BIDEN DOESN’T CARE BECAUSE THIS JUST MEANS HER VOTE ISN’T UP FOR SALE: I went to community college. I shouldn’t be responsible for other students’ debt. “Because of the precautions I took, I will be graduating from my dream college in two years debt free. Though it took a lot of hard work and effort, I made it work because I knew it would be worth it.”

BREAKING: Queen Elizabeth II Has Passed Away.

Related (From Ed): “[P]lanning for Prince Charles’s coronation, nicknamed ‘Operation Golden Orb,’ will begin. The day will take place in Westminster Abbey in London, the traditional spot for coronations for the past 900 years. But it is likely that there will be a period of twelve months before he is officially sworn in. Why? Because that is seen as a suitable period for mourning, and because the ceremony is so extensive it takes about that time to plan.”

HE’S HIDING ABOUT $193,000,000 THINGS: Rand Paul Thinks Fauci Is Hiding Something.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Media Giant Cumulus Drops Podcast Org For Begging Forgiveness Over Ben Shapiro’s ‘Presence’ at Conference: ‘Every Voice Matters.’

Broadcasting company Cumulus Media cut ties with Podcast Movement, a trade association that apologized last month for Daily Wire co-founder and podcaster Ben Shapiro making an appearance at a trade show.

Cumulus released a statement this week announcing they are “disassociating” from Podcast Movement as they are “dismayed and disappointed” by the treatment of Shapiro. Shapiro’s company was sponsoring a booth at the trade show, but Podcast Movement later apologized for the conservative pundit’s very presence.

“Hi folks, we owe you an apology before sessions kick off for the day,” Podcast Movement wrote in now deleted tweets last week about Shapiro. “Yesterday afternoon, Ben Shapiro briefly visited the PM22 expo area near The Daily Wire booth. Though he was not registered or expected, we take full responsibility for the harm done by his presence.”

There was no specification about the alleged “harm” Shapiro was causing with greeting fans at a booth representing a company he co-founded, but Cumulus made it clear in their statement that they are done with Podcast Movement over the statement lack of a followup explanation.

The crybullies only have as much power as others are willing to cede to them.

COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTIST: Democrat Politician Allegedly Murders Journalist for Writing Negative Articles About Him. “German was fatally stabbed outside his home on Friday night. Local police obtained a search warrant for Telles’ home early Wednesday morning after police released a picture of a red SUV that they say was involved in the attack on German. Later, reporters from the Las Vegas Review-Journal said they saw Telles in his driveway with a car that matched the description.”

JOANNE JACOBS: Rebuild trust or say ‘good-bye’ to students. “Social conservatives aren’t the only parents who suspect teachers and schools are ‘spending more time preaching than teaching.'”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Food Shortages Will Be a Reality in the West This Winter. “As bad as the agricultural outlook is in America, it is far worse in Europe. The dedication to a green energy suicide pact on the continent is colliding with the news Russia will not ship any fossil fuels until the West lifts sanctions. The skyrocketing energy prices have farmers leaving crops in the fields to die.”

Farmers have a hard enough time just fighting nature and ever-changing market conditions. Now they have to deal with hostile governments, too.

AUTOCRACIES ALWAYS UNDERPERFORM IN THE LONG RUN: China’s ‘Lost Decade’ Is Even Worse Than You Think.

Turns out, economists worried about a Japan-like “lost decade” in China were both wrong—and right.

By “wrong” we mean that Asia’s largest economy today might not suffer the painful deflationary funk the region’s previous top power did. Or, depending on your view, still is given the comatose state of wages and Japan Inc.’s waning international influence.

By “right” we mean the cost of President Xi Jinping’s disastrous battle with Covid-19 variants Beijing clearly doesn’t understand. It’s helping relegate China to a roughly 4.5% growth rate for this decade—and 3% in the next one. This estimate from Oxford Economics means China won’t be catching up with the U.S. anytime soon in terms of living standards.

In fact, Adam Slater at Oxford suggests that South Korea, Taiwan and other major Asian export economies can probably stop looking over their shoulders, too. The odds of Chinese blowing past developing Asia in per capita income terms anytime soon may be dropping, too.

Plus: “Under Xi, the empire—state-owned enterprises—is striking back. The state sector is feeling emboldened again at a moment when China’s tech innovators are going silent, worried about poking Xi’s regulatory state.”

Lots more to chew on at the link.

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

Matt Margolis: Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Scheme is a Winning Issue for Republicans. Here’s Why. “No other issue this cycle has enraged middle and working class voters more than this.”

Stacey Lennox: It’s Time for Republicans to Give Democrats a Taste of Their Own Medicine. “To help our feckless Congressional Republicans, here are some obvious strategic moves.”

