DECOUPLING: The West is Touting a New Trade Route That Bypasses China.

At the G20 summit in New Delhi this past weekend, global leaders voiced their support for a new ship, rail, and digital corridor that will connect India to the Middle East and Europe — and counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The proposed corridor, with backing from leaders including the US, India and Saudi Arabia, could be a momentous shift for the exchange of goods. “This is nothing less than historic,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t attend the summit, but something tells us he’s less than pleased. His country’s trillion-dollar-plus initiative to fund infrastructure projects in mostly developing countries was a bid to expand China’s economic reach. But it has courted controversy from some who see it as a predatory money pit: In 2018, for example, Sri Lanka couldn’t afford the payments on its strategic Hambantota port, so it was handed over to China.

Western leaders looking to mitigate China’s influence while also cooling tensions with the Middle East could view a new trade pact as a win-win.

Related:

BREAKING:

At the G20 summit in India, Meloni to the Chinese that Italy will be leaving China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Italy is the only G7 nation to be a member. Major blow to China’s foreign policy plans in Europe! pic.twitter.com/hyL8AA14o1

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 10, 2023

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems Aren’t Coming to Take Your Guns…Until They Are. “I guarantee you that Gov. Stalin Grisham will not be the last Democrat to use the COVID-inspired ‘public health’ nonsense as an excuse to oppress the good citizens of this country. They take to tyranny like ducks to water over there in Dem Land. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the Democratic National Committee has spun off a little think tank to ponder new ways to use public health panic to shred the Constitution.”

I REMEMBER BEING TOLD TO VOTE FOR BIDEN BECAUSE OF HIS DIPLOMATIC PROWESS: Biden finds himself on the defensive after G20 leaders fail to rally around Ukraine. “Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the New Delhi gathering for leaders of the world’s most powerful economies, but even in their absence, Russia and China notched a win against the U.S. when it came to rallying the international community against the war that began more than a year and a half ago.”

Biden’s the kind of guy who can lose to people who didn’t even show up.

TWO-TIERED JUSTICE: Leftist Who Ran Over and Killed ‘Republican Extremist’ Teen Gets Just Five Years in Prison.

SEA STORY: A Deep Dive Into US Navy’s Epic Shipbuilding Failure.

In July 2016, warships from more than two dozen nations gathered off the coasts of Hawaii and Southern California to join the United States in the world’s largest naval exercise. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and others sent hundreds of destroyers, aircraft carriers and warplanes. They streamed in long lines across the ocean, symbols of power and prestige.

The USS Freedom had its own special place within the armada. It was one of a new class of vessels known as littoral combat ships. The U.S. Navy had billed them as technical marvels — small, fast and light, able to combat enemies at sea, hunt mines and sink submarines.

In reality, the LCS was well on the way to becoming one of the worst boondoggles in the military’s long history of buying overpriced and underperforming weapons systems. Two of the $500 million ships had suffered embarrassing breakdowns in previous months. The Freedom’s performance during the exercise, showing off its ability to destroy underwater mines, was meant to rejuvenate the ships’ record on the world stage. The ship was historically important too; it was the first LCS built, the first in the water, commissioned just eight years prior.

But like the LCS program’s reputation, the Freedom was in bad shape. Dozens of pieces of equipment on board were undergoing repairs. Training crews for the new class of ships had proven more difficult than anticipated. The sailors aboard the Freedom had not passed an exam demonstrating their ability to operate some of the ship’s most important systems.

As the day to launch approached, the pressure mounted. Top officers visited the ship repeatedly. The Freedom’s sailors understood that theirs was a “no fail mission” with “‘no appetite’ to remain in port,” according to Navy documents obtained by ProPublica.

The Freedom’s Capt. Michael Wohnhaas consulted with his officers. Despite crippling problems that had left one of the ship’s engines inoperable, he and his superiors decided the vessel could rely on its three others for the exercise.

The Freedom completed its mission, but the accomplishment proved hollow. Five days after the ship returned to port, a maintenance check revealed that the faltering engine had suffered “galloping corrosion” from saltwater during the exercise.

