INFAMOUS SHIRKER WANTS TO MAKE SHIRKING MANDATORY: Bernie Sanders to Propose a Mandated 32-Hour Workweek.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Air Force general reveals ‘alarming’ number of drones crossing into US airspace at southern border: ‘Over 1,000 a month.’

MATT MARGOLIS: Joe Biden Promotes Fake News About Nonbinary Teen Nex Benedict’s Suicide.

The story is actually much worse than the headline implies but is perfectly in keeping with the character of a man who for decades falsely accused the truck driver involved in his first wife’s deadly car crash of having been drunk.

CHANGE? Former Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.

OH, CANADA: Toronto Cops Tell Citizens to Leave Car Keys Where Thieves Can Get Them.

MAYBE HE JUST GOT CONFUSED WITH AN EPISODE OF “MATLOCK”: Biden Claims He Got A Standing Ovation At Law School, Critics Call BS.

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: How Atrocities, Beheadings, and Carnage ‘Heal Muslim Hearts.’ “Such claims are actually derived from Islam’s most sacred text.”

HMM: The economy was just hit with a one-two punch of bad data.

The second straight weak retail sales report, which included a downward revision of January’s sales data, has sparked concerns that consumers are finally showing signs of wear and tear after powering through price increases and rising borrowing costs for roughly two years. “While last month’s retail sales miss was chalked up to weather, this month’s weakness suggests that perhaps the consumer is not as healthy as expected,” Damian McIntyre, portfolio manager at Federated Hermes, told Fortune in emailed comments.

At the same time, producer price inflation, which tends to lead consumer price inflation, also came in above Wall Street’s expectations for the second straight month on Thursday. It’s another piece of data that could put investors’ dreams of swift, economy-boosting interest rate cuts on hold, particularly with Fed officials being very clear that they don’t plan on cutting rates until inflation is well under control. As Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, put it: “For the data dependent Fed, this report isn’t helpful.”

The latest retail sales and producer price inflation reports aren’t dire news for the economy in their own right—retail sales are far from outright collapsing, and producer price inflation isn’t soaring—but the new trends seen in them are concerning. If businesses continue to see price hikes, they’ll likely pass those on to already inflation-weary consumers. That could put a stopper on consumers’ aggressive spending, which has helped prevent a U.S. recession so far.

Credit card debt is way up, savings are down, and incomes still haven’t fully caught up with inflation. Something has to give.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: TGIF Twofer — Dem Election Meddling and Biden Should’ve Taken a Nap. “The Democrats have been caterwauling about election interference since 2016. In theory, they’re against it. In practice, they’ve been working earnestly to keep the Republican nominee off of the ballot.”

THEY KEEP TELLING ME THE ECONOMY IS BOOMING BUT I KEEP READING STORIES LIKE THIS ONE: McDonald’s prices are up, so lower-income consumers are eating at home. “Inflation’s sting has pushed Americans to cut back on small luxuries. That includes their spending on food at restaurants such as McDonald’s, fast-food restaurants that historically prize value and affordability as core business values.”

CHRIS QUEEN: Here’s the Next Thing to Watch for in the Fani Willis Drama. “Former metro Atlanta prosecutor Chris Timmons thinks that McAfee’s ruling should come down the line on Friday. He also told WSB that McAfee’s consideration is important because of how serious Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) laws are.”

WOEING: Dave Calhoun was hired to fix Boeing. Instead, ‘it’s become an embarrassment.’

“It’s been three years of ‘there’s no way Calhoun can stay at the helm,’” said Aboulafia, managing director of the consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory. “But he seems to be staying at the helm … I do not get it.”

Boeing actually raised Calhoun’s total compensation in 2022, to $22.5 million, despite problems with the 777 program and quality control issues with the 787 that forced regulators to halt the company’s deliveries. Calhoun’s 2023 compensation has not yet been announced — Boeing typically reveals that information in April.

To be fair to Calhoun, he took over a company in deep distress following two fatal 737 Max crashes that landed the crucial plane in a nearly two-year-long grounding and put the company in a yearslong crisis. And the plane maker’s problems didn’t start there: The 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas is widely cited as Boeing’s poisoned chalice. It was after the merger that the bean-counter executives began taking over, gutting the joint, and putting accountants into roles once held by engineers. Maximizing profit took precedence over quality. In the short term, margins improved. But in the long term, Boeing lost the plot.

Executives at Boeing, starting in the mid-aughts, “identified an industry with tons of cash flow, high barriers to entry and only two players,” Aboulafia said, referring to Boeing’s European rival, Airbus. “It’s a recipe for getting away with bad things.”

It takes a commitment to stay with what made a company great to avoid coasting into mediocrity but “getting away with bad things” works, too — if only for a little while.

