◼ Google is having second thoughts about having trained Gemini exclusively on runs of Hamilton.

◼ Nikki Haley is soldiering on toward what is likely to be a lopsided defeat in her home state’s February 24 Republican primary, with no prospect of finding states she can win. She gave a defiant speech on February 20, vowing that even if she lost South Carolina she was “not going anywhere,” would campaign “until the last person votes,” and will resist “the herd mentality” according to which she should exit the presidential race and get behind Donald Trump. We’ve heard that before from candidates just before they dropped out. Haley, who praised Trump while working for him and even said she would not run in 2024 if he ran, is undoubtedly right to say today that “many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him.” If she follows through by staying in the race for the long haul, it will be solely as a protest, albeit a defensible protest. If Trump wants the votes of her supporters in the fall, it will, as always, be the candidate’s job to earn them.

◼ In Los Angeles , President Biden announced that 153,000 more borrowers would have their student loans “canceled” by his administration—which, in practice, means paid by the people who didn’t take them out and spend them. In January, Biden “canceled” 74,000 loans. Together, these moves cost $5 billion and brought the total expense of Biden’s program to more than $130 billion. By the time he is finished, the president will have spent $475 billion. Never in the history of buying votes have so many been so fleeced for so few. As policy, the initiative is a disaster. The administration has made no effort to reduce the cost of college; it has proposed no changes to the way higher education works; and it has done nothing to alter the funding mechanisms for anyone beyond the current tranche of debtors. By now, it ought to be clear that the “opportunity” Biden speaks of is the opportunity to shore up his political base in an election year. And boy does he intend to take it.

◼ A danger in chasing a political scandal is that witnesses who tell you what you want to hear may not only end up discredited but can give cover to the other side to dismiss the whole story. Enter Alexander Smirnov. There’s extensive evidence that Hunter and Jim Biden peddled Joe Biden’s influence to shady actors in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere, receiving millions in return, getting help from Joe in doing so, and setting some of it aside for “the big guy.” Investigations by media, law enforcement, and Congress have verified money trails and electronic communications (including by Joe under a false name) and have pinpointed travel and meetings to carry out the influence-peddling business—requiring the White House to back off prior denials. None of this rested on the testimony of Smirnov, which is why his name was never even mentioned until this month in National Review ’s extensive coverage of the story. But after House and Senate Republicans cited sensational charges by Smirnov of a Ukrainian businessman bribing Joe and Hunter, special counsel David Weiss sprang the trap, indicting Smirnov for lying to the FBI and painting him as a Russian-intelligence op. (That’s the same Weiss who tried to give Hunter a sweetheart deal and let the statute of limitations expire on charges for Hunter’s foreign-influence-peddling.) Democrats are now trumpeting the notion that this proves that anything questioning the ethics of the Bidens is “Russian disinformation.” What rot. But Republicans should have been more careful in handling the Smirnov allegations.

◼ Former vice president Mike Pence has launched a new initiative: the American Solutions Project. He intends it to serve as an alternative to “the populist Right and the progressive Left” (in his words). On Pence’s board is Ed Feulner, a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation in the 1970s. “Our nation was founded on conservative principles that have stood the test of time,” said Pence. “Many in the conservative movement have walked away from these principles, chasing the siren song of populism.” The compatibility of conservatism and populism, and the tensions between them, have been a subject of debate for conservatives for decades; we ran articles on both sides of it in the 1980s. We look forward to Pence’s contributions to this ongoing conversation. He may be out of the electoral arena, but he can still do much good in the political arena.

◼ On Fox News , Laura Ingraham asked Donald Trump about the fine levied against his businesses after a civil trial. He responded, “It’s a form of Navalny” and “It’s happening in our country too.” The moral grossness of this response is typical of the man. And he has yet to criticize the Putin dictatorship for its persecution of Alexei Navalny or to praise the late opposition leader for his courage. Trump’s political fortunes rise and fall, but his basic character, unfortunately, is constant.