THEN WHY AGREE TO HOST WHAT AMOUNTED TO A DISHONEST PUFF-PIECE? Hunter Biden interviewer says his ‘hands were tied’ from asking political questions. “Host Mario Nawfal complained that the interview was ‘f*cking stressful’ because of strict constraints on questions.”

ATHENA THORNE: The Rise of the Democrat Vote Machine (and How to Beat It). “Before Republicans funnel all their resources into playing by the new mail-in, month-long election season rules, we should first make sure it’s actually a winnable game, instead of a boon for cheaters.”

MATT MARGOLIS: Joe Biden Just Proved He Fears Donald Trump’s 2024 Candidacy.

THE HIGH PRICE OF PURITANISM: California’s Vaping Flavor Ban Could Be Lethal. “Under S.B. 793, ‘the taste or aroma of tobacco’ is the only ‘characterizing flavor’ that can legally be added to vaping products. That rule, which aims to discourage underage consumption by making such products less appealing to teenagers, will simultaneously discourage smokers from switching to a far less hazardous source of nicotine.”

WINNING: Owasso School District Bends the Knee to Parents and Writes New Policy Banning Graphic Content from Library.

NICE: NASA’s Artemis I Cameras to Offer New Views of Orion, Earth, Moon.

NASA’s realtime Artemis 1 tracker is here.

CDR SALAMANDER: Opportunity in the High North.

Before the Russo-Ukrainian War kicked off in February, on the Top-5 lists of any navalist worth their salt was the Arctic. If you are an Atlanticist/NATO type, it was in your Top-3.

Sea lanes/SLOC, resource access, resource protection, environmental protection and monitoring, and just good old sound military planning kept the Arctic on everyone’s mind. The fact that especially in the USA there was no small bit of “out of sight out of mind” neglect, specifically with our icebreaking capabilities, brought as much concern. The non-Arctic nation of China deciding she wanted to be a player only made it even more important that policy makers wake up.

When you look at the playing board in the Arctic, the nations who have square-footage in the game are the USA, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Russia. You can even throw in the island nation of the United Kingdom as she is the dominate North Atlantic power outside the USA and any problem north of her can get existential real fast.

Note the outlier in this list? Yes, Russia.

A must-read for anyone interested in naval issues.

CAN ELON MUSK FIX TWITTER? Welcome to Twitter 2.0: ‘Extremely Hardcore.’

EITHER THE MARKETS ARE DUMBER THAN I THOUGHT OR THIS ARTICLE IS: Trump’s 2024 presidential bid a fresh wrinkle for markets.

SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Portland’s Antifa ‘Justice’ Strikes Again. “A Portland ‘anti-fascist’ activist has been found not guilty of being a fascist by roughing up a journalist and stealing his phone because he didn’t like what the reporter said about his Antifa friends. After the Portland judge let off the notorious Portland Antifa attacker, he delivered a lecture to the victim, reporter Andy Ngo.”

TO ASK THE QUESTION IS TO ANSWER IT: Why Does ‘Election Denier’ Apply Only to 2020?

HE ISN’T WRONG: ‘We Have to Save Our Country’: Trump Puts Democrats on Notice.

WHAT DID THESE ENTITLED MORONS THINK WOULD HAPPEN? Twitter fired employees who publicly called out Elon Musk.

PRIOR RESTRAINT: Legal Complaint Takes On California Law Mandating Doctors Comply With ‘COVID-19 Consensus.’

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Household debt soars at fastest pace in 15 years as credit card use surges, Fed report says.

Related:

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump Throws His Hair Into the Ring for 2024. “A frequent refrain from them during the speech was that Trump was more subdued than usual and really sticking to the script. I’ve read that again in posts elsewhere. Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen. Remember, the media will tear him apart no matter how he behaves. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of his extemporaneous, no-filter style. I hope for the sake of entertainment that it’s not going to be too muted.”

SAY ANYTHING: NEA claims ‘Educators love their students’ and know best what they need.

HMM: Why the GOP’s Majority Won’t Be Safe Even After the Election Returns Are Complete.

PEOPLE ARE GETTING RICHER — SOME PROBLEM! Global population hits 8 billion, but per-capita consumption is still the main problem.

Scientists have been debating such demographic issues at least since the 18th century, when Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population, arguably the first global treatise on the relationship between population growth and scarcity. A few decades later, however, the Industrial Revolution (which the British economist had failed to anticipate) ushered the world into an era of abundance, relegating Malthus’s grim predictions about the inevitability of scarcity to the margins of scientific debate.

In a bestselling book published in the late 1960s, The Population Bomb, Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich brought the topic back, advocating for immediate action to limit population growth on a finite planet. This recommendation was reiterated a few years later by the Club of Rome, an international network of scientists and industrialists. Its 1972 report The Limits to Growth aptly demonstrated the dynamic relationship between increasing consumption and the idea of “planetary boundaries” which cannot be crossed without risking severe environmental change.

Translation: The doomsayers are always wrong except for this time*.

*Repeat as necessary.

HE ISN’T UP TO THE JOB: Nap Time? Biden Unexpectedly Skips Key Dinner at G-20 Summit.

THROW BACK THE LITTLE ONES: Newsom’s Wife Testifies That Harvey Weinstein’s Worm Looks Like a Fish.

BREAKING: Russian Missiles Hits NATO Ally Poland, Two Dead.

VIDEO: China’s Lockdowns: Even Crazier. “In Xining City in Qinghai province (next to Tibet), some people have been locked down in a wet market for over 40 days.”

That doesn’t seem very healthy.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: In Horrific Move, Iran’s Parliament Votes to Execute 15,000 Protestors to Teach ‘Hard Lesson.’

A WELL-RUN COUNTRY BUILDS TRUST WITH THE VOTERS THAT GIVE IT LEGITIMACY: Voters Worry About Election Cheating, Don’t Trust Mail-In Voting.