RESTORING DECENCY AND NORMS TO OUR DEMOCRACY: Biden Ghostwriter Attempted To Destroy Evidence Following Special Counsel Appointment.

“What did that ghostwriter do with the information Joe Biden shared with him on his laptop? What did he do after you were named special counsel?” Jordan asked.

Hur clarified that Jordan was referring to audio recordings Zwonitzer recreated.

“If I remember correctly,” Hur said, “he slid those files into his recycle bin on his computer.”

“He tried to destroy the evidence, didn’t he,” Jordan asked.

“Correct,” Hur said.

“It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up,” we’re told but in this case, there is plenty of both to go around.

ROBERT SPENCER: The Roman Empire Could Have Been Kept From Falling With This One Weird Trick.

NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO BE FUN ANYMORE: ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Senior Game Designer Disavows How Series Was Made By “White Dudes”, Boasts That Much Of Original Material “Would Never Pass Our Inclusivity Reviews Today.”

INFLATION, ONCE UNLEASHED, IS DIFFICULT TO TAME: Consumer prices rose 0.4% in February and 3.2% from a year ago. “Inflation rose again in February, keeping the Federal Reserve on course to wait at least until the summer before starting to lower interest rates.”

I’m so old, I remember when inflation was imaginary, transitory, over with already, and a high-class problem to have.

MORE ON BIDEN’S LATEST BAD IDEA: So, a Pier for Hamas it is. “This will take about 1,000 personnel to accomplish. I don’t know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore, but orders are orders. Make the best attempt you can.”

IT’S A STUTTER: Hur Transcript Released: Things Just Got a Lot Worse for Joe Biden.

“CHIPS ACT” IN MANDARIN BUT WITHOUT ALL THE POISONOUS DEI STUFF: China prepares $27 bln chip fund to counter growing US restrictions.

Previously: How Toxic Is DEI? These Companies Are Turning Down Billions in Free Money to Avoid It

MATT MARGOLIS: No, Joe, Teachers Don’t Deserve a Raise.

THE THREE CARD MONTY GUYS RUN CLEANER GAMES: NYC’s Illegal Alien Debit Card Scam. “There’s a scam sweeping New York City. And by ‘New York City,’ I mean ‘the New York City mayor’s office.’ Instead of feeding the illegal aliens New York has lured there as a ‘sanctuary city,’ Eric Adams has decided to just hand out preloaded debit cards.”

ANOTHER MONTY PYTHON SKETCH BEGINS TO COME TO LIFE: There Is No Cannibalism in Haiti — Or Perhaps at Least Some.

I’M NOT SURPRISED: Most teens report feeling happy or peaceful when they go without smartphones, Pew survey finds. “The survey comes as policymakers and children’s advocates are growing increasingly concerned with teens’ relationships with their phones and social media. Last fall, dozens of states, including California and New York, sued Instagram and Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children. In January, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about their platforms’ harms to young people.”

PRIORITIES: FDNY Commissioner Plans to ‘Hunt Down’ Firefighters Who Chanted Trump’s Name.

I WANT OFF THIS TIMELINE: Woke magazine asks “where are all the black people” in TV drama on Japanese history. “I don’t ask out of a desire to see representation when it wasn’t historically accurate. I inquire because there were Black people in Japan in 1600 and before, though Japan could teach Florida a thing or two about rewriting history.”

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Boeing Whistleblower Found Dead of ‘Self-Inflicted’ Gunshot, 787 Suffers Another Mishap.

PROBABLY? Multiple Oakland Taco Bell Restaurant Shut Down Their Indoor Dining Rooms, Probably Due to Crime.

Four Oakland Taco Bell restaurants appear to have gone drive-thru only, though some only in the evening, in the latest hit to Oakland’s fast-food landscape.

It somehow made national news when the burger chain In-N-Out announced the closure of their Oakland location in January, citing “ongoing issues with crime” (its last day is March 24). The closure of a nearby Denny’s about a week later got similar outsized national coverage. Though it was less-noticed in early 2023 when the cult-hit chicken chain Raising Cane’s closed the dining room of their Oakland location, also blaming crime, and went drive-thru only.

So we’ll see whether the national press goes haywire over KRON4’s reports that a couple of Oakland Taco Bell locations have also closed their dining rooms, and gone to an exclusively drive-thru model. The above KRON4 segment, which shows one frustrated customer trying to walk through the drive-thru, notes the dining rooms were closed at Taco Bell locations at 3535 35th Avenue and 630 Hegenberger Road. (Though the website for the Hegenberger Road shows the dining room open until only 5 pm, so maybe it depends when you go there.)

And the dining room closures do appear to be related to crime. One employee told KRON4, “It’s closed because some people sometimes make trouble.”

I’d never thought of dining out as a high-trust experience until I saw restaurants trying to stay open in low-trust environments.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: NY Fire Dept. Brass Are Bringing Back Soviet ‘Knock at the Door’ Vibe. “The firefighters were exercising their right to be critical of a public official, even if it was a little light on tact. Madame Attorney General is a blue state loon who is drunk with power, however, and she is not amused by common folk who disagree with her. She wasn’t going to let this one go.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): So part of NYC’s death spiral is that it can’t keep up its police force, and now they’re going to piss off the firefighters too? I know these people are morons, but still.

