WHY PAY BIG MONEY TO LIVE IN A S***HOLE DOWNTOWN? Why no one is buying downtown San Francisco’s luxury condos. “He added that an increase in homelessness and crime in downtown areas has affected the ‘quality-of-life ambiance’ for people in those areas, presumably buyers who are reluctant to live among the city’s unhoused populations.”

UGH: Police Accuse ‘Liberal Guru’ of Kidnapping and Financially Exploiting Her Elderly Mother.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE INEVITABLE IS THAT IT ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAPPEN: China Is Facing A COVID-19 ‘Nuclear Winter’. The CCP Can’t Stop It.

Perhaps as many as 90% of China’s 1.41 billion people will come down with COVID-19, said Feng Zijian, former deputy chief of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, to Bloomberg News. Feng predicts 60% of the population will be infected in the first wave.

China did not have to wait long. There is now a fast-moving wave ripping through Beijing.

The capital city was not prepared. “We have a child with a high fever but all the pharmacies are out of ibuprofen,” said a Beijing resident surnamed Lin to the Financial Times. “It came too fast, we didn’t have time to prepare.” Shortages are widespread. “Beijing is running out of medical supplies,” the London paper notes.

The situation is so bad, Peking University’s Michael Pettis reports on Twitter, that Beijingers are thinking of deliberately exposing themselves to the disease, so they won’t get it later when the public health care system has completely broken down.

Meanwhile, in a country that never locked down: Sweden — Once Mocked for Its COVID Strategy — Now Has One of the Lowest COVID Mortality Rates in Europe.

CHARMING: America-hater Griner Shook Hands With ‘Merchant of Death’ During Exchange.

JOE DID THAT: Jeep lays off 1,350 workers in Illinois, moves factory to Mexico due to Biden’s war on climate change. “According to the company, the industry ‘has been adversely affected by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global microchip shortage, but the most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the electrification of the automotive market.'”

IT’S OFFICIAL: Before Musk, Twitter Was the Worst-Run Tech Company in the World. “Almost unnoticed among the more salacious #TwitterFile reveals from Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger, ‘the stuff uncovered in the Twitter whistleblower report is much crazier,’ according to Twitter user Avid Halaby. Halaby did a deep dive into the newly released insider materials, and his Twitter thread shows a company that was a Rube Goldberg device of bad policies and worse execution.”

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DOWN: Third graders struggling the most to recover in reading after the pandemic.

Children in kindergarten when the pandemic broke out in the spring of 2020 are now roughly eight years old and in third grade this 2022-23 school year. A new report by the nonprofit educational assessment maker NWEA documents that third graders are currently suffering the largest pandemic-related learning losses in reading, compared to older students in grades four to eight, and not readily recovering.

Learning to read well in elementary school matters. After children learn to read, they read to learn. Poor reading ability in third grade can hobble their future academic achievement. It also matters to society as a whole. Students who fall behind at school are more likely to be arrested, incarcerated and become teen mothers. A separate December 2022 analysis calculated that if recent academic losses from the pandemic were to become permanent, it would add up to $900 billion in lower lifetime earnings for the 48 million students in public schools.

That’s why NWEA’s findings for third graders are alarming. The results emerged from an analysis of fall 2022 test scores of seven million elementary and middle school children across the nation, in which the reading abilities of third graders remained far behind what children used to be able to do in third grade before the pandemic. The differences between pre- and post-pandemic reading levels are smaller in older grades. While it’s good news that third graders are learning at a typical pace again and no longer falling further behind, they are also not gaining much extra ground. Their learning recovery is the smallest among students in grades three through eight.

Plus: “16 states plus the District of Columbia require children to repeat 3rd grade if they cannot read at a basic level. Based on this NWEA test score report, states could be facing an avalanche of held-back children if those retention rules are enforced later this school year.”

Remember that school closures weren’t a well-intentioned mistake, but a malicious power-grab done “for the children.”

