HMM: Russia offers conditions to end war… sort of.

We probably shouldn’t get our hopes up too high just yet, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled that there might be an offer on the table over the weekend. Considering how bombastic Lavrov generally is, this would indicate a serious change in his attitude if it turns out to be more than just random propaganda. But, as always, he wasn’t suggesting any sort of complete surrender or even withdrawal without concessions. Russia would only be willing to engage in such a discussion if “the West meets certain conditions.”

So what are these “conditions” that Lavrov wants to see being offered? We’re not going to get much help from him there because he seemed to be deliberately vague on the subject. He claimed that Russia is “always ready to listen to our Western colleagues” if there is a desire to engage in new talks.

The Biden White House ought to be pursuing a two-track strategy of weapons for Ukraine to punish aggression, while using carrots and sticks to get both sides to the negotiating table before this war escalates.

Instead, we’re forced to play old Kremlinology games.

WOKE WHITE PEOPLE ARE A SMALL, NOISY, CRAZY MINORITY: Oh my: Dems’ “Defund the Police” only gets 17% support — among black voters.

Woke white people get so much traction because so many journalists and political staffers are within their small crazy minority.

NO AMNESTY! REAL PEOPLE WERE HURT FROM THEIR POLICIES DESIGNED TO KILL THE ECONOMY SO THEY COULD  “WIN” AN ELECTION:  No Pandemic Amnesty For Anyone, Accountability For All.

People lost their jobs. People lost restaurants and businesses they’d invested years of themselves in. Kids were harmed perhaps irreparably. People were denied cancer checks and died. Old people died ALONE and their families were denied the consolation of a funeral. Orthodox Jewish cemeteries were padlocked. People — including me — with aging relatives abroad haven’t seen them in three years, and it might be too late.

All based on idiotic “computer models”, someone’s school fair project, a desire for power from the self-proclaimed elite, and their need to crash the US economy and have a zombie campaign from his basement. So they could open the borders to invasion and crash our oil industry to resurrect Russian Imperial ambitions. And take out our industry, to resurrect the Chinese economy. (No, it won’t work, but remember all the Chinese know are fantasy Marxist economics.)

These are things that cry to the heavens for justice.

No amnesty. Justice. Maybe (I hope) mercy in that we won’t give #teamheadsonpikes their way. But no amnesty. You pay. You made your choices. You let your totalitarian freak out to stomp on everyone’s face. Now you pay for that. You pay.

DOUBLE STANDARDS ARE THE ONLY STANDARDS THEY HAVE, BUT NOW WE’RE LAUGHING AT THEM: Paul Pelosi and the violence we care about: The liberal media’s double standards on political violence are horrifying.

The goal is simple: To open up the possibilities for their people to engage in violence while constraining their enemies’ ability to respond in kind. Once you realize this, it all makes sense. And that’s all it is. It’s not blindness, it’s calculation.

SURE, THIS MAKES SENSE: Biden threatens oil companies with ‘higher tax’ if they don’t increase production.

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

Robert Spencer: Obama Fires Off Rhetorical Shot at Trump, Hits Biden Instead. “When we don’t just disagree with people but we start demonizing them, making wild crazy allegations about them, that creates a dangerous climate.”

Matt Margolis: Is There a Cover-up Underway in the Pelosi Home Invasion Story? “It may be considered unbecoming to ask questions because Paul Pelosi was seriously injured in the attack, but it’s hard to ignore some of the problems with the story.”

Yours Truly: Are You Ready to Forgive and Forget for the Damage Done by COVID Lockdowns? “This is the same author who, as recently as January, was arguing that it ‘may be necessary’ to mock ‘anti-vaxxers’ COVID deaths.'”

ENJOY YOUR “DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM,” LEFTIES: Elon Musk Ousts Twitter Board, Named Sole Director: Overhaul of nine-member board comes after billionaire completed $44 billion deal.

The board that oversaw Twitter Inc. during its tumultuous sale to Elon Musk has been dissolved, with the Tesla Inc. TSLA -0.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle chief now serving as the social-media company’s sole director.

Twitter said in a securities filing Monday that the nine members of its former board are no longer directors as of the consummation of the $44 billion merger, which closed last Thursday after six months of hand-wringing over the deal’s fate.

