WE WILL DELETE YOU: “A deeper concern is what happens when private institutions like corporations, universities, and media exercise the same power without even the pretense of accountability. If the large financial institutions want to, they can act as gatekeepers to society and would be held accountable only by the market, to which they also hold the keys.”

Hang a few executives or burn them at the stake and they’ll feel differently. The market is, in the end, not the only thing that can hold people accountable. It’s unwise to forget that.

People and institutions want to practice social alchemy, but there’s only one universal solvent. Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of history would know that, but our elites are poorly educated.

EVERYDAY HEROES: A Cordele woman got stuck in her burning car on the interstate. As car after car passed by one man saw something wrong, and stopped to help. “He actually broke the window with the fire extinguisher and pulled me out through the window.”

A USEFUL REMINDER FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: Hey GOP, There’s More Than Just Ukraine Going On. “There are a lot of miserable things going on here at home in addition to the Disney-approved kindergarten perversion propaganda and girl athletes who are boys crises. We have an elite treating the idea of free speech like Bill Clinton treated his wedding vows, gas prices higher than Cheech & Chong hanging at Seth Rogan’s place, and a border that is open wider than Ana Navarro’s pie-hole at Golden Corral’s Endless Fountain of Ham. We have a potential Supreme Court justice who thinks kiddie porn pervs should get a slap on the wrist and an election system that is a slap in the face to democracy. Burger is $7 a pound and Jussie Smollett is free – and don’t be surprised if his double jeopardy argument works on appeal! Yeah, there are a lot of bad things going on here in the US of A thanks to that desiccated old pervert in the White House, but we’re not hearing enough about them from Republican poobahs.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY, COMRADE PUTIN! Belarus Rail Lines Carrying Trains With Supplies for the Russian Army Are Being Hit by Sabotage Attacks. The saboteurs are apparently Belarusians who oppose the Russian-puppet ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. “Russian forces are already under pressure by the rear area campaign being waged by Ukrainian Territorial Defense forces inside Ukraine. If an active insurgency takes root in Belarus aimed at the rail trunk resupplying the Russian troops in the northern theater of the Ukraine front, they will find it hard to sustain themselves. The real question is if the sabotage campaign takes off, and it looks as though it is primarily the work of Belarus citizens rather than Ukrainian commandos, how hard will Lukashenko try to suppress it?”

At this point, no one seems eager to stick their neck out for Putin.

Related: Did the true number of Russian troop deaths in Ukraine just leak?

UPDATE: More here.

OPEN THREAD: Crash and burn.

OKAY, GROOMERS: Austin, Texas Elementary Schoolers Told To Keep Pride Week ‘Community Circles’ ‘Confidential.’

BOMB CANADA — THE CASE FOR WAR: What the Canadian Pacific Shutdown Could Mean for the U.S.

Over the weekend, Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) began to shut down its operations because of a labor dispute. Headquartered in Calgary, CP is one of the largest freight railroads in North America, with over 12,000 miles of track.

Around 3,000 engineers, conductors, and yard workers stopped working on Sunday, according to FreightWaves. They’re represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), and the union said the main points of disagreement were wages, benefits, working conditions, and pensions — in other words, just about everything.

Each side is blaming the other for the shutdown. The TCRC emphasized that this shutdown is a lockout, not a strike, because it was initiated by Canadian Pacific, not by the union. CP contradicted TCRC’s claim, saying that the union was the one that walked away from negotiations.

Whoever started it, the result is the same: Canadian Pacific’s normal rail operations will not be resuming until a deal is worked out. That has consequences for the United States.

Despite its name, CP has significant U.S. operations. In addition to its denser network in western Canada, CP serves North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Fortunately though, Pete Buttigieg finally has nautical-based supply lines sorted out, to help reduce any issues caused by the CP strike. Or not:

(Classical reference in headline.)

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX sets reuse and payload mass records in Starlink launch.

CHANGE: Kentucky Senate overrides [Democrat Andy] Beshear’s veto to end COVID State of Emergency.

YES, INFLATION IS HARD, BUT ELITES THINK WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO NAVIGATE IT:

Yes, [economics professor and Bloomberg contributor Teresa] Ghilarducci actually suggests selling your car and relying on public transportation to get everywhere. Like all elites, her default is that all of us poor, unwashed masses live in urban settings (she probably thinks we all live in slums).

Of course, the whole sell-your-car-and-take-the-bus strategy doesn’t do a thing for people who live in rural and many suburban areas, but that doesn’t matter. Nevertheless, it’s a slightly less stupid idea than Pete Buttigieg’s flippant “just buy an EV” plan.

My favorite quote when she suggests selling your car is the part where she declares, “Now may even be the time to sell your car. It certainly isn’t the time to buy a new or used one.” In other words, it’s a bad time for you to buy a car, but maybe you can convince some sucker to buy yours.

And then there’s the whole “eat lentils” thing. Actually, when you go into detail, Ghilarducci goes straight to the old lefty trope of going vegetarian.

“Meat prices have increased about 14% from February 2021 and will go up even more,” she writes. “Though your palate may not be used to it, tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%). Plan to cut out the middle creature and consume plants directly. It’s a more efficient, healthier and cheaper way to get calories.”

