LISTEN, SUG, DON’T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS: US splashes $290m on anti-radiation drugs after Putin ups nuclear threat.

The US government has purchased a significant supply of radiation-injury drugs as the Russian president threatened the use of nuclear weapons.

A $290 million procurement of the drug Nplate, to treat acute radiation syndrome (ARS), was announced by the US Health and Human Services (HSS).

The government confirmed it was the first purchase of the drug, manufactured by the California pharmaceutical company Amgen.

The purchase comes after Vladimir Putin renewed his threat of nuclear war. In a speech last month he vowed to use “all the means at our disposal” to protect Russia and its people. “This is not a bluff,” he said.

The US government said the procurement of Nplate was not in response to the war in Ukraine.

An HSS spokesman told The Telegraph: “This is part of our ongoing work for preparedness and radiological security. It has not been accelerated by the situation in Ukraine.”

Flashback: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.

With a 2022 twist! Don’t forget to wear your mask when you’re in the fallout shelter:

Here’s a link to the referenced document if you want to see it for yourself.

UPDATE: Biden Warns of Nuclear ‘Armageddon.’

President Joe Biden issued a warning about a potential nuclear “Armageddon” at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Thursday evening, saying, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

“I don’t think there is any such a thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” added the president.

It has been widely speculated that Russia could employ tactical nuclear weapons in an effort to turn the tide in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Russian forces have been pushed back toward their own border in recent days, causing observers to wonder whether Russian president Vladimir Putin may, in desperation, turn to weapons of mass destruction.

At the fundraiser, Biden called Putin “a guy I know fairly well,” and said Putin is “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons” as a solution to his military’s underperformance.

Flashback: Biden called Trump ‘Putin’s puppy.’ The president-elect may put Moscow on a tighter leash.

—NBC News, December 22nd, 2020.

Still though, look at the upside!

(Updated and bumped; classical allusion in headline.)

THOUGHTS ON DIVERSITY.

Anyone who has studied the left’s march through the institutions and the regular examples of the O’Sullivan’s Law in action, knows the drill knows what happens to previously non-political or even conservative institutions.

The signs of their socio-political presence shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. They are just less bloody versions of what Orwell, Huxley, Dith Pran, and others warned us about.

While you were paying attention to other things, their world view is already deep in our military institutions of higher learning, specifically today the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA.

What already is well past the nose in the tent involves in not just narrowing the Overton Window of acceptable speech, but is now compelling speech through membership filtering, fear, and humiliation.

It demands written and spoken self-criticisms – and later (see any of the required DEI training events) often confessions of crimes you did not commit. Like the religious original sin, it is something you simply have by being and must atone for and perhaps never wash the stain away.

Yes, it is socio-political, but mostly political. It is its religious aspects that folds in to the compelled speech – you have to say certain words in certain ways in order to be accepted. A leftist Shahada, in a fashion.

Read the whole thing.

THIS IS CNN: Mary Katharine Ham: I haven’t been on TV for a while and the reason why involves Jeff Zucker and Jeffrey Toobin.

OPEN THREAD: Make this one special.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Nine Times Someone ‘F—d With a Biden’ and Got Away With It.

GLENN’S LATEST NY POST COLUMN: Biden hates Republicans so much, he would rather give oil money to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia than Texas.

It’s been a tough year for consumers, inflation is killing household budgets, and according to KPMG, 91% of top CEOs expect a long, tough recession. The Biden administration is even ready to reduce sanctions on Venezuela to get more oil flowing. So it’s desperate. But not desperate enough to undo the damage it’s done to the domestic oil industry, which is the first thing it’d do if it were serious.

Why not? There are a lot of reasons. Greens, who dominate the Democrats, don’t like fossil fuels. But there’s no reason to think that Saudi, Russian or Venezuelan oil is any better for the planet than American oil. It’s just a question of whether the money goes to Saudis, Russians or Venezuelans or to Americans.

And I suspect that’s the real problem. The domestic oil industry enriches people — and states — Democrats don’t like. Money going to Saudis, Russians or Venezuelans is one thing, but money going to Texans, Oklahomans or South Dakotans is another. Truth is, red states and their inhabitants rank higher on the administration’s enemies list than do shady foreign nations.

Read the whole thing.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Report highlights U.S. concerns over China’s space infrastructure in South America.

