MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: What Will the Left Do When A Billion-Jillion Americans Don’t Die of Coronavirus?

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Notes From #CPAC2020 Day One. “I’m here at CPAC, which is the largest annual gathering of conservatives. It’s my first time back at the conference since President Trump was inaugurated in 2017. I don’t know what the last couple of years have been like but I can honestly report that the feeling here now is positively electric.”

It really is.

TWENTY-NINE YEARS AGO TODAY: The Battle of 73 Easting. “It was the largest tank battle between American- and Soviet-constructed armor since Israeli M-60 Patton tanks faced off against Egyptian T-62s in Sinai campaign of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. All throughout the 70s and early 1980s, various media outlets talked about how much better Soviet military equipment was than American equipment. (I remember a 60 Minutes episode that talked about Soviet equipment being better ‘all across the board.’) And Soviet equipment was better—on paper, with thicker armor, higher top speeds, etc. And then 73 Easting happened, and M1A1s wiped the floor with T-72s.”

Buy American.

HEH: Ilhan Omar’s Challenger Elegantly Responds to Six Ways the Congresswoman Identifies Herself. “Rep. Ilhan Omar is confused. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say, more confused than usual. The Somali-born, thrice married (once to her brother), home-wrecking, socialist had a hard time Sunday night figuring out how to ‘identify’ herself.”

YET ANOTHER MASSIVE TIME-SUCK: Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain. “For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge. Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, the new digital depot encourages the public to not just view its contents, but use, reuse and transform them into just about anything they choose—be it a postcard, a beer koozie or a pair of bootie shorts.”

Nice.

REST IN PEACE: FDNY firefighter, 46, who found his brother’s body at Ground Zero after 9/11 dies of cancer linked to rescue work.

ILLEGITIMATE: In Iran, an Electoral Flop.

According to the official Fars News Agency, just 42 percent of Iranians voted in the country’s latest parliamentary elections, which took place on Friday. That’s the lowest percentage ever recorded in the 41-year history of the Islamic Republic. (By way of comparison: The turnout for Iran’s last parliamentary elections, in 2016, was approximately 60 percent.) Yet there’s good reason to believe that even those official numbers are inflated, and perhaps significantly so. Outside reports, relying on internal Iranian media sources, indicate that actual voting tallies fell far below the official 42 percent figure, forcing the regime to keep polling stations open longer than planned to scrape together even a minimum number of legitimate votes.

If you’ve been paying attention to events in Iran, that lackluster showing shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Over the past two years, persistent protests in practically every major Iranian city — and at virtually every stratum of Iranian society — have showcased a population that has become profoundly disaffected with the country’s clerical regime. These protests have flared anew in recent weeks, following the Iranian government’s accidental January 8 downing of a Ukrainian airliner amid heightened tensions with the United States. That event helped to convince many Iranians that their government is dangerously incompetent, and a real hazard to their own safety.

Keep pushing.

CHANGE? Supreme Court Gives Hope to Adoption Agency Targeted for Its Religious Beliefs.

BRIAN CATES: The ‘Wrong Scandal’ Keeps Winning.

One scandal, commonly referred to as “Russiagate,” claims that the man who had just won the election was an undercover agent who took orders straight from Moscow.

The other one that emerged claimed the first scandal was always a false construct of the rival Hillary Clinton campaign and its politicized allies within the federal government’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This second scandal came to be called “Spygate.”

One of these scandals was indeed fake and the other was very real.

Most of the U.S. media went all-in on the proposition that the fake scandal was real and the real scandal was fake.

However, the scandal that was endlessly promoted by mainstream news outlets turned out to be a hoax, as shown by the investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller and Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Meanwhile, the scandal they dismissed as a “wild conspiracy theory” turned out to be real.

Read the whole thing.

Coronavirus Weakens China’s Powerful Propaganda Machine. “For now, citizens are staying a step ahead of the authorities. But a renewed government crackdown could test the strength of this digital resistance.”

INCREDIBLE: Despite Record Media Bias, Trump More Popular Than Obama at Same Point in Presidency.

A great, great many people have tuned the media out.

PRAMILA JAYAPAL OF WASHINGTON STATE: Bernie Bro Congresswoman Says U.S. Healthcare Is ‘Literally Causing People to Die.’

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Donald Trump Won the South Carolina Democratic Debate.

‘TIS A PITY THEY CAN’T BOTH… ACTUALLY, THEY CAN BOTH LOSE! Joe Biden Shocks Sanders Campaign With Commercial Claiming Bernie Wanted To Primary Obama.

Video at the link.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Cruz scorches Sotomayor over court critique, turns tables on her dissent.

“I read it a little bit like an arsonist complaining about the noise from the fire trucks,” Cruz said of Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in Wolf v. Cook County, which dealt with regulations placing restrictions on non-citizens applying for visas to enter the U.S.

