SELECTIVE AMNESIA: Jay Sekulow Demolishes Schiff, Pelosi on Executive Privilege: Remember Eric Holder?

SPOILER: TOTAL LIBERAL HACKS. Totally Not a Liberal Hack Network CNN Hires Liberal Hack John Harwood.

BERNIE DOESN’T HAVE THE FIRE IN HIS BELLY TO WIN THE NOMINATION: Sanders Apologizes to Biden for Bringing Up Biden’s Corruption Problem.

That’s my daily free PJMedia column. For our VIP members, I have a question: Where are my history nerds today? Today’s VIP essay explores the hidden connections between Soviet Russia’s failed attempts at building a blue-water, carrier-based navy, and the absolute folly of World War One. It’s called “A Most Unnecessary War,” and I hope members will enjoy it.

If you’ve been thinking about joining, don’t forget to use that VODKAPUNDIT discount code.

THE HORROR… THE HORROR… Thousands of Non-Deaths At Virginia Second Amendment Rally.

HMM: Could The Impeachment Trial Lead To Recusals For John Roberts?

WOW: Painting found hidden in Italian gallery wall confirmed as long-lost Klimt.

SHOT: The Best ‘White Supremacist’ Minority Protests From the Virginia Gun Rally You Won’t See on the News.

CHASER: NBC Reporter Deletes False Tweet Claiming Gun Rights Event Is ‘White Supremacist Rally.’

THANKS, HILLARY: Russia’s Role in the Libyan Civil War Gives It Leverage Over Europe.

BLUE STATE BLUES: California’s AB5 Leaves Women Business Owners Reeling.

Aimee Benavides has built a thriving career as a translator and interpreter while homeschooling her nine-year-old daughter, who has autism, and 11-year-old son, who is heavily involved in STEM enrichment classes. What makes it all possible is the home-based business she started in 2010, after leaving a full-time job in the court system.

It isn’t easy to juggle it all. Sometimes she starts work at 5:30 am to get her work done—or brings her son to the school board meetings where she takes on evening projects. “The times I don’t take my son with me, they ask, ‘How is your son?’” she says.

Still, Benavides would not trade the flexibility of self-employment for a traditional job. Benavides’ business allows her and her husband, an IT professional, to afford the cost of living in Fresno, Calif., while still permitting them to manage their family responsibilities.

Benavides is one of a number of self-employed women in California who are speaking out in opposition to AB5, a union-backed law aimed at preventing misclassification of gig workers that took effect on January 1.

You will be made to conform, comrades.

DEMOGRAPHICS IS DESTINY: China’s Birthrate Hits Historic Low, in Looming Crisis for Beijing.

About 14.6 million babies were born in China in 2019, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That was a nearly 4 percent fall from the previous year, and the lowest official number of births in China since 1961, the last year of a widespread famine in which millions of people starved to death. That year, only 11.8 million babies were born.

Births in China have now fallen for three years in a row. They had risen slightly in 2016, a year after the government ended its one-child policy and allowed couples to have two children, a shift that officials hoped would drive a sustained increase in the number of newborns. But that has not materialized.

Experts say the slowdown is rooted in several trends, including the rise of women in the work force who are educated and don’t see marriage as necessary to achieving financial security, at least for themselves. For Chinese couples, many cannot afford to have children as living costs increase and their jobs demand more time and energy. And attitudes have shifted.

“It’s a society where nobody wants to get married and people can’t afford to have children,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. “On a deeper level, you would have to think about what kind of society China will become, not just demographically, but socially.”

Eno Zhang, a 37-year-old engineer in a tech company in Beijing, said he had argued with his parents for 10 years about his decision not to have children. They have since given up, he said.

“I value my spiritual life and hobbies,” Mr. Zhang said. “Children will consume too much of my energy. This is something I cannot accept.”

Actually, having children is a vote of confidence in the future.

YOU GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO FOLD ‘EM: Jerry Nadler Suggests Having No Impeachment Witnesses Preferable to Hunter Biden Testifying.

I SAW THIS LAST NIGHT, SHRUGGED, AND WONDERED FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME WHAT HAPPENED TO DRUDGE: CNBC Implies Trump’s Fundraising Numbers Are Abysmal. Drudge Joyfully Runs With It.

“That blogger was our last hope.”

“No, there is another.”

