THE USUAL SUSPECTS: Six Republicans Join Democrats in Ruling Trump Impeachment Trial Constitutional.

FROM: C. R. Chancy: A Net of Dawn and Bones

Blood rituals, black magic, and broken masquerades. Names to run away from really fast. And maybe the end of the world….
Welcome to Intrepid, North Carolina. Where autumn brings leaf season, tourists, and bloody sacrifice.
Twenty years have passed since the Dark Day brought creatures of horror onto the evening news. Now vampires run nightclubs, alchemists deal potions on the street corners, and werewolf gangs lay claim to shady alleys. The honest cops of Intrepid enforce human laws on supernatural evil, and pray. Because the turn of the leaves brings Halloween, tourists… and the return of a serial killer who’s plagued Intrepid for over two decades.
Yet the night holds darker secrets than even the best detectives have unearthed. Somewhere in Intrepid, a demonic sorcerer plans to bring Hell on earth. And the Demongate is almost complete.
In the midst of a stakeout gone wrong, two mysterious wanderers drop into Detective Church’s life. Aidan, who moves like flames and holds secrets in his shadows… and Myrrh, a holy warrior born of ancient Alexandria. Enchantress. Heretic. Hell-raider.
Welcome to Intrepid.
Evil’s in for a hell of a night….

WHEN THE SUPPLIERS DON’T CARE WHAT THE DEMAND IS, IT MEANS THEY’VE CUT OFF FEEDBACK:  Corrupted Markets.

In industries they’re ruinous. In governments? They’re deadly.

IF AT FIRST IT’S DISASTROUS, KEEP DOING IT:  Biden Administration: Rejoin UN Human Rights Council.

MAYBE I’M THE ONLY PERSON UNDER SIXTY WHO SQUEES AT THIS:  Concordance to Cordwainer Smith.

WHY SHOULD THEY GET TO FUNCTION?  ICE Not Allowed To Deport Criminals.

Also, we know we deport Zhou Bai Den and Commie LaWhorish to China.
What to do with Pelosi becomes a problem, though. I don’t even know where the border to hell is, so how do we repatriate her?

I INVITE THE SPCL TO GAZE LOVINGLY ON MY MIDDLE FINGERS:  Today’s blacklisted Americans: All Republicans who questioned the November election count.

BIDEN WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO HELP THEM GET THERE EARLIER:  IDF intelligence: Iran at least two years from nuclear bomb.

WE’VE NOTICED:  Lee Smith: The American Elite’s Primary Allegiance Is No Longer to America, But to the Communist Party of China, That Makes Them Rich and Keeps Them In Power.

PEARL MILLING COMPANY?  Aunt Jemima breakfast brand renamed Pearl Milling Company.

Really makes you want to slather it on your hotcakes, doesn’t it?

SOURCE UNKNOWN BUT I AM SURE IT ISN’T CHINA. NOT: Washington hospitals pulling fake N95 masks off shelves: ‘We’re horrified’.

YOU’LL STILL NEED SOMEBODY TO GIVE YOU THE SHOTS: COVID-19 vaccine drone delivery being developed.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO?  Drinking more coffee lowers heart failure risk, study shows.

OH, DEAR LORD:  Michelle Obama launching Netflix cooking show ‘Waffles + Mochi’.

JOURNALISM TODAY IS BY AND FOR MEAN GIRLS:

OPEN THREAD: Make your mark.

LEE SMITH: The Thirty Tyrants.

In 1978, as the newly elected mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein befriended Jiang Zemin, then the mayor of Shanghai and eventually president of China. As mayor of America’s tech epicenter, her ties to China helped the growing sector attract Chinese investment and made the state the world’s third-largest economy. Her alliance with Jiang also helped make her investor husband, Richard Blum, a wealthy man. As senator, she pushed for permanent MFN trade status for China by rationalizing China’s human rights violations, while her friend Jiang consolidated his power and became the Communist Party’s general secretary by sending tanks into Tiananmen Square. Feinstein defended him. “China had no local police,” Feinstein said that Jiang had told her. “Hence the tanks,” the senator from California reassuringly explained. “But that’s the past. One learns from the past. You don’t repeat it. I think China has learned a lesson.”