A lower court had issued a nationwide injunction against the administration, blocking the regulations, although the Cook County case only dealt with an Illinois injunction. Sotomayor used her to dissent to rail against the administration for its repeated tactic of applying for emergency stays so injunctions could be put on hold.

“It is hard to say what is more troubling,” Sotomayor wrote, “that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it,” she wrote.

But Cruz turned the issue around, stating that the Trump administration would not have to take such measures if judges were not granting an unusual number of nationwide injunctions.

“If you look to the facts of what’s happening with nationwide injunctions, I think it will explain why the Department of Justice has had to ask the Supreme Court to intervene over and over again,” Cruz said.

Indeed.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Joe Biden’s Campaign Needs to Be Put Out of Our Misery. “Modern American presidential campaigns involve a lot of debate prep, so it’s stunning that Biden actually seems to be getting worse at these things as there are more of them. The campaign people must be chugging Pepto Bismol by the gallon every time der Bidengaffer opens his mouth now. South Carolina can do the rest of the Biden-weary nation a huge favor and send him packing for good. Unfortunately, he’s leading in the polls there at the moment. If the state does give him his first victory, we’re probably going to be forced to watch his rapid decline play out until the convention.”

Sad.

‘TIS A PITY THEY CAN’T BOTH… ACTUALLY, THEY CAN BOTH LOSE! “I’m Sorry, What?” Bloomberg Adviser Hints At Mother Of All Oppo-Research Drops On Bernie.

Just how committed is Michael Bloomberg to winning the Democratic primary? Enough to have his adviser Tim O’Brien drop this bombshell on a stunned Alisyn Camerota this morning on CNN’s New Day. Just as Camerota made an argument that Democrats might not want to go full tilt against Bernie Sanders if he’s likely to end up the nominee against Donald Trump, O’Brien promised that Team Bloomberg would hammer Sanders with everything they have.

And it’s remarkable how much information a news-media mogul can find, isn’t it? Such as advice for parents of toddlers to allow them to run naked and explore each others’ genitalia, for instance, O’Brien offers. “I’m sorry — what?” exclaims Camerota.

Ed Morrissey has much more at the link.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: N.S.A. Phone Program Cost $100 Million, but Produced Only Two Unique Leads.

WELL, GOOD: Crackdown on immigrants who use public benefits takes effect.

Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighborhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid.

No more.

“You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,” he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighborhood to show how long the lines got.

But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside.

Incentives matter, and we shouldn’t be incentivizing people who have never paid into the system to use it.

HMM: Russia Unveils Laika, Its Next-Gen Nuclear Attack Submarine.

The Laika class is the third new post-Cold War submarine scheduled to enter production and will replace the Akula (“Shark”) and Victor (NATO code name) submarine classes. According to submarine authority H.I. Sutton, author of the Covert Shores website and contributor at Naval News, the Laika class will incorporate many new design features to allow Russia’s attack submarine fleet to catch up to western standards.

The Laika class is being developed by the Malachite design Bureau in St. Petersburg, Russia. The submarines will displace 11,340 tons, making them considerably larger than the U.S. Navy’s current Virginia class submarines at 8,700 tons.

That’s an awfully ambitious sub for a country with a fraction of the shipbuilding capability (and skillset) it enjoyed 30 years ago.

TYLER O’NEIL: Trump Says Sotomayor Must Recuse Herself for Trying to ‘Shame’ Justices ‘Into Voting Her Way.’

DRUNK SOBERBLOG: Liveblogging the South Carolina Democratic Debate.

I’m unavailable tonight, so Tyler O’Neil is taking on the liveblog duties. I don’t know what he’s drinking, but let’s hope it’s strong.

PLUS: Devastating: Trump PAC Uses Obama to Eviscerate Biden’s Support Among Black Voters in SC.

Related (From Ed): Live at 8 p.m. ET: Nuke the commie: “If you’ve avoided the Democratic debates until now, here’s your — likely — last chance to watch one that counts. The next debate won’t happen until March 15, long after the Super Tuesday states will have voted. Bernie will be there; Mike Bloomberg will almost certainly be there; Pete Buttigieg will *probably* be there. But that may be it. If the Sanders express rolls through South Carolina on Saturday, taking out Biden and Tom Steyer, and then speeds to a bunch of victories seven days from now on Super Tuesday, that’s probably it for Warren and Klobuchar. Mayor Pete might stick around a bit longer, enticed by the prospect of a three-way debate where he’d be the clear middle option between the socialist Bernie and the plutocrat Bloomy. But unless something happens to change the trajectory of the primary tonight and on Saturday, when South Carolina votes, that mid-March debate won’t matter. Bernie will be home free.”

HE’S NOT WRONG: Bloomberg in Closed-Door Meeting: Warren Is ‘Scary’ and the Left Will ‘Set Up the Guillotines.’

HARSH, BUT FAIR: Time to Pin a Note to Joe Biden’s Sweater and Send Him Home After His Latest Campaign Flub.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Trump Destroys CNN and Jim Acosta After Stupid Question About Russian Interference.