“Galloping corrosion” doesn’t just afflict one LCS — it’s an apt descriptor for al our institutions.

JOE BIDEN DID THAT: New York City to Cut Up to 15% of Its Budget to Pay for Migrant Influx.

WE SHOULD SUPPORT ANTI-REGIME ELEMENTS BUT I DOUBT THAT THE OBAMA HOLDOVERS RUNNING BIDEN’S WHITE HOUSE WOULD EVER DO THAT: Wait, What? Iran Claims U.S.-Backed Agitators Are Fomenting Anti-Regime Riots.

MAYBE THAT’S WHAT THE AI-DRIVEN AI DETECTORS WANT YOU TO THINK: OpenAI admits that AI writing detectors don’t work.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Florida Jones and the Giant Hamster Wheel of Doom. “It’s your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have the man who was going to walk to London, Florida Woman’s feet of fury, and Nebraska Man’s attempt to turn a late-model Crown Vic into a livestock trailer.”

JON CALDARA: Lessons learned from school’s Gadsden flag debacle.

It’s fascinating that a 12-year-old boy had to go through the embarrassment and stigma, lose several days of precious education, while the people who hide behind policies, their ignorance of history and their cowardice to engage their own common sense, don’t go several days without employment.

If this incident were not recorded, we really wouldn’t have known what exactly happened. It would have devolved into a he-said, she-said issue, the school hiding behind the usual “We don’t comment on student matters” policy.

And the media is so kind to kids who carry Gadsden flags.

People record their encounters with the police. The police now record most of their encounters with citizens.

Parents, you should not be intimidated to politely record your meetings with school administrators.

In Colorado you do not need their permission or knowledge to do it secretly. Your kids’ futures lie in the balance.

Read the whole thing.

HEH:

Some kids know they want a tattoo as young as 2-3 years old. Early signs include using markers to draw on their arms, repeatedly reaching for a pen placed in front of them, and making the sounds “t-ah,” and/or “t-ouh.”

Be an inclusive adult. Tell them about people with tattoos.… pic.twitter.com/ccMJ6QSNLQ

— Chanel Pfahl 🇨🇦 (@ChanLPfa) September 6, 2023

For the Children™.

MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE: The Swamp Is Trying to Cancel Nearly 4.3 Million Votes.

I’M SURPRISED THIS WASN’T BIGGER NEWS: Ukraine Drone Hits Russian Fab. “How long will the strike set Russia back? Hard to say, but the contamination means the entire fab will need to be decontaminated before they can process wafers again. Maybe a month. Debris may have damaged some of the machines, though the tech is so old that there are probably lots of spare parts for things that can be had despite sanctions. If they hit the power center, the air-handling system, or the DI water system, that could take a while to repair, especially if they need modern western parts. And if they took out the power, all the wafer processing machines will have to be requalified, which is a gigantic pain in the ass and quite time-consuming. But most of the in-process wafers will be safe inside FOUPs, and can probably continue processing, once the fab is up and running again.”

Related: Russia ‘seems to be rejoining the world trade,’ after its 3 largest container ports neared their highest level of activity since the Ukraine war.

Sanctions rarely work, at least not as intended.

NICE, BUT WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THEM? ‘We Have the Votes for Impeachment Inquiry’ Into Joe Biden, Says Comer.

GORGEOUS: The U-2 Dragon Lady As You Have Never Seen It Before. “For fans of military aviation — or flying in general — in the civilian world, the chance to get a ride in the cockpit of a combat aircraft is very likely top of many a bucket list. But there’s surely one in-service military jet that has a little more allure than most, for which getting strapped into is just the prelude to a trip into the stratosphere. That jet is the unique U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane, and one civilian photographer recently got a chance to fly in it and execute an air-to-air shoot unlike any other.”

LAWFARE: Will Colorado Force Trump Off the Ballot? “The D.C.-based group Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW) has joined the fight to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot by filing a lawsuit Wednesday in the District Court in the City and County of Denver, Colo. A press release on CREW’s website states that Trump has, in fact, violated the 14th Amendment, and Crew has filed the suit on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters.”

