SUSTAINABILITY: Mortgage rate soars closer to 5% in its second huge jump this week. “With both rates and prices considerably higher, the median mortgage payment is now more than 20% higher than it was a year ago.”
Rates are going to have to go considerably higher before prices come back to Earth. As things stand now, mortgage rates are still below the inflation rate — free money, so why not bid up prices?
MATT MARGOLIS: I Thought Reporters ‘Don’t Root for a Side’? “On Sunday’s episode of Meet the Press on NBC, host Chuck Todd expressed panic over the Republican Party’s edge in his network’s latest generic congressional poll—calling it a ‘huge red flag.'”
HUNTING HUNTER: GOP Readies Probes of the Laptop and the Election-Eve Cover-up.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Because of the US president’s recent remarks, it is likely that this conflict will drag on.
The news out of Russia that Moscow was ordering its forces in Ukraine to refocus its efforts on pacifying the Russian-speaking eastern portions of Ukraine that Russia had enjoyed nominal control over since the 2014 annexation of Crimea indicated to many that Putin was looking for an off-ramp.
There was, however small, a light at the end of this particularly dark geopolitical tunnel that did not involve a possible mushroom cloud.
Even Ukraine’s gallant leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky, had in effect approved the potentiality of a diplomatic solution with Putin that involved the ceding of eastern Ukraine to Russia, the acknowledgement that Crimea was now Russian territory, and the acceptance that Ukraine – if it at all wanted to be left in peace – would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
But:
It is not that hard to believe that President Biden does, in fact, support deploying American troops into Ukraine or that he wants to overthrow the Putin regime as the United States did to Saddam Hussein’s or Muammar Gaddafi’s regimes (and attempted to do to Bashar al-Assad’s government).
The greater question one must ask is: Why? Why on Earth would Biden wade into this geopolitical crisis that could go nuclear at any moment at a time when both the Ukrainian government and the Russian government appeared to be taking de-escalatory steps? And why hasn’t Biden come out immediately to correct the record, if he did indeed misspeak?
Yours Truly, last week:
Vladimir Putin has been informed reliably by the Western alliance that his exit — which in his case possibly includes a firing squad — is the price for peace.
Instead of building Putin a golden bridge to peace, Biden has backed him into a corner and dared him to lash out.
That’s the idiot’s way to start World War III, but from Joe Biden, what else did you expect?
And all that was before Biden’s disastrous ad-libs in Poland on Friday.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Gosh, There Sure Is a Lot of Hunter Biden News These Days. “The members of the MSM haven’t been honest about almost anything since Trump was elected in 2016. Their abuse of their First Amendment protections has been borderline criminal. Everyone involved in the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up in 2020 isn’t set up well in the karma department.”
SPOILS OF WAR: Ukraine captures one of Russia’s most advanced electronic warfare systems, which could reveal military secrets, reports say.
Ukrainian forces have seized part of one of Russia’s most advanced electronic warfare systems, which could reveal its military secrets, reports say.
The Krasukha-4 command module was found abandoned on the outskirts of Kyiv partly damaged but otherwise intact, The Times of London reported.
Photos of the unit posted on social media appear to show the container containing the module covered in tree branches, possibly in a hasty camouflage attempt by retreating Russian forces.
Again, take all these war stories with a grain of salt, but we have enough confirmed reports of Russian soldiers abandoning equipment to lend this one some credence.
CHANGE: EU announces Big Tech crackdown, demands interoperability between platforms.
Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook owner Meta, and Microsoft would apparently have to comply with the new rules. “The Digital Markets Act puts an end to the ever-increasing dominance of Big Tech companies. From now on, they must show that they also allow for fair competition on the Internet,” said Andreas Schwab, a member of the European Parliament from Germany and rapporteur for Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee.
EU lawmakers agreed that big messaging services such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple’s iMessage “will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files, or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice,” the European Parliament’s announcement said. The wording makes it unclear whether the biggest messaging apps would have to work with each other or just with smaller competitors.
Legislators agreed that specific interoperability requirements for social networks “will be assessed in the future.” Another provision says that “combining personal data for targeted advertising will only be allowed with explicit consent to the gatekeeper.”
“If a gatekeeper does not comply with the rules, the [European] Commission can impose fines of up to 10 percent of its total worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year, and 20 percent in case of repeated infringements. In case of systematic infringements, the Commission may ban them from acquiring other companies for a certain time,” the announcement said.
I’m more than a little wary of a few of the provisions, and generally of lawmakers mucking around with technology, but there’s no mistaking the EU’s seriousness.
