IT’S ONLY A PAUSE: Visa, Mastercard Pause Work on Code Aimed at Tracking Gun Purchases.

ROBERT SPENCER: It’s Time for Mitch McConnell to Retire. “Mitch McConnell is exactly nine months older than Old Joe Biden. He has been a member of the United States Senate since the waning days of Ronald Reagan’s first term, when Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’ was at the top of the pop charts.”

CHANGE: Jaded with education, more Americans are skipping college. “Americans who came of age during the pandemic are skipping college in big numbers. Many have shunned traditional college paths, turning instead to hourly jobs or careers that don’t require a degree. Still others feel locked out, deterred by high tuition and the prospect of student debt.”

NAH, LET’S SEE THE REST OF THE VIDEO FIRST: Did Tucker Hit a Nerve? Axios Wants to Move On From January 6.

OH: Cori Bush’s Bodyguard Says He Can’t Be Anti-Semitic Because He’s a Jewish High Priest.

BAILOUT MOTORS: GM Gutting Half Its US Workforce. “GM, the leading US automaker by volume, will gut its US workforce ‘voluntarily’ according to a confidential internal memo from Chairman and CEO Mary Barra that leaked on Thursday.”

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): ‘Sex positive’ fat activist says men with rape ‘kink’ should be able to pay to drug consenting women.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: New Tests Promise to Reveal Your Real Age — but Do You Really Want to Know? “Assuming Tally and its competitors can correctly estimate my real age via methylation testing, the first question I’d have to ask myself is: Do I really want to know?”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Jon Stewart Meets the Divisive Country He Helped Create. “Does it matter if the new wave of hateful late-night hosts doubled down on his strategy? They learned it from watching him, and a corrupt media amplified their rage along the way.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: GOP House Hearings Reveal Some Uncomfortable Truths for Dems. “Even though we’ve been proven right, all that we had to go through to get to this point because the Democrats have been lying about, well, everything, is maddening.”

NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: CNN Adds Another Major Failure to the Books as Jill Biden’s Primetime Special Bombs Spectacularly. “Not only did Biden not attract viewers to the CNN primetime slot, she chased a good deal of them away. In fact, as Fox News added, Biden’s appearance on CNN was outwatched by reruns of shows like ‘Friends’ on TBS and ‘Gunsmoke’ on TV Land Classics.”

RELEASE EVERYTHING AND LET THE CARDS FALL WHERE THEY MAY: Former CDC Director Drops Truth Bombs About COVID’s Origins at Hearing.

AMY PEIKOFF: YouTube Saved You By Censoring My Super Dangerous Content. “What was the content? A somewhat geeky episode in which Benjamin and I explored the epistemological implications of an analogy between a specific aspect of the Dominion v. Fox News defamation case, and an accusation commonly leveled at COVID-19 mRNA ‘vaccine skeptics.’ Apparently, during the course of this long-form discussion on the contextual nature of the onus of proof, Benjamin or I shared Super Dangerous Medical Misinformation. Watch it if you dare on Rumble.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Minnesota Dems Want $100 Million for Reparations, Apologies for George Floyd and Dred Scott.

IT’S A CONSERVATIVE PART OF CALIFORNIA: Gavin Newsom’s Incompetent Response to Blizzard Emergency Has a Growing Body Count. “Residents have started a Change.org petition to ask Newsom to request a federal disaster declaration, and Republican Rep. Jay Olbernolte, who represents the area, has been pushing Newsom to do the same since Friday. Newsom has ignored those requests as of the time of publication.”

YOUR SCIENTISTS WERE SO PREOCCUPIED WITH WHETHER OR NOT THEY COULD, THEY DIDN’T STOP TO THINK IF THEY SHOULD: Scientists have revived a ‘zombie’ virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost.

MATT MARGOLIS: The Wuhan Flu Can’t Keep Me Down. “After I had managed to go roughly three years without officially contracting it, the Wuhan flu finally caught up to me. It was probably inevitable, as I suspect everyone will be exposed to it and catch in eventually.”

Get well soon.

YOU DON’T SAY: Historic decline in IQ could stem from poor education, study shows. “A recent study suggests that, for the first time in nearly 100 years, Americans’ average IQ is declining, a trend that the study’s authors theorize could result from the quality of education.”

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Here’s That Collusion You Ordered: Russian Business Partner of Hunter Biden Dodges Sanctions.

RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR: Ukraine’s Bakhmut may fall in days, says NATO chief, as Russia claims victory over eastern half of city.

But: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 7, 2023.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on March 7 that the hypothetical Russian capture of Bakhmut would provide Russian forces an “open road” to Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, and other critical settlements in Donetsk Oblast.

ISW continues to assess, however, that Russian forces lack the capability to exploit the tactical capture of Bakhmut to generate operational effects, and will likely rapidly culminate following the capture of Bakhmut.
…
Recent Russian advances within urban areas of Bakhmut demonstrate that Russian forces can secure limited tactical gains with infantry-led frontal assaults. Russian forces likely lack the mechanized forces necessary to exploit the roads (which are likely highly fortified) west of Bakhmut.

Kyiv’s promised winter offensive never materialized, likely due to weapons shortages and perhaps manpower, too. Moscow’s winter offensive has been a very long and expensive slog to capture a single town lacking any operational significance and, if ISW has it correct, is likely to fizzle out after accomplishing that little.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: McCarthy Skewers Media for J6 Footage Hypocrisy.

THAT IS THE GOAL, YES: Democrats’ Climate Lawfare Campaign Jeopardizes America’s Energy Future.

GOODER AND HARDER: Portland’s Last Two Walmart Stores Closing Because of Shoplifting.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: New Orleans residents warned ‘don’t sit in your car and play’ as carjackings skyrocket 165%. “The city has seen a significant rise in violent crime, including skyrocketing homicides, with the highest per capita rate among cities in the United States. The Big Easy saw 273 carjackings in the last year alone, compared to 103 in 2019. The sharp increase in crime has caused some residents to start taking precautions to avoid being targets, like avoiding using their cell phones while sitting in their cars.”

AMERICANS ARE PRETTY SHARP: A Shockingly Low Percentage of Americans Think Old Joe Biden Is Really Running Things.