IT WASN’T THE PANDEMIC THAT DID THIS, BUT THE PANDEMIC RESPONSE: The Pandemic Really Did Change Us on a Personal Level, And It Wasn’t For The Better. “The global coronavirus pandemic affected just about everyone across the globe in ways that we’re still trying to understand. It appears that one of the effects is that many of us became moodier along the way, often to the point of becoming more neurotic and less agreeable. According to a new study of 7,109 people aged between 18 and 90, the shift was most noticeable in younger adults. Amongst the elderly people included in the research, there were no statistically significant changes.”

Older people are less swayed by media hysteria.

TRUST THE TECH COMPANIES: Uber’s Former Security Chief Found Guilty of Covering Up 2016 Data Breach.

ROGER KIMBALL: “Bad Luck” and the Evanescence of Imperfection. Looking at recent headlines, he observes:

There are other items on that list. None is what you would call upbeat.

This colloquy of gloom reminded me of a famous observation from the writer Robert Heinlein.

“Throughout history,” Heinlein wrote in 1973, “poverty is the normal condition of man.”

“Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people.”

Then comes the kicker: “Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.”

“This,” Heinlein added, “is known as ‘bad luck.’”

Of course, Heinlein was speaking ironically with that last bit.

The issue was not “bad luck” but virtue-fired stupidity.

All those “right-thinking people”—the people with the socially certified ideas, the kinder, gentler, mask-wearing, anti-fossil-fuel types—are on the ramparts, proudly toppling the atavistic instruments of their prosperity.

Very soon now, they will look around at the wreckage their good intentions have wrought and wonder who is to blame for the poverty, the chaos, the ruins that lay strewn where once, not so long ago, a vibrant civilization stood, supported by a mighty economy.

I question whether the intentions were ever actually all that good. People are presumed to intend the natural and probable results of their actions.

TEAM BIDEN’S BIZARRE DODGES ON DELAWARE VISITOR LOGS MAKE THE PRESIDENT LOOK GUILTY AS HELL:

Why doesn’t the president want Americans to know who’s visiting him at his Delaware residences?

It’s increasingly clear that Biden has — or believes he has — something to hide: How else to explain the bizarre denial met by The Post in an appeal of its previously rebuffed Freedom of Information Act request to the Secret Service for relevant records?

The denial reiterated the frankly incredible claim that the agency simply doesn’t have any records of who’s come to see Biden in his home state —where he’s spent a quarter of his presidency so far.

Really? Nameless, faceless people are permitted to come and go at will from the home of the world’s most powerful man, with no paper trail created by the agency responsible for keeping him safe?

As Kentucky Rep. James Comer told The Post, “The claim that there are no visitor logs for President Biden’s Delaware residence is a bunch of malarkey.” Indeed, Congressional Republicans — mustered by New York’s own Elise Stefanik — are now crying foul and demanding a release.

They’re right to. We know that Joe took meetings with Hunter Biden’s shady business associates as vice president. And the heat’s been on Hunter (and by extension Joe, aka the “big guy”) for years, with the promise of more to come if the GOP is victorious in the midterms.

You can trust Ol’ Joe — just ask him! You have “his word as a Biden.”

IF YOU’D SAID THIS TWO YEARS AGO IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED AS “DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION:” Mouthwashes may suppress SARS-CoV-2. “This study shows that low concentrations of CPC in commercial mouthwash suppress the infectivity of four variants of SARS-CoV-2.”

HOW IT STARTED: Watch: Biden drops F-bomb while touring Hurricane Ian devastation in Florida.

President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb in a hot mic moment during a visit to hurricane-ravaged Florida on Wednesday.

The candid moment came as Biden exchanged words with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy, who had just thanked the president for coming to the state.

The two men were shaking hands, and Biden began to say something that was not quite clear in the audio. Several Twitter sleuths suggested he said, “No one f***s with a Biden,” although the last word in particular was muffled.

How it’s going: Federal agents have evidence to charge Hunter Biden: report.

HMM: Intermittent fasting may benefit shift workers like firefighters.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Howard Stern Didn’t Learn John Hughes’ Lesson. “What’s missing from Stern’s current model? Courage. Fire. Passion. Integrity. The old Howard Stern would spend hours ripping the 2022 model, and it would be can’t-miss radio.”

READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro Wireless Earbuds. #CommissionEarned

RIDE THE MOBIUS LOOP! California will start handing out $1,050 stimulus payments to residents this week to combat inflation.

Qualifying Californians will begin receiving relief payments of up to $1,050 this week to soften the blow of inflation.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $308 billion state budget in June to deliver direct tax refunds to 23 million Californians as they struggle with inflation, which jumped 8.3% year over year.