INCENTIVES MATTER. SO DO DISINCENTIVES: Child Porn Offender Who Got Lenient Sentence From Ketanji Jackson Continued to Seek Images of Children.
FRAGGING? Russian soldier reportedly runs over commander with tank in protest.
A Russian soldier reportedly drove over his colonel with a tank — while two other service members were caught venting about strongman Vladimir Putin’s “bulls—” invasion of Ukraine amid reports of heavy losses.
The Russian soldier who was behind the wheel of the tank “blamed the commander of the group, Col. Yury Medvedev, for the deaths of his friends,” Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsimbalyuk said on Facebook.
“Having waited for the right moment, during battle, he ran over the commander with a tank as he stood next to him, injuring both his legs.
Take all battlefield reports with a grain of salt, of course, but this is far from the first of these stories to show up in my feed.
I DON’T KNOW PERFORMANCE ART BUT I KNOW WHAT I LIKE: Epic Troll Makes Boring Board Meetings Great Again in Denton, Texas.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Democrats Promise Free Gas Money for Everybody! “Never to be outdone in spending other people’s money, California Governor Gavin “Let Them Eat French Laundry” Newsom has an even bigger, bolder, stupider plan for the shrinking zombie hordes still populating his state.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Socialist students blame Campus Reform for Karl Marx’s name being removed from library room. “Following a Campus Reform report, a University of Florida spokesperson informed this publication that the name and accompanying plaque would be taken down due to the current situation in Ukraine.”
Marx was German.
MAKE AMERICA FLORIDA: DeSantis Poised to Sign Further Protections for Free and Fair Elections.
COLLUSION, STRAIGHT UP: How Russia got stronger as Bidens and Clintons got richer.
In the years before Moscow twice invaded Ukraine, Democrats enriched themselves politically and personally from such oligarchs and businesses in the region while empowering Vladimir Putin with energy and technology deals that still haunt America today.
Our best-selling book “Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties” chronicled how a failed “reset” in U.S.-Russia relations led by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton relied on an appeasement strategy that ultimately backfired with Russia.
Putin’s spoils were measured in billions of dollars in uranium contracts with U.S. utilities, expanded oil imports and transfers of sensitive technologies.
The American dynasties counted their victories in millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation, speech fees to Bill Clinton, and lucrative board seats and consulting deals for Hunter Biden.
The appeasement policy began in February 2009. Russia had invaded its neighbor and former client state, Georgia, six months earlier. The lame-duck George W. Bush administration planned to put missile defense structures in Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression against its neighbors.
But one of the Obama-Biden administration’s first foreign policy maneuvers was to cancel that plan via a “secret letter” to Putin’s placeholder, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Why? U.S. leaders apparently wanted to make deals with Russia, and giant missile silos in Putin’s backyard were a nonstarter for Moscow.
Read the whole thing.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Fauci’s Folly Has a Disturbing Non-COVID Body Count. “The reason I singled out Fauci in the headline today is because the leftists elevated him to god-like status and it’s been obvious from Day One that he’s an attention whore who relishes being the face of the government’s faux battle against COVID. So tag, he’s it.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘Mega Emergency’ Unfolds For World’s Top Coffee Growers As Fertilizer Costs Spike. “Coffee farmers in Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, some of the largest coffee-producing countries in the world, are having trouble affording high fertilizer costs. Some farmers are substituting organic waste as a low-cost solution to nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash fertilizers. The move, however, will result in significantly reduced harvests of the bean.”
If the coffee runs out there’s going to be serious trouble.
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Quarantine Slaughterhouse: Non-COVID Deaths Spiked During Lockdowns.
JOANNE JACOBS: Students’ search for meaning. “Wokeism has infected universities with ‘an already weakened intellectual immune system. Students haven’t learned to think, so they lack the means to spot its inconsistencies, its hypocrisies, its absurdities.'”
Mission: Accomplished.
EASY EVEN FOR A NON-BIOLOGIST: Five (Easy?) Questions for Ketanji Brown Jackson.
SANCTIONS: Just How Screwed Are Russian Airlines? “Both Boeing and Airbus have suspended all maintenance support with Russia. Without legitimate spare parts, even Russian-owned aircraft could be banned from flying internationally. And even Russian Sukhoi depends on German Lufthansa Technik for spare parts.”
Much more at the link.
UNDERCOVER VIDEO: Tennessee Schools Flagrantly Breaking Anti-CRT Law. “We’re business as usual in this district… we don’t really let anybody tell us what to do.”
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Meet Jeffy, the YouTube Sensation Who Breaks All the Woke Rules.
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