News of the Week for March 13^th, 2022

• War & Terror
• Riots & Revolution
• Corona Virus
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

War & Terror

 

AWOL: Where Is the Russian Air Force?
The Russian Air Force (VKS) has procured 350 modern combat aircraft in the last ten years and the question that must be on every Russian’s mind in the second week of the Ukraine War is: What did we get for our money?

China Warns U.S. Against Forming Pacific NATO and Backing Taiwan
China warned the U.S. against trying to build what it called a Pacific version of NATO, while declaring that security disputes over Taiwan and Ukraine were “not comparable at all.”

The Navy is training for a possible fight with China, but Cold War comparisons may not apply, experts say
For much of the past year, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the Pacific have trained for a conflict with the Pentagon’s most powerful potential adversary, China.

Hypersonic-Missile Failures Risk U.S. Chase of China, Russia
U.S. efforts to catch up with China and Russia in developing hypersonic weapons may be set back after Lockheed Martin Corp.’s air-launched missile suffered three consecutive test failures that left it on a tight schedule.

Australia Plans Submarine Base That Can Host U.S. Vessels
Facility will also serve as home port for Australia’s nuclear submarines

Captured Russian officer: You bet we’re committing “genocide” in Ukraine … and ashamed of it
Is this a violation of the Geneva Convention? Perhaps, but then again, so is shelling civilian population centers and conducting military attacks on nuclear power plants. Ukrainian forces captured a mid-ranking officer in the Russian invasion forces and made him available to reporters yesterday, and he made no bones about what Vladimir Putin has done in Ukraine

Olena Zelenska’s plea to media: Tell the “terrible truth” that Russian invaders are killing Ukrainian children
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska uses social media to get her messages out, in particular her Instagram account. She has 2.3 million followers. Her latest posts have centered around naming Ukrainian children who have died from Russian forces attacks and telling a bit about them.

Turkey and U.S. to coordinate on Ukraine war
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is still trying to play both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian war to his own benefit. As you may recall, just last week Turkey closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to “all warships,” ostensibly to prevent Russia from sending in more firepower and escalating the war even further. (It turned out to be a meaningless gesture.) Last night we learned that Turkey has been in talks with the U.S. State Department and insists that they are “in close coordination” on the situation in Ukraine. But they’re also saying that they oppose economic sanctions on Russia. Go figure.

Biden says U.S. will ban Russian oil imports in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
President Joe Biden announced the U.S. will ban imports of Russian oil, a major escalation in the international response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s happening: Poland to send MiG-29 fighters to U.S. for Ukrainian transfer in return for F-16s
And to think, it looked like Russell Wilson going to the Broncos in exchange for draft picks would be the biggest trade news of the day.

Ukraine’s Bayraktar TB2 Drones are Wreaking Havoc on Russian Vehicles
A recent video shared by the Ukrainian military showed a successful drone strike against Russian military vehicles in a convoy.

Ukraine says it sank the Russian warship that attacked Snake Island: ‘We f—— hit them!’
The Snake Island defenders famously told a Russian warship, ‘Go f— yourself!’ last month

Krugman: China can’t prop up Russia’s economy
Agreeing with Paul Krugman isn’t something I expected to happen this year but he wrote something yesterday that’s worth a look.

Biden sends two Patriot missile batteries to Poland after calling plan to send all their MIG-29 jets to Ukraine ‘unworkable’: VP Harris will arrive in Warsaw today as ‘hand-to-hand’ combat breaks out in Kyiv suburbs
The United States is sending two Patriot missile batteries to Poland as a ‘defensive deployment’

Stalled and frustrated, Putin will likely ‘double down’ in the coming weeks, CIA says
CIA Director William Burns said Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fallen far short of Vladimir Putin’s expectations and that he believes the Russian president is likely to escalate military operations.

Two Russian Generals Reported Killed as Ukraine Invasion Becomes “Clusterf**k”
Russian Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov reportedly has joined his comrade Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky in the ranks of those killed during Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine. The Russians have confirmed that Sukhovetsky was killed Feb. 28 by a Ukrainian sniper near Mariupol, while Gerasimov was reportedly killed Monday near Kharkiv.

Russia: On second thought, we’re not trying to topple Zelensky’s government
You trust the Kremlin’s spokesman to be candid about Russia’s intentions, don’t you?

