CAROL ROTH: What are the warning signs of a recession?

Changes in inflation, including rapid inflation, can be a sign of a pending recession. Increasing commodity prices, which are obviously linked to inflationary pressures as they trickle through the economy, can also flash a warning sign.

Obviously, those indicators are definitely not bullish for the economy. Inflation is at the highest levels in four decades, and commodity prices are continuing to add to costs throughout the supply chain, impacting consumers.

Naturally of course, Biden takes no blame:

A PINCH OF CHANGE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: Joe Kahn to succeed Dean Baquet as the Times’ executive editor.

In recent months, Kahn had emerged as the overwhelming favorite for the top job at the Times, though Baquet had likely put his succession in motion when he elevated him to the role of managing editor, his second-in-command, in September 2016. “I very much think that Joe should be a candidate to succeed me,” Baquet said at the time.

Kahn, who joined the Times in 1998 after stints at the Wall Street Journal and Dallas Morning News, has the kind of résumé that has traditionally lined the path to masthead jobs at the paper. He covered international economics and trade from the Times’s Washington bureau and Wall Street from the business desk in the city before serving as Beijing bureau chief and then rising through the ranks of management on the foreign staff.

In an internal note to Times staff, publisher A.G. Sulzberger called Kahn “a brilliant journalist and a brave and principled leader,” and acknowledged that few would be surprised by his appointment. “Dean told me recently that he believed that Joe was more prepared than any editor he’s ever seen to take over a global newsroom that’s grown in size, complexity and ambition,” he wrote.

I’m curious to see if Kahn will keep his young uber-woke Democratic Party operatives with bylines under control better than the hapless Baquet could.

UPDATE: Or not. Cringe: Stop what you’re doing and check out this photo of the new executive editor of the NYT that he took on purpose.

(Updated and bumped.)

TWO BRANDONS IN ONE! Biden Says Masking Is a Choice as His DOJ Fights to Hold Onto Mandate. “This is welcome news, of course. Think how much national angst we would have saved ourselves if this had been the government’s policy from the start. Unfortunately, our cognitively addled president sorta forgot that he had ordered the Justice Department to appeal the ruling by a federal judge in Florida that ended the mask mandate on transportation. The DoJ has the CDC’s back as the public health agency attempts to maintain the mask mandate.”

WHY JON STEWART IS FLOPPING:

As originally reported at Bloomberg, Stewart’s show has failed to catch on after seven months, attracting only about 180,000 viewers for its premiere. No one is watching, and more importantly, the media at large, which now skews younger, thinks of Stewart as an out-of-touch Boomer. They aren’t going to embed his clips if they have to pay for it. Apple+ is still a niche service provided by a company with a passionate product fan base, but Apple no longer dominates the market like it used to, either in technology or in cultural influence.

Stewart, of course, tried to adjust to the new culture of wokeness with an episode titled “Race” and a segment called “The Problem with White People.” It involved a struggle session with guest Andrew Sullivan and came off like some Upper East Side rich white liberal book club anguishing over Robin DiAngelo. Stewart’s problem is that all this could have been funny, but he chose instead to play the scold.

Moreover, there’s nothing original about Stewart’s newfound white guilt. The audience he’s playing to can get this stuff in the New York Times or on CNN without having to subscribe to a new streaming service. They can also get it on TikTok or Twitter — or just put a black square on their Instagram and, bang, they’ve solved racism.

These are the sorts of things Stewart once lampooned in his own partisan way. But he’s joined the mob now, and the mob is already big enough.

And Apple apparently doesn’t mind Stewart’s low numbers. As Bobby Burack writes at OutKick.com, “AppleTV+ is playing with house money…Apple, which is trading at an almost $3 trillion valuation, just wants programs that make the company look progressive, pro-LGBT and all of the other corporate America buzzwords. Apple thinks Stewart helps in this regard. ‘We are thrilled [with] ‘The Problem with Jon Stewart,’’ Molly Thompson, head of unscripted and documentaries at Apple TV+, told Bloomberg. ‘The series has sparked complex conversations about critical issues, and we’re proud to team with Jon for season two and beyond.’ At Apple, ratings are secondary to lectures about white people, climate change, abortion and the border. That’s why Jon Stewart went woke and lost his audience.”