Six? In any case, it’s a rule of thumb that whatever some Washington organization appears to be supporting in its name is not what it is actually supporting.

THE R IN BRICS: Russia Steps Up Support for Sagging Ruble. “The Bank of Russia said that between Sept. 14 and 22 it would sell 21.4 billion rubles ($218.5 million) worth of foreign currency each day, around 10 times the current volume it sells on a daily basis.”

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME: DeSantis Obliterates Claim He ‘Allowed People to Hunt People’ in Florida.

ZUCKBUCKS AND THE TRUMP TRIAL:

👁️👁️👁️👁️The testimony by the first witness Trump's attorney John Eastman called to put on his side of the case in his disbarment trial has been nothing less than explosive. The trial ended for the day with more bombshells. He revealed that the Zuckbucks, $8.8 million from…

— Rachel Alexander (@Rach_IC) September 8, 2023

Developing…

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Mitch McConnell, Dehydration, and Questionable Washington Physicians. “The physician enablers — we can throw John Fetterman’s doctor into the mix too — are doing the country a disservice by giving their patients a green light to hang around at work until they drop. The White House physician who insists that President LOLEightyonemillion is functional is an active participant in the rapid destruction of the Republic.”

PROVIDING CONVENIENT COVER FOR THOSE SO-CALLED SANCTUARY CITIES: Biden administration considers forcing migrant families to remain in Texas. “Administration officials have been considering the idea as a way to stem recent increases in the numbers of migrant families crossing the southern border, which reportedly reached an all-time high last month. Supporters of the remain-in-Texas idea, which has yet to be finalized, hope that it would help the administration advance its goals of quickly deporting families who fail initial asylum screenings and deterring other families from crossing in the first place.”

I remember when Remain in Texas was set a bit further south and called Remain in Mexico.

GRENELL IS USUALLY TOO SHARP TO PLAY LOSING GAMES LIKE THIS ONE: Ric Grenell Calls Ron DeSantis ‘Homophobic,’ But Then Megyn Kelly Asks for Receipts.

YES: Beware the Special Counsel’s New Indictment Plans for Hunter Biden.

It’s the tax and financial crimes and misconduct that strike closer to the heart of the Biden family enrichment scheme, which is the more meaningful and growing scandal. Some razzle-dazzle of a gun charge, absent any serious pursuit of illegal activity related to financial dealings and foreign agent non-disclosures, could easily be interpreted as a deliberate distraction. A diversion, if you will. The DOJ’s ability to spare Hunter Biden any serious charges, while also protecting his father’s political and legal standing, fell apart with the defunct plea deal. Hunter Biden may now get his wrist slapped quite a bit harder than everyone involved would have liked (defense and prosecution alike) because, essentially, they got caught.

But the real smoke would engulf the Biden family ‘business,’ and that related financial paper trail. If Weiss stops at a new gun charge — look, a bright shiny object — plus the tax misdemeanors already listed in the previous compact, that would strike me as yet another face-saving political exercise. Indeed, it could be interpreted as Weiss coming “a little bit harder at Hunter Biden (while still taking care to insulate ‘the Big Guy),” while still serving the Biden DOJ’s overriding “inclination to protect the Bidens to the greatest extent possible.” In short, I recommend tapping the breaks on any premature celebrations over newfound “accountability,” carefully scrutinizing the fine print of whatever might emerge in a forthcoming indictment, then watching to see whether or not the Special Counsel probe then effectively ends.

If the Weiss investigation proceeds as it has thus far, expect this sacrificial lamb move to be the extent of it.

Congress can and will continue its investigation but with the Dem-controlled DOJ back in “wingman” mode for the Biden crime family, that’s probably about as much as anyone can expect.

SPYWARE ON WHEELS: Your Car Reports on Your Activities, Even Those in the Back Seat.

FINGERS CROSSED! Joe Biden Is Really Screwed Now. “Those who are advocating for Trump or another Republican are asking the wrong questions. It’s not about if Trump can beat Biden, if DeSantis can beat Biden, or even if Trump is too toxic to win; it’s about whether Biden can beat any of the Republicans running for the nomination.”