HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Michigan Proposition 3 Could Usher in Sex-Change and Abortion Tourism for Minors.

FEWER AND FEWER PEOPLE UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Biden Drops Below 50% On All 10 Of Americans’ Top Priorities.

LINCOLN BROWN: Vivek Ramaswamy Traces the Roots of ESG—It’s Been Going on a Lot Longer Than We Knew. “Ramaswamy said that the problems of ESG are not state or even national economic ones. They make up a transnational, trans-partisan battle for the heart and soul of democracy itself. It is not Democrats versus Republicans, Left versus Right, black versus white, or gay versus straight. Rather, the real issue at stake is democratic-republican self-governance versus monarchy.”

HMM: China asked Elon Musk not to sell Starlink within the country.

In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Elon Musk revealed that figures in the Chinese government have asked him directly to withhold Starlink access within China. Musk told FT that, in the publication’s summary, “Beijing has made clear its disapproval of his recent rollout of Starlink…in Ukraine” and “sought assurances he would not sell Starlink in China.”

It’s unclear from the description whether Musk agreed to Beijing’s request, but Starlink’s service map shows no plans to deploy in China. Adjacent countries like Taiwan, Mongolia and Vietnam are listed as “pending regulatory approval.”

Yesterday: CCP Gov’t Loves Elon Musk’s Suggestion that China Should Take Over Taiwan.

Musk should really stick to space and cars.

STACEY LENNOX: The FDA Should Have Been Ready for the Vaccine Information Shared by Florida’s Surgeon General. “It is infuriating that Twitter had the nerve to censor the tweet in the first place, since the FDA acknowledged cardiac risks to men under 40 over a year ago. On Sept. 17, 2021, the FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBAC) met to discuss the approval of a booster dose of the mRNA vaccines for all Americans over 16. Doran Fink, M.D., deputy director of the clinical side of the FDA’s Division of Vaccines and Related Products Applications, provided some insight into the frequency of myocarditis.”

Read the whole thing.

FALLOUT: Bank of Finland says war is ‘bleeding’ the Russian economy.

The Russian economy will shrink by both four percent this year and next, the Bank of Finland said in its latest Russia forecast, published on Monday.

In a statement titled “War bleeds the Russian economy,” the central bank said (siirryt toiseen palveluun) western sanctions continue to raise both the “direct and incidental costs of war.”

“The Russian economy is decoupling from the world economy,” Laura Solanko, a bank senior adviser, said in the statement.

EU import bans are reducing Russian budget revenues, while export bans are limiting Russia’s ability to arm and supply its invasion force, the bank explained.

BoF economists forecast the Russian economy facing a serious recession.

“The lack of access to high-tech inputs is eroding Russia’s opportunities for future growth,” the bank said in a statement.

Losing 4% is nothing worse than a not-so-nasty recession, although losing access to chips and electronics could pinch more going forward.

But whatever happens, sanctions have never stopped a war.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Gavin Newsom Can Destroy California (Some More) with This 1 Weird Trick.

Plus:

• Walk away: Tulsi Gabbard waves ‘aloha’ to the Democrat Party
• John Fetterman tries to memory-hole his radical soft-on-crime history
• Kamala cackles out her biggest whopper yet

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

WHAT ELSE HAVE THEY GOT? Democrats constantly running abortion ads in swing states won’t work while the Republicans pummel candidates on crime and the cost of living, Clinton advisor James Carville says.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Now We Know Why Democrats Are Afraid to Debate This Year. “It’s not just that the Democratic candidates out there are saddled with a toxic, Constitution-shredding lunatic in the White House, it’s also that this year’s field is perhaps one of the greatest collections of mediocrities in recent American political history.”

UGH: Ron Hanks, who lost GOP primary to Joe O’Dea, endorses Libertarian in Colorado’s US Senate race.

The Colorado GOP has been engaged in a circular firing squad for over a decade.

You’d think by now they’d have run out of bullets or bodies, but no.

PAULA BOLYARD: J.D. Vance DOMINATES in Ohio Senate Debate Against Radical Left-Wing Congressman Tim Ryan. “Vance was cool as a cucumber and wasn’t phased at all by the attacks—he had a credible, coherent answer for every challenge.”

IT CERTAINLY WASN’T LEARNING TIME: American Academy of Pediatrics calls COVID school closures ‘family time.’

Meanwhile, Randi Weingarten: Teachers Union Honcho Complains About Ukrainian Kids Learning Online, Despite Efforts To Keep US Schools Closed.

