ROGER SIMON: Can Rand Paul Save the Senate?

Every day in every way I like Rand Paul better. He gives libertarianism a good name by standing for something, unlike almost all his colleagues, right and left.

Just the other day he stood up to the tedious hyper-partisanship of ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Tuesday he weighed in, to great effect, on the impeachment issue, although I suspect it wasn’t just his impassioned and eloquent speech, a point of order actually, that swung 45 Republican senators to his side.

The Kentucky senator pointed out the obvious, calling the Democrats’ second impeachment charade utterly unconstitutional and forcing the one hundred lawmakers to stand up and be counted on the question.

The result was 45 out of 50 Republican senators—whether reluctantly or not we will never know—agreed with him, making the coming trial moot (the two-thirds necessary for conviction nearly impossible) and most likely an embarrassment to the politically bloodthirsty Democrats and their addled president who keeps telling us he wants to bring us together.

But, as I mentioned, something else was going on.

As important, possibly more, was the new poll Rasmussen took for John Solomon’s Just the News of an imaginary 2024 presidential election. It’s ridiculously early, of course, but it showed Donald Trump’s as yet nonexistent Patriot party garnering 23 percent of the vote to the Republicans 17 percent. (The Democrats were at 46% with “other”—whatever that is— winning 14 percent, barely trailing the Republicans.)

This wasn’t really surprising—not to me and probably not to most of you—but it apparently was to a group of seemingly-clueless Republican senators who only a few days ago registered the possibility that they might vote to convict a president of their own party who was not even still in office.

The poll must have scared the proverbial bejesus out of them. Anyway it should have.

So we won’t forget the original Republican reprobates, they were, according to a Jan. 25, 2021 report here at The Epoch Times:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah)

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska)

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.)

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.)

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)

How quickly things change. After Tuesday’s vote, sixteen were reduced to five in a flash!

Only Collins and Murkowski (perpetual outsiders), Toomey (not running for reelection), Sasse (looking for QAnon under every rock) and, of course, Romney remain. Call them The Five (not to be confused with Greg Gutfeld et. al.).

We needn’t belabor that only a day or so ago newly-ensconced minority leader McConnell was touting the inevitability of a trial he just voted against as unconstitutional. How embarrassing.

Another list exists at the same Epoch Times article of those whose leanings we did not know, at least yesterday. Today, of course, we can assume that are all squarely in Trump’s camp.

Whether it was Rand Paul or Rasmussen that finally woke those people up is ultimately irrelevant.

What is relevant is how few of them stood up for Donald Trump during what we might call “crunch time,” when he needed them to support Sens. Hawley and Cruz in their attempt to get a measly ten-day period with which to study the allegations of election fraud to see if they amounted to anything.

As Ed Morrissey wrote yesterday, Rand Paul can’t derail the Senate trial, but he “can take all of the suspense out of it” – and did just that.

MUST NOT BUT STILL MIGHT: Biden must not remove Huawei from the entities list.

Nominated by President Biden to serve as commerce secretary, Raimondo was asked by Sen. Ted Cruz whether she would commit to keeping Huawei on the so-called entities list. That trade blacklist bans U.S. commercial dealings with those on it. Huawei was added to the list under the Trump administration. Unfortunately, Raimondo pledged only to consult with Cruz and the Senate on the question of Huawei’s future status.

Raimondo might be acting under explicit instructions from the White House not to offer any China commitments, but the former Rhode Island governor’s response is ridiculous regardless. Huawei’s status should have been an easy answer for the Biden administration.

Not good.

HMM: Mouse study: Gabapentin prevents harmful structural changes in spinal cord. “Research led by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine found that the widely prescribed pain-relief drug gabapentin can prevent harmful structural changes in the injured spinal cords of mice, and also block cardiovascular changes and immune suppression caused by spinal cord injury.”