Biden Keeping Iranian Plot to Kill John Bolton under Wraps to Avoid Derailing Nuclear Deal: Report
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have been plotting to assassinate John Bolton, former national-security adviser in the Trump administration, says a Justice Department official with direct knowledge of the government’s investigation of the suspected plot. That is according to Tom Rogan, who reported the development in the Washington Examiner on Monday.

The Botched Handling of Poland’s MiG-29s
For providing military aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, the Biden administration has congratulated itself for standing strong. NATO and the West summoned a cohesion and a collective indignation unanticipated by Putin. Germany’s profession of the intent to increase military spending to 2 percent and to wean itself at least partially off its over-reliance on Russian oil and natural gas were especially deserving of praise. At the same time, however, one recent incident is disturbing in terms of a lack of resolve.

Tokyo exploits global anti-Russia sentiment to announce Kremlin-controlled Kuril Islands belong to Japan
Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, said that southern Kuril Islands are a sovereign part of his country, and not part of Russia, which has controlled the group of islands since 1945.

Pentagon rejects NATO nations providing jets to Ukraine
The Pentagon on Wednesday slammed the door on any plans to provide MiG fighter jets to Ukraine, even through a second country, calling it a “high-risk” venture that would not significantly change the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force.

Iran to Regain up to $130.5 Billion
The imminent agreement with Iran is no deal at all; it’s a steal.

Ukraine’s Bio-Lab Security Is Becoming an Issue
On the menu today: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Why does it always come back to biological-research labs? No, Ukraine does not have a secret biological-weapons program — or at least there’s no proof of one. A biological-research facility and a biological-weapons-research facility are not the same thing — but even if Ukraine has no biological weapons, that doesn’t mean the stuff in the country’s various labs can’t be dangerous. And the U.S. — and the world — have good reasons to not want a bunch of hungry, young, poorly briefed Russian conscripts traipsing through biological-research labs with samples of who-knows-what in vials and petri dishes in the sample fridges. Meanwhile, the IAEA passes along more ominous reports from Chernobyl.

U.S. and Japan Likely to Defend Taiwan in Event of Chinese Attack: Trump Adviser
“If Japan gets in, we’ll be involved as well,” Robert O’Brien said.

At 91, siege of Leningrad survivor is besieged by war again
Alevtina Shernina was a young girl when she survived the brutal siege of Leningrad during World War II. Eight decades later, so frail she can barely talk, or move unassisted, she is besieged again.

How many soldiers has Russia lost?
Any estimate from western governments is untrustworthy given their incentive to inflate the scale of Russian losses, just as any estimate from Russia is untrustworthy given that … it’s Russia. Lying is part of the Kremlin’s institutional DNA.

Pro-tip from Lavrov: “We didn’t invade Ukraine”
The good news: Russia’s foreign minister assured the world that Vladimir Putin has no desire to follow up his war in Ukraine by invading other countries. The bad news: Sergei Lavrov flatly denied that Russia attacked Ukraine, too.

NATO Begins a “Cold Response” Training Exercise in Norway Next Week
At the beginning of the month, the U.S. government canceled a previously scheduled intercontinental ballistic missile test, to ensure the test could not be “misconstrued” by Russia. Many observers saw it as a reasonable or even wise step to ensure Russia did not misperceive it as an American nuclear attack. But others, like the Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan, argued that the decision sent the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin: “It is nonsensical to offer an olive branch in face of a sword being waved in your face. Putin, a leader inculcated by the KGB in the mastery of deception, manipulation, and brinkmanship, acts with and will not be disabused of this KGB mentality by American hesitation.”

India says it accidentally fired missile into Pakistan
India said on Friday it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan because of a “technical malfunction” during routine maintenance.

GOP rep: Zelensky is a thug and his government is incredibly evil and woke
I’ll spot him “corrupt” here, as that’s been a problem with Ukrainian government for ages. Zelensky himself made it a topic of his comedy when he played Ukraine’s president on television.

The Real “Especially Dangerous” Materials In Those Ukrainian Biological Research Labs
When Florida senator Marco Rubio asked Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, “does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?” we all would have been better off if Nuland had accurately and clearly answered, “Ukraine has no biological weapons program, but the country has plenty of laboratories doing public health research that house pathogens that can be dangerous.”

Rumor of the day: Putin places top FSB official under house arrest over Ukraine debacle
FSB HQ raided?

