PRESIDENTS GIULIANI, BLOOMBERG, AND DE BLASIO ARE EAGER TO WELCOME HIM TO THE CLUB: Eric Adams eyeing White House run in 2024: sources.

SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: New research challenges established ideas about infant crying.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: California tries to ban guns on movie sets.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Loudoun County School Board Moves to Block Investigation of Sexual Assaults it Covered Up.

FASTER, PLEASE: Study: Drug could block inflammation, pain, restore function in spinal cord injury.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Elon announces he is putting together a team of “hardcore streetfighter” lawyers to start suing people and promises “there will be blood.”

WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT WHEN THEY’RE WINNING? Growing Chorus Is Urging Ukraine To Sue for Peace in a Compromise With Putin: Beyond justice, there is no guarantee that a compromise involving Ukraine conceding territory that the Russian army currently holds would satisfy Putin. Well, yes.

A growing chorus in Washington and Europe is urging President Zelensky to lay down and play dead. If only Russia were permitted to eat up the Donbas region of Ukraine, they say, there would be peace in our time — just as there was supposed to be after Hitler was allowed to seize the Sudetenland.

This call is intensifying as the financial cost of America’s involvement in the European war is passing $56 billion and rising. As Republican fiscal hawks and Democrat doves are beginning to push back, Ukraine could become politically hazardous for President Biden as America hurtles toward the midterms.

The latest voice in this chorus is the New York Times editorial board, which often voices un-uttered White House sentiments and policy prescriptions. Now it is advocating a war-ending path. In an editorial Friday, the paper declared, “It is still not in America’s best interest to plunge into an all-out war with Russia, even if a negotiated peace may require Ukraine to make some hard decisions.”

The recipe seems simple: End the Ukraine war in a way that would allow the invader, Vladimir Putin, to save face. If Ukraine ceded such territories as the breakaway “republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk and allowed Russia to maintain its annexation of Crimea, this thinking goes, Moscow would lick its wounds, declare victory, and end the war
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The real winner in such a scenario, goes the argument, would be the Ukrainians, because they managed to wrestle the Bear and stay alive. By this light, all’s well that ends well. War over, everybody wins.

Yet Kyiv isn’t buying it.

Mr. Zelensky recently disclosed, in an interview with Italy’s RAI television, that this very compromise was offered to him by President Macron. His answer, Mr. Zelensky said, was a resounding no.

“We want the Russian army to leave our land,” he told RAI. “We won’t help Putin save face by paying with our territory. That would be unjust.”

Beyond justice, there is no guarantee Mr. Putin would be satisfied by a compromise involving a concession by Ukraine of territory currently held by the Russian army. Such border lines rarely remain intact, as invaders remain hungry for additional conquest.

To discourage future invasions, make this one extremely painful.

OUT ON A LIMB: Hillary Clinton Did It. “In short, the Clinton campaign created the Trump-Alfa allegation, fed it to a credulous press that failed to confirm the allegations but ran with them anyway, then promoted the story as if it was legitimate news. The campaign also delivered the claims to the FBI, giving journalists another excuse to portray the accusations as serious and perhaps true.”

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Formulaic Edition.

READER FAVORITE: HATHASPACE Smart Air Purifier. #CommissionEarned

I’M SURE THIS IS SOMEHOW TUCKER CARLSON’S FAULT: Chinese grad student allegedly attempted to murder cop in California.

WHAT ARE THEY PLANNING TO DO THAT WILL INVOLVE PUTIN-LIKE SANCTIONS? China Insists Party Elites Shed Overseas Assets, Eyeing Western Sanctions on Russia.

The ban, outlined in an internal notice by the party’s powerful Central Organization Department, could play a role in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s efforts to increase his influence at a twice-a-decade leadership shuffle scheduled for later this year.

Issued in March, the directive prohibits spouses and children of ministerial-level officials from holding—directly or indirectly—any real estate abroad or shares in entities registered overseas, the people said.