Mr. Musk always intended to take over as sole director under the terms of the merger agreement, according to the filing.

The San Francisco-based company’s new owner immediately fired Twitter’s top executives after the deal closed, tweeting hours later that “the bird is freed” in an apparent reference to Twitter, which has a blue bird as its logo.

The dissolution of the board was disclosed in a broader securities filing that spelled out other formalities as part of the deal closing, including repaying debt under a revolving credit agreement, a notice of delisting shares and stating that each issued share was canceled and converted into the right to receive the merger consideration of $54.20 a share.

Stay tuned. Plus: Twitter to lay off 25% of workforce in first round of job cuts.

Related:

Also:

YEAH, BUT THE WRAP JUST WANTS SARANDON ALSO SILENCED:  Far-Left TheWrap.com Calls Out Gina Carano-Susan Sarandon Double Standard.

OR GOBLINS. I DO HOWEVER BELIEVE IN EVIL. AND KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT:  I don’t Believe In Aliens.

IS OLD AND EXCESSIVELY TIRED:  The Democrats’ Playbook…

NO ONE HAS EXPLAINED THE SECURITY THING:  On the Paul Pelosi perp.

FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE ACHANGING:  Nashville Hit Songwriter Records Song About Fatherhood on iPhone, Goes Viral Just Days Later.

WE KNOW:  A Major Diesel Shortage Is Approaching Fast.

CREEPY:  Halloween.

GOOD. DON’T SUPPORT THOSE WHO HATE YOU:  Why I’m Not Pledging.

TIME TO STOP THIS NONSENSE:  Report: DHS Still Trying to ‘Police Disinformation’, Pressure Big Tech to Play Along.

UH UH:  Like Elizabeth Warren? Checking American Indian Box Based On “Family Lore” Slammed At SCOTUS Affirmative Action Argument.

NO, REALLY, THEY ARE ACHANGING:  Cancelvania: Bill Maher Slams Costume Scolds in Epic Halloween Rant.

FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE ACHANGING:  Woke feeling backlash at Cambridge University.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Democrats are worried about a seat in New York where Biden won by 20.

OPEN THREAD: Boo!

NO. The Atlantic calls for COVID amnesty.

Dr. Oster’s premise is simple and easy to grasp. And, under normal circumstances, one with which I could be sympathetic: during the initial phases of COVID people were making decisions in an environment dominated by near total ignorance of the seriousness of COVID, so we should forgive each other for the mistakes made by people and policymakers.

We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge. Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips. But we need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go. We need to forgive the attacks, too. Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.” It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high. And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.

So no, I will not forgive and forget, and neither should anyone else. These were not innocent mistakes, but the result of a plan to exploit people’s fears–fears that the elites did everything to stoke–for their own benefit. Trillions of dollars were transferred from ordinary people to billionaires, children suffered enormous learning loss, lives were ruined, literally. People still cannot enter the US (legally) without a COVID vaccine. It is insane.

Toddlers forced to wear masks:

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1587149047634087936

Schoolkids’ development damaged. Families disrupted. Health issues that couldn’t be treated due to the lockdowns. Businesses shuttered. And since Oster mentioned Los Angeles in the above quote, let’s flashback to what a veteran of the L.A. Times was saying at the start of the year:

As Ace of Spades adds, “Should we all just ‘call it a draw’ with the Kathleen Parkers of the Democrat Party? The crazed cat-lady Karens, low-value and low-status women who thirst to exert control over everyone around them, and do so by shrieking until the Democrat Party sees a demographic complaint it can satisfy and exploit and begins encoding their hysterias into positive law? Should we just keep Turnkey Fascism in place so they can do this all again next time, the next time a Fauci Special escapes from a lab? No, we won’t be doing that, Emily. Never Again, Emily. Never Again.”

Related: Republicans in hot races put Democrats on defense over strict COVID-19 policies.

Well, good.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China tests engines for moon mission rocket.

Z CHANNEL: CLOSED-CIRCUIT TV FOR HOLLYWOOD’S RULING CLASS: My latest, over at Ed Driscoll.com.

SOD OFF, SWAMPY: Man of average height poses next to truck he thinks should be illegal. “You can pretty easily tell a liberal because they want fewer freedoms while screeching that the government (or, more precisely, the Supreme Court) is taking away all of their freedoms.”