“California’s budget addresses the state’s most pressing needs and prioritizes getting dollars back into the pockets of millions of Californians who are grappling with global inflation and rising prices of everything from gas to groceries,” said Gov. Newsom, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon in a joint statement.

The one-time payment, known as the Middle Class Tax Refund (MCTR), will be automatically delivered to residents starting Oct. 7, 2022, through Jan. 15, 2023, according to the Newsom administration. It anticipates that 95% of all payments will be issued before the end of the year.

Earlier: Top Democrat Acknowledges the Real Cause of Inflation.

In many ways, Rep. Ro Khanna is a far-left progressive. But the California Democrat also happens to be honest, and more prone to moments of genuine introspection than most in his party. Such was the case when Khanna appeared on Fox News on Sunday and acknowledged one of the biggest causes of our inflation woes that—because it’s politically inconvenient—most Democrats have refused to admit.

“I agree that there’s inflation, prices are up… there are two reasons for that,” Khanna said. “First, the Federal Reserve had quantitative easing for way too long and that was one of the main, primary culprits of this. They didn’t anticipate the inflation, monetary policy is largely determined by the Fed.”

What the congressman is referring to as “quantitative easing” is loose monetary policy, or, crudely simplified, the central bank’s printing of new money. As I’ve previously explained for BASEDPolitics, the Federal Reserve created trillions of new dollars out of thin air to “stimulate” the economy during the pandemic. This had the inevitable effect of making the dollars currently in existence less valuable.

Why, it’s as if “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”

FBI DOUBLE-STANDARD FAVORS EXECS ON SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: The parade of FBI whistle blowers to Capitol Hill continues as Sen. Charles Grassley issues statement regarding data showing FBI top-level supervisors and executives are disciplined less severely than agents in the field regarding sexual misconduct.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: CDC Data Shows Constitutional Carry States Have Fewer Total and Gun-Related Homicides.

BEEGE WELBORN: ‘Real men wear white boots’ and other tales of Lefty fails.

Then came…the boots. The L’Affaire d’ BOTTES BLANCHES. Oh, they for sure had the governor now. A Lefty Meme-O-Rama ensued. This was Kerry in the vacuum bag and Dukakis in the tank, and DeathSantis going DOWN in a pool of ridicule!

Only it wasn’t to be, alas. Because these idiots don’t know the first thing about those white rubber boots and Florida.

Read the whole thing — and get ready for two-to-ten more years of these ridiculous attacks.

LIVE AT 4PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, VodkaPundit, Special Guest Ed Morrissey.

UKRAINE WAR: It Won’t Be Won on the Battlefield. “By Putin’s decree, Russia’s borders are constitutionally inviolate, even when Russia’s leader just makes them up. That’s not the kind of ledge from which a man like Putin can gracefully climb down.”

START THE HOLIDAYS EARLY: 24 Pack Stemless Plastic Champagne Flutes Disposable. #CommissionEarned

A FIRST: Uber’s former security chief covered up enormous hack he said ‘did not exist.’ “The lone hacker apparently gained access posing as a colleague, tricking an Uber employee into surrendering their credentials. Screenshots the hacker shared with security researchers indicate they obtained full access to the cloud-based systems where Uber stores sensitive customer and financial data.”

BYRON YORK: Joe Biden, the 82 year-old candidate?

First, the NBC report might be wrong. Biden might be at exactly the stage in the decision-making progress that he described to “60 Minutes.”

Second, even if Biden has decided to run again, he is right about the disclosure requirements of the campaign finance laws. It would not be to his advantage to announce now.

Third, even if Biden has decided not to run again, politically, he can’t say so. The moment Biden announces that he will not seek a second term is the moment the entire political conversation turns to his successor, on the Democratic ticket and in the White House. Will it be Vice President Kamala Harris? Will it be another one of the 2020 Democratic primary field? Will it be someone else? The conversation will go on as if Biden did not exist.

Fourth, and most important, is that Biden is simply too old to run again. He was too old to run in 2020, and he is definitely too old now.

Pop a couple of Geritols, and read the whole thing.

Related: Notice Who Isn’t Barnstorming the Country as the Midterms Approach. “But you also can’t help but wonder if Biden’s lack of appearances on the campaign trail for rallies is another concession to the fact that the president turns 80 next month. Biden doesn’t have Covid-19 as a reason to avoid crowds anymore; in the president’s own words, ‘the pandemic is over.’ Biden has already caught Covid-19 and recovered…It seems likely that Biden just doesn’t have the energy to barnstorm the country and make a lot of appearances even if he wanted to, or if the candidates wanted him to.”