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: If Elected, How Long Would Fetterman Last in the Senate? “Months into his recovery, Fetterman’s incoherence is still undeniable and frankly, it doesn’t seem to be improving. Even The New York Times is begrudgingly acknowledging that Fetterman has issues with speech.”

Rick Moran: Showtime’s ‘The Lincoln Project’ Miniseries a Sad Tale of Betrayal and Hypocrisy. “Arrogance and hubris with a healthy dose of hypocrisy eventually laid them low, but not until they had set the stage for the next act of their drama; the destruction of the political opposition.”

Yours Truly: Ivy League HR Nannies on Steroids: Wharton to Offer ‘DEI’ Degree for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. “It’s like your company having a little in-house EPA official demanding that everyone fill out environmental impact statements in triplicate before using the john.”

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF THINGS EVERYBODY KNEW LONG IN ADVANCE: DC Comics Canceling Gay Superman’s Solo Run After Failure to Sell.

WHERE HAVE THE MEN GONE? Why does Kalamazoo Promise work for women but not men?

Related? Testosterone: Going… Going… Gone!

NOT HIS BEST TAKE: CCP Gov’t Loves Elon Musk’s Suggestion that China Should Take Over Taiwan.

FALLOUT: Cyberattacks reported at US airports.

Over a dozen airport websites were impacted by the “denial of service” attack, John Hultquist, head of intelligence analysis at cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told ABC News. That type of attack essentially overloads sites by jamming them with artificial users.

“Killnet,” a pro-Russian hacker group, is believed to be behind the attack, according to Hultquist. While similar groups have been found to be fronts for state-backed actors, Hultquist said there is no evidence the Russian government was involved in directing this attack.

Not much of an attack, really.

FINGERS CROSSED: Regime Endgame? Protests Threaten Iran Oil Industry. “I’m not getting my hopes up. The Mullahs regime has maintained power for so long by being much more willing than Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ever was at spilling the blood of his own countrymen.”

PARTY OF TOLERANCE: Kari Lake Tried to Speak With Democrat Opponent at a Town Hall Event. She Got Booted Instead. “Lake has been incessant about debating her Democratic opponent to no avail. So, when all else fails—improvise. At a town hall event that featured both candidates, Lake decided to stick around after her session was over. It was stipulated that both candidates wouldn’t share the stage, so Lake retreated to the audience. The sight of her triggered Hobbs, which caused Lake to be booted from the venue.”

WELL, THAT IS THE TEAM’S INDIGENOUS NAME: ESPN Invites Wrath of Woke Gods, Mistakenly Refers to Cleveland Guardians as ‘Indians’.

BATTLESWARM: Kerch Strait Bridge Update: Russia’s Still Using It. “They’ve opened up the surviving lane for traffic. ‘It’s been said that the road span can handle 20 cars an hour and has a weight capacity of 3.5 tons.’ That’s rural mail route capacity, not ‘support a major front in a war’ capacity.”

IT’S… COMPLICATED? Stacey Abrams Doesn’t Know When Pregnancy Starts.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere.

Before President Vladimir V. Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Russia played an outsize role in the affairs of Central Asia and also the volatile Caucasus region, in what had passed for a far-flung Pax Russica. In January, it rushed troops to Kazakhstan to help the government there calm a wave of violent domestic unrest. In 2020, it sent around 2,000 armed “peacekeepers” to the Caucasus to enforce a Moscow-mediated truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Today, Armenia is fuming. Its prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who has been a close ally, appealed to Moscow in vain last month for help to halt renewed attacks by Azerbaijan. Furious at Russia’s inaction, Armenia is now threatening to leave Moscow’s military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

The Kazakh government that Mr. Putin helped prop up in January is veering far from the Kremlin’s script over Ukraine, and is looking to China for help in securing its own territory, parts of which are inhabited largely by ethnic Russians, and which Russian nationalists view as belonging to Russia.

As somebody joked on Twitter over the weekend, the only people who fear the Russian army now are its draftees.

I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER WHEN JOE BIDEN WAS GOING TO RESTORE AMERICA’S RESPECT AND STANDING ON THW WORLD STAGE: The Saudis Are F***ing With Joe Biden Again and It Is Going to Cost You More Money.

HIS ASS, YOUR CASH: White House spending $265K on staff to deflect Hunter Biden probe. “The White House is gearing up for a growing army of staff to fend off potential Republican-led probes on everything from Hunter Biden to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — and taxpayers are footing the bill.”