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Elon Musk Says He Could Make “Catgirl” Sex Robots If He Wanted To.

Musk has repeatedly talked about his infatuation with catgirls, which are fictional human female characters with cat ears, tails, and whiskers, often portrayed in anime and manga.

In 2019, he joked that an upcoming Tesla software feature would not only blow customers’ minds, but it’d also be a “crucial step towards catgirls.”

While Musk is clearly having a laugh by bringing a weird meme to an otherwise earnest conversation, Tesla is indeed working on a humanoid robot called Optimus.

So far, though, all we’ve seen is a performer in a black and white jumpsuit dancing on stage at the company’s AI Day event last year.

And, since it’s Musk, the billionaire CEO couldn’t help himself but make some rather big promises during his chat with Anderson.

“I think we’ll have like an interesting prototype sometime this year,” he said. “We might have something useful next year, but I think quite likely within at least two years.”

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that we shouldn’t take Musk’s predictions at face value. After all, he’s fallen short plenty of times in the past.

Still though, nobody tell notorious robophobe Matthew Yglesias. “He seems to have a particular fear of fembots, the analysis of which I will leave to the professionals.”

HERE ARE 19 REASONS WHY THE LEFT WANTS TO DESTROY THE LIBS OF TIKTOK TWITTER ACCOUNT:

The following tweets are the reasons why the Left, in this case the Washington Post, chose to dox — out — the previously unidentified person who runs the Twitter account called “LibsofTikTok.”

The article asserts that the LibsofTikTok account is “fueling the right’s outrage machine.” That’s the way the woman who wrote the article framed the issue, but the rest of humanity considers it a public service.

That wasn’t the point of the doxxing, however. After the Left’s “outrage machine” got LibsofTikTok suspended from the social media platform twice, WaPo decided to get to the bottom of the account, which features the Left’s own videos.

That’s right, the Left is upset that this account posts videos from the Left. They have gotten vewy, vewy angwy over watching themselves.

The bizarre and usually vile videos serve as cautionary tales for parents of public school children and others who wonder why it is that kids have to watch porn in the classroom (yes) or get special instruction from their teacher who identifies as a furry. Or why disgusting books featuring fellatio are prominently displayed in school libraries.

You can’t watch the videos for long before screaming, why can’t they leave the kids alone??

As T. Becket Adams of the conservative National Journalism Center tweets, “It’s TikTok, a social media platform where content is meant to be shared and boosted. It’s not an obscure 4chan group chat.” But these are not videos the left wants parents to see, hence the Media Matters-inspired doxxing.

DEMOCRACY DIES IN DOXXING — AND THEN LYING ABOUT AFTERWARDS: The Washington Post lies—claims they did not publish details about Libs of Tik Tok’s personal life.

After Taylor Lorenz doxed Libs of Tik Tok in the pages of the Washington Post, that paper released a statement defending the doxing, and defending Lorenz’s journalistic standards.

They also lied, claiming that Lorenz had not published the home address of the Libs of Tik Tok account holder, when in fact, she had. The article was later scrubbed to purge those details, but they were there when the article was published at 6 am on Tuesday.

As Ted Cruz advisor Omri Ceren tweets, “The reason the Washington Post has to falsely deny they disclosed personal info is because it gives away the game. There was no possible public interest in that info. The article was meant to intimidate not inform.”

The New Rules of Journalism, in other words.

JEFF DUNETZ: While Biden Dithered, Britain Became Ukraine’s Top Ally.

In part because it’s impossible to picture this scene, but with Boris replaced by Brandon in his current vegetated state, even if he was guided by the Easter Bunny:

THEY REALLY WANT TO GET CRUSHED IN NOVEMBER, DON’T THEY? Biden administration will appeal ruling that lifted Covid mask mandate on travel.

THE SOLUTION TO AMERICA’S CRISIS OF MASCULINITY: Tanning your ‘nads?