JEFFREY CARTER: Static And Half-Full: The Way The Left Views The World.

HOW IT STARTED: Watch: Biden drops F-bomb while touring Hurricane Ian devastation in Florida.

President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb in a hot mic moment during a visit to hurricane-ravaged Florida on Wednesday.

The candid moment came as Biden exchanged words with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy, who had just thanked the president for coming to the state.

The two men were shaking hands, and Biden began to say something that was not quite clear in the audio. Several Twitter sleuths suggested he said, “No one f***s with a Biden,” although the last word in particular was muffled.

How it’s going: Inside the White House’s failed effort to dissuade OPEC from cutting oil production to avoid a ‘total disaster.’

UGH: Florida Deacon Used Church Basement and Mom’s PC to Create and Store Child Pornography.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: U.S. judge temporarily blocks parts of New York’s new gun law.

FASTER, PLEASE: New gene target for aggressive lung cancer discovered.

HE’LL DO LITERALLY ANYTHING BUT END HIS WAR ON AMERICAN ENERGY PRODUCTION: Biden To Ease Sanctions On Socialist Venezuela, Releases Maduro’s Convicted Narco Trafficker Nephews.

LINDSEY GRAHAM THREATENS ELON MUSK FOR DARING TO PURSUE PEACE IN UKRAINE: “If there’s one thing that can be said of Senator Lindsey Graham it’s this: the man loves a war. Whether it be in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or Twitter, the man has yet to see a conflict he doesn’t want to insert his whole chest and all of your money into. So, it’s no surprise he got into a Twitter tussle with billionaire Elon Musk recently.”

GET IT OVER YOUNG, I GUESS: Virginia 9-year-old becomes the youngest to ever have a wisdom tooth removed.

MARK JUDGE: Me, Brett Kavanaugh, and the new American Stasi.

In early August 2021, National Geographic published an article titled “As Germany’s Secret-Police Archive Shutters, Reckoning for Its Victims Continues.”

The piece describes the Stasi, the German secret police who controlled, terrorized, spied on, and harassed the citizens of Communist East Germany from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Reading it, I relived some of my own trauma — not at the hands of the German Stasi, but the American Stasi, who upended my life in the fall of 2018. I recount the ordeal in a forthcoming book, The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi.

In America today, we have an organization that is analogous to the German Stasi. Or rather, it is three organizations that often work together — the legacy media, opposition researchers, and leftist politicians. Like their German counterparts, these groups try to effect political change and exert cultural control by blackmailing, terrifying, and embarrassing their victims.

In early 2009, the Washington Post, through its then-sister publication Newsweek informed its readers “We Are All Socialists Now.” Curiously, they left out the fact that the model of socialism that Beltway elites had chosen was East Germany.

ABOUT THAT KAMALA HARRIS CAR ACCIDENT YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE EVEN HEARD OF…: Another Secret Service Scandal?

I EAT A LOT OF SALMON. SARDINES NOT SO MUCH. Study: Eat salmon, sardines in midlife for improved thinking, brain structure.

HE WON’T; HIGH PRICES SUIT HIS HANDLERS JUST FINE: US oil and gas industry MOCKS Biden after OPEC announced production cuts: Energy groups say administration now has no choice but to come ‘crawling back’ to domestic producers in bid to lower prices.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The MSM Guidebook on How to Figure Out the Blame for Various Types of Disasters.

3 Political Scandals of the Past 12 Years in the USA, and How the MSM Managed to Find the Culprits

1) WHO IS GUILTY?! In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2006, rescue efforts were bungled in Louisiana’s largest city. Who should be blamed for the scandal?

Should it be the mayor of New Orleans?

Well, ain’t Ray Nagin a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the governor of the Pelican State?

Well, ain’t Kathleen Blanco a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the president of the United States?

Hold on: who’s in the White House? Ain’t it a hombre by the name of George W Bush? And ain’t he a Republican?! Yup, it certainly appears so. Well (Snaps fingers) there you go! Nailed it!

Read the whole thing, which is “unexpectedly” adjacent to:

DRESS UP TWICE AS HARD: Here’s What Happened When a Concerned Mom Dressed Like Drag Queen at a School Board Meeting.

BATTLESWARM BLOG: Multiple Russian Fronts Collapsing. “Kreminna seems to be the next big target for Ukrainian forces to take in Luhansk, allowing them to cut a major supply line and directly threaten Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.”

