RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The End of the Old Normal. “The West made a miscalculation of comparable magnitude to Putin’s by becoming energy dependent on the Kremlin to mollify their domestic Greens. They ignored the obvious danger that their money would fund aggression because invasion was inconceivable to them, though not, as it proved, to the siloviki, the clique of strongmen who control Russia. It’s another reminder of the danger of mirror imaging; to think the other guy wants what you want is always fraught. John Kerry’s reaction to the outbreak of hostilities was to observe it would hamper the campaign against climate change. But that was probably the farthest thing from Putin’s mind.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
March 8, 2022
DOG BITES MAN: Democrats fake tough on crime stance with falsely labeled bill. “The so-called ‘Crime Prevention Through Safer Streets,’ bill is part of Gov. Polis’s public safety package to thwart evil doers through better environmental design of streetscapes and lots of light pollution.”
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER FROM 2008, WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH PRICKED THE OIL PRICE BUBBLE:
Plus: “When the government of the largest and most productive economy in the world announced that it was no longer going to put artificial limits on its domestic energy production, the market took note.”
Read the whole thing.
Update: Twitter embeds seem to be broken this morning. The best I can offer until Twitter fixes its mess is to go to Will Collier’s Twitter feed and scroll down to his oil thread.
YOU DON’T SAY: China seeing new surge in cases despite ‘zero tolerance.’
The mainland on Monday reported 214 new cases of infection over the previous 24 hours, with the most, 69, in the southern province of Guangdong bordering on Hong Kong, which has been recording tens of thousands of cases per day.
Another 54 cases were reported in the Jilin province, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) to the north, and 46 in the eastern province Shandong.
In his annual report to the national legislature Saturday, Premier Li Keqiang said China needs to “constantly refine epidemic containment” but gave no indication Beijing might ease the highly touted “zero tolerance” strategy.
It’s a highly contagious and endemic virus that doesn’t give a damn what anyone’s tolerance level is.
EAT CAKE WHILE YOU’RE AT IT: Buttigieg Says the Solution to High Gas Prices Is Simple: Just Buy an EV.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Beef Market Update: The cost of feeding cattle spikes higher, as unknowns mount.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or tonight, or how long it’s going to last. So the markets are reacting in that same extremely volatile way,” Wasko says. “And you know, we know Ukraine’s a key corn exporter in the world, and so it has significant impacts on our key feed for cattle. That’s I guess what it comes down to in terms of we just don’t know what’s going to happen to corn prices, and cost of grain, and therefore the price of cattle.”
And this is only half of the problem — cattle on feed numbers are higher than ever, and before all of this happened with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we were short on feed supplies to begin with.
“It’s a huge problem when that supply chain has been so fragile anyways. To have any kind of flicker there and some insecurity, that is just going to create lots and lots of concern and angst,” says Wasko.
2020: Food Prices Up 20% Over the Past Year.
2021: Hold my (surprisingly expensive) beer.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Tone-Deaf Team Biden Responds to High Gas Prices With Electric Car Sales Pitch. “Because nothing can work out too well anymore — especially while the Biden clown car is in charge — the gas price nightmare is coinciding with American workers actually heading back to their offices after a couple of years of mostly remote work.”
HMM: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ‘weird’ resume stymies criticism and support.
Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas, said Jackson’s path to the court was not only odd but provided little help in figuring out her philosophy.
“I’ve looked at her opinions,” he said. “I don’t see, you know, rock star. I don’t see the superstar. She only had a couple of noteworthy opinions. I didn’t hear her giving any sort of influential speeches. She didn’t really write articles. There wasn’t much that distinguished her. I mean, nothing. That’s not a criticism. It wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t that she was the greatest thing in the world.”
What’s more, he added, is that she has no record of working with other judges to get them to agree with her view of constitutional law, a basic chore on the Supreme Court. “How is she going to persuade John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, or Amy Coney Barrett in a case? She has no experience doing that,” Blackman said.
We asked Blackman, a constitutional law professor, if the nomination was similar to Harriet Miers, picked by then-President George W. Bush but scuttled when critics said her experience wasn’t deep.
“I think it’s actually worse because Harriet Miers, for all the criticism, was actually a pretty well-known attorney in private practice in Texas. She had a good reputation. She was White House counsel. People actually had papers to go on, but she hadn’t decided on the bigger constitutional issues. Jackson just doesn’t have much of a record at all,” he said.
Reminds me more than a little of a certain former junior senator from Illinois.
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Matt Margolis: Okay, Now I Think Hillary Will Run in 2024 … Here’s Why. “The reason I’m starting to come around in thinking that Hillary might run again is that the Clinton Foundation is planning another Clinton Global Initiative.”
Athena Thorne: Anyone Else Starting to Get a Bad Feeling About All This Ukraine Worship? “Two things can be true at the same time: Ukraine is being mauled by vicious invaders, and globalists are laying the foundation to leverage this crisis that they’ve been building up for months.”