TAYLOR LORENZ IS SIMPLY FOLLOWING THE NEW RULES OF JOURNALISM:

However, in singling out Taylor Lorenz, what the political Right doesn’t understand is this is about politics and shutting down opposing speech. That is to say, speech that Lorenz or Kaczynski or the Daily Beast are ideologically opposed to. Of course, this is also about media power.

CNN is a multibillion-dollar media conglomerate that used the full weight of its corporate power to threaten a private individual with a Reddit account. In a newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos, Lorenz publishes a story with an individual’s name, professional license, and address information. It’s a struggle between one of the richest, most powerful men on the Earth and someone behind a Twitter account with less than a million followers (although that follower count is almost certainly about to increase).

Taylor Lorenz is not the ultimate problem. The problem is news outlets and infotainment companies using their outsize power and vast budgets to harass and doxx private citizens they disagree with. It’s a new journalistic model for an industry that sees its grip loosening on what news it can control and create (see the media freak-out over Elon Musk buying their favorite toy). Taylor Lorenz, for all her theatrics, is simply leading the charge.

Or as Glenn Greenwald noted at the start of the month: Your Top Priority is The Emotional Comfort of the Most Powerful Elites, Which You Fulfill by Never Criticizing Them.

IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE: Thank You, Taylor Lorenz. “Lorenz’s attack on LoTT isn’t going as well as she thought it might. She’s currently being served a massive L and is doing what she can to defend herself and, as the left usually does, keep the ideological bubble intact in order to fend off the real truth; that they’re the baddies. In truth, Lorenz did LoTT a favor. The Twitter account was wildly popular but it didn’t have that mainstream exposure. Thanks to Lorenz, more people know about it than ever. More people will begin watching it and as trainwreck after trainwreck scrolls past their screen and they’re unable to look away, they’ll become more familiar with the left as it is today. Parents will see the myriad of teachers in public schools who proudly introduce sex and sexualization to their children and understand why legislators in places like Florida did what they did.”

UPDATE: Babylon Bee CEO announces that he’s worked out a deal to make Libs of Tik Tok’s gig a full-time career.

(Updated and bumped.)

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: School Librarians Want to Remove Some Classic Titles From Reading Lists.

School Library Journal teamed up with the National Council of Teachers of English to ask school librarians what books should come off reading lists and what, if any, books should join the list.

The list includes some typical targets of the left. Number one on the list? To Kill a Mockingbird. That’s right, librarians think that Harper Lee’s Southern literary masterpiece should come off the list more than any other book. You see, it’s “problematic” because it’s set in the pre-Civil Rights-era South, and we can’t have kids reading stuff like that unless it paints all white people as racist oppressors, now can we?

Flashback: Atticus Finch: American literature’s most celebrated rape apologist.

MUCH MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Florida Tosses Math Textbooks over Critical Race Theory, Common Core Content.

JIM TREACHER: Taylor Lorenz Knows Privacy Is Reserved for Liberals.

Libs of Tik Tok is exposing the insane lies of people with an outsized influence on their community. These lunatics choose to put their gibberish on the internet. If they don’t want people seeing it, they should stop publishing it.

Libs of Tik Tok isn’t doxing anybody. Nobody’s privacy is being violated. The ongoing mental decline of the left, in their own public words, is being catalogued.

That’s why the left is now fighting back against an anonymous internet user who keeps presenting evidence they’d rather we didn’t see.

Related: Washington Post clearly hopes you won’t notice how they aided and abetted Taylor Lorenz in endangering Libs of Tik Tok’s life [screenshots]. “The Washington Post linked directly to libsoftiktok’s real estate license. the purpose clearly is to destroy this woman’s ability to feed herself.”

The link has since been removed, “Not because WaPo suddenly decided to grow a conscience, but because they got tired of being bombarded with questions about what the hell would possess them to ever do something like this and call it ‘journalism.’”

When the Washington Post declared in early 2009 through its then-subsidiary publication Newsweek that “We Are All Socialists Now,” it’s increasingly obvious the model they had in mind was East Germany and the Stasi.

Meanwhile, as America’s Newspaper of Record notes: Liberals Raise Concerns About Account That’s Making Them Look Bad By Just Sharing Their Actual Words.