Plus this from ISW’s daily roundup:

The fragmentation of the Russian nationalist information space could have significant domestic impacts and could even affect the stability of Putin’s regime. Putin will be unable to meet the mutually exclusive demands of various groups. Kadyrov and Prigozhin are pushing for a change in the way Russia fights the war to one more suited to their unconventional modes of mobilizing personnel and fighting. The veterans have been pushing for a more traditional overhaul of the Russian higher military command and MoD and for putting Russia on a conventional war footing and the Russian MoD. Russian milbloggers are currently defending the Kremlin’s selection of uniformed commanders while continuing to attack the MoD and making a variety of extreme demands and recommendations of their own—all the while reporting on Russia’s frontline failings in detail even as the MoD tries to silence them. Putin cannot afford to lose the support of any of these groups, nor can satisfy them all as the war wears on and Russian troops continue to sustain losses. The shocks of the Kharkiv and Lyman defeats, energized by the partial mobilization and its poor management, have exposed these deepening fissures within Putin’s core constituencies to the view of all Russians. They could even begin to seed the notion that Putin is not fully in control of his own base. The ramifications of such a development for his regime are hard to predict.

Impossible, really. Although it this war is perhaps more likely to end in Moscow than it is to end in someplace like Mariupol.

THE ONE WHO LOOKS PRESIDENTIAL ISN’T THE PRESIDENT, OR AT LEAST NOT YET: DeSantis Flashes His Alpha-Dog Energy in Meeting With Diminished Biden.

GET THE RIGHT FIT: Fruit of the Loom Men’s Big & Tall Eversoft Cotton T-Shirts. #CommissionEarned

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: Chinese Communist Party’s National Congress To Set Leaders, Agenda For Next 5 Years. “Having used anti-corruption campaigns to take potential rivals out of play, President Xi Jinping is fully expected to be named to an unprecedented third term as the party’s general secretary.”

WHY ARE IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM? 77% of Asian Penn students experienced or saw ‘hate,’ study claims: Spend more money on responding to hate, researchers suggest.

My suggestion: Stop discriminating against Asians in admissions. When the university is openly racist, it’s useless to spend more money “responding.”

HE’S FLAILING: Joe Biden Plans to Tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Yet Again. “Fox News reports that Biden plans to release 10 million barrels from the reserve.”

That will cover five days of OPEC’s output reduction.

WELL, ONLY ONE GROUP IS DEPLOYED AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT’S ENEMIES: RealClearInvestigations: More Federal Bureacrats than U.S. Marines can Pack Heat.

NOR DO THEY CARE, BECAUSE THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY’RE AFTER: Universities have no clue what a diverse campus truly looks like.

YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE WOULD HELP? NOT SPENDING TRILLIONS ON BULLSHIT. NY Times Op-Ed: A Progressive Consumption Tax Could Help With Inflation.

Also, instead of “dialing taxes up and down” to suit the economy, how about stable levels of taxation that let people plan and invest? Insufficient opportunity for graft there, I suppose.

DOGS BITES MAN/SCORPION STINGS FROG: Tony Bobulinski claims Hunter Biden ‘defrauded’ him.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Can a Republican Majority Rein In the Lawless DOJ? “The party has an annoying history of talking a big game when it’s in the minority, then just behaving like grandstanding bureaucrats once it’s back in the majority.”

THIS IS SO OFTEN TRUE: Support for gun control drops as voters learn the devil in the details.

WELL, THAT’S AWKWARD: Northeastern Mistakenly Sent Acceptance Letters To 4,100 Law School Applicants.

NO, SHE REALLY DOESN’T: The Stock Market Made Nancy Pelosi Rich. Now, She Wants To Ban Her Colleagues From Trading.

Pelosi’s portfolio has performed remarkably well during periods of financial turmoil, her financial disclosures show. Her estimated net worth skyrocketed at the onset of the Great Recession, going from $31.4 million in 2008 to $101.1 million in 2010, a 220 percent increase in a window where the S&P 500 decreased by 13 percent. The speaker also reaped a significant return during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing her estimated net worth jump from $106 million in 2019 to $171.4 million in 2021, an increase of 60 percent.

Government ethics watchdogs noted glaring loopholes in the Pelosi-backed stock trading bill they say will create new avenues for lawmakers to secretly profit from their positions in Congress.

“To say the bill is weak … would be an understatement. The bill is dangerous. It would undermine what little ethics we have in our federal government,” former director of the Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub said of the measure.