Bennett advises Zelensky to surrender to Russia, Zelensky refuses
Vladimir Putin made an offer to end the Russian war with Ukraine, but the offer includes many Ukrainian sacrifices.

Ukraine Unveils New Postage Stamp That Tells Russian Warship to ‘Go F**k Yourself’
Ukraine has chosen an image for a new postage stamp, and I kind of want one.

Why Russian army is so weak?
When Russia invaded, experts thought it’d win in 24-72 hours. Two weeks later the war’s still going. How come? On paper Russian superiority’s overwhelming Although Russia projects warlike image, its military r weak and don’t know how to fight wars

Message from the mullahs
The AP reports on the message from the mullahs that landed in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan province: “Iran has claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck early Sunday near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard….Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said on its website that it launched the attack against an Israeli ‘strategic center of conspiracy’ in Irbil.”

Will Putin Outright Lose in Ukraine?
That still seems too good to be true to me, but serious people think it could happen or is happening.

 

Riots & Revolution

 

The Idiocy of Seattle
No city matches Seattle for electing lunatic socialists to the city council as well as Congress (i.e., Rep. Pramila Jayapal). So having demonized police and letting the city descend into anarchic chaos, Seattle is now surprised and “rattled” by a sharp rise in crime, according to the Wall Street Journal this morning

Exposing BLM at School—a deep dive into the indoctrination of fourth-graders
University of Chicago Lab School instills BLM’s principles in elementary students, then builds on that foundation to turn them into activists.

“Woke” Liberals Prove UVA Student’s Point in Her Op-Ed About Fear to Speak Out in Case Someone Gets Offended
“I also do not understand the notion that you are so afraid to speak up about your views that you write about them for your school newspaper and now you write an entire opinion piece in the NYT. But sure,” 1619 Project Founder Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted in response to the piece.

 

Corona Virus

 

Israeli Girl Diagnosed with Polio in the Country’s First Case in Over 30 Years
Meanwhile, Israel drops almost all covid health rules.

China battles worst Covid outbreak for two years as cases double in 24 hours
Nearly 3,400 cases were reported on Sunday, forcing shutdowns for millions of people and closure of schools in Shanghai

 

Gun Rights

 

Supreme Court decision on New York gun permit law could lead to more cases
The Supreme Court will soon make a decision in a case over whether New Yorkers have the right to carry concealed handguns in public for self-defense, which could prompt the high court to examine other Second Amendment cases in the lower court pipeline, according to a high-profile lawyer representing plaintiffs in the Empire State.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

“Great Lakes Bill of Rights” Legislation Introduced in New York
The “nature rights” movement continues to advance — as most people still think the proposal too ridiculous to take seriously. That’s a mistake, because the radicals who are pushing this agenda are determined to see it become the law — as it already is in three nations and more than 30 U.S. municipalities.

U.S. now has bigger recoverable oil reserves than Saudi Arabia or Russia
The United States has overtaken industry giants Saudi Arabia and Russia in recoverable oil reserves, an international study released Monday says.

Environmentalists vs. Science
That is an evergreen headline; here is today’s instance. The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the use of the herbicide Enlist Duo in six Minnesota farm counties. Why? The chemicals in Enlist Duo are apparently harmful to the eastern massasauga rattlesnake. Only problem: there are no eastern massasauga rattlesnakes in those counties, and never have been.

Biden now courting socialist Venezuela’s corrupt and brutal dictator for oil
Just when you thought Joe Biden’s foreign policy couldn’t get any worse, it does. America would do well to heed Obama’s advice: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up….”

Electric Vehicles, Nickel, and Reality
The Biden administration’s continuing effort to argue that electric vehicles will help speed our way out of the current mess reflects a refusal to deal with the uncomfortable realities of the world in which we live. Magical thinking is so much easier.

Climatistas Officially Declare Themselves Brain Dead
You know how the left likes to go on and on about how Republicans are “anti-science”? Well sit back and take in this story, which reveals this claim to be another example of leftist projection.

Kerry: Sure, the Ukrainian refugee crisis is bad but wait until you see the climate change refugee crisis to come
Earlier today I wrote about CERAWeek in Houston, a gathering of world leaders, oil and gas executives, and public figures. It is a yearly event with a 40-year history. As with everything in the energy sector, climate change is on the agenda. Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, was in town to lecture the attendees on the coming flood of refugees. No, not Ukrainian refugees, but climate change refugees.