PROOF, HOW DOES IT WORK? Joy Behar Blames Trump For Racial Division, Cites Two Fake Stories To Prove Her Point.

COCAINE MITCH: GOP senators considering ‘kill switch’ option should impeachment trial spiral out of control.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF AND/OR TALES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE: Hard to Believe, but AOC Is Getting Even Dumber. “The integral component to the AOC phenomenon is that the volumes of inanity that issue forth from her mouth remain unchallenged by anyone in the press and her fellow Democrats. She could be on a Sunday news show telling the host that President Trump turns into a bat at night and flies around the country eating the brains of babies and no one on the panel would question her.”

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND THE MSM: The Covington Kids’ Revenge, One Year Later. “The mob did not get away with defaming Nick Sandmann. In fact, people victimized by the media’s new normal are now fighting back.”

That CNN has not made any noticeable changes in its obsessive stream of agenda journalism since the original incident a year ago, or since settling with Sandmann, suggests what they paid out is to them a reasonable price to continue to lie to the American public. Most MSM gave the settlement little or no coverage. CNN itself devoted 29 seconds to the story. Like botox, settlements are just another business expense.

If this agenda-driven journalism was limited to individual acts of defamation, such as the Sandmann case, it would be bad enough. But the MSM extend the same thinking to significant geopolitical events, using their vast resources to convince the public that Donald Trump threatens their very existence.

Remember how Trump was going to start global economic war with China, withdraw from NATO, start a wider war in Syria by bombing Russian bases, start World War III with North Korea, sell out the U.S. to get peace with North Korea, start World War III because he is Hitler, start a war over Venezuela, start a genocide of Kurds with Turkey…

Related: The not-so-dirty not-so-secret is the Times and the rest of opposition media not only love Donald Trump — they need him.

STEP DOWN. THEN MAYBE WE’LL HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT. Maduro: Venezuela ready for talks with U.S.

THEY DON’T CALL HER FAUXCAHONTAS FOR NOTHING: Elizabeth Warren Has a Fake Plan To Pay for Medicare for All.

Warren has argued that total costs for middle-class families would go down under her plan, but there are reasons to doubt this, including an analysis from Emory University health care economist Kenneth Thorpe finding that under Medicare for All, more than 70 percent of people who currently have private insurance would see costs increase. A separate analysis from the liberal Urban Institute projects that single-payer plans would raise national health care spending by $7 trillion over a decade, contrary to Warren’s estimates.

Other outside experts, meanwhile, have suggested that Warren’s plan will cost more than she anticipates and raise less revenue. In an analysis of the fiscal effects of Warren’s plan, Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, estimates that she would end up increasing deficits by about $15 trillion over a decade.

That’s because Warren doesn’t account for the likely economic ripple effects her plan would almost certainly cause; instead, she assumes that even with an array of new taxes and fees on businesses and wealthy individuals, economic growth would continue without change.

Much more at the link.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Is any Democratic presidential candidate ready to be our military’s commander in chief?

ROBO-GINSBURG WILL NEVER RETIRE: What if Ruth Bader Ginsburg Retires During the Senate Trial?

CAN THEY DO THAT? New York Times Endorses Both Warren and Klobuchar for Democratic Nomination

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Riposte: The Babylon Bee Editorial Board Endorses That Lady Who Screamed At The Sky During Trump’s Inauguration For The Democratic Primary. “We feel that this hopelessly triggered androgynous human yelling at the sky in an act of protest against some perceived persecution is the perfect encapsulation of the modern Democratic Party, and thus, she would be the ideal candidate to take on President Trump in 2020.” Is it just me, or is the Bee’s savagery level increasing?

Also: In Apprentice-Style Special, New York Times Endorses Trump for President: The not-so-dirty not-so-secret is the Times and the rest of opposition media not only love Donald Trump — they need him.

ATTEMPTED SPOILER: Antifa Infiltrator? Gun Rally Goers Turn on Protester Who Suggests Violence.

BURIED HISTORY: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was A Zionist.

BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID: YouTube Removes Livestreams of Richmond Gun-Rights Rally.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for January 20, 2020. “Cory Booker drops Out, Warren and Sanders fued, Steyer money-bombs his way to contention, Bennet idles at 500 milliMondales, and Patrick hits a new high of 1%. Plus a gratuitous shot at Franklin Pierce.”