WELL, BYE: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Will Resign Due to Backlash Over ‘COVID Authoritarian’ Policies.

THIS IS CNN: CNN’s Entire Primetime Lineup Fails to Equal the Audience of One Fox Program. “The top-rated program was 2022’s overall leader in cable news, ‘The Five.’ That panel show logged 3,469,000 viewers, in line with its average figures. What is the standout statistic is this: That audience figure for the one-hour broadcast surpasses all of CNN’s primetime lineup! Beginning at 5 p.m., with ‘The Lead,’ all the way through the 11pm hour with ‘CNN Tonight,’ the combined audience of those shows did not total as much as Fox drew – for just the 5 p.m. hour.”

TO BE FAIR, THEY DID JUST WRAP UP SETTLING THE “NOTICE TO AIRMEN” CRISIS: Biden State Department Bans Times New Roman Font. Really.

I HAVE THE SAME QUESTION: Russia Says It’s Expanding Military To 1.5 Million. “The question I have is: How is Russia going to equip and train these 500,000 new conscripts when they’ve hardly been successful providing equipment for their previous conscripts?”

THE BIDEN WHITE HOUSE IS AWFUL AT THIS STUFF BUT THE PRESS PLAYS ALONG: Biden Orders a Bacon Burger, Washington Post Wets Itself. “Everyone should be insulted by how stupid this administration thinks you are. This tweet is so f***ing cringe.”

KISSINGER: Why I changed my mind about Ukraine.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum via Zoom, the 99-year-old said that although he was against Ukraine joining NATO before the invasion, it was now a desired outcome. “Before this war I was opposed to the membership of Ukraine in NATO because I feared it would start exactly the process we are seeing now,” he said. But now, “the idea of a neutral Ukraine in these conditions is no longer meaningful.”

Ukrainian neutrality was a key demand by Russia during the negotiations that took place in March last year. The 15-point draft included Kyiv renouncing its ambitions to join NATO and agreeing not to host foreign military bases or weaponry in exchange for protection from allies such as the US, UK and Turkey.

The negotiations broke down, with both sides’ positions hardening shortly after.

Neutrality hasn’t worked out very well for Ukraine. Assuming there still is a Ukraine after this war, it’s going to be part of some defensive alliance, whether that’s a grouping of NATO and non-NATO countries in Eastern Europe, or NATO itself.

HE FIGHTS: DeSantis Rails Against ‘Biomedical Security State’ as He Bans Vaccine and Mask Mandates.

CHANGE: Germany says it is no longer reliant on Russian energy. “Germany previously imported around half of its gas from Russia and more than a third of its oil.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Just Let the Democrat-Run Hellhole Cities Destroy Themselves. “There’s no remedy for the commie cities. They’re like addicts: they have to hit rock-bottom before they want to get better. Some of them seem to want to get there quickly.”

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Recruitment team unwittingly recommends ChatGPT for job interview.

Like Sky News’s attempt to have the bot write an article about itself, its initial attempts at Mr Taylor’s writing brief were deemed “competent but dull”.

Only with more specific briefs did it improve, the answer which made the final cut having received the additional requirement to write in the style of American author and copywriter Dave Trott.

“It was much better – it was punchier, it sounded more opinionated, and it got shortlisted,” said Mr Taylor.

He added: “When I told the assessor that she had shortlisted ChatGPT, she was slightly crestfallen.

Plus: “[ChatGPT is] dramatising the gap between something that’s really good and something just pretty good.”

“Pretty good” is often good enough.

IT LOOKS LIKE THE THIRD-BEST RESULT AFTER ASKING A GENERATIVE AI TO PRODUCE AN IMAGE OF ARMS HOLDING POOP: Black Actress: White People Can’t Criticize Ugly New MLK Statue.

SUSTAINABILITY: Biden’s Proposal: Increase Debt By 57.8%.

If you scroll down to pages 142 and 143 of Biden’s proposal — its last two pages — you will discover Table S-10: “Federal Government Financing and Debt.”

This table tells a different story than Biden himself does.

It includes a subsection that carries the headline: “Debt Outstanding, End of Year.” It shows what the Biden administration predicts the total federal debt would be — under the terms of Biden’s budget proposal — at the end of each fiscal year through 2032.

