DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Drug overdose deaths soared in San Francisco in August to tie the deadliest month since 2021 – with city leaders promising to make city streets safer from homeless and crime.

WHY NOT 12? OR 14? OR A MILLION AND SIX? CA Principal Claims There Are 13 ‘Genders,’ Justifies Drag Queen Discussion in Health Class.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Wyoming Schools to Biden: MOLON LABE!

ACCOUNTABILITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE:

The national security expertise sought by the Biden Cabal is how to secure the nation from conservatives and other undesirables. And say what you will about this White House, but with Brennan, Clapper, and Kolbe they’ve chosen experience and expertise in the matter.

TIMELESS ADVICE FROM GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: How Will We Be Judged?

This undercurrent, let’s call it the “we have to do it to them before they do it to us” strain of modern politics, is turning this election cycle into something like a vindictive race to see which side can install their strongman before the other side can install theirs.

I fear that we may not like the place where such a race might take us. Judgment at Nuremberg gives us a hint of what that destination might be… by revealing that it’s a place humanity has visited many times before, to its eternal sorrow.

JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG is a story about what can happen when that ugly strain of political escalation goes unchecked for too long and is allowed to infect the broader population. The film is nominally about a fictional “Nuremberg Trial” pitting four German Judges, former Nazi Party members all, against an international tribunal looking to make them pay for their crimes against humanity.

But that’s not really what JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG is about about.

As most great movies are, Nuremberg is about a man. It is the story of Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) who, even as he struggles to do what is right with respect to the case in front of him, cannot help but ask himself a much larger and more important series of questions… “How did we get here?”, “How could this have happened”, and “Could it happen again?”

In the end, Haywood delivers a verdict that is not so much an indictment of the men in the dock, but rather an indictment of unchecked human nature, and what it means to stand for justice rather than simple, horrible expediency.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The ‘Newsom 2024’ Fever Dream Took a Bit of a Hit This Week. “Newsom’s hard sell on the job that President LOLEightyonemillion is doing is predictable, the Dem elites can’t be seen badmouthing the old boy while he is still the presumptive nominee. There’s no way he believes any of it, of course, and I think that may be another reason that Newsom isn’t keen on playing savior for the DNC this cycle.”

CHANGE: Russia’s Dependence On China Is Deep And Wide — It May Also Be Irreversible.

One of the most notable aspects of Russia’s pivot to the East is its growing trade dependence on China. Chinese imports to Russia increased after 2008, culminating in China surpassing Germany as Russia’s leading supplier of goods.

In 2006, China’s share of Russian imports was a mere 9.4%, but by 2021, it had surged to a substantial 24.8%. Likewise, China’s share of Russian exports nearly tripled during the same period, making China Russia’s largest export destination by 2017.

Since the 2022 invasion, Russia has stopped publishing detailed customs statistics. Consequently, we must rely on various sources, including occasional reports from Russian officials, data from other countries and expert assessments. According to Iikki Korhonen, who leads the Institute for Transition Economies at the Bank of Finland, China’s portion of Russian imports “likely exceeded one-third and may have reached as high as 40% by the end of 2022.”

The level of dependence in foreign trade that Russia currently exhibits is typically associated with colonial or former colonial relationships, as well as “center-periphery” systems. In these systems, the central entity’s share of foreign trade with peripheral countries is akin to China’s role in Russia’s foreign economic activities.

Throughout recorded history, no partner of Russia — except for China post-2008 — has accounted for more than 16% of Russian imports. Similarly, in terms of Russian exports, no partner, except China since 2018, has surpassed a 15% share. “In terms of imports,” Iikki Korhonen argues, “Russia is now, if not the most dependent country on China, then second only to North Korea.”

Someone else noted a while back that China has two kinds of foreign relations: Trade partners and vassals. I’d add that Putin’s stupid war has moved Russia far along the road from the former to the latter.

VICTORIA TAFT: Well, Well, Well, Look at the ‘Conspiracy Theory’ the J6 Cat Finally Dragged in. Why Now? “Ray Epps, the man the news media said was the object of conspiracy theorists of the ‘hard right,’ was charged Tuesday with one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct for his antics at the Capitol Complex on Jan. 6, 2021. It has taken the federal government more than two and a half years to bring the single charge against Ray Epps.”

YOU DON’T HAVE TO FALL IN LOVE, YOU JUST HAVE TO FALL IN LINE: The Cake Is Baked. Deal With It. “Stop moaning about replacing Biden and Harris. This is the 2024 Democratic ticket, whether you like it or not.”

Shut up and vote for the Democrats pre-selected for you, prole.

ATHENA THORNE: Maybe This Latest Blatant Ballot Box Stuffing Scandal Will Be the Last Straw.

