THE PRIMARY BATTLE LINES ARE BEING DRAWN: Prominent GOP Congressman Endorses Ron DeSantis.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘This Is Scary’: Financial Industry Panic Spreads as Credit Suisse Teeters. “The fresh crisis at Credit Suisse, which comes just days after two U.S. banks collapsed, compounded fears that seemingly isolated problems at individual financial institutions could signal a deeper systemic threat with far-reaching implications for the interconnected global economy.”

Meanwhile, Biden has “effectively nationalized the deposit base of the entire US financial system,” putting us all on the hook for everyone’s deposits, even the ones above $250,000.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: DeSantis Notches Another Win Against Woke Corporate Idiots. “The reason he gets so much attention here at the Briefing is because he doesn’t make any unforced errors. Some claim that his recent remarks on Ukraine could be construed as such. I don’t.”

FORMER DEPUTY TREASURY SECRETARY ROBERT ALTMAN: Biden Is Effectively Nationalizing The Deposit Base Of The Entire U.S. Financial System.

What the authorities did over the weekend was absolutely profound. They guaranteed the deposits, all of them, at Silicon Valley Bank. And what that really means, and they won’t say it, and I’ll come back to that, what that really means is that they have guaranteed the entire deposit base of the U.S. financial system, the entire deposit base. Why? Because you can’t guarantee all the deposits in Silicon Valley Bank and then the next day say to the depositors, say at First Republic, sorry, yours aren’t guaranteed. Of course, they are.

And so this is a breathtaking step, which effectively nationalizes or federalizes the deposit base of the U.S. financial system. You can call it a bailout, you can call it something else, but it’s really absolutely profound.

Now, the authorities, including the White House, are not going to say that, because what I just said of course implies that they have just nationalized the banking system. And technically speaking, they haven’t. But in a broad sense, they are verging on that.

I’m so old, I remember when Biden ran as a “return to normalcy” moderate.

BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS: James O’Keefe Makes His Move After Project Veritas.

EVEN CHINA WANTS TO DECOUPLE FROM CHINA: Foxconn says it’s looking to move away from China.

Foxconn, which is Apple’s major supplier for the iPhone, is based in Taiwan. But it is owned by Chinese firm Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. In announcing its latest Q4 earnings that showed a drop in profits, the firm says it is working to expand away from China.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Foxconn says that currently 70% of its revenue comes from China. However, Chairman Young Liu, said the proportion of revenue from outside the country will continue to grow.

US technology firms are working to leave China in part to end their over-reliance on a single country, especially one that implements intermittent power cuts. They are also looking to move because of continued US/China trade tensions.

Plus, Communist China is just an increasingly hostile place to do business.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: How to Lose the Entire Middle East with this 1 Weird Trick.

Perhaps the least-appreciated part of Donald Trump’s time in office was his two-track strategy for dealing with the Middle East. The first track was domestic, easing the regulatory brakes off of American energy production. The resulting decline in oil prices and our decreased reliance on Middle East imports gave Trump the leverage to activate the second track: Negotiating the Abraham Accords between Israel and a growing roster of Arab countries.

Those two tracks led to the same destination: Boxing in Iran and halting their imperialist ambitions to dominate the region.

More peace plus less reliance equals fewer foreign entanglements. And a stronger, safer, richer America, too.

Folks, that is called Grand Strategy and, at least in the Middle East, Trump and his people — like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and special envoy Jared Kushner — were masters at it.

Flash-forward to January 2021 and Joe Biden’s inauguration when, immediately upon becoming president, he did just one thing wrong: literally everything.

Much more at the link, so don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

CONTRA-INDICATOR: Inverse Jim Cramer ETF outperforming market trackers after just 2 weeks. “In the two weeks since its launch, the ‘Inverse Cramer Tracker’ exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been outperforming the market by allowing investors to short any stock CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer recommended buying.”

