THERE’S BIPARTISAN IMPATIENCE WITH JOE: Biden’s response to the dramatic Zelensky address to Congress left folks in both political parties looking at each other and muttering, according to Just the News.

FOUR PROOFS BIDEN LIES: Biden says Putin is the cause of the hyper-inflation exploding throughout the U.S. economy. Issues & Insights says Biden is the cause and offers four convincing proofs that things started heading toward Hades in a hand-basket right about the time Joe signed his American Rescue Plan into law.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Why Do Joe Biden’s Handlers Let the Idiot Speak? “It is no secret that Joe Biden isn’t really in control. Some ungodly cabal of puppetmasters is pulling the moron’s strings. From what we’ve seen so far, they aren’t brighter than their drooling charge. If they were, they wouldn’t let Ol’ Gropes speak in public. Ever.”

MARK JUDGE: The End of the Pandemic and the Joy of Risk: What I learned from Roger Scruton and KT Tunstall.

DEAL OF THE DAY: DREAM PAIRS Bruno Marc Moda Italy Men’s Prince Classic Modern Formal Oxford Wingtip Lace Up Dress Shoes. #CommissionEarned

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: Xi Jinping’s Faltering Foreign Policy.

To say that Xi has consolidated power in China is to state the obvious. Few dispute that Xi holds a singular position within China’s bureaucratic apparatus, and it is increasingly hard to deny that something akin to a personality cult is developing in state media and other propaganda channels. Yet the implications of this reality are insufficiently appreciated, especially its impact on the behavior of the Chinese party-state.

Consider a pattern that has emerged across authoritarian political systems in which leaders remain in office far longer than their democratic and term-limited counterparts. The longer a leader stays in power, the more state institutions lose their administrative competence and independence as they evolve to fit that leader’s personal preferences. Successive rounds of purges and promotions shape the character of the bureaucracy, moving it incrementally in the same direction as the leader’s grand vision. What might begin as formal punishment for explicit opposition to the leadership eventually becomes a climate of informal self-censorship as members of the bureaucracy come to understand the pointlessness of dissent and grow better attuned to unspoken expectations of compliance. The leader also becomes more distant and isolated, relying on a smaller and smaller group of trusted advisers to make decisions. Most of those individuals remain at the table because they display absolute loyalty.

This small circle, in turn, acts as the leader’s window to the world, leaving much dependent on how accurate a depiction of external reality its members choose to provide. Such an opaque decision-making process makes it difficult for external observers to interpret signals from the central leadership. But even more crucially, it makes it hard for actors within these autocratic systems to anticipate and interpret their leaders’ actions. The result is an increasingly unpredictable foreign policy, with the leader formulating snap decisions in secret and the rest of the bureaucracy racing to adapt and respond.

Putin is is a similar situation and started a war because, apparently, his generals told him he could win quickly and at a reasonably low cost. What he’s gotten is an expensive slog. Worse, it’s revealed serious weaknesses in the Russian military that a decade’s worth of reforms and modernization were supposed to have fixed.

Maybe Xi can learn from Putin’s bad example, or maybe he’s so cloistered that he can’t.

TELL ME YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND INFLATION WITHOUT TELLING ME YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND INFLATION: Soaring gas prices are hurting Americans. It’s time for more stimulus checks.

PUTTING OUT FIRE WITH GASOLINE: Pelosi and Buttigieg Want to Solve Inflation With — You Guessed It — More Spending.

FROM JAMES YOUNG:  Eagles, Ravens, and Other Birds of Prey: A History of USAF Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) Doctrine, 1973-1991.  #CommissionEarned

In January 1973, the United States Air Force (USAF) concluded operations against North Vietnam in seeming disarray. With heavy losses to tactical aircraft and B-52s during Operations Linebacker I and II, the USAF’s conventional capabilities were at their nadir. Instead of a potent sword protecting the West against Communist aggression, the Air Force appeared to be an obsolescent weapon to be shattered by new, potent Soviet air defense weaponry.