Oil: Don’t Look Now But. . .
One of my go-to persons on energy is John Kemp, a London-based analyst. (Follow him on Twitter, or you can get on his email list if you like.) His note today examines U.S. oil stocks, and guess what? Our oil sticks are rapidly depleting, in what Kemp calls “the biggest oil shock since the 1970s”

China wanted to appear neutral between Russia and Ukraine. It isn’t
When Russia invaded Ukraine last month, a spate of wishful thinking ran through the West that China, a great power with friends on both sides, might step in to mediate a cease-fire.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Georgia VA Center Patients Test Positive for Hepatitis, HIV Due to Unsterilized Equipment
The letter went out to 4,594 veteran patients who “possibly could have been infected and urged them to be tested for two types of hepatitis and HIV.”

 

National

 

People of Color Banned
This is a familiar story: at Marquette University, Native American students complained that the school’s seal was “disrespectful to indigenous people.” Here is the old seal. It shows, among other things, Father Marquette, after whom the university is named, in a canoe with an Indian who is said to be his guide

Star Trek Fan Launches Petition To Have Alex Kurtzman’s Star Trek Designated As Non-Canon
A Star Trek fan has launched a petition to have the live-action Star Trek shows created by producer Alex Kurtzman designated as non-canon.

Dem Operative David Brock To Launch Attack On Republican Election Lawyers: “make them toxic in their communities and in their firms”
Goal: “not only bring the grievances in the bar complaints, but shame them and make them toxic in their communities and in their firms.”… “You’re threatening their livelihood. And, you know, they’ve got reputations in their local communities.”

Bill to Federalize CRT Must Be Stopped
You might think the national parents’ rebellion against critical race theory (CRT), along with the resounding gubernatorial victory of CRT opponent Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, would be enough to protect us from federal legislation designed to impose CRT on America’s schools. You would be wrong. It looks like a federal CRT bill is around the corner.

County GOP calls for election administrator to be fired after 10,000 mail-in ballots are “found” days past election
The first primary election day for the 2022 midterm elections did not go well in Texas, at least in the state’s largest county. Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria reported that 10,000 mail-in ballots were not properly counted in last week’s primary election in Houston. Calls for her to be fired continue to grow.

Misguided Affirmations
Media coverage of transgender issues tends to make four conceptual mistakes.

Almost 1,000 People Are Now Living in Phoenix’s Exploding Tent City
A homeless encampment in Phoenix near the state’s largest shelter has more than doubled in just two years.

US man who got 1st pig heart transplant dies after 2 months
The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced Wednesday.

Straights Need Not Apply, for City of West Hollywood Guaranteed Income Pilot Project
The program makes clear that, to be eligible, the applicant must (among other things) “Identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex or Asexual (LGBTQIA),” as well as be poor and 50 or older.

Is Mike Pence Preparing a Kamikaze Campaign?
Pence can’t win the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. But if he were so inclined, he’d have a good chance to stop the party from renominating his old boss.

Gay! Gay! Gay! Gay!
I wrote here about Florida Democrats’ outrageous effort to indoctrinate young children–kindergarten through third grade–with pro-homosexual and transsexual propaganda in the public schools. They have violently opposed a bill, about to become law, to prevent such indoctrination and have falsely labeled it the “don’t say gay” bill.

Madison Cawthorn charged with driving with revoked license for 2nd time; court dates set
Congressman Madison Cawthorn has been charged with driving with a revoked license, a misdemeanor that carries up to 20 days in jail.

Colorado Considers Expansive Pro-Abortion Legislation
Legislators in Colorado are considering a bill, the Reproductive Health Equity Act, that would radically expand legal abortion in the state. According to the draft text, the bill would allow abortion for any reason throughout all of pregnancy, prohibit regulations on abortions chosen based on the child’s sex or diagnosis with a disability, remove parental-notification requirements for abortions performed on minors, and forbid safety regulations aimed at protecting the health of pregnant mothers seeking abortions.

The Cruelty and Recklessness of LGBT Ideologues
On Monday, the Heritage Foundation hosted a panel discussion titled “How Radical Gender Ideology Is Taking Over Public Schools & Harming Kids.”

City of West Hollywood Launching Guaranteed Income Pilot Program for LGBTQIA People Only
“We chose that group because of the demographics in West Hollywood, where 45% of residents identify as LGBT, and 25% identify as older adults or senior citizens”

DuckDuckGo down-ranks Russian disinformation and users aren’t happy
A new report confirms DuckDuckGo is the latest tech company to employ new policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now confirming DuckDuckGo down-ranks Russian disinformation.