Shaub noted that the bill would enable lawmakers to enter into “fake blind trusts.” Typical blind trusts, in which a lawmaker’s assets are handled by an independent manager, require trustees to divest whatever officials put in the trust. But the Pelosi-backed bill would exempt trustees from the divestiture requirement, Shaub said.

Cap government officials’ annual returns at the 7% household investors hope to earn, with any excess taxed at 100%.

It’s patriotic!

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY:

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Voters add violent crime to top concerns as murder and car thefts surge.

Biden has been president for less than two years, and look how things have changed: Gas prices, crime, war, inflation — pretty much everything has gotten worse. It’s not like there was no warning given.

MARK JUDGE: Me, Brett Kavanaugh, and the new American Stasi.

KEEPIN’ UP THE SKEER: Ukraine could recapture Crimea as fleeing Russians continue to flounder.

Western officials have previously considered retaking Crimea by force impossible, because Russia was expected to fight tooth and claw to defend it.

But a senior US officer told The Telegraph that recent Russian military collapses mean “the recapture of Crimea by Ukraine is now a distinct possibility and can no longer be discounted”.

Pushing into Crimea would mean Ukraine going further than the front lines of Feb 23, when Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and would likely view a ground assault on the critical strategic enclave as a major escalation.

The US official said: “It is clear that Russia no longer has the ability or willpower to defend key positions, and if the Ukrainians succeed in their goal of recapturing Kherson, then there is a very real possibility that it will ultimately be able to recapture Crimea.”

The comments follow those from Laura Cooper, US deputy assistant secretary of defence, who said that Crimea was within Ukraine’s grasp. “And just to be clear, Crimea is Ukraine,” she added.

Putin is likely to disagree, but his opinion is carrying less weight every day.

Related: Russian Frontline Collapsing Due to Lack of Commanders:

Russia doesn’t have the commanders to stop its frontline collapsing, a defence expert has said.

Ed Arnold, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Sky News: “Effectively, the Russian front has started to collapse.

“When armies collapse like this they need very good commanders to rally the troops, which the Russians just don’t have at the moment.”

He said there were also “no natural defensive positions” around the Russian army.

As Ukraine has already achieved its “primary political objective” – of “showing the West that it can take back territory – and using the weapons systems provided to do that” – he said that it was now liberating as many settlements as possible before winter.

He added it will also aim to ensure occupied territories are in range of the longer-range weapons systems, “so they can further degrade the Russians”.

Stay tuned. A loss of the Crimea is not an existential threat to Russia, but it may be one to Putin.

WHOSE NATION IS IT, ANYWAY? Why Do the Chinese Commies Have Their Own Police Station in New York?

DEAL OF THE DAY: Timex Ironman Classic 30 Full-Size 38mm Watch. #CommissionEarned

A BOYCOTT WE CAN GET BEHIND: More on conservative judges boycotting Yale Law School.

HEH: Czechs troll Russia with mock annexation of Kaliningrad. “A petition is now circulating to pry Kaliningrad from Russia’s hands, with one Russian news site reportedly taking the suggestion seriously.”

NBC NEWS: Conservative Latinos have gone from Democratic-leaning voters in 2012 to base GOP voters now.

I guess all the trans rights stuff isn’t selling.

THIS WAS SENT TO ME YESTERDAY, WITH “WHERE IS THE FBI”?  Tony Bobulinski reveals details on Hunter Biden business dealings in exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson.

I confess I was flabbergasted by the question.  After all we all know where the FBI is. They’re busy trying on Melania’s underwear!

I KNOW THE BOSS LINKED THIS. BUT IT’S IMPORTANT. IF YOU HAVEN’T LOOKED, DO IT NOW:  Fed up with 4-H focus on DEI, local group forms an alternative.

CLARICE FELDMAN: The Utter Folly of European ‘Climate Policy.’

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: Republicans Are Winning Where We Least Expected Them To. “But perhaps more shocking than any of these is the fact that a Republican may be elected governor of Oregon.”

Chris Queen: When Will Generation X Get a Chance to Lead? “An aging cohort of Boomers and older politicians in both parties grip their positions of power as tightly as they can.”

Yours Truly: I Know the Woke Military’s Dirty Little Secret. “My wife grew up on Air Force bases in Europe. She went to almost nothing but DOD schools. I don’t dare show her this story because you don’t break the heart of the woman you love.”

BUT OF COURSE: Tim Ryan took campaign donation$ from opioid distributors while zinging J.D. Vance on the crisis.