In January 1991, the USAF spearheaded the Coalition’s air attack on KARI, the Iraqi Integrated Air Defense System. Considered by contemporary analysts to be the most effective air defense system outside the Soviet Union’s, planners expected KARI to exact heavy casualties. Instead, in less than ten days, Coalition forces shattered KARI and prevented it from overseeing any organized defense. Indeed, so complete was Coalition air forces’ dominance that the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) chose to flee to Iran, their bitter enemy, rather than face certain destruction on the ground.

This journey from near irrelevance to triumph did not occur by accident. Air Force military and civilian leaders made a controversial choice: accept hostile air defenses as priority targets equal in importance to manufacturing centers, military formations, or political leadership. Eagles, Ravens, and Other Birds of Prey examines how this chain of decisions both helped win the Cold War and culminated in the greatest American aerial victory since 1945.

Dr. James Young is an airpower historian, aviation enthusiast and military analyst. His writing credits include the USNI’s 2016 Cyberwarfare Essay Contest, articles in Armor, The Journal of Military History, Marine Corps University Press Expeditions, and USNI Proceedings. In addition to his historical work and the critically acclaimed Usurper’s War-series, he has collaborated with bestselling authors Sarah Hoyt, S.M. Stirling, and David Weber.

SO WE’RE BACK TO ARTICLES LIKE THIS: Feeling the pinch: Ways to budget during an inflation wave.

For months people have been steadily feeling the heat of rising costs for just about everything. Rent, food, and now gas prices are through the roof.

We’re all feeling the pinch, whether it’s at the grocery store or in the car line and filling up the tank.

Data collected by GasBuddy said the national average of fuel is $4.32 a gallon as of March 15, and federal experts estimate groceries will go up by 6% this year.

Pretty sure my grocery bill has gone up 6% this month.

AND A FEW MAKE WAY TOO MUCH SENSE:  a few thoughts spinning through my mind.

THIS CREATURE WOULDN’T KNOW “AMERICAN” IF IT BIT HER IN THE GLUTEUS MAXIMUS:   Washington State House Democrat Says It’s ‘Un-American’ to Blame Biden for Gas Crisis.

ITS NEXT PASSING IS NOT DUE UNTIL 2126:  Comet is 16 miles wide and it could be heading towards Earth.

We’ll all be dead of climate change socialism by then.

RARE JUDICIAL SANITY:  Rhode Island’s Stun Gun Ban Ruled Unconstitutional.

THERE AREN’T ENOUGH HANDS TO FACE PALM ON THIS ONE:  Example #2,943 Why Academia Is Doomed.

THOSE WHO KNOW HISTORY ARE DESTINED TO WAKE UP SCREAMING:   Ukraine, Fast of Esther edition: 1956 Hungarian invasion as foreshadowing; Poland wants NATO humanitarian mission, while Germany rules out military NATO-Russia confrontation; Zelensky’s address to US Congress.

SO, BACK TO CLASSIC SOVIET AGIT-PROP?  What did NATO promise Russia?

SHOULD JOIN THE WHITE HORSE OF NAPOLEON, ALREADY:  The First Lady’s husband.

YEAH, OKAY, HAPPY TO STOP SWITCHING, BUT MUST IT BE ON DST?  About Damn Time.

THE WHOLE “CLIMATE” THING IS JUST AN EXCUSE:  A feature, not a bug.

Shut up and take the bus, serf.

OH, FOR THE LOVE OF–  Study: Climate Change Boosted Plant Growth is Bad.

THAT HAS BEEN OBVIOUS:  No Amount Of Incremental Wind And Solar Power Can Ever Provide Energy Independence.

APPARENTLY WE CAN TELL HE’S LYING WHEN HIS LIPS MOVE:  Biden’s “They have 9,000 to drill onshore that are already approved” Drilling Permits Canard.

OUCH:

@the_knox_talks #greenscreen #mittromney #ouch #jokes ♬ original sound – KnoxTalks

OPEN THREAD: Hold your head up high.