Yours Truly: Trans Madness: Start With Grooming Children for Stripping, End With Surgically Mutilated Teens. “Thanks — if that’s the right word — to City Journal’s Christopher Rufo, I learned this week that the city government of Boise, Idaho is ‘hosting a festival featuring child drag queens as young as 11 years old.’ The events are sponsored by Citibank, Hewlett-Packard, Target, and Wells Fargo.”

LAUGHING WOLF’S NUCLEAR WAR PRIMER CONTINUES WITH Nuclear 201: Scenarios. “If you’ve read your Clancy, you already know that a number of such war games take place so that people can get to know each other, and figure out how to respond to things. Rumor has it that such ‘games’ have not been done in a while, at least on a senior level. If that is true, I think it a huge mistake. One of my larger concerns for escalation involves Russian doctrine and the asinine concept of ‘escalate to de-escalate.’ For a number of reasons, I can see bumbling incompetence on both sides taking things a lot further than they should.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Anthony Fauci May Not Be the Devil, but He’s Not a Good Guy. “Despite having all the world find out that Fauci was wrong about so many things, the man’s arrogance hasn’t diminished one bit. I don’t know that there’s any way to take his ego down a peg, but I would like to see him continue to be exposed as being the tool that he his.”

BREAKING: Queen Elizabeth II ‘Under Medical Supervision,’ Family Notified.

FALLOUT: ‘Let them come to their senses’: Russia will ‘freeze’ European countries that impose a ‘stupid’ oil price cap, Putin warns.

OF COURSE: It Happens Again: Suspect in Memphis Shooting Rampage Was Released From Prison Early.

SMART: Downing Street hints fracking ban could be lifted after Liz Truss becomes new Prime Minister.

OH: Damning Documents Reveal Mark Zuckerberg Gave Fauci His Personal Phone Number.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Jennifer Lawrence’s Intolerance Hurts the Country. Here’s Why. “We’re living it, day by day, fractured friendship after fractured friendship. The country is splintering from tribalism run amok, fed by a corrupt press and hyperbolic pols on both sides of the aisle.”

SWITCH TO SOLAR, THEY SAID. IT’S SAFE AND CLEAN, THEY TOLD ME: Amazon temporarily took all rooftop solar energy systems offline in 2021 due to fires.

UKRAINE WAR: Kyiv on the Counteroffensive? “Something remarkable appears to be developing in the Ukraine War these last few days, as Kyiv’s long-promised counterattack towards Kherson in the south now looks more like a general counteroffensive all along the front.”

Update: More from BattleSwarm Blog.

There are indications that Ukraine, in addition to the Kherson counteroffensive, is conducting a counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast, and has apparently captured Volokhiv Yar, Balakliya and Yakovenkove, towns between Kharkiv and Russian-occupied Izyum.

It’s unclear whether this is a feint, a spoiling attack or a full-blown counteroffensive, but the scale of the initial success suggests it’s too large to be a mere probing attack.

Lots going on, too soon to be sure of anything.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOUR SHARE, COMRADE: Chinese Social Media Sites Are Quietly Putting Digital Fingerprints on Screenshots. “Some Chinese internet users recently discovered the covert watermarks on screenshots taken on Zhihu, a question-and-answer site similar to Quora. By tweaking the colors of the screenshots, the users found strings of numbers plastered across the page. Some suspect it is information that could be used to identify who took the screenshots.”

Related: White House, Big Tech colluded to censor ‘misinformation.’

THE TROUBLE WITH OUR LIBERAL FRIENDS IS NOT THAT THEY’RE IGNORANT; IT’S JUST THAT THEY KNOW SO MUCH THAT ISN’T SO: Nearly 25% of Democratic Voters Believe Men Can Get Pregnant.

WOW: When Storage Wars Meets Gun Hoarders. “Anyway, people still bid on abandoned storage units, and a guy who has a YouTube channel bid a princely $5,786 for a unit because he saw some gun cases in there.”

FRAUD, BULLYING, INTIMIDATION: Shocking Evidence of the FBI’s Assault on 2nd Amendment Rights. “According to a wealth of internal documents and communications obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the gun rights organization Gun Owners of America (GOA), the FBI secretly coerced Americans into signing documents that waive their rights to own, buy, or even use firearms — a blatant assault on their Second Amendment rights.”

THE POWER SOURCE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME: Why Nuclear Power Is (Quietly) Making a Big Comeback All Around the World.

LINCOLN BROWN: If It Hadn’t Been for Mush-Mouth Joe… “Yes, I know the economy is in the toilