THE ONLY SAFE CONCLUSION IS THAT IT WAS MORE SERIOUS THAN HE LET ON: What about Bernie Sanders’ heart attack? At 78, he says you know enough.

Quietly, amid all the attempted primary vote-counting, the nationally-televised debating and the political charges flying back and forth, Sanders just made a confession unintentionally. Under polite but firm questioning from NBC’s Chuck Todd, Sanders admitted he’s broken a promise to release his full medical records. But he claims on the basis of no authority whatsoever that’s OK.

Last fall, you may recall, Sanders was stricken with a heart attack that knocked him out of campaigning. Taking the oath of office at 79, if successful, Sanders would be older than any other U.S. president, entering or leaving the White House. Today, he’s already 13 years past the average lifespan of a man born before Pearl Harbor in 1941.

“The American people,” Sanders said in September, “have the right to know whether the person they’re going to be voting for for president is healthy. And we will certainly release our medical records before the primaries. It will certainly be before the first votes are cast.”

That’s different because shut up, comrade.

WILL THEY EVER? Democrats Still Haven’t Come to Terms with 2016. “It takes some chutzpah to claim Comey doomed Clinton by revealing that story when he had previously intervened in the campaign to save her from becoming the first major-party presidential candidate to have to run under an indictment. The mass of evidence in the broader Clinton email scandal showed, at the very least, that her staff had engaged in lawlessness and obstructed justice in ways that make the actions of George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn look piddling in contrast.”

Much more from David Harsanyi at the link.

TWANLOC: The 2020 Dems’ Groans in Response to Bloomberg’s Defense of Capitalism Should Terrify All of Us.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Drunkblogging the Debut Dem Debate with Mini Mike. “From where I sit, the nomination still looks like Bernie’s to lose, and so far he’s taken a pulled-punches approach to personal attacks on his fellow Democrats. But Bloomberg has been going after him on the airwaves, and the Sanders camp can’t afford to respond in kind. If Sanders is going to knock Mike off his box, he’ll have to do it in person.”

Tonight it’s not business; it’s personal.

Earlier today I wrote a little something — well, kind of big, actually — for our PJMedia/Townhall VIP members, answering the question on everyone’s mind: What does a Stalin-era Soviet luxury hotel embellished with a different facade on each wing have to do with China’s laggard and hamfisted approach to dealing with coronavirus?

If you’ve been thinking of becoming a member, that VODKAPUNDIT promo code still earns you a nice little discount.

If not, please enjoy tonight’s drunkblog.

REST IN PEACE: Retired Lt. Gen. Charles Pitman Sr., whose heroics helped stop 1973 New Orleans sniper attack, dies at 84.

I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT AND I’VE NEVER EVEN DRIVEN THROUGH SOUTH BEND: South Bend Residents Have a Message for America: Don’t Elect Pete Buttigieg.

DON SURBER: Impeachment was good for the USA.

The 3-year obsession with removing President Donald John Trump from office consumed and defeated Democrats. They should have worked with him. Obama should have been man enough to admit defeat, and given him a peaceful transition of power. This would have allowed the party to heal itself and prepare properly for 2020.

Instead, they resisted. All this did was get them all worked up and show how incompetent they are. They should have accepted defeat after the Mueller report, but no, they continued to try to bring down this president, which resulted in an impotent impeachment that wound up knocking out their best chance for winning in 2020, Joe Biden.

Without someone who appears to be moderate, Democrats are overrun by communist kooks.

Read the whole thing.

PLEASE CLAP: Bushes Behaving Badly.

Lots of mostly under-the-radar shenanigans going on in Texas.

SNEAKY: Navy Confirms Global Strike Hypersonic Weapon Will First Deploy on Virginia Attack Subs.

TO SAY WHAT, EXACTLY? Kent State to Pay Hanoi Jane $83k for May 4 Commemoration Speech; Ohio SOS Wants Her Yanked, Calls It a ‘Disgrace.’

CORN, POPPED: Michael Bloomberg Makes It to the Debate Stage. He May Regret It.

The brief against Bloomberg is significant, and his advisers know this as well as anyone. In preparation for the debate, advisers have been hurling mock rejoinders and pointed questions at Bloomberg about his record both as mayor and as head of a vast media and financial data empire that made him into one of the richest people on the planet.

During Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor in New York, for instance, policing practices known as “stop and frisk” were widely criticized for disproportionally targeting minorities. Now, Bloomberg apologizes for not sooner acting to end the policies that were in place when he became mayor and escalated on his watch. He has also apologized for comments that seemed to suggest that when banks ended discriminatory practices that denied housing loans to minorities — shorthanded as “redlining” — it helped fuel the 2008 economic meltdown.

Bloomberg can also anticipate sharp critiques for how his business has treated employees. Rivals have been studying lawsuits and news reports about a highly controlled culture that could seem out-of-step with today’s standards. Bloomberg is sensitive to questions about his wealth and privately held business, so candidates have been reading up on both — especially any with interests in China’s economy.

The pile-on has already started.

I will of course drunkblog tonight’s debate over at the PJMedia homepage.

THE “MONEY IN POLITICS IS BAD” RATION HAS BEEN RAISED FROM 20 GRAMS A DAY TO 15: Mike Bloomberg and his billions are what Democrats need to beat Trump.

AND ANOTHER THING: Boeing Finds Debris In MAX Fuel Tanks.

Boeing is inspecting all 737 MAXs it has in storage and adding factory-floor precautions after discovering foreign object debris (FOD) in the fuel tanks of multiple MAXs, the company confirmed late Feb. 18.

