PELOSI LEARNS TO LOVE THOSE ‘STORM TROOPERS:’ The razor-wire barrier, military vehicles blocking streets and National Guardsmen manning checkpoints are going to remain in place at least until the Fall, Tristan Justice of The Federalist notes.

So, remember last summer when Antifa and Black Lives Matter were burning down cities, assaulting a federal courthouse, destroying police precinct headquarters and beating Trump supporters on the streets of the nation’s capital?

That was when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused National Guardsmen dispatched to protect the courthouse in Portland, Oregon, of acting like “storm troopers.”

But that was then and everything changed on January 6. Now, the Capitol looks like an armed camp. Madama Speaker will only give up those guardsmen when, to paraphrase Charleton Heston, they are pried from her cold, dead fingers (speaking metaphorically, of course).

SOME THOUGHTS ON MUSIC AND MIND: I know, I know, it sounds like I’m off in the clouds, again. Still, I dare you to spend a couple of undistracted hours listening to Mark Knopfler, Phil Coulter and Braveheart’s “End Credits,” as I was wonderfully able to do last night.

Then just try to tell me it didn’t set you to thinking about God, who, let us never forget, is the author of all our rights and liberties, according to the preamble of Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration. Knopfler, by the way, just might be the best guitarist/songwriter ever.

COMING SOON TO OBAMACARE: Looks like Brits with learning disabilities who contract Covid are just plain out of luck because the National Health Service — Britain’s forerunner of Obamacare — has decreed resuscitation will not be available to them. This is called “rationing healthcare.”

14 ‘RED-DISTRICT DEMOCRATS’ WHO MAY BE DREADING VOTING FOR HR1: Trump either carried their district twice or at least once, and HR1 is stuffed to the gun-whales with voter registration and election procedure “reforms” that cast a permanent pall on the 2020 election. And much more that advances the progressive federalization of everything.

CONSPIRACIES HERE! CONSPIRACIES THERE! CONSPIRACIES EVERYWHERE! Want to know why so many folks across the ideological spectrum turn to conspiracies, just scan the political coverage bylines in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, USAT, etc. etc. When you keep telling people your highly slanted half of the story, don’t be surprised when people turn to alternative explanations.

CAN’T GET THE COVID VACCINE? THIS MAY BE WHY: The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz brings together multiple reports of foreigners crossing the Southern border with Mexico to obtain the Covid vaccine shots.

“Texas only vaccinates Texans. California immunizes anyone with a pulse: residents, illegal aliens, vaccine tourists, even governors who believe the COVID rules he sets don’t apply to him,” Dunetz observes.

ABOUT MITCH MCCONNELL’S SATURDAY SPEECH: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s angry speech on the Senate floor following President Donald Trump’s second acquittal on impeachment charges wasn’t really about Trump, it was about all of us outside the old corporate Republican Establishment, according to Christopher Bedford at The Federalist. It won’t soon be forgotten.

HERE COMES THE END OF PRIVACY, POLITICAL SPEECH AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: But other than that, there really is nothing at all wrong with the Equality Act President Joe Biden and the Democrats on Capitol Hill are preparing to shove down America’s throat.

JUST ANOTHER LIE ABOUT BIDEN’S COVID AID PACKAGE: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a bunch of other Blue State officials were at the White House last week begging for bailouts. But as Issues & Insights points out, why do they have their begging cups in hand when state tax revenues are headed upward?

SOONER OR LATER PELOSI MUST ANSWER: Four ranking GOPers on House committees concerned with Capitol Complex security are demanding answers from Speaker Pelosi on her role in the January 6 failure.

NOTICE THE DEAFENING SILENCE ON WOMEN LEAVING THE WORKFORCE? Michael Hartman of the Capital Research Center did, and in fact he predicted last summer that it would happen, thanks to the teachers unions.

NO, MR. RASKIN, WE DIDN’T GIVE YOU OUR SOVEREIGN POWERS: James Bovard, writing for the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), points to something Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said during one of his numerous Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump:

“In his final pitch to senators on Thursday, Raskin included the usual hackneyed references to Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence. Then Raskin recited the first ‘We the People’ sentence of the preamble of the Constitution and declared: ‘You see what just happened? The sovereign power of the people … flowed right into Congress.’”

Maybe Raskin missed class that day at Harvard Law when the concepts of sovereignty and public servant were covered.

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE COVID TUNNEL: American Commitment’s Phil Kerpen tells Bill Walton there are multiple reasons to think the worst of the Covid crisis is behind us. For one thing, the decline in the present wave of “new cases” is happening across the country, not just in sections.

BTW, if you appreciate informal, substantive and intelligent conversations about the most important issues of the day, “The Bill Walton Show” will delight you. Like this one with Kerpen, Walton’s conversations are lengthy at just under 50 minutes, but in my experience always well-worth the invested time. And, no, this is not the former NBA star Bill Walton, but the Bill Walton who built Allied Capital.

ABOUT THAT IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: John Daniel Davidson points in The Federalist to a fundamental weakness in the Democrats’ case against Trump: To be guilty of incitement, Trump had to clearly and without a doubt instruct his supporters to go to the Capitol and riot.