Related:

Letitia James Issues $355 Million-Dollar Fine To Firefighters For Booing Her https://t.co/JsjslZ4nIb pic.twitter.com/H3B4BhFuQY

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 11, 2024

OH, CANADA: Canadians are fleeing the country. Here’s why – and how – they did it.

“For eight years we were trying to save and put together a down payment and get into a home and start a family…. As time went on, we were just falling further and further behind. We were making progress, but we could see that the goal was receding over the horizon perpetually.”

On Feb. 14, 2022, amid the debankings of the Freedom Convoy – a movement they were vocally supportive of, Ryan says his and his partner Jessica’s joint bank accounts were frozen.

“At the time, we didn’t know if this was going to last a day or a week or a month. It was very frightening,” Ryan recalled.

Their bank access was restored within a day, but they never received a satisfactory explanation from RBC, and it “left a mark.”

“That was definitely what made the decision for us – we weren’t going to let that happen to us ever again,” Ryan said.

Five months later, in July 2022, the couple sold everything they had, including a piece of land they had bought in Lunenburg, N.S., and settled outside of La Libertad, El Salvador.

Exit quote: “From personal experience, I can tell you that each and every Eastern European that I know has a clear plan to leave Canada. Many of them have left, many of them, just because we have this experience living in communism.”

(H/T, CDR Salamander.)

THEY WENT WOKE, NOW THEY GO BROKE: Deadspin Is Now Dead.

Plus:

Now that Deadspin has laid off all their staff where should I go to get the latest defamation of a child articles?

— Magills (@magills_) March 11, 2024

The old Deadspin, on the other hand, has been missed for a long time.

HE’S FINE: Joe Biden Thinks John McCain Was His Predecessor.

ONE CITY, TWO STORIES: NYC burns pizzerias with new rule cutting smoky pollutants by 75%: ‘You’re going after pizza?’

Mayor Eric Adams’ Department of Environmental Protection said the fresh edict takes effect April 27, with some city businesses having already coughed up more than $600,000 for new smoke-eating systems in anticipation of the expected mandate.

“You are going after pizza? Glorious New York pizza?” groused Mike Dabin in a recent online comment to the city DEP. “Can’t you go after Diesel Trucks instead of pizza ovens?”

Businesses using wood and anthracite stoves can apply for a variance but need evidence to prove they are unable to comply with the mandate.

Pizza lovers and some entrepreneurs went bonkers when The Post first reported on the proposed rule last summer, worried that the dough needed to comply with the measure would put beloved spots out of business — or at least affect the taste of their tomato and mozzarella slices.

But Adams has defended the mandate for the Big Apple, which was recently named the most expensive city to get a slice of pizza in the country.

“The scientific evidence is clear that reducing emissions of fine particulate matter will improve the health of New Yorkers and reduce hospital visits and costs, without changing the amazing taste of NYC pizza,” DEP rep Edward Timbers insisted in an emailed statement to The Post on Sunday.

And here’s the second, totally unrelated report: New Yorkers can barely live in their apartments because the weed smell is so bad — ‘It wakes me up.’

Gooder and harder, New York City.

CHRIS QUEEN: You Thought You Were Learning a New Language, but There’s a Different Agenda Afoot.

MAYBE THIS WILL BE MORE CONVINCING THAN HIS LAME ATTEMPTS AT BLACKFACE:

Breaking: BLM hoaxer Shaun King and his wife have converted to Islam. King identifies as black and previously identified as a Christian pastor. He regularly uses his large social media platform to threaten people.

In 2018, King falsely accused a white man (Robert Cantrell) of… pic.twitter.com/QynYcD6lKi

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) March 11, 2024

But if that doesn’t work, he can always transition to being a woman.

THIS OUGHT TO END WELL: ‘The Purge’ Comes to Pittsburgh.

PUTIN’S STUPID WAR: The morbid cost of Putin’s invasion for all to see: Satellite images show how ‘Russian cemeteries’ have ‘expanded’ in size in the two years since war broke out.

ROBERT SPENCER: China Plans to ‘Sinicize’ Islam. We Can Learn From This, But Not in the Way You Might Think.

Sinicization, in the case of Christianity, has involved rewriting parts of the Bible to remove or alter passages that might inspire readers to think critically about Communism, forcing Christians to celebrate as heroes Communists who betrayed the Church, and requiring Christian teachers to attend Communist indoctrination sessions.

Will similar measures, applied to Islam, defang the Religion of Peace and end the possibility of jihad terror in China? That’s what Chinese Communist leaders are banking on. But they’re being short-sighted.

What is likely to happen in China, given the lessons of history, is that the “Sinicization” of Islam will proceed, and initially it will appear to be a comprehensive success. Muslims in China will appear to be practicing an Islam with Chinese characteristics, and to have assimilated completely into Communist Chinese society.

The Communist victory celebrations, however, will be premature.

Read the whole thing.