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Nancy Pelosi: Inside Trader. “If you wonder which businesses Democrats intend to favor, one easy answer is to look at what companies Nancy Pelosi is investing in.”

“THIS JUST IN:” Woman goes viral after appearing on TV with dildo behind her.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: New Research Debunks Claim That a $15 Minimum Wage Would Not Reduce Employment.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Occupation Of Washington Is Pure Panic Porn — And You Are The Target.

UNITY: Gabbard Sounds the Alarm: Leftists Are Plotting ‘KGB-Style Surveillance’ of Conservatives.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE. DON’T YOU BELIEVE IN SCIENCE? CDC: COVID-19 spread in schools much lower than in rest of community.

THEY’LL HAVE HIM DO A BUNCH OF UNPOPULAR STUFF, THEN REPLACE HIM WITH KAMALA: Biden Becoming Less Popular With Likely Voters Every Day—and So Are His Policies. “Biden’s first Daily Presidential Tracking Poll put him into negative approval territory at -2. It has gotten worse. On Monday, he dropped to -4. Tuesday, he moved down again to -5. This trend is quite a feat. President Trump started at +2 and rose to +13 in the first days of his presidency.”

In his last daily tracking poll, Trump was at +3.

TYLENOL’S FINE, BUT NSAIDS ARE NOT: Avoid preventive pain relievers before getting a COVID vaccine. “The side effects from the vaccines are caused by activation of the immune system, meaning that the immune system is working and starting to build immunity to COVID-19 — this is what we want. These pain relievers are anti-inflammatory medications. They prevent parts of the immune system from working and slow down the immune response.”

This may — it’s speculation, not research at this point — reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine by blunting the immune response.

POINTS AND FIGURES: The GameStop ($GME) Saga.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: China Virus, China Virus, China Virus.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: When is a virus from China not a China virus?

Answer: When CCP Joe tells you so, prole.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• It turns out 1984 was an instruction manual after all
• Florida teachers party on the beach while teachers union fights re-opening
• BBC gueat reveals way too much on air

Bonus Sanity: Big Tech (finally) comes out in favor of decoupling.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

NEW YORK TIMES WRITER ARRESTED AS SECRET IRAN AGENT ACKNOWLEDGES HE WAS PAID BY IRANIAN GOVERNMENT.

A New York Times spokesperson did not respond to a query about whether the newspaper, which according to a search on its website Monday morning had not yet covered the federal criminal complaint against [Kaveh] Afrasiabi, plans to tell its readers about the situation. The spokesperson also did not respond to a question about whether the newspaper plans to publish an editor’s note indicating that the opinion pieces came from someone who was getting paid by the Iranian government.

Afrasiabi said the payments from the Iranian government — about $265,000 since 2007, plus health insurance coverage, federal prosecutors alleged — had not swayed his writing. “At no point in my professional career, I have been moved by anything other than my rather puritanical moral responsibility as an intellectual,” he said.

No word yet if Afrasiabi serves as a guide for one of the Gray Lady’s favorite tourist destinations.

ICYMI: A Short History Of How Anthony Fauci Has Kept Failing Up Since 1984.

JAMES LILEKS ON CLAIRE BERLINSKI VERSUS TED CRUZ:

Context: Cruz slammed the POTUS for rejoining the Paris Peace accords, said he cared more about the people of Paris than Pittsburgh.

* * * * * * * *

She’s right about Paris being the seat of arts and culture Paris is beautiful, but its beauty is an artifact of its past.

I know Paris has it all over most American cities in terms of beauty and urban wonderment, if you’re into centralized homogeneity or order — and I am, when it works as well as Haussmann’s Paris, but no one could ever do it again. The old standards of humane beauty and grace were tossed over for the usual post-war anti-human monstrosities, and this extended to all the other arts as well. So you have a culture incapable of creating a certain kind of beauty pronouncing themselves more enlightened because they have come up with some that fails to equal it on every possible level.

Read the whole thing.