How Low Can the Teachers’ Unions Sink?
Education Minnesota, the NEA branch that runs Minnesota’s public schools, has been making war on the state’s children for the last two years. In 2020 the teachers’ union demanded that the schools be shut down, and in a Democratic administration, what the union demands, it gets. The result, when test results came in at the end of the 2021 school year, was a catastrophic collapse in student performance.

When you wish upon a CRT resolution
Justin Danhof is executive vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research and a shareholder gadfly. Earlier this week he spoke in favor of his Disney shareholder proposal seeking “to protect Disney from a myriad of legal and reputational risks stemming from its race-based employee training programs.” The center has posted background here. It has also posted the text of Danhof’s statement here. FOX News covers it here.

A Slip of Tongue on Abortion at Supreme Court?
When lawyer Sarah Weddington stood up in the Supreme Court on Oct. 11, 1972, to present the pro-abortion argument in the case of Roe v. Wade, she was legalistically careful in the language she used to describe whom exactly an abortion aborted.

This is how ‘Marxist working groups’ operate in higher education
The Interdisciplinary Marxist Working Group at the University of California, Berkeley, focuses on the ‘ongoing relevance of Marxism to the current historical moment, as an explicitly global project.’

Poll: Republicans Beat Democrats among Hispanics, at 27 Percent among Black Voters
There is a lot of grim news for President Biden and Democrats in the latest Wall Street Journal poll (Cliff Notes version is that while more Americans approve of his handling of Ukraine, they give him low marks for his handling of other issues more important to them, particularly inflation). But I just wanted to take a moment to flag this part of the poll, which is remarkable and not something I can recall ever seeing before

Parents Are Fighting A Racialized “Equity Audit” In North Kingstown (RI) And So Far We’re Winning
Equity Audits are the gateway drug to CRT: “The auditing company’s sole purpose is to SELL curriculum, to sell professional development, and to move their own army of teachers, administrators, curriculum materials, and political affiliates into the community and schools. The changes will damage schools, dismantle the faculty, and create irreparable harm to children.”

DuckDuckGo down-ranks Russian disinformation and users aren’t happy
A new report confirms DuckDuckGo is the latest tech company to employ new policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now confirming DuckDuckGo down-ranks Russian disinformation.

Amnesty International: Hell Yes, We Want to Destroy the Jewish State
Amnesty International’s fixation on Israel veered into antisemitism with the publication of a “report” accusing the liberal democracy of employing “apartheid.” This ludicrous accusation — Arab Israelis, not without their own troubles, are perhaps the freest Arabs in the Middle East — is meant to associate the Jewish state with the defunct racist South African regime in mind of Westerners to help spark an effort to isolate and economically destroy it.

Democrats May Strip Iowa Caucuses of First-in-Nation Status
The Des Moines Register reports that the Democratic National Committee will consider a proposal shaking up the presidential-primary process that could end up stripping Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status.

Leftists Set Up Summer Camp to Push Sex on 8-10 Year-Old Kids
A sex education summer camp in Indianapolis will instruct elementary school children about condom usage, the “spectrum” of gender and sexual kinks, according to the camp’s event page.

Today in Identity Politics Obsession
Good to see that the New York Times is keeping up with the need to bring an intersectional perspective to every possible topic. Like the ancient ruins of Pompeii

Russia Might Abandon a U.S. Astronaut on ISS, but NASA Is Worried About Pronouns
An American astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is now in the middle of the Russia/Ukraine conflict as the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies over Russia’s invasion into Ukraine could potentially destroy cooperation.

Pennsylvania’s Ballot Battle Should Rattle GOP
As Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, Leigh Chapman oversees professional boxing, kickboxing, and wrestling. But those are hardly the most contentious items on her docket.

Six West Point Cadets Overdose on Fentanyl-Laced Cocaine During Florida Spring Break
Two overdosed while “performing life-saving measures.”

These professors support the ‘progressive stacking’ policy that prioritizes students’ comments based on race
Over 900 people have signed a petition in support of a Binghamton University sociology professor who considered a student’s race and gender before calling on them in classroom discussions.

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Sidewalk chalk, invasive owls, and ostinato copyrights.