STANDARDS:

1938: dudes wearing ties to do oilfield work

2023: sitting Senator wears gym shorts and hoodie to work https://t.co/Gg4TNqNHy4

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) September 19, 2023

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Woman accidentally discovers swallowed AirPods are acid resistant for nine hours.

WOKE BURIES EVERYTHING: ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ Both Loves and Buries Greece.

WELL, YES: It’s normal for parents to object to graphic sex in kids’ books. “If you can’t read the sexy kids’ book in Congress without grossing people out and having them tell you to please stop, Dad, maybe children shouldn’t read it.”

GORGEOUS: NASA’s Webb Snaps Supersonic Outflow of Young Star.

ANOTHER DEMOCRAT RESTORING MORE OF THAT DIGNITY TO GOVERNMENT: John Fetterman Admits He Dresses ‘Like a Slob.’

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH I-TOLD-YOU-SOS IN THE WORLD FOR THIS STORY: Once a global ideal, Germany’s economy struggles with an energy shock that’s exposing longtime flaws.

For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.

Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.

No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.

It follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the loss of Moscow’s cheap natural gas — an unprecedented shock to Germany’s energy-intensive industries, long the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe.

There’s a lot of talk about losing access to Russia’s natural gas, but the author doesn’t bother to mention until the 18th paragraph Berlin’s 2011 decision to shut down every nuclear plant in the country.

THIS ISN’T SUSTAINABLE: Take a Guess What the Fastest Growing Jobs Sector Has Been.

GOOD: Musk says X will charge everyone to use the platform.

Musk replied: “The single-most important reason we’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”

Musk said adding a subscription would make it much more difficult for bots to create accounts, because each bot would need to register a new credit card.

He added that the company plans to come out with “a lower tier pricing,” than what it currently charges for its X Premium subscribers, which is around $8 monthly.

This should have happened years ago.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Argentina’s Milei Warns U.S.: Socialism Is ‘Violent, Murderous, Impoverishing.’

Yet the same thugs sell it to the same idiots, time after time.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: United is the latest airline to confirm finding fake parts in plane engines, as supplier scandal grows. “The parts were discovered in a single engine on each of two aircraft, including one that was already undergoing routine maintenance, a spokesperson for United said Monday. The Chicago-based airline is replacing the engines before the planes are returned to flying, he said.”

GOOD: Here Come the Teen Transgender Lawsuits. “To give you an even better idea of how deep this country has gone down the rabbit hole on this transgender madness, let me share with you a telling detail I couldn’t help but notice from the WOWT News report linked above.”

HEALTH: ‘Body Positivity’ Is Literally Killing People, Science Finds.

What happened: The number of heart disease deaths in the United States linked to obesity was three times greater in 2020 than in 1999—even though overall heart disease deaths declined nearly 20 percent during that period—according to a new scientific study.

Obesity affects about 115 million Americans, including 42 percent of adults and 20 percent of children, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Why it matters: The alarming scientific findings coincide with the rise of the left-wing “body positivity” movement, which seeks to achieve social justice by celebrating fatness and attacking critics for pointing out the enormous health risks associated with obesity.

In recent years, liberal cultural elites have embraced obese female celebrities and lauded them as icons of feminist empowerment. Lifestyle magazines such as Cosmopolitan have featured obese women on the cover alongside science-denying taglines such as, “This is healthy!”

I’m starting to think it’s eugenics with a smiling face.

CHRIS QUEEN: We Can’t Compromise With the Democrats on Abortion. “In a lot of ways, the current election cycle has reminded me of 2016 all over again, with Trump as an unknown and unpredictable quantity. He has been so adamant in attacking Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) — arguably his biggest rival for the nomination — that he’s gone at the governor from the left.”

BIDEN’S ’70S SHOW: Striking unions impacting the economy at a level not seen in decades.

The UAW has taken a somewhat novel approach to this walkout, targeting just three factories and involving less than one-tenth of the workers at the Big Three automakers’ membership. However, if things heat up and it turns into an all-out strike, bringing into play the 146,000 union members at Ford, GM and Stellantis, that could change things.

In that case, Shepherdson sees a potential 1.7 percentage point quarterly hit to GDP at a time when many economists still fear the U.S. could tip into recession in the coming months. Auto production amounts to 2.9% of GDP.

A broader strike also would complicate policymaking for the Federal Reserve, which is trying to bring down inflation without tipping the economy into contraction.

Related: “In the name of ‘economic justice’ Fain would bankrupt the Big 3 again. Here’s the math: $136 * 32 hours per week * 52 weeks = $226,304. Note the UAW demand for a 32 hour workweek. At a 40-hour workweek, pay would be $282,880. Sorry guys, that will never fly.”