#JOURNALISM: Paper of Record? NYT’s embarrassing Emily Litella flip-flop on election conspiracy theories.

Democratic election conspiracy theories (even when obviously bogus): Good old fashioned skepticism. Republican election conspiracy theories (even when true): Ridiculous fever dreams. Threat to democracy.

Democratic political violence (even when cities burn): Good ol’ rough-and-tumble politics. Republican political violence (even when it’s imaginary): Insurrection, basically Hitler.

Takeaway: “Maybe next time, reporters can try reporting rather than just regurgitating their own conspiracy theories as ‘news.’ It would save them embarrassing episodes such as this, and might actually allow for the issues of election security to get discussed in a rational manner.” Haha, you guys crack me up.

JONATHAN TURLEY: Musk buyout reveals media priorities — and censorship interests.

Related:

Plus:

For them, “democracy” just means “unchallenged Democratic Party control.”

Also:

Twitter matters, but mostly as a self-herding mechanism for journos, a sort of Journolist III.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG, RIGHT?  US would destroy Russian forces if Putin uses nukes: former CIA head Petraeus.

SO PRETTY MUCH LIKE EVERY RUSSIAN ARMY SINCE BONAPARTE?  Russia’s forces are drunk, armed with ‘obsolete’ weapons: Ukraine.

LIES ALL THE WAY DOWN:  Philly synod artwork misrepresented our views, Catholic students say.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONSPIRACY THEORY AND ACCEPTED FACT IS TWO WEEKS:  When the tin foil isn’t just for fashion.

THERE IS NO CAKE, THE CAKE IS A LIE:  A Few Graphs Say It All for Weather-Dependent “Renewables”.

I THOUGHT RANGE ANXIETY WAS MY STRUGGLE TO BOOK RANGE TIME:  “Range Anxiety” and the Realities of Electric Vehicle Dependability.

MORE LIKE TURN AROUND:  Roundup.

AT THIS POINT IT’S A WAR ON HISTORICAL LANGUAGE:  Texas Wesleyan U. Cancels Black Playwright’s Work Because Character in Play Uses the N-Word.

IF WE WEREN’T LOCKED IN HERE WITH THEM, i’D BE LAUGHING MY *SS OFF: Anti-Fossil Fuel Biden Admin in Midterm Elections Panic as OPEC Cuts Production.

THEY DON’T GET US WRONG. THEY’RE HOPING TO CONVINCE OTHER PEOPLE WE’RE LIKE THIS:  Salon Gets Trump Supporters Wrong Yet Again.

MOST AMERICANS WOULD ALSO TELL BRANDON TO POUND SAND, IF WE COULD:  OPEC+ To Biden: Pound Sand.

I STILL SAY IT’S A BLUFF:  The US Navy is taking Vladimir Putin very seriously.

I ALSO BELIEVE THIS:  Why Trump Must Run.

CARTOON EVIL VILLAINS:  The Globalist Climate Agenda is a Crime Against Humanity.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND a “conference room contrivance.” “In the mind’s eye it’s possible to see whoever wrote that wording about Knox News’ motives leaning back in their chair and smiling with self-satisfaction. If read to advisers there might have been nods of approval and comments like, ‘That’ll get ‘em.’ Maybe it was hammered out by a group of people in a conference room. The argument has no basis in the state’s public records law.”

I tell my law students that when, as lawyers , you’re patting each other on the back about how smart you are, it’s probably a warning sign.

NOBODY JOE BIDEN PICKS FOR ANYTHING SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO SPEAK CLEARLY AND TO THE POINT: KBJ’s Jumbled Musings on the Fourteenth Amendment.

In today’s oral argument in Merrill v. Milligan, Justice Jackson capped her very long questioning of Alabama solicitor general Edmund LaCour with a speech/question that went on for around four minutes and that runs a full three pages (57:2-60:2) in the transcript. In her speech, Jackson states that the Framers of the 14th Amendment adopted it “in a race conscious way,” as they were “trying to ensure that people who had been discriminated against, the freedmen in — during the reconstructive — reconstruction period were actually brought equal to everyone else in the society.” As she puts it, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 “specifically stated that citizens would have the same civil rights as enjoyed by white citizens,” and the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that the Act had a solid “constitutional foundation.”

Somehow Jackson leaps from these propositions to the assertion that the 14th Amendment doesn’t embody “a race-neutral or race-blind idea in terms of the remedy” for discrimination against freed slaves.