Debris was found in “multiple” MAX during routine maintenance linked with keeping its stored aircraft as close to flight-ready as possible, a source with knowledge of the situation told Aviation Week.

“We’ve already held a series of stand down meetings in Renton with teammates on the factory floor to share a new process for stopping FOD,” 737 vice president and general manager Mark Jenks wrote in a memo to employees.

Changes to MAX production—which remains suspended—include updated instructions and checklists for work in “fuel cell areas,” and additional inspections before closing fuel cells during production, Jenks wrote.

PREVIOUSLY: Boeing KC-46 Air Force tanker jets grounded due to tools and debris left during manufacturing.

MAYBE, BUT WE SEE A LOT OF REPORTS ABOUT THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE THAT TURN OUT TO BE NOTHING: Attorney General Barr to Quit Over Trump’s Tweeting?

WAYBACK MACHINE: Remember Obama’s Iran Deal Pardons?

NICK KRISTOF: I worry about Sanders, and his coattails.

There is one kind of candidate that Americans remain hostile to. Only 45% say that they would be willing to vote for a socialist. And Sanders faces another hurdle: Only 69% say they would consider a candidate over 70.

These are generic questions, and it’s possible that voters would warm to a particular septuagenarian socialist, especially when the alternative is a certain septuagenarian Republican. In head-to-head polls against Trump, Sanders does well; all Democrats do similarly. Yet I keep thinking of how British voters recently overwhelmingly reelected a deeply flawed conservative leader over a socialist challenger.

Supporters of Sanders believe that he would greatly increase turnout, but there was no sign of that in Iowa or New Hampshire. Sanders won in New Hampshire only because the liberal wing of the party is uniting around him, while the moderate wing is deeply divided.

I’m not getting cocky, but I am feeling unusually happy.

HOW’S THAT DOPEY-FEARY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? One thing unites establishment Democrats: Fear of Sanders.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Michael Bloomberg Is Satan—Discuss. “He is at least an equal opportunity condescending moron, hating white midwesterners as much as he does people of color.”

ERIC KAUFMAN: Why the Left Is Losing.

Identity politics and multiculturalism are central motivating forces for the highly-educated activists who have dominated left-wing parties since the ’68 generation rose to prominence. These ideas tend to be considerably less popular than the Left’s economic offer, hence the bind the Left finds itself in.

Yet this alone cannot explain the inflexibility of left-wing parties. To do so requires an additional ingredient: the rise of political correctness. Political correctness functions as an emergent system that can push new ideas even when few people actually believe in them. Like the emperor’s new clothes, no one dares violate a taboo which may cost them dearly.

To be blunt, left-wing political correctness is more powerful than the right-wing variant. For instance, many social conservatives may dislike environmentalist candidates in their ranks, but dissidents on the left of a conservative party won’t have their character questioned and reputation trashed. By contrast, a left-wing politician who moves right on culture—calling for lower immigration or abolishing female-only shortlists, for instance—is likely to be accused of racism or sexism by radical online activists. This causes them intense embarrassment and, by triggering a social taboo, may lead others to pile on them to signal virtue. This can damage a person’s reputation well beyond politics. Something of this fate has befallen the patriotic leftists of Blue Labour in the UK, who are no longer welcome in Labour circles. Brexit-supporting Paul Embery, for instance, was kicked out of the Fire Brigades Union for criticizing the union’s position on Brexit. This, they alleged, made him an accomplice of the “nationalist Right” and thus a “disgrace to the traditions of the Labour movement.” No wonder few on the Left are willing to move right on culture.

They’re making their appeal more selective. Or as Stacy McCain noted years ago, “You don’t build a winning coalition through a process of subtraction.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Andrew Davis: A Time For Choosing.

FEELS LIKE ’72 ALL OVER AGAIN: Sanders Leads Democratic Primary Field as Biden Slips, WSJ/NBC News Poll Finds.

WSJ paywall, so I’ll break out the important part:

Mr. Sanders had 27% support among Democratic primary voters nationally in the new survey, the same as in January. Mr. Biden, who previously had 26%, has dropped 11 percentage points since last month.

Mr. Biden is bunched closely with Mr. Bloomberg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who each have 14% support, and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, with 13%. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has 7%.

The four-way tie for second place shows that Democrats enter their third nominating contest, Saturday’s caucuses in Nevada, with the race for the party’s political center unsettled.

As in prior surveys, about 40% of Democrats say their top choice is one of the most ardent liberals, Mr. Sanders or Ms. Warren, with 45% to 50% picking a more centrist candidate. The difference now is that more candidates are dividing the party’s self-described centrist voters, while Mr. Sanders has expanded his lead over Ms. Warren among liberals.

At the rate he’s losing support, Biden might be lucky to finish third in Nevada on Saturday. He was up bigly there throughout 2019 but is now neck and neck with Warren for second place.

CHANGE: Britain unveils points-based immigration plan with priority for high-skilled workers.

COLLUSION, STRAIGHT UP: DOJ Is Investigating If Obama Officials Hid Evidence Of Russia Election Interference.

BAD SPORTS: Aubrey Huff Says San Francisco Giants Banned Him From World Series Reunion Over Trump Support.

PLEASE CLAP: On Presidents Day, Jeb Bush urges return to civility in politics.

FINALLY: Michigan trainer brings mini service horse on his first flight. “Calls on DOT to consider mini horses as viable service animals.”