And that in turn means there must be rioters who did so because they thought that’s exactly what Trump told them to do. But no rioters saying that were produced as witnesses during the House impeachment debate or the Senate trial so far, so the Democrats use carefully edited video to prompt emotional responses that cultivate the assumption that’s what they thought. Well, no, says Davidson:

“But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter if they thought they were carrying out Trump’s orders. It’s not Trump’s fault these people are idiots. And unless Democrats can produce some evidence that Trump gave the rioters instructions to attack the Capitol, we’ll have to rely on what we know Trump said, which was to encourage the protesters to march ‘peacefully.’” Davidson’s entire critique is arguably devastating.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: Ann Althouse: “The question I think should be at the core of the impeachment trial but is not: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress? . . . I want to be pointed to the part of the trial that addresses the question: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress?”

Well, they can’t point to that because he didn’t. That’s why they’re blowing smoke and peddling doctored videos for emotional impact.

PRESSURE GROWS TO END FORTRESS PELOSI: Lots of senators and representatives declined to comment, but the disgust with the razor-wire barrier, thousands of National Guardsmen manning checkpoints, and metal detectors barring entry to carrying members is obvious and growing.

IF FRANCE WORRIES ABOUT OUR LEFT-WARD LUNGE: Boy, things must be even worse than we perpetual pessimists think they are.

BIDEN’S CIA PICK IS CHINA’S BFF: The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz notes that William J. Burns comes from a think tank that has close ties to the Chinese military, and including significant funding from a well-connected Chinese business tycoon. In any other age, such relationships would be disqualifying for the nation’s chief spook. But c’mon man, China is our friend now, right? Right?

ABOUT THAT JEEP SUPER BOWL AD: The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway dissects the political porn that passes for corporate creativity.

TIME MAG ARTICLE ON OUR PHILOSOPHER-KINGS: Lots of Right-Buzz about that Time Magazine article that details how the Left manipulated the voting process in 2020. Some here on Instapundit and elsewhere argue the article is proof of a massive conspiracy that stole the election from Trump. Others that it minimized alleged voter suppression, thereby allowing what the Left defines as the true will of the people to emerge.

Here’s my take, for what it’s worth: You can make either of the preceding cases in a way worth considering, but the more important point I come away with is seen in this key explanatory paragraph from the article:

“This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group’s inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster. ‘Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated,’ says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan rule-of-law advocacy group. ‘But it’s massively important for the country to understand that it didn’t happen accidentally. The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.’” (emphasis added)

Note the two most important phrases: The participants in the “conspiracy to save the 2020 election” presumed to know what was the “proper outcome of the election” and they had to do what they did because “Democracy is not self-executing,” that is, it cannot be trusted to produce the “proper outcome.”

Most readers here have heard the metaphor of “the ship of state.” Less well-known is that the source of that metaphor is Plato’s “Republic,” in which the case for the rule of philosopher-kings is made. To ensure the safety of the ship of state, the “true pilot must of necessity pay attention to the seasons, the heavens, the stars, the winds, and everything proper to the craft if he is really to rule a ship.”

What the Time Magazine article demonstrates is that the participants in the “conspiracy” actually do believe themselves to be philosopher-kings, though that is undoubtedly the last term they would use to describe themselves. But they clearly believe that they rightfully should steer the ship of state because they know better than the rest of us and because they know better, whatever they do to ensure the “proper outcome” is morally justified. They are, in short, the law.

FOUR SUPER BOWL BACK STORIES: These four guys want to win, of course, but there is one something that is vastly more important to each one of them.

SUPREME COURT ENDS SOME OF NEWSOM’S WORSHIP BAN: But leaves the rest in place for now, including the ban on singing and chanting in worship services, as well as the building capacity percentage limits that are designed to enforce social distancing.

Biggest surprise in the decision is probably the fact the High Court’s newest Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative Catholic who foaming-at-the-mouth detractors predicted would use her position to force every American to attend Latin Mass daily, joined Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a middle-ground position.

THIRTY TYRANTS, HUNTER BIDEN, THE END OF AMERICA: Lee Smith’s long and detailed piece on Tablet makes clear how the American Elite became captive to Chinese money. As Glenn says, just keep scrolling. HT to Thom McKee’s Daily Gouge for pointing it out.

‘MADE IN CHINA’ MASKS MAY BE FAKES: The Epoch Times’ Frank Fang reports that U.S. Customs data indicates China shipped millions of counterfeit masks and Covid test kits are counterfeits.

MAKE BIG TECH PAY ROYALTIES TO USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA: Here’s a modest proposal for taming the social media giants.

WHY, NO, THE GOP HAS NOT BEEN TAKEN OVER BY Q-ANON: House Democrats, as this post is being typed, are preparing to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of her committee assignments.

Has to be done, you see, because she represents the radical extremists who control the GOP, who launched a failed coup d’tat on January 6 and who will wreak lethal havoc in every city, town and village across America if Greene isn’t punished.

John Daniel Davidson takes on this fairy tale and subjects it to a thorough dose of reality.