UNLESS THE WEST GETS SERIOUS ABOUT RAMPING UP DEFENSE PRODUCTION, THESE HALF-MEASURES ARE JUST THAT: Johnson Will Send Ukraine Aid Package to the Senate After all.

DON’T BE A SCIENCE DENIER: It’s Science: Petting Dogs Is Good for You.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST CNN…: Even CNN Admits Fani Willis Keeps Embarrassing Herself.

HMM…:

NEW: From FLA courthouse in Trump's classified documents case with a prediction.

Robert Hur report and testimony is the biggest elephant in the room. The term "arbitrary enforcement" used frequently by both the defense and Judge Aileen Cannon.

Cannon hammered the fact no former…

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) March 14, 2024

Developing, as they say.

OR MAYBE YOU WILL: This Country Cut Spending to the Bone and You Won’t Believe What Happened Next.

THAT’S A SERIOUS COMPLICATING FACTOR FOR THE OTHER SIDE’S PLANNING: F-35A Is Officially Certified For Nuclear Strike.

“WHITE HOUSE LIES” IS THE NEW “DOG BITES MAN”: White House Lies About Using Digitally-Altered Photos of Biden.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: America on verge of measles MAYHEM: Hundreds feared to be infected in California and Arizona outbreaks as US suffers year’s worth of cases in two months – as doctors say antivaxxers and Biden’s open border policy are allowing virus to spread.

Hundreds of people are already feared to be infected in California and Arizona after cases were confirmed in people in the states who visited local hospitals.

And there are also fears over an outbreak at a 1,800-strong migrant shelter in Chicago — after four cases were confirmed, including two among children.

Doctors say vaccines have been so successful that many people now no longer ‘remember what it was like to live with the disease’ — as vaccination rates drop for the third year in a row.

Millions of migrants have also come to America under President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, with experts warning that over-crowded shelters and low vaccination rates in other countries could leave the US vulnerable to outbreaks.

Biden will blame Republicans for this and the press will let him get away with it.

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX Nails It on Starship Testflight. “According to one of SpaceX’s anchors, there are already four more Super Heavy first-stage rockets ready or nearly ready to go.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: A $22 burrito? San Francisco restaurant owner says he’s keeping up with inflation.

The owner of La Vaca Birria says it’s not an attempt to make more money, but an attempt to continue to break even as prices for everything rise.

When you walk into the restaurant, it smells, “either like birria, or charcoal,” said Ricardo Lopez, owner of La Vaca Birria.

For the last two years, he has operated the spot — built out of a former record store in the Mission.

His vision has been to make the kind of food his aunts, uncles and mother used to make — but kicked up a notch.

The only problem is, the price of nearly everything he uses to make his food has gone up. Like onions for example.

“Before COVID, they were like $9 a sack at Restaurant Depot, I used to pick them up. During COVID, and after, it was $40 dollars. Right now, it’s $80,” said Lopez.

That’s obscene.

WHOSE SIDE IS HE ON, ANYWAY? Biden Rewards Iran’s Murder of 3 US Troops with a Cool $10 Billion.

TERRORISTS CAN CUT CABLES BUT THEY CAN’T KNOCK OUT SATELLITES: Global communications are under attack — optical satellite networks can bolster them.

What are the alternatives to undersea cabling? Elon Musk’s Starlink, which now provides coverage to more than 70 countries, including Ukraine (and, according to reports, Russia) has popularized the use of satellite internet. But even though traditional radio frequency satellite-to-ground connectivity like that offered by Starlink is an alternative, and one that supports individual end-user desired speeds, it is limited by physics to speeds well below what is required to provide the reliable, continent-to-continent connectivity currently brought via undersea cables. And though a system like Starlink dramatically reduces reliance on terrestrial infrastructure for end-user connectivity, it still relies on traditional internet infrastructure for data routing between different parts of the world. These, like the fiber-optic cables allegedly attacked by the Houthis, are at risk.

An optical ground station (OGS) network that uses lasers to communicate with satellites, in contrast, can carry data at a rate of about 100 gigabits per second – more than 1,000 times higher than that of the radio-frequency links typically used for satellite communication. The laser beam technology that connects satellite-to-satellite and ground-to-space stations is now mature, and has the speed to be a reliable and resilient alternative to traditional undersea cable connectivity, even at a time of conflict.

OGS networks also offer greater geographical flexibility. While cable-based networks inherently must be tied to the physical route and endpoints of that cable, OGS networks can rely on a mesh satellite network to be established in geopolitically stable and accessible locations, close to ground infrastructure for lower latency and less vulnerability. And free space optical communication also has the major advantage of being very hard to intercept or detect.

Nanny-statists might be hardest hit.

NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO BE FUN ANYMORE: Woke Sonja Looks Like Something Red Sonja Wouldn’t Hesitate to Kill. “Say what you will about the 1985 movie but at least Neilson looked the part and, more importantly, didn’t dis the source material or her intended audience.”