ROBERT SPENCER: Why Is Biden’s DOJ Investigating the Accidental Killing of a Palestinian Reporter? “The government of Israel investigated and took responsibility for her death, saying the Israel Defense Forces killed her but also found that it was accidental. And now a new documentary offers compelling evidence that the Israelis didn’t kill Abu Akleh at all; the Palestinians did. Either way, why is Garland investigating?”

BREAKDOWN: The IEA “Net Zero by 2050” Report.

The IAE roadmap for acheiving net-zero emissions globally by 2050 includes massive spending on renewable energy, dramatic curtailing of fossil fuel use, and controversial “behavioral changes” to nudge human beings into less carbon-intensive lifestyles.

The IAE models several cases. The Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) case includes only firm policies announced or implemented by countries. The Announced Pledges Case (APC) assumes all announced net-zero targets by countries will be fully met on time.

The Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario (NZE) is the IAE’s proposed pathway to actually achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 (a 50% chance of success).

Tons of details at the link, ranging from “unlikely” to “impossible,” often combined with “ruinous.”

“SYSTEMIC RACISM” IS JUST NEWSPEAK FOR “WE COULDN’T FIND ANY ACTUAL RACISM”: Brittney Griner Goes Free, but ‘Systemic Racism’ Is Still a Thing?

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: US Vegetable Prices Soar Nearly 40% as Water Cuts Crush Supply.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: McCarthy Toughens Up Before Speaker Fight — Will It Be Enough? “To the surprise of no one, House Republicans are trying to ruin the smaller-than-expected victory that they had in November. Republican politicians are notorious for shoving their heads into the mouths of gift horses whenever they show up.”

MEMORY HOLE:

Background: Former Twitter exec Yoel Roth argued for minors’ access to adult internet services in PhD thesis.

More:Former Twitter Exec Yoel Roth Wondered if High School Students Could Consent to Sex With Teachers.

SOME SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: McCarthy Pledges Big Move Against 51 Intel Agents Who Dubbed Hunter Biden Laptop Misinformation.

HERE WE GO AGAIN: US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough. “The federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which uses a process called inertial confinement fusion that involves bombarding a tiny pellet of hydrogen plasma with the world’s biggest laser, had achieved net energy gain in a fusion experiment in the past two weeks, the people said.”

HMM: Investigation Into Attacks on Power Stations Across the U.S. Continues.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): People seem to have forgotten the Silicon Valley substation attack of 2014, which quite a few people I know thought was a deliberately staged warning.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: The Baby Jesus Did Not Need to See That. “This week we have the very first time he’s ever left me speechless… and it gets pretty strange after that.”

IT PLAYED EVERY ROLE: CNN’s Van Jones Admits Identity Politics Played Role in Griner’s Release.

UKRAINE WAR: Putin Is Ready for a Long War, But Is Russia?

GOVERNMENT-RUN MEDIA: What the HELL?! NBC pulls BOMBSHELL story about Brittney Griner trade, edits to mirror Biden’s claims.

BECAUSE OF COURSE: Mitt Romney Comes Out in Favor of a Carbon Tax.

A MUST-SEE FIREWALL FROM BILL WHITTLE: Weaponized Trust. “We’re being lied to…a lot. And we know it. I met a mentalist performer who opens the doors of the mind to understanding how psychological manipulation works. This is how we can defuse the weaponized trust that powers the political and cultural elites.”

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Texas Legislative Committee Subpoenas BlackRock Over ESG Investing.

BIDEN GAVE AWAY OUR LEVERAGE WITH THE SAUDIS, AND ANGERED THEM WITH THAT “PARIAH STATE” RHETORIC, TOO: Saudi Arabia signs Huawei deal, deepening China ties on Xi visit.

I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN TRUMP WAS RIDICULED FOR SAYING TIKTOK WAS A THREAT: Four States Now Ban CCP-Tied TikTok on State Devices.