NEWS YOU CAN USE: Wine with meals may lower Type 2 diabetes risk, study finds.

JUST SAY NO: The Lincoln Project’s Favorite Lawn Gnome Rick Wilson Wants US Warplanes Sent to Ukraine.

ROLLING STONE HARDEST HIT: Supreme Court reinstates death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

THIS IS PRETTY MUCH THE THESIS OF BEN BARTON’S NEW BOOK: “But what if we could find the 9 biggest brains in the law field and make a Supreme Court out of them? We might discover they make terrible Justices.” He thinks we should have justices with more diverse backgrounds and more life experience. I think he’s right.

His book is The Credentialed Court: Inside the Cloistered, Elite World of American Justice. It ships in four days.

THE REAL GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA™ SPEAKS: You Won’t Believe What Stacey Abrams Compared to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.

YEP: Zelensky is wrecking the bare-chested Putin propaganda. Among other things.

EMBRACE BOURGEOIS VALUES, ENJOY BOURGEOIS OUTCOMES:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: Bourgeois is the new transgressive.

AFTER TEN DAYS ON THE WAITLIST, THEY ACTIVATED MY ACCOUNT: Trump’s Truth Social Finally Is Up and Running, But What’s There to Do?

STILL POPULAR: CQR Men’s Tactical Pants, Water Repellent Ripstop Cargo Pants. #CommissionEarned

HMM: Zuckerbucks declared ‘bribery’ by special counsel in Wisconsin.

JOEL KOTKIN: The limits of libertarianism: Free marketers need to stop defending oppressive monopoly power. Especially since that oppressive monopoly power exists in cooperation with government power.

ANTI-RACISM APPARENTLY MEANS ERASING ALL IMAGES OF MINORITIES: Marquette honors Native Americans by removing Native American from school seal.

THOUGHTCRIME: He’s a ‘right-wing news source’: Student government blocks conservative nominee from leadership position.

BIDEN LIES. A LOT: ‘Full of Sh**!’: Border Patrol Agents Blast Biden over Immigration Claims.

GOOD: Iowa Bans Biological Males From Women’s Sports.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Joe Biden is in denial: Americans have lost faith in his leadership. But he shows no desire to win them back.

UPDATE: From a friend: “This is what happens when you order a President through the mail.”

HMM: Lindsey Graham: Maybe you Russians should take out your maniacal dictator.

Seth Barrett Tillman: “After the assassination of Julius Caesar … you do know what came next?”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Fire at Ukraine Nuclear Plant After Russian Shelling. “Early reports say it appears that Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting for control of the facility. It is estimated to provide power to 25% of Ukraine. Taking the plant offline because of the emergency could cripple Ukraine’s response to Russia’s military advance. Reuters is reporting that Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed the fire and said, ‘If it blows up, it will be ten times larger than Chornobyl! Russians must IMMEDIATELY cease the fire, allow firefighters, establish a security zone!'”

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: The world’s weak leadership isn’t up to the Ukraine crisis.

TO BE FAIR, ANY MOVE INVOLVING KAMALA IS EITHER DISASTROUS, OR LAUGHABLE: Biden White House on the Verge of Making Disastrous Move with Kamala Harris. “Bench this woman, please. For the sake of our intelligence and human civilization, just put her back into the cardboard box from whence she came. She has failed on the border. She failed in boosting COVID vaccination rates. Harris is a walking failure, who bleeds staff and fosters a toxic work environment. She doesn’t do the work and she doesn’t read the briefings her staff prepare for her, so she doesn’t look like an idiot. She botched the talking points about the sanctions slapped against Russia in the aftermath of their invasion of Ukraine. And now, the White House wants to send her to Poland? Does she even know where that is on the map?”

Plus: “Also, let’s just be frank here. Biden can’t go on this trip because he can’t do it. He’s too old, slow, and stupid. He might fall down the stairs for all to see. He could have a diarrhea of the mouth incident in front of the foreign press there, which could lead to missiles being launched. He already struggles with the softball questions from the White House press corps here. These people are going to get us all killed.”

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS IN REMISSION: Russia Involved in Plot To Help Iran Bust US Oil Sanctions. “The two tankers, named the Pegas and Linda, were recently sanctioned as part of U.S. efforts to isolate Russian businesses over the Ukrainian invasion. It has now become apparent that the two ships have been ferrying illicit Iranian crude oil in recent months, a move experts see as a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions and signal an increase in Tehran-Moscow relations.”

IT’S NOT SO MUCH INEXPLICABLE AS INEXCUSABLE: Rex Murphy: Trudeau’s inexplicable use of the Emergencies Act must not be forgotten.

The government conceived of the “Bouncy Castles Revolt,” as the insurrection will be known in future histories, as a perfect cauldron of hate. Justin Trudeau, on Feb. 1, recorded in a tweet that, “Today in the House, Members of Parliament unanimously condemned the antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia that we’ve seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days.”

That’s a whole lot of phobias, almost the entire basket, for even a large convoy. And diversified by antisemitism and racism, by the judgment of the prime minister and his cabinet seneschals, it was probably the most threatening congregation of civic vice this country has ever known. It was to the deep thinkers in Ottawa almost an anti-Woodstock. (Minus the folk singers, which was a good thing.)

Of course even as this juggernaut of hate was barrelling across the country, the House of Commons was in recess. Which has been its abiding state these past two years. The Parliament of Canada has become somewhat “optional” these days, a kind of token add-on. Something not essential to the functioning of our democracy, but there just for the odd touch of comfort, or as an intermittent luxury.

Like when you buy a car, and for a few extra bucks the dealer can offer seat-warmers and a sunroof. (My personal favourite would be really flashy wheel rims.)

So it came to be that when Parliament was in its now-customary hibernation, that the Emergencies Act was summoned into its existence and all sorts of powers invoked — not least the deep reach into the bank accounts of the “saboteurs” and “insurrectionists” rolling into Ottawa from the deep wastes of Edmonton, Winnipeg and other points far West and East. Powers also to “seize trucks” and “cancel insurance” and “compel services” and “prison terms up to five years.” . . .

Meantime the “briefest imposition of an emergency state since 1945” must not be left unexplored, and the invasion of so many civil liberties, especially the freezing of bank accounts and the banks’ co-operation in this matter, must not be allowed to dip into oblivion, just because Trudeau dropped the emergency rhetoric almost as swiftly and strangely as he adopted it in the first place.

Related:

AMERICA’S SHERIFFS SEEM TO BE GETTING MORE ACTIVE: US sheriffs offer solidarity, support to Ukraine.

BRADLEY THOMPSON: ABOLISH GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Woke Eggs and Ham Time—Lefties Are About to Ruin Dr. Seuss. “If it seems that the perceived crimes against humanity to be found in the Dr. Seuss oeuvre have been forgiven, that’s not entirely correct. There’s always a price to be paid with these people.”