Biden Supreme Court pick backed by radicals who believe the Constitution is ‘trash’
Dark money extremists who want to trash the Constitution and pack the Supreme Court all support Ketanji Brown Jackson

U.N. Says “No Evidence” Backing Russian Claims of Ukraine Bioweapons Program
After two years of press distortions about covid, there are many reasons for continued concern and skepticism about Ukrainian biolabs.

Putin to Bring Thousands of Arab Fighters to Ukraine
Reuters: “Putin gave the green light on Friday for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East.”

California cakewalk? No big-name rivals for Gov. Newsom
Six months after winning a recall election that could have ousted him from office, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is in an enviable position as he revs up a reelection campaign that could give him a second four-year term.

Ohio Officer Cleared In Shooting Death Of Knife-Wielding Ma’Khia Bryant
Officer who saved the black life of Bryant’s intended victim: “At the time I fired my weapon, I was in fear for the life of the female in pink”

Sharing Stories of Trauma on ‘Detransition Awareness Day’
March 12 is Detransition Awareness Day, a day to bring public attention to the traumatic consequences that radical LGBT ideology being pushed on children has wrought. It’s not a celebration, but a grim warning. Sinead Watson, a biological woman who detransitioned from male-presenting after painful surgeries and irreversible hormone “therapies,” is one of the leading voices attempting to get the word out that “transitioning” is not the answer for every kid who feels uncomfortable in his or her body.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Is a “Wheat Crisis” Next as Ukrainian Grain Shipments Halt?
Chinese officials warns that nation’s winter wheat condition could be “worst in history”.

Oil Tops $130 a Barrel as Russian Attacks Escalate
Buyers are bidding up prompt crude deliveries to replace Russian barrels

To Avoid Global Chaos, We Had Better Start Producing Lots More Energy and Food
According to the International Energy Agency, Russia is “the third-largest producer of oil behind the United States and Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest exporter of crude oil behind Saudi Arabia, and the largest overall exporter once products are included.” Russia “exports about 5 million barrels a day of crude, or about 12 percent of global trade, and around 2.85 mb/d of products, or about 15 percent of global trade.”

Bright Spots in the Heartland for Supply Chains
“The U.S.’s industrial heartland is dotted with examples of how some links in the supply chain have been adapted to keep the wheels of commerce turning while others seized up,” writes Brendan Murray at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Consequences of a War: The Coming Food Crisis
In the most recent Capital Letter, I noted that the impact of potential interruptions in commodity flows does not stop with energy. And it doesn’t.

40 Years of Failure: IRS Unable to Fix Computer System
For 40 years the IRS has tried and failed to update its main computer system. Regardless of funding level and regardless of who controls the White House and Congress, the bureaucracy is simply unable to pull it off. The IRS and progressive Democrats continue to plead poverty and pretend the failure is due to insufficient funding rather than incompetence.

Food crisis grows as spiralling prices spark export bans
A global food crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalated on Wednesday as Indonesia tightened curbs on palm oil exports, adding to a growing list of key producing countries seeking to keep vital food supplies within their borders.

Will Inflation Stay High for Decades? One Influential Economist Says Yes
Charles Goodhart sees an era of inexpensive labor giving way to years of worker shortages—and higher prices. Central bankers around the world are listening.

The ESG Backlash
The woke investment trend is sparking a backlash that its proponents likely didn’t expect.

Inflation rose 7.9% in February, as food and energy costs push prices to highest in more than 40 years
The consumer price index for February rose 7.9% from a year ago, the highest level since January 1982.

US inflation soared 7.9% in past year, a fresh 40-year high
Propelled by surging costs for gas, food and housing, consumer inflation jumped 7.9% over the past year, the sharpest spike since 1982 and likely only a harbinger of even higher prices to come.

Up, up, and away: Consumer-price index inflation now at 7.9%
And the annualized number may be even worse. The latest report on the consumer-price index shows inflation hit another 40-year high in February, with a year-on-year increase of 7.9%. The actual amount of inflation last month would hit almost double digits if annualized on its own, however

The Coming Food Crunch: Hoarding and the Hunt for Self-Sufficiency
On Wednesday, wheat prices took a bit of a breather, down to around $11.10 a bushel, ending a six-day run.

Putin Flirts with Economic Suicide
On the menu today: It sounds absurd, but it’s true — Vladimir Putin is now running the Communist revolutionaries’ playbook on foreign investment, foreign assets, and foreign debts. History tells us this is a quick path to a massive economic calamity, but Putin appears willing to commit economic suicide in order to bring his vision of a conquered Ukraine to fruition.