In other words, do without, peasant. At least she didn’t try to talk us into eating bugs.

And about buying in bulk? Ghilarducci repeats the old saw about how you don’t really save that much by buying in bulk unless you “try to do it with a friend, so you can split some of the costs and ensure everything gets eaten or used.”

I picture most readers thinking, Don’t tell me how to shop! After all, buying some things in bulk can be a hedge against having to pay more for those things sooner rather than later as prices continue to rise.

And then there’s the bizarre paragraph about pet chemotherapy.

In a 2018 Forbes article, Ghilarducci defended AOC’s socialist worldview by writing that she “may not be too far left,” so no wonder she’s now writing articles straight out of the Carter era to justify Biden’s runaway inflation.

STACY MCCAIN HAS thoughts on Ukraine and immigration policy.

RIOTS FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME: The View Throws Tantrum After Josh Hawley Questions Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Judicial Record.

UPDATE: ‘So, You Don’t Know:’ ABC Reporter Lays Trap For Josh Hawley, He Snares Her Instead.

(Classical reference in headline.)

“MAN OH MAN:” Babylon Bee Suspended from Twitter for Mentioning Richard Levine.

Biology is hate speech, and now we have proof.

Look at this tweet from the Babylon Bee, which is sort of like The Onion for people who didn’t vote for Biden:

This isn’t so much a joke as a fact, because Richard Levine is a man whose career flourished when he decided he wanted everybody to call him a woman. Levine was just named one of USA Today’s “Women of the Year,” so the Bee made fun of them for it. That’s what satirists do.

Now look at this tweet from Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon:

* * * * * * * *

That’s right: A humor website just got suspended from Twitter for stating a fact about the genetic makeup of a transgender person. Remembering biology class is “hateful conduct” that “promotes violence.”

Where’s the violence, you ask? Here’s your answer, and it’s the only one you’re getting:

Shut up.

Of course — it’s the left’s standard answer to everything:

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: A large solar storm could knock out the power grid and the internet – an electrical engineer explains how. “It is only a matter of time before the Earth is hit by another geomagnetic storm. A Carrington Event-size storm would be extremely damaging to the electrical and communication systems worldwide with outages lasting into the weeks. If the storm is the size of the Miyake Event, the results would be catastrophic for the world with potential outages lasting months if not longer. Even with space weather warnings from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, the world would have only a few minutes to a few hours notice.”

HMM: Effectiveness of antibiotics significantly reduced when multiple bugs present. “A study has found that much higher doses of antibiotics are needed to eliminate a bacterial infection of the airways when other microbes are present. It helps explain why respiratory infections often persist in people with lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis despite treatment.”

WE ALL PREFER WORKING TOILETS: The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General is calling for the “immediate relocation” of all detainees from an ICE facility in New Mexico on account of water leaks, clogged toilets, and mold. ICE strongly opposes this recommendation.

I can’t say how bad things are at this particular facility. But I suspect that if clogged toilets cause immigration detention facilities to be evacuated, we’re going to see a sudden spike in clogged toilets.

For what it’s worth, when my fellow commissioners on the Commission on Civil Rights and I made an official visit to immigration detention facilities, one of the facilities we saw was surprisingly nice. The other, though hardly lovely, was clean and orderly.   One of the detainees at the second facility told us that if they would let him out on Sundays, he wouldn’t mind staying indefinitely. My progressive colleagues were … uh … a bit surprised. It was amusing.

MAYBE WE SHOULD MANUFACTURE VITAL DRUGS AT HOME? U.S. drug shortages predate pandemic, are ‘national security issue,’ experts say. Chips, too. And fertilizer. And . . .

SCIENCE MARCHES ON: Testosterone therapy may help aging dogs.

VIA A FRIEND:

THAT’S A MAN, BABY:

Ladies, how much longer are you going to put up with this?

STILL POPULAR: Garage Light – LED Garage Light 2 Pack – 8000LM Glare-Free 360° Illuminator Garage Light. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)

MARK JUDGE: The Disturbing Omissions of Anita Hill: A lesson in the “sexism” of logic and truth.

YOU SHOULDN’T NEED A LICENSE TO SELL A CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED PRODUCT: Biden Uses War, Economic Chaos as Cover to Yank Licenses of ‘Rogue Gun Dealers.’

THE RETURN OF THE LIGHT CARRIER… ER, LIGHTNING CARRIER? Marines To Test Lightning Carrier Concept With 20 F-35Bs Aboard USS Tripoli This April. “Early this coming April, United States Marine Corps F-35Bs from three squadrons will converge aboard the USS Tripoli (LHA-7) to fully test the ‘Lightning Carrier’ concept. The idea to basically turn big-deck ‘Gator Navy’ amphibious assault ships into light aircraft carriers packed with F-35Bs first emerged five years ago, but it has its roots in AV-8 Harrier operations going back decades. A whopping 20 F-35Bs will be conducting sustained operations followed by surge operations from the USS Tripoli. The event will test the ability of the Marines to operate two full F-35B squadrons from one ship at one time and could have major impacts on what the stealthy jets, and the ships they deploy on, can bring to the fight in the future.”

BE PREPARED: Augason Farms Vegetable Stew Blend 2 lbs 0.5 oz No. 10 Can. #CommissionEarned