At the end of fiscal 2021, it indicates, the total federal debt was $28.386 trillion. At the end of fiscal 2032, it predicts, the total federal debt will be $44.797 trillion.

That means that under Biden’s budget plan the federal debt would increase by $16.411 trillion — or 57.8% — in the 11 fiscal years from when he first took office in fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2032.

That is an average increase of $1.49 trillion per year.

At which point, $1.49 trillion might buy you a beetleburger.

CLEANEST ELECTION EVER: California’s Disastrous Universal Mail-in Election Lost 10 MILLION Ballots in 2022!

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Congress Has Become ‘Animal Farm,’ but I Know How to Fix It. “The creatures outside looked from Congressman to Senator, and from Senator to Congressman, and from Congressman to Senator again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

VIDEO: Chicagoans React To Lori Lightfoot’s Claim That She’s Made The City Safer.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST THE VIEW…: Even ‘The View’ Thinks Biden Has Handled Garage-gate Poorly.

THE SURVEILLANCE STATE NEVER SHRINKS, IT ONLY GROWS: Little-Known Surveillance Program Captures Money Transfers Between U.S. and More Than 20 Countries. “The database, housed at a little-known nonprofit called the Transaction Record Analysis Center, or TRAC, was set up by the Arizona state attorney general’s office in 2014 as part of a settlement reached with Western Union to combat cross-border trafficking of drugs and people from Mexico. It has since expanded to allow officials of more than 600 law-enforcement entities—from federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to small-town police departments in nearly every state—to monitor the flow of funds through money services between the U.S. and countries around the world.”

DOG BITES MAN: DNC Comes Up With Lamest Excuse for Biden’s Missing Tax Returns on Site.

THE WAR ON AFFORDABILITY: Colorado’s Scrambled Egg Policy. “The jump in price is primarily because of Colorado legislation HB20-1343 which was signed by this governor on July 1, 2020. HB20-1343 dictates the square footage that mid-level egg producers must provide for each chicken and that egg-laying hens must be ‘provided enrichments that allow them to exhibit natural behaviors, including a minimum, scratch areas, perches, nest boxes, and dust bathing areas.’ These new regulations have increased the cost of breakfast for Coloradans by 133% which is affecting the food affordability and food security of children and adults across the state.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Two Denver-area Public Libraries Closed Due to Meth Contamination.

SUSTAINABILITY: Feds borrowed $4 billion per day in 2022, totaling $10K per household.

I’d also like to remind you that debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be.

IT’S EITHER LAUGH OR CRY: Try Not to Laugh at DOJ’s Excuse for Not Sending FBI to Raid Biden’s Homes for Classified Docs.

JOANNE JACOBS: Bring back the ‘F’ to help students succeed. “If college students don’t do the work, a timely “F” can be useful feedback, writes Louis Haas, a history professor at Middle Tennessee University.”

I received an F or two early in high school, and the feedback that came with them — from my parents — was instructive.

WHAT’S THE GERMAN FOR ASTROTURF? Protest Pixie Greta Thunberg Staged Her Own Arrest and We Have the Video. “Thunberg is laughing and smiling, right up until the photographer gets her in the good light and she puts on her trademark How Dare You™ scowl.”

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: China’s Shrinking Population Is Deeper Problem Than Slow Growth for Its Economy.

A rapidly aging population, slowing growth in productivity, high debt levels and rising social inequality will weigh on the country’s economic ascent for decades to come, economists said.

On Tuesday, the same day that China posted 3% growth, the second-worst growth rate since 1976, it also said that for the first time since 1961, its population shrank.

China’s population dropped by 850,000 to 1.412 billion. The shift toward a shrinking population, which came faster than Beijing had projected, marks a watershed moment in China’s history with profound implications for its economy and its status as the world’s factory floor.

The demographic milestone comes when, despite its enormous size, China’s economy is still that of a middle-income, developing country, as measured by average worker incomes when compared with the U.S. and other rich-country peers. China’s leaders have long held the ambition of leapfrogging the U.S. to become the world’s biggest economy, a task made harder by this strengthening demographic headwind, economists say.

“The likelihood of China someday overtaking the U.S. as No. 1 economy has just gone down a notch,” said Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank.

Previously: The Coming Demographic Collapse of China. “Today, the country has a population more than four times larger than America’s. By 2100, the U.S. will probably have more people than China.”