“SCOOP:” Scoop: CNN+ looks doomed.

Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN’s longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward, five sources tell Axios.

Flashback: The Chickens Come Home to Roost for Chris Wallace.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: The Five Most Unhinged Responses to the End of the Travel Mask Mandate.

NOT THE BEE: This dude just made the most glaringly satirical post in history and The New York Times contacted him because they thought it was totally real.

Our betters in the DNC-MSM had quite a day yesterday.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Man Shows Wife How To Close The 8,537 Browser Tabs She Has Open.

PROFILES OF THE FUTURE: 1989 thought houses would look like this by 2020 (Video).

Curiously, governments throughout the world locking people into those homes in 2020 due to a pandemic emanating from the CCP wasn’t something that came up on the Ouija boards in the writer’s room of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World.

OLD AND BUSTED: WaPo Pursues “All The President’s Men.”

The New Hotness? Unreal: WaPo reporter claimed “severe PTSD” from Internet criticism — and then doxxed an anonymous Twitter user; Update: LibsofTikTok responds.

“They can’t get Twitter to keep Libs of TikTok locked out, because the user doesn’t violate their terms of service. Instead, they’re trying to intimidate her off the platform. And for some reason, the Washington Post has decided to join this crusade by publishing this doxxing effort by Taylor Lorenz, who just was featured less than a fortnight ago sobbing over how these attacks target women. This is utterly despicable, and it is an organizational failure that descends from the very top of the Washington Post’s hierarchy.”

Related: WaPo’s Megan McArdle says woman behind Libs of Tik Tok getting doxxed isn’t really a big deal because she’s just an Orthodox Jew.

JAMES LILEKS: “You might have heard about the wonders of modern aviation’s air filtration systems? Well:”

But now the mask mandate on planes is lifted!

Good news, right?

Not on Twitter, where you’d think they’re grabbing people off the street, ripping off their scuba gear and shoving them in a plane lav with someone who’s gusting COVID from every pore.

Plus some thoughts on the terrifying Netflix documentary, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story. Read the whole thing.

THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING. YOU SAID IT — THEY STINK ON ICE! Even Californians Are Revolting Against High Taxes: New Poll.

You know the Democratic Party is in trouble when even California voters start to revolt against its policies. And that’s the finding of new polling from the Public Policy Institute of California.

A whopping 72% of California adults think they pay more taxes than they should, the new survey finds.

This isn’t a partisan phenomenon. Almost half of Democrats, 48%, agree, in addition to an overwhelming majority of Republicans and independents.

That’s a lot of unpatriotic Joe Biden supporters, according to Joe Biden.

Related: California’s Cover Charge.

GOODER AND HARDER, LOS ANGELES: Convicted murderer praises DA Gascon: ‘I’m going to get that n—–’s name on my face.’

“I’m going to get that n—–’s name on my face. That’s a champ right there. F—in’ Gascón,” says gang member Luis Angel Hernandez in a jailhouse phone call…

According to a law enforcement source, Hernandez shot and killed a delivery person for a marijuana delivery service during an armed robbery in 2018. He is a member of the OTF gang…

“This s–t looking real good. Now we got a new DA in LA … so they’re going to drop a gang of, um, like my gun enhancement, my gang enhancement,” he says in the jailhouse phone call. “My gang enhancement is 10 years, fool, for being a gang member. And then the gun in the commission of a crime.”…

“That’s the n—– right there, bro. He’s making historic changes for all of us, fool. I’m just grateful, fool. Like, I got good news off that s–t,” Hernandez says in the audio.

Hernandez pleaded guilty to murder and the personal use of a firearm. He will be eligible for youthful offender parole, which would limit his time in prison to 25 years.

As Tom Cotton wrote in December: Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.

AIRPORTS, AIRLINES ACROSS US BEGIN TO DROP MASK MANDATES AFTER COURT RULING.

As well as Amtrak, and even the DC Metro. But there are still some blue state science deniers: MTA, NJT Still Require Masks After Judge Voids CDC Mandate; Amtrak Drops Requirement.

UPDATE: Via Twitter, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announces masks no longer required on NJ Transit.