DECLINE IS A CHOICE: Colorado has fallen behind in economic growth.

Up until recently, Arizona and Colorado had remarkably similar economies, with Colorado having a slight edge — from state GDP and growth trajectories to population and jobs. But something happened in Colorado around five years ago that set us on a different course. For the first time since the Great Recession, Arizona’s economy now outpaces Colorado’s, even when factoring in the impacts of the pandemic.

According to the Arizona chamber’s report, the shift in tide came after Colorado’s 2019 state legislative session, which sparked the rapid onset of new mandates, costs and regulatory burdens on the business community. As the report’s joint authors at the Common Sense Institute said, “the lesson of Colorado’s anti-business policy transformation over the past half decade shows that climates can change quickly.”

Since 2019, Colorado’s annual job growth slowed by more than 60%. Sectors that are sensitive to governmental regulation, such as manufacturing and energy resources, have been declining.

Most of the job growth we have experienced has been found in professional business services — an area that (not coincidentally) assists with regulatory compliance through human resources, accounting, and legal support.

Political pull and “regulatory compliance” assistance are the big growth industries wherever big government dominates. All three are classes of parasites.

YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN: The Biden Campaign Is Planning to Deploy a Secret Weapon to Re-Ignite Voters.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Northrop Grumman’s orbital refueling port selected for U.S. military satellites. “Northrop Grumman said the Space Systems Command, which oversees in-space logistics and services programs, also will support the company’s development of an orbital fuel tanker for geosynchronous orbit missions that would carry up to 1,000 kilograms of hydrazine fuel and deliver it to client satellites on demand.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Joe Biden Traveling Senility Circus Is Tedious and Tyrannical. From now until the election, any time I see one of the leftmedia hacks fact-checking Trump, I’m bringing up Biden’s stolen Gold Star parent valor to them. Will it change anything? No. That doesn’t mean we should let it go though.”

THE CHINA SYNDROME: Evergrande shares halted after Hong Kong court orders liquidation.

Policymakers in China have been scrambling to stem the debt crisis in the beleaguered property sector.

Last week, the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance announced measures to help boost the liquidity available to property developers.

The measures, which will be valid until the end of this year, will help ease a lingering cash crunch for Chinese developers after Beijing cracked down on the sector to address bloated debt levels in real estate.

The property sector in China remains challenging against the backdrop of the Evergrande news, according to Alexander Cousley, APAC investment strategist at Russell Investments.

“I think the measures have to be much more targeted and much more forceful,” Cousley said on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”

Perhaps. But this isn’t one of those problems that even a fully committed Communist can get out of by shooting enough kulaks.

HMM: Did E. Jean Carroll Admit Her Real Motivations for Her Accusations Against Trump?

WELL, HE’S HALF-RIGHT: Senator Joe Manchin says Biden’s White House is dominated by ‘far-left liberals’ and admits he could ‘absolutely’ see himself as president.

Manchin, whose Senate term is up in 2024, revealed in November he won’t seek re-election in West Virginia.

The 76-year-old said in his announcement most Americans are ‘just plain worn out’ with Washington, and he would work to find ‘middle ground.’

The outgoing West Virginia lawmaker has launched his own tour to hear from Americans across the country.

Manchin has said there is no timeline for making a decision amid speculation that he will launch his own bid for the White House.

I doubt he will but I’m certain he’ll raise money in the meantime.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: How an Escalation in Drone Warfare Cost Three U.S. Servicemen Their Lives. “Sometimes you’ve got to hand it to the bad guys for being so murderously clever in ways few could imagine. Or worse, in ways that a few forward-thinkers did imagine but that those in power didn’t take seriously.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ‘What Color Panties You Have On?’ and Other Legal Concerns. “Maybe this is not the kind of person who should have been offered work as a victims’ advocate.”

I’LL BELIEVE DEMOCRATS ARE SERIOUS ABOUT CLEAN ENERGY WHEN THEY START ACTING SERIOUS ABOUT CLEAN ENERGY: Senate committee nukes bill to promote alternative energy source.

If Colorado is going to seek to promote nuclear-energy projects in the state, it won’t do so by declaring the fission process to be clean energy.

Democrats on a state Senate committee Wednesday killed a bill to promote nuclear energy by redefining it as clean, which would allow it to be used to meet statewide renewable-energy goals and qualify projects for clean-energy project financing. It was the second straight year such a bill died in the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee, signaling that the majority party, while backing reduction in fossil-fuel use, wants to concentrate on solar, wind and geothermal even in the face of a federal nuclear push.

Sen. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, and a group of nearly three-dozen supporters argued that the energy is more reliable than solar and wind in inclement weather and that it will be needed to meet the state’s goals for a zero-emissions power grid by 2040. The proposal, he argued, would have brought Colorado in line with federal Inflation Reduction Act standards at a time when the federal government is offering tax breaks for nuclear research and development and pushing it as a clean energy.

Democrats aren’t about producing clean energy. They’re about producing less energy.

CORN, POPPED: Trump Prosecutor Fani Willis’s Troubles Just Got Much Worse.

INCENTIVIZING GRIEVANCE CULTURE: More than ever, college applicants are writing about race. “Admissions officers aren’t supposed to know applicants’ racial or ethnic identity, since the U.S. Supreme Court banned affirmative action, he writes. However, the majority opinion said students could write about how race affected their lives ‘through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.’ Counselors are urging them to do so.”

Of course they are.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: If You Want War, Prepare for Peace. “What if you wanted a nice, easy peace but without all the bother of those difficult things that Vegetius wrote about, like selecting good recruits for your army, training them hard, and being serious about providing strong leadership and secure logistics?”