Russian Oligarch Says Nationalisations Will ‘Take Us Back To 1917’
Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia’s richest oligarchs and a Kremlin confidant, has criticised plans to confiscate assets of foreign enterprises leaving the country, likening them to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Democrats unveil plan to issue quarterly checks to Americans by taxing oil companies posting huge profits
Democrats introduced a bill on Thursday to tax the largest oil companies, which are recording their biggest profits in years — and use the money to provide quarterly checks to Americans facing sticker shock just about everywhere they look.

“Simply Not True”
Joe Biden believes he is honest, and that anyone who disagrees with him is lying, or is ignorant, or has been deceived by liars.

 

International

 

Queen Elizabeth Set To Leave Buckingham Palace Permanently
Queen Elizabeth II is to move permanently to Windsor Castle after spending two years working from the Berkshire-based estate.

Ouch! Cuba’s apartheid tourist industry loses its main clientele (Russian visitors) due to Ukraine crisis
This one’s going to hurt. Ever since the Covid plague shut down the income from Castro, Inc.’s apartheid tourist industry, Russians have been its main clientele. And now this money pipeline is about to run dry. Thousands of Russians in Cuba are being evacuated, and as long as the Ukraine crisis remains unresolved, it is highly likely that they will not be returning.

Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s Lost Ship, Found in Antarctica After 107 Years
Wreck was discovered well preserved in the freezing waters; “It felt like time travel”

S.Korea Conservative Opposition Candidate Yoon Wins Presidential Election -Yonhap
South Korea’s conservative opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol won Wednesday’s election, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday.

Cuba continues to earn millions of dollars from its slave doctors in South Africa
From our Bureau of Praiseworthy Slavery and Other Crimes Against Humanity Lauded by Leftists

Did Venezuela release one of the Citgo 6 held in prison?
Has one of the Citgo 6 been released from prison in Venezuela? According to the Wall Street Journal, sources say that Gustavo Cárdenas was released on Tuesday, though his wife said she has not received the news.

Mayor murdered in Mexico drug war flashpoint
Gunmen on Thursday killed the mayor of a town in western Mexico shaken by a deadly turf war between rival drug cartels, authorities said.

 

Opinion

 

Conservatives, Ukraine and Russia
Conservatives are currently under attack on two contradictory grounds: 1) they are pro-Vladimir Putin, and 2) they are warmongers trying to embroil the U.S. in a war against Putin. Of course, it is possible that there are some conservatives in each of these alleged camps. Still, it is odd to be attacked from two utterly antithetical directions at once.

Charge of the Left Brigade
Chances are that unless you lived in Seattle or were a political junkie, you hadn’t heard of Pramila Jayapal before last year. Nor should you have. Elected in 2016 to represent Washington’s 7th District, she was like most congressmen are after two terms: an anonymous backbencher.

Science Needs Honesty, Not Affirmative Action
Holden Thorp is a very clever fellow. With a PhD in chemistry from Caltech and after some business ventures and a spell teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he ascended to the chancellorship of the university in 2007 at the young age of 43. He resigned in 2013 amid allegations of widespread academic fraud in the Chapel Hill Department of African and Afro-American studies.

Russian Aggression Derails Conservative Populism
Trump-style isolationist nationalism has lost some of its momentum among Republicans as Americans unite in support of Ukraine.

A Statement from the Acme Corporation of St. Louis about the Bad Bill
The Acme Corporation of St. Louis wishes to express its opposition to the bad bill that was passed through the legislature recently. As an employer that values equality, diversity, and inclusivity, we stand unequivocally against the bad things that this bill will do. Bad things harm all of us, and we understand that many of you are hurting at the prospect of those bad things happening to you.

The Market Is Not Enough
Russia’s war should remind conservatives that government intervention is sometimes in order to protect U.S. national security.

A Word of Caution on the Hispanic “Realignment”
The Democratic Party’s standing with Hispanic voters in the national polls continues to implode. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal numbers found that “by 9 percentage points, Hispanic voters in the new poll said they would back a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat. The two parties had been tied among Hispanic voters in the Journal’s survey in November.”

Russia may be using Commissar ‘execution squads’ again – report
It seems Putin does not believe in his own army and resorts to using “execution squads” to prevent Russian soldiers from deserting.