Yet the past actually should have told Feinstein’s audience in Washington a different story. The United States didn’t trade with Moscow or allow Russians to make large campaign donations or enter into business partnerships with their spouses. Cold War American leadership understood that such practices would have opened the door to Moscow and allowed it to directly influence American politics and society in dangerous ways. Manufacturing our goods in their factories or allowing them to buy ours and ship them overseas would’ve made technology and intellectual property vulnerable.

But it wasn’t just about jeopardizing national security; it was also about exposing America to a system contradictory to American values. Throughout the period, America defined itself in opposition to how we conceived of the Soviets. Ronald Reagan was thought crass for referring to the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire,” but trade and foreign policy from the end of WWII to 1990 reflected that this was a consensus position—Cold War American leadership didn’t want the country coupled to a one-party authoritarian state.

The industrialist Armand Hammer was famous because he was the American doing business with Moscow. His perspective was useful not because of his unique insights into Soviet society, politics, and business culture that he often shared with the American media, but because it was understood that he was presenting the views that the politburo wanted disseminated to an American audience. Today, America has thousands of Armand Hammers, all making the case for the source of their wealth, prestige, and power.

It started with Bill Clinton’s 1994 decision to decouple human rights from trade status. He’d entered the White House promising to focus on human rights, in contrast to the George H.W. Bush administration, and after two years in office made an about face. “We need to place our relationship into a larger and more productive framework,” Clinton said. American human rights groups and labor unions were appalled. Clinton’s decision sent a clear message, said then AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, “no matter what America says about democracy and human rights, in the final analysis profits, not people, matter most.” Some Democrats, like then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, were opposed, while Republicans like John McCain supported Clinton’s move. The head of Clinton’s National Economic Council, Robert E. Rubin, predicted that China “will become an ever larger and more important trading partner.”

More than two decades later, the number of American industries and companies that lobbied against Trump administration measures attempting to decouple Chinese technology from its American counterparts is a staggering measure of how closely two rival systems that claim to stand for opposing sets of values and practices have been integrated. Companies like Ford, FedEx, and Honeywell, as well as Qualcomm and other semiconductor manufacturers that fought to continue selling chips to Huawei, all exist with one leg in America and the other leg planted firmly in America’s chief geopolitical rival. To protect both halves of their business, they soft-sell the issue by calling China a competitor in order to obscure their role in boosting a dangerous rival.

Read the whole thing. Found via Ace of Spades, who has clips of Smith’s appearance discussing his article with Tucker Carlson.

Related: Since Smith mentions Thomas Friedman of the New York Times early in his article, “Tom Friedman’s Warped Love Affair with Communist China” is still very much ongoing.

I’LL BET A LOT OF REPORTERS KNEW, TOO. Report: Lincoln Project Knew of Weaver Allegations Months Before New York Times Story.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE AND THE MEMORY HOLE: School drops Winston Churchill and JK Rowling from house names.

RULE OF LAW: Texas Judge Blocks Biden’s Deportation Freeze for Two More Weeks. “A federal judge in Texas extended the suspension of President Joe Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations until Feb. 23. U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton in the Southern District of Texas on Tuesday ruled that the federal government cannot make immigration enforcement changes without consulting Texas. As a result, he extended the temporary restraining order by another 14 days, asserting that the state of Texas would face more harm than the federal government if the extension wasn’t granted.”

SPACE: This new map of ice on Mars could guide future astronauts. Lots of promising base locations.

TAMPA MAYOR TO HUNT DOWN MASKLESS SUPER BOWL ATTENDEES:

With their recent Super Bowl win, residents of Tampa, Florida, have cause to celebrate right now. But not everyone.

“I’m proud to say that the majority of individuals that I saw out and about enjoying the festivities…were complying,” Mayor Jane Castor, a Democrat, told reporters at a press conference on Monday, referring to the mask directive she put in place before Sunday’s big event. “But those few bad actors will be identified, and the Tampa Police Department will handle it.”

* * * * * * * *

When it comes to Castor’s enforcement, there are many unanswered questions. Foremost, it is unclear whether or not police will apply mercy to someone pictured without a mask who, say, was drinking or eating, as is customary at Super Bowl events. That would include Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Presumably, Castor will be turning herself in as well:

OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL SOON BE OVER: Aunt Jemima brand to be renamed Pearl Milling Company with new syrup, pancake boxes coming in June.

RIP: Mary Wilson, Founding Member Of The Supremes, Dies At 76.

WELL, GOOD: Antiviral medication works against coronavirus in the lab. Of course, we could deploy Ivermectin much faster.