Yours Truly: Biden Kowtowed to Xi AGAIN — This Time on the Eve of War. “At the exact same time that the Biden Administration was warning us day and night that Russia was about to invade Ukraine, they were also actively looking for ways to appease Russia’s great power ally, Communist China.”
March 7, 2022
YOU’RE DEFINITELY GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Is This the Dumbest Claim Jen Psaki Has Ever Made?
UKRAINE WAR: Russia Pummels Ukrainian Civilian Targets Ahead of Talks.
Continuing campaigns to encircle Ukrainian cities Monday, Russian forces conducted missile and rocket strikes on cities and military targets in the country’s north and south, disrupting plans to evacuate civilians via humanitarian corridors, Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian forces continued to frustrate Russia with counterattacks and sabotage operations.
Russia’s failure to capture major cities and its mounting loss of aircraft and armored vehicles have increased pressure on Moscow in a campaign that has drawn global condemnation and sanctions.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were entering their third round of talks on Monday afternoon in Belarus, according to Mikhail Podolyak, a Ukrainian participant, with progress uncertain after earlier agreements to allow civilians to flee the fighting collapsed.
Even if Putin manages to take Ukraine, how is he ever going to get peace there?
MAKE AMERICA FLORIDA: Florida Will Be First State to Recommend Against COVID-19 Vax for Healthy Kids.
NOT EXACTLY AN ENDORSEMENT OF THE TYPICAL RUSSIAN RIFLEMAN’S TRAINING, MOTIVATION, OR PERFORMANCE: Russia Recruiting Syrians for Urban Combat in Ukraine, U.S. Officials Say.
LABOR PARTICIPATION HAS YET TO RECOVER FROM THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE STIMULUS PAYMENTS: The Flipside of Low Unemployment: 4.7 Million More Jobs Than Job-Seekers.
DON’T GET COCKY (UKRAINE EDITION): Russian invasion is facing ‘total failure’, whistleblower analyst claims. “The whistleblower also claimed the FSB – Russia’s successor to the Soviet Union’s feared KGB – was being blamed for the failure of Moscow’s forces to make significant progress into Ukraine, despite being given no advanced warning of the invasion.”
AWOL: Where Is the Russian Air Force? “It makes no sense, as some have argued, to hold the Russian Air Force in reserve, particularly as Vlad Putin’s “short” war prepares to enter its third week of heavy operations.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Russian Diplomat Says Iran ‘Got Much More Than It Expected’ In New Nuclear Deal About To Be Finalized.
Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov praised Iranian negotiators ahead of the public announcement of an updated deal that would presumably reduce international sanctions on their oil and gas in exchange for limiting their civilian nuclear program.
“Iranian colleagues are fighting for [their] national interest like lions,” he said. “They fight for every comma, every word, and as a rule, quite successfully.”
“I am absolutely sincere in this regard when I say that Iran got much more than it could expect,” he said. “Our Chinese friends were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators.”
I’m sure.
The question is why Vladimir Putin risked a war when he could have gotten most everything he wanted from Joe Biden at the negotiating table.
BECAUSE HE’S LYING: Critics Take Aim at Biden’s Inflation Rhetoric.
#RESIST: Kherson protest against Russian occupiers brings hundreds to the streets.
Undaunted by the presence of Russian troops in their city, as many as 2,000 residents of Kherson, Ukraine, took to the streets Saturday in a show of defiance and national unity, according to reports.
“Russians go home!” and “Kherson is Ukraine!” were among the shouted slogans, the BBC reported.
Kherson, located in southern Ukraine along the Black Sea, fell to the Russians last week, with the city’s mayor estimating as many as 300 people were killed, with many of the bodies rendered unrecognizable because of the power of the invaders’ weapons.
The mayor, Igor Kolykhaev, said he sent volunteers around the city to collect bodies after the onslaught, The New York Times reported.
On Saturday, videos posted online showed Russian troops firing shots into the air in hopes of turning back the marchers.
In eight years, Russia has failed to pacify the two majority-Russian “independent” republics in Ukraine’s Donbas.
What the hell does Putin think he’s going to do with the entire country?
Assuming he can take it, that is.
JOE BIDEN DID THAT: Food Prices Up 20% Over the Past Year.
This, too: Obama Redux: National Average Gas Prices Tops $4/Gal.
My little Front Range town usually has cheaper-than-average fuel prices for Colorado. Two weeks ago, diesel shot up 40¢ to $4.05, and today I saw it for $4.65.
Regular unleaded is “lagging” at anywhere from $3.55 to $3.79.
VIDEO: The Failed Logistics Of The Russian Invasion.
If you don’t have the time to commit to a 20-minute video, Lawrence Person has highlighted the takeaways at the Battleswarm Blog link above.
ROBERT SPENCER: Why Americans Shouldn’t Be Happy That MasterCard and Visa Have Suspended Russia Operations. “This action by Visa and MasterCard is also ominous for American conservatives.”
GOOD: Zelenskiy and Musk say more Starlink terminals to come. “[MUSK] warned on Twitter that Starlink satellites could be targeted and advised users in Ukraine to turn on Starlink only when needed, and place antennas as far away from people as possible.”