RUSSIAN HACKERS SMILE: Seattle-Area Voters To Vote By Smartphone In 1st For U.S. Elections.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Nadler’s Folly. “A Republican senator told me before the trial began that the conduct of the House managers would play a major role in forming senators’ judgments. Nadler’s eruption proved the point. The contemptuous attitude of Democrats toward Republicans, and the pass-the-buck mentality that drove the House to impeach Trump before the evidence was in and inter-branch disputes settled by the courts, give GOP senators every reason to vote on the charges sooner rather than later. “

COMING ATTRACTIONS: “Mr. Jones,” a new film about Gareth Jones, the journalist-hero who first tried to warn the world about communist atrocities — and died for it.

BOY CAN’T HELP IT: Michael Avenatti Arrested By IRS Agents, Accused Of Committing More Financial Crimes While Out On Bail.

HEH: ‘Quid Pro Joe’ Comes to Times Square as Pro-Trump PAC Launches ‘Subpoena Biden!’ Billboard.

Take the fight to blue cities. Maybe you won’t win any votes, but you might just demoralize them.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Women’s March ‘Feminists’ Unable to Define ‘What a Woman Is.’

2020: A Closer Look At The Iraqi Immigrant Woman Challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Baghdad-born Dalia al-Aqidi says Rep. Illhan Omar ‘supports Islamists and enemies of America and Israel, and there are no exceptions’.”

BLUE ON BLUE: Obama may release statement with Sanders climbing the polls.

People close to Obama point out that he has always said that he will support the Democratic nominee, whoever that may be. They also point out that Obama’s opinion of Warren has softened since November, and he is said to be growing comfortable with endorsing her fully if she should win the nomination.

But, these people add, he has recently grown even more wary of Sanders as the Vermont senator appears to be gaining momentum in polls and the Democratic primaries begin to heat up with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary both in February.

Obama has told people in private that Sanders is both temperamentally and politically unfit to beat Trump in the 2020 general election, these people say. Among his concerns are Sanders’ strident form of politics and confrontational manners where he was known not to seek compromise during his long years in the US senate. Meanwhile, Obama is said to worry that Sanders’ far-left policies, which include massive tax increases, free college tuition and massive student debt forgiveness, would alienate even traditional Democratic voters.

Bernie Bros thought Obama was too moderate, and don’t seem likely to listen to what he has to say about Sanders.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Party Harder—The Doomsday Clock Just Sprung Forward. “ICYMI — we’re all for real actually super duper no not kidding this time totes legit gonna die.”

Good to know!

TREATING THIS IMPEACHMENT WITH ALL THE RESPECT IT DESERVES: Republican Senators Are Literally Playing With Kids’ Toys During The Impeachment Trial.

CONTAGION: ‘Lock suspected coronavirus patients in a room and leave straight away!’ UK doctors given extraordinary instruction by health bosses amid fears contagious Chinese disease has made its way to Britain.

UGH: Man cleared of murder walks free after 28 years in prison.

Wilson was exonerated a month after his co-defendant, Christopher Williams, was cleared of the three 1989 killings. Wilson was a teenager when he was accused of participating in the slayings of Otis Reynolds and brothers Kevin and Gavin Anderson in north Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office called the case a “perfect storm” of injustice, writing in a court filing that the case was marred by serious misconduct by the prosecution, an ineffective defense and a witness who supplied false testimony.

The witness who testified against Wilson and Williams recanted, saying he had provided false testimony in exchange for a deal to escape the death penalty and in hopes of eventual release. At a 2013 hearing, forensic specialists testified that physical evidence contradicted his earlier account of events.

Williams remains imprisoned on a life sentence in a fourth murder, a 1989 slaying in which he and another man were convicted but in which both have maintained their innocence.

Wilson is the 12th person exonerated by the prosecutor’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

More to come, I’m sure.

A FIRST-PASS ANSWER IS THAT HE’LL NEVER RECOVER FROM TRUMP: Credibility Crisis: Paul Krugman Gets Stung After Fangirling Adam Schiff’s Impeachment Trial Performance.

