump Tries to ‘Go It Alone’ on Border Wall. “Graham urged his Republican colleagues to ‘get behind the president’.”

YOUR IDEAS ARE INTRIGUING TO ME, AND I WISH TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER:

● Shot: Democrat Patty Murray blocks Senate bill banning infanticide after failed abortions…After Murray objected to the bill, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-IA, lamented on the Senate floor that this body “can no longer unanimously condemn murder.”

—Life Site News, yesterday.

● Chaser: “What did Patty Murray actually say? According to the [Vancouver, WA] Columbian, she said that Osama bin Laden has ‘been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. . . . How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?’”

—“Inept but Entitled to Her Say,” Washington Post editorial, December 25, 2002.

“Murray didn’t do her fellow Democrats any favors [yesterday],” Ed Morrissey writes. “I assume the bill will now come up for a floor vote and roll call. That puts every Democrat on the spot since they’ll have to on record with a choice to either anger the hard left base or endorse killing infants. Good luck with that one.”

BRYAN PRESTON: New Democrat Abortion Bills Reveal the Truth About the Hardcore ‘Pro-Choice’ Movement. “Margaret Sanger would be very proud of today’s Democratic Party.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Pentagon Releases RFP for ‘Optionally Manned’ Bradley Replacement.

I have far fewer concerns about fully autonomous vehicles which are supposed to kill people and break things on purpose… or is that exactly what SkyNet wants me to think?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UC-Irvine cites ‘security threat’ to disrupt Dennis Prager event, College Republicans claim.

Related:

OUT: “If you hear nothing else from me, hear this: I pledge to you that I will stay with the Libertarian Party for life.”

IN: Report: Bill Weld Registers Republican To Primary Trump. It’s a grift, at this point.

IT JUST GETS BETTER: REPORT: Fairfax Accuser Hires Blasey Ford Legal Team, Considering ‘Next Steps.’ Though it’s not as if Christine Blasey Ford’s legal team covered itself in glory last time.

“ASSIMILATION” IS A DIRTY WORD: The outraged reaction Tom Brokaw got to his suggestion that Hispanic immigrants should work to assimilate into mainstream American culture was predictable. Alas, the federal government’s official policies have helped create our current anti-assimilationist culture. Here’s just one example.

ARTISTS, ON THE WHOLE, ARE POLITICAL NAIFS/USEFUL IDIOTS/FELLOW TRAVELERS: Latin Artists Continue to Stand With Venezuela.