Senior officials and members of their immediate families would also be barred from setting up accounts with overseas financial institutions unless they have legitimate reasons for doing so—such as study or work—the people said.

It isn’t clear if the rules apply retroactively, but family members of some senior officials have sold shares in overseas companies in order to comply, the people said. It isn’t known if the directive will be made public.

The directive came as Mr. Xi seeks to minimize geopolitical risks for the Communist Party amid concerns that officials with overseas financial exposure could become a liability if the U.S. and other Western powers impose sanctions against Chinese leaders and their relatives, similar to what was done against Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Hmm.

UPDATE: A friend writes: “That CCP order probably has a lot to do with controlling high-ranking members. Overseas accounts and real estate are not only great investments, but safety valves. Bolt holes. I still think we should hit the PRC with about a $3 trillion sanction for loosing the Wuhan.”

I agree.

IT’S THE 21ST CENTURY AND WE’RE STILL FIGHTING SEGREGATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA: The University of South Carolina changed the application requirements for its Business Success Academy to include students of all races. The Business Success Academy was previously only open to non-white students.

A BIG SIGH OF RELIEF AT BOEING: Boeing’s Starliner docks with International Space Station.

REMINDER, I’M ON THE NCLA BOARD OF ADVISORS: NCLA Clinches 1st Amend. Victory in NLRB Lawsuit over Ben Domenech Satirical Tweet, No Veiled Threat, Says Court. The claim was always bogus, of course.

COLLUSION: Report confirms White House had advance knowledge of the NSBA’s ‘domestic terrorism’ letter and promised ‘we have your back.’

Calling parents who disagree with educrats “terrorists” is a bad look. But it’s beyond looks. People should be prosecuted for what was done here. (Bumped).

BLACK LIVES MATTER KILLS BLACK PEOPLE EN MASSE: Anti-cop pols yawn as slay spike hits black Americans hardest. “While politicians were marching in arms with protesters claiming to care about black lives, they were actively making their lives worse. For black Americans who live in dangerous neighborhoods, removing the police has made them even more unsafe and has emboldened the criminal element that resides alongside the innocent.”

Black Lives Matter was always a scam. It was never about making things better for black people, and it hasn’t. But it’s enriched some people, and let a lot of woke white people pretend that their lives have meaning.

If that pretense cost a lot of black people their lives so be it. Nothing’s more important than letting woke white people pretend that their lives have meaning.

UPDATE: BLM supporters got what they paid for: The surge in support for the movement was purely about cleansing white guilt.

IS THE NEW MONKEYPOX OUTBREAK sexually transmitted?

Plus: “The irony is that we’re victims of our own success here to some extent. ‘The smallpox vaccine incidentally protected against monkeypox,’ Ed Yong notes. ‘And when new generations were born into a world without either smallpox or smallpox-vaccination campaigns, they grew up vulnerable to monkeypox.'”

I think we should have been vaccinating people against smallpox — which also provides considerable protection against monkeypox — all along. Sure, smallpox appears to have been eradicated, but if we’re wrong and there’s a “virgin field” smallpox outbreak it would be a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

THEY DON’T EVEN TRY TO PRETEND THAT THEY’RE NOT JUST DEMOCRATIC TOOLS: The media long knives come out for Herschel Walker.

PARTY OF SCIENCE: Just like the bees, the ‘Beepocalypse’ myth isn’t dying.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Mini Pocket Binoculars. #CommissionEarned

KNOW YOUR PLACE, PEASANTS: Brown University Students Extract Groveling Apology From Working-Class Watering Hole.

I remember when working-class watering holes would administer beatings to Ivy League students who got in their faces. In retrospect, that was probably a better world than one in which entitled snowflakes get their way.

FLASHBACK: Ron DeSantis has emerged as America’s awesome ‘shadow president.’

LOWEST SO FAR: Biden’s approval dips to lowest of presidency.

GAIN OF FUNCTION: Wuhan Lab Publishes Study Manipulating H7N9 Virus To Be More Lethal.