HMM: Debunking The “700,000 Truckers To Texas” Story. “This is a bad idea and a silly story. Before we get to the ideological reasons, let’s explicate a much more basic one: Math.”

SANCTUARY, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: Chicago Mayor Johnson Now Hiding the Welcome Mat For Illegal Aliens.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: John Kass: Hero on the Border: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

DECLINE IS A CHOICE: How San Francisco’s Westfield turned into a ghost mall: The dying center where 75 PERCENT of units are empty and more stores are closing – as shoppers describe ‘dodgy’ area overrun with homeless who left them ‘scared.’

This is not a scene from a post-apocalyptic TV show. And it’s not a so-called ‘dead mall’ in some forgotten corner of America.

This is the palatial San Francisco Center on a Friday afternoon in mid-January, when just a few years ago the luxurious complex would have been heaving with shoppers reveling in after-Christmas sales.

Today, this former retail jewel at the heart of one of America’s most iconic cities is literally a shell of its former self.

Businesses have left in droves – this month alone, five have closed or announced they plan to – and occupancy is at a measly 25 percent. Footfall has plunged by half since last year and, as shops and customers have departed, the homeless have moved in and drug-taking and crime have risen.

Gooder and harder, San Francisco — but anyone who remembers the city from its glory days can tell you just how sad a sight this is.

WELL, YES: The Economy Isn’t Growing, Gov’t Is Just Adding Debt. “Did the fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 2023 report actually show wonderful economic growth? Not when put in context. You see, all that ‘growth’ is really government spending (taxpayer) money it doesn’t have. Every $1 of GDP growth cost taxpayers $1.69 in new debt. To observe that sort of ‘growth’ isn’t sustainable is a massive understatement.”

In Washington, “sustainable” means “past the next election.”

SPOILER: THE FUNDING WILL CONTINUE. UN urges reversal of funding pause for Palestinian agency, vows to punish staffers.

DENVER: How About Free Money for Non-Gender-Conforming Illegal Aliens? “Denver launched a multimillion-dollar experimental universal basic income (UBI) program during the pandemic with the funds ‘earmarked for women, families, and transgender and gender non-conforming individuals,’ but now we learn they won’t be the only beneficiaries.”

SHOT: South Carolina Turned the Tide for Biden. Haley Hopes for Same Magic in Home State.

Chaser: Trump leads Nikki Haley by 27% in first South Carolina poll since NH primary.

There can be only one.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Truckers Are Delivering Anti-Leftist Freedom Messages All Over the World. “The world is now polluted with elitists and — worse yet — elitist wannabes, many of whom were empowered by the tyrannical madness of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, truckers remain salt of the earth people and, put mildly, have no use for the nonsense of rampaging leftism.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Houthi Hit on Russian Fuel Has Oil Traders Recalculating Risks.

Friday’s attack made one thing clear: whatever assurances Yemen’s Houthis offer, they don’t extend to a ship’s cargo if the vessel itself has even a tenuous link to the US, UK or Israel. The Houthis had said they were targeting Israeli assets because of the war in Gaza, and then extended their reach to US and UK vessels after those countries launched airstrikes in Yemen.

The attack means that a greater slice of the 3 million barrels a day of Russian crude oil and fuel that has been flowing through the Red Sea to reach customers in Asia could be at risk. And Russian volumes matter to the global market — despite sanctions imposed because of Moscow’s own war in Ukraine.

It’s true that insurance costs can be so prohibitive that some owners find it more attractive to go the long way around Africa — following container shippers that have already made that call. But, while Friday’s attack redefined the kinds of ships that might be viewed as targets, not all ships will fall into that category. The most likely outcome is that the numbers willing to risk it thins out, but the route doesn’t shut altogether.

The Houthis don’t need to shut down the Red Sea. They just need to keep the price of oil up for their sponsors in Tehran and their buddies in Moscow.

THE MORE BONEHEADED AN IDEA IS THE CLOSER THE CHANCES REACH CERTAINTY THAT BIDEN WILL ACT ON IT: Will Biden Make the ‘Boneheaded’ Move of Nationalizing the Texas Guard?

WE LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES: The Geopolitics of World War III.

On January 2, 2024, Foreign Minister Israel Katz proclaimed “We’re in the middle of World War III against Iran [led] radical Islam, whose tentacles are already in Europe.” He claimed that Israel, in engaging in a war against Hamas and other Iranian proxies, was defending “everyone.” Although his rhetoric may seem overblown to many in the United States and Europe, it should not be dismissed out of hand. Sometimes, regional conflicts, such as the Japanese conquest of Manchuria of 1931-32 or the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, foreshadow dangers that are more geographically extensive and militarily intense. Do the barbaric events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza prefigure a broader, global armed conflict? Or is this merely a local conflict, one that is likely unresolvable short of one side or the other engaging in genocide or ethnic cleansing?

We have written this paper in a specific context. Over thirty months ago we made a geopolitical prediction regarding the emergence of a global conflict with four fronts. However, social scientists rarely test their theories by predicting future political events. Who wants to be characterized as a Jonah or a Cassandra? As one eminent strategist argued, the future of war (in detail) is unknowable. And, with perhaps one notable exception, social scientists rarely engage, on a routine basis, in disprovable prediction. Without predictive tools, social scientists and strategists must rely on intuition, a knowledge of history, and good theories—all of which are often in short supply.

Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Biden can’t seem to decide which side he’s on — unless he already has: Biden is planning to throttle Israel’s arms supply as fury grows against Netanyahu’s bombing campaign in Gaza.

SAY ANYTHING: Nikki Haley Botches Response to $83.3 Million Jury Verdict Against Trump. “Rather than blasting the absurdity of the jury’s actions, Haley decided to use the situation to attack Trump.”