JOANNE JACOBS: Why Johnny can’t read any more. “For parents who rely on public schools to teach reading, the Covid lockdown has been a ‘wrecking ball,’ writes Carr. ‘Most children with severe reading difficulties need individual or small-group instruction to improve.’ Few parents have the specialized training to teach dyslexic children at home.”

THIS SAYS IT ALL: Biden’s Top Scientist is a Sociologist Specializing in “Social Inequality.” But on the other hand, a “historian of race and health” is quoted as calling it “an inspired choice.”

THE CAMPAIGN TO STAMP OUT ACADEMIC HERESY. These anti-intellectual campaigns are killing research. (So much for “science!”) Of course, as Glenn’s post below about Tom Cotton and Newsweek demonstrates, history’s on the block too.

TOURISM: Axiom names first private crew paying $55 million for a trip to the ISS.

ARE YOU NOW, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A MEMBER OF PARLER? Agent Fired from Literary Agency for Using Parler and Gab.

The president of a literary agency based in New York City said Monday on Twitter that one of the agency’s employees was terminated after her use of conservative social media sites Parler and Gab was discovered.

Colleen Oefelein, who identified herself on Twitter as an associate literary agent with the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, appeared to confirm her termination in a tweet on Monday morning.

“Well thanks Twitter and @JDLitAgency,” Oefelein wrote. “I just got fired because I’m a Christian and a conservative.”

Why, it’s as if 50 years of Hollywood blacklist movies were all suddenly made obsolete: “For decades, Hollywood and the media were obsessed to the point of self-obsession with ensuring this could never happen again, that Americans could never again have their free speech rights destroyed by private companies. Well, what a difference a few years makes. If you take even a cursory look around, you will now find Hollywood and the national media making arguments in defense of the 1950s Hollywood blacklist.”

BYRON YORK: The Revolution Devours All Before It.

The latest enactment of that old truth happened Tuesday night in, of all places, a Zoom meeting of the San Francisco School Board. In that meeting, members voted to strip the names of American historical figures — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and even California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein — from schools in San Francisco.

What began in recent years as a call to remove the names of Confederate leaders from schools, roads, and military bases, and then to tear down Confederate statues, has now moved on to target all of American history.

* * * * * * * *

Of course they would not stop with Confederate generals. Of course they would not stop with George Washington. And they won’t stop with a liberal Democrat like Dianne Feinstein, of all people. The revolution continues to devour all before it.

Power up your two-way telescreen, enjoy the benefits of the new chocolate ration, and read the whole thing, comrade.

GREAT MOMENTS IN PROJECTION: MSNBC Goes Full Nazi in New Ad: It’s Like These Conservatives ‘Just Following Orders.’

MSNBC went full Nazi in a new ad, bizarrely linking conservatives Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy to the Third Reich. The spot promoting host Lawrence O’Donnell began with text reading, “Straight to the heart of moral corruption.”

Then, the liberal host lectured, “’We were just following orders’ is a statement that is indelibly etched in our consciences as what we should never become. We are following orders is now and always has been the last line of defense for the indefensible here and around the world.” During his commentary, pictures of Iran-Contra figure North, as well as Watergate’s Liddy appeared on-screen. That shifted to images of actual Nazis during the Nuremberg trials.

Just imagine if Fox News ran a spot comparing Stalin-era communists to Democratic operatives or politicians. What, exactly, to Liddy and North have to do with the actual Nazis? That these two were following orders connected to their respective scandals makes them like… Nuremberg trial Nazis? And what does any of this have to do with 2021 Republicans?

It’s all pretty rich coming from a network that believes your children are not your own, has a weekly show hosted by a legendary anti-Semite, and has another host who famously said:

“I am not a progressive. I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the extreme left of you mere liberals, okay.”

— Lawrence O’Donnell, November 5^th, 2010.

DECOUPLING: India to impose permanent ban on 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok

CHANGE: Firing tenured faculty in Kansas just got easier.