BOMBSHELL: NYT Killed Story Revealing Obama WH Meeting With Whistleblower about Bidens and Burisma.

SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Florida man stabs and kills Trump-loving boss in fight, deputies say.

HYDRA SMILES: Gremlin Drone’s First Flight Turns C-130 Into a Flying Aircraft Carrier.

MARK STEYN ON IMPEACHMENT: Objection: Sad!

This time I’m the one disinclined to follow along. The left, being not terribly imaginative, always accuse you of what they’re doing themselves. So, in this case, President Trump is charged with interfering with the 2020 election by men who have been interfering with the 2016 and 2020 elections for over three-and-a-half years now. Which is why we have the preposterous spectacle of four Democrat presidential candidates preparing to vote to remove from office the guy they’re running against.

This is a joke. I gave up on it when, on the eve of the trial, the laughably named “Government Accountability Office” released its supposedly entirely separate conclusion that Trump had acted “illegally”. Aside from the fact that that “finding” is flat out wrong, I wonder whether the permanent bureaucracy ever thinks, “Gee, maybe we should be a little more subtle about putting our Deep State thumbs on the scale.”

Read the whole thing.

“GLITCH”: Technical glitch results in hundreds of invalid voter registrations in Illinois.

CAN CAN’T BUY ME LOVE? Bloomberg jumps to fourth place in new national poll.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has jumped into fourth place in the Democratic primary contest with 9 percent support among Democrats nationwide, a poll published Wednesday shows.

The top contenders remain unchanged, according to the Monmouth University survey: Former Vice President Joe Biden was the choice of 30 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had 23 percent and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in with 14 percent.

A distant fourth isn’t much to crow about, given the ad dollars Bloomberg is throwin around. And while I’m not much for predictions, Bloomberg might blow out Jeb!’s dollars-to-votes ratio.

MUST-FLEE TV: Woke Taylor Swift: I’m on the ‘Right Side of History.’ “The suddenly far-left superstar’s transformation powers a new Netflix documentary.”

Christian Toto, so lots of good stuff at the link.

DARK MONEY IS ONLY BAD WHEN IT’S IN THE HANDS OF REPUBLICANS: FEC Complaint Filed Regarding Bernie Sanders’ Dark Money Cash Cow.

WEIRD, I’D RATHER NOT EVER HAVE TO SEE THEM AGAIN: Trump Goes Nuclear on ‘Major Sleazebags’ Schiff and Nadler: ‘I’d Love to Go and Stare at Their Corrupt Faces.’

HMM: Suleimani Ally Whacked In Iran.

Nice work, if it was us or the Israelis. If his killing was part of an internecine struggle within the mullah’s regime, even better.

SELLERS’ MARKET: Supply of homes for sale hits record low, and prices suddenly jump.

Sales of existing homes rose a steeper-than-expected 3.5% in December compared with January, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Demand is surging because mortgage rates are about a full percentage point lower than they were a year ago, and the largest generation, millennials, are aging into their homebuying years.

That demand has pushed the supply of homes for sale down 8.5% annually to the lowest level since the Realtors began tracking inventory in 1982.

At the current sales pace, the total supply would sell out in just three months. A six months’ supply is considered a balanced market.

I wondered what was up. A few weeks ago we started getting an attention-grabbing number of unsolicited letters from real estate agents we’d never heard of, more than one trying to entice us with mysterious-sounding “out of town buyers.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: President Trump’s Biggest Pro-Life Move Yet.

Whenever I talk to the Never Trumpers who still speak to me, this is the kind of thing that I point to as being actually important. I don’t care that he’s indelicate at times. I don’t care that he sometimes can’t get out of his own way. I really, really don’t care that he’s not nice all the time.

I’ve repeatedly said that, after decades of conservative activism, I don’t need a prom date, I need a president who will do some things that I like.

This is something that I like very much.

Plus, Kruiser’s very personal story about Monty Python and the late Terry Jones.