So if it’s all about remedies for slavery, I guess it’s not going to protect abortion or contraception or gay rights, then. Interestingly, when Robert Bork advanced a similar theory of the 14th Amendment it was poorly received.

But there’s more:

I don’t understand her leap. By her own account, the very purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was “to make sure that the other citizens, the black citizens, would have the same [civil rights] as the white citizens.” It was designed to remedy a situation in which “people, based on their race, were being treated unequally” by the states. And the 14th Amendment had the same goal.

The proposition that the 14th Amendment requires that the government be color-blind is open to challenge both as to what exactly that means and to whether that meaning is well founded. But Jackson seems to think that the color-blind position is somehow at odds with the fact that the 14th Amendment was designed to ensure equal treatment—when that of course is exactly what advocates of the color-blind position maintain the 14th Amendment requires.

Jackson seems to confuse herself with her own terms.

Well, she’s new on the Court but this doesn’t bode well.

OOPS: “Don’t make me feel like Project Veritas is with us.”

I HOPE IT’S OVER FOR THIS DOLORES UMBRIDGE WANNABE: Jacinda Ardern and Labour, goneburger. “Well, it’s confirmed – the latest Roy Morgan poll, encompassing New Zealanders political leanings over the month of September, has revealed what many Kiwis already thought to be true; the days of Jacinda Ardern and her administration are numbered. Following months of economic mishandlings, policy flip-flops and scandals, Labour are in free fall – desperate to retain power. However, Kiwis are far from keen, with only 29.5 percent of the nation standing with Jacinda Ardern and her ever-dwindling caucus, according to the poll. A distressing figure for what was a party supported by 50 percent of the nation merely two years ago.”

NBC’S BEN COLLINS GIVES THE GAME AWAY ON ‘DISINFORMATION:’

Here, in one tweet, we can see the near terminal myopia of the mainstream press — especially among those who believe themselves to be superintending the spread of “disinformation.”

“It could actually affect midterms,” Collins says. Which, by definition, means that Collins believes that Twitter’s current moderation policies are affecting political outcomes. But that doesn’t concern him. What concerns him is that Twitter’s moderation policies might affect political outcomes in the wrong direction. Up until now, Collins and many like him have been quite happy with Twitter’s decisions, because they have gone in a direction of which Collins and many like him approve. If Elon Musk buys Twitter, however, they aren’t sure this’ll continue, and so, suddenly, this becomes a national crisis.

Curiously though, Collins is happy to spread a little disinformation himself:

Earlier: “One of the most fascinating things about the modern age we live in is the population of journalists almost exclusively being from mega rich families and the fact they have done such a good job of hiding it from the internet.”

I MEAN, THE POINT IS EVEN WAPO THINKS THEY WOULD: WaPo: Did the Secret Service cover up a motorcade accident involving the VP?

OPEN THREAD: It’s all you.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY:

UKRAINE: RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 5.

SO I THINK THAT CLAIMS THAT THOUSANDS OF TWITTER EMPLOYEES WILL QUIT ONCE ELON MUSK TAKES OVER ARE LIKE THREATS BY CELEBRITIES TO MOVE TO CANADA IF A REPUBLICAN IS ELECTED PRESIDENT, but Elon may hope they come true: “It’s also worth noting that Mr. Musk may not mind if thousands of Twitter employees show themselves the door. He has implied that the company’s staff is bloated, and now that he needs to justify a $44 billion price tag, an exodus of unhappy employees might be the kind of savings he’s looking for.”

BUT THE DEEP STATE’S TOTALLY A CONSPIRACY THEORY MYTH YOU GUYS:

SPACE: The Space Development Agency, formed inside the Pentagon in 2019 to help accelerate the use of commercial space technology, was officially transferred to the U.S. Space Force on Oct. 1.

WHEN BOOKS ARE COOKED: “The FBI’s latest crime report shows violent crime dropped in 2021, but there are a few gaps in the data — like New York and Los Angeles.”

EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED, EVEN 4-H: Fed up with 4-H focus on DEI, local group forms an alternative.

WHEN YOU’RE ONLY NEXT-TO-TOP ON THE FOOD CHAIN: Watch A Great White Become an Orca’s Lunch in World-First Footage.

AT POLITICO, TAXPAYER MONEY IS “THE PRESIDENT’S WALLET.”

See, you don’t have to actually understand high school civics to work at Politico, and it shows.

Related: Do they think the White House is a bank?

MAKE THEM PAY: Massachusetts now hit with a Bruen case.