THE “OR ELSE” IS HEAVILY IMPLIED: UN Secretary-General: ‘For Well Over a Millennium, Islam’s Message of Peace Has Inspired People.’

IT IS UNWISE TO ASK DIFFICULT QUESTIONS, COMRADE: ‘Where Is Proof Of Damages?’: Leo Terrell Comes Unglued Over San Francisco’s Proposed Reparations.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS HARD: Turns Out Trump’s Truth Social Is Not Very Social. “I write for a certain blog that generates more traffic than Truth’s social media platform does and for another one that’s closing in on it. To put it bluntly, a social media platform can’t thrive with blogger numbers.”

GREECE, SOUTH KOREA, TURKEY, AND EVEN IRAN STILL HAVE SOME IN SERVICE: Why the F-4 Phantom Is Such a Badass Plane.

MATT MARGOLIS: It’s the End of Women’s Colleges as We Know It, and You Know Why.

LAUGHING WOLF: SVB And Other Thoughts. “My short take is: against every rule, law, and promise, the Federal Government has stepped in to make everyone right in regards SVB, including Democrat megadonors, the Brit Twits, and others including the Chinese economy which was seriously impacted by SVB; the Signature Bank action is interesting since the trigger(s) for such actions did not appear to be reached and even Barney Frank himself noted that it might be related to the creation of a Federal Cryptocurrency; and, we are not done yet.”

REP. JAMES COMER: Bidens Were Paid ‘Massive Amounts’ From Chinese Company Post 2016.

A TRILLION HERE AND A TRILLION THERE…: Silicon Valley Bank and Joe Biden’s $19 Trillion Monday.

One bird has flown, and that’s moral hazard, or the idea that bailouts only encourage the behavior that makes bailouts necessary. Don’t buy the claim that bank shareholders and CEOs are being taught a lesson. By guaranteeing all deposits, government actually makes banks an even more attractive source of funding for swing-for-the-fences bets by politically adroit, high-rolling bank entrepreneurs and executives.

This problem regulation will then try to solve by dictating which bets banks can make with customer deposits. Somehow the necessary clairvoyance is never found and bank failures keep happening. In a weekend, dispensed with has been a guardrail that served the economy well. As the title of a 1986 paper by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank succinctly put it: “Uninsured deposits [are] a source of market discipline.”

Market discipline provides too few opportunities for corruption and grift.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: San Francisco, Reparations, and the Racist Cruelty of Empty Promises. “San Francisco will never pay these reparations. Just to make the stipend happen, the city would have to raise 50% more revenue or cut services on everything else by the same amount.”

So much more at the link.

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Silicon Valley Bank Pledged Nearly $74 Million To Black Lives Matter Causes. “Time after time we see the same pattern: companies that are the most concerned with ESG scores and woke politics do the worst jobs serving their customers.”

TO BE FAIR, HE’S A CREEP: Biden Says Opposing the Mutilation of Children Is ‘Close to Sinful.’

DO TELL: Inflation Isn’t Going Away.

Though Tuesday’s consumer price index report was in line with expectations, the Department of Labor’s data seemed once again to dash any hopes for a quick resolution to the inflation crisis that has strained Americans’ wallets for the past year. The annualized inflation rate for February fell slightly to 6 percent, but the underlying numbers show that prices continue to grow at a stubbornly high rate.

In February, overall prices increased by 0.4 percent and so-called “core inflation” (which filters out more volatile categories like food and fuel prices) showed a monthly increase of 0.5 percent. Rent continues to be a primary driver of overall price increases, climbing another 0.8 percent in February and up 8.1 percent over the past 12 months.

Driven in significant part by those rising housing prices, February was the third consecutive month where the core inflation rate increased. That could put more pressure on the Federal Reserve to continue hiking interest rates to combat rising prices—despite other signals, like this week’s rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, that rising interest rates come with their own costs.

“Every measure of CPI inflation is down from its peak over the summer, partly because some of that inflation was truly transitory and partly because the Fed’s rate hikes [have] kept the economy from getting much hotter and kept long-run inflation expectations anchored. That is good,” tweeted Jason Furman, a Harvard economist and former White House economic advisor. “But, still way too high and no sign of falling.”

Without the recent banking turmoil, Furman predicted that the Federal Reserve would respond to the accelerating core inflation with another rate hike of 50 basis points. Now, however, it’s difficult to know how the central bank will respond to the dual threats of rising inflation and ongoing instability in the banking sector.

Somebody in the comments over at VodkaPundit reminded me that the Fed has two modes: Fighting inflation (with higher rates) and fighting recession (with lower rates). Soon they might get to do both at once!

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Mark Kelly Wastes No Time Revealing Himself to Be a Nightmare. “Kelly was able to sneak into a full term by essentially hiding under Kyrsten Sinema’s skirts for the first two years, doing nothing to call attention to himself. Conservatives here knew that there was a gun-grabbing nightmare just waiting to bust out if he was given six years.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: S.F. bureaucrats gave woman a choice: Remove free library or pay $1,400 after one anonymous complaint.

For more than a decade, Susan Meyers’ front sidewalk proved a cheerful hub in her Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood — until one anonymous grump called 311. In this city notorious for giving tremendous credence to solitary complainers — who have the right to halt housing projects, foil their neighbors’ housing remodels and stall emergency transit projects — that one call compelled a visit from a Public Works inspector.

And soon, Meyers’ adorable little library had a notice affixed to it with bright blue tape giving her two choices: Remove the bench and the library or pay $1,402 for a “minor encroachment permit.”

Even though there’s plenty of space on the wide sidewalk for people to walk, push their strollers or pass by in wheelchairs. Even though the home’s front stairs stretch farther into the sidewalk than the bench or library. Even though legions of neighbors love the setup and want it to stay.

Meyers’ neighbors have offered to create a GoFundMe to raise the $1,402 for a permit, but she doesn’t want to go that route. The 79-year-old therapist and her husband, a retired lawyer, could pay the fee, but why should they?

Because the progressive city of San Francisco has empowered anonymous Stasi snitches to force them to pay.

HEH: The Lincoln Project Can’t Grasp Why Fox News Won’t Run Its Ad Attacking Fox News.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS: Powerlifters Sound Alarm on Male Takeover after Trans Court Ruling.

Ontario-based female powerlifter April Hutchinson was supposed to face Anne Andres — the same transgender-identifying man who beat Bayntun back in 2019 — in her weight class at the Vancouver national tournament in February, but refused to compete in an act of protest after watching Andres’s behavior on the circuit.

Since taking up women’s powerlifting in 2019, Andres has quickly risen through the ranks, scoring a bronze medal at nationals and setting the bench-press record for the Alberta province at 253 lbs. in the 84+ category, Hutchinson said.

Andres isn’t humbled by his natural advantage, as one might expect. Instead he has gloated about competing in the women’s category and insulted female powerlifters for poor performance in certain upper-body exercises.

“He actually knocked females for having a weak bench press,” Hutchinson said. “The audacity this guy has. It’s like, ‘Oh, I have an advantage, but you women are weak on bench press because you are women.’ He’s admitting to have an advantage.”

At the Western Canadian Powerlifting and Bench Press Championships last September, Andres bench pressed 270 lbs., defeating multiple women in the Women’s Raw 185+ Open.

“Why is women’s bench so bad? I mean, not compared to me, we all know that I’m a tranny freak so that doesn’t count. And no, we’re not talking about Mackenzie Lee, she’s got little T-Rex arms and she’s like 400 pounds of chest muscle apparently,” Andres said in a November Instagram video.

He might claim to be a woman, but he’s certainly no lady.

“A WISE AND FRUGAL GOVERNMENT…” BUT CALIFORNIA HAS NEITHER: With $22.5 Billion Deficit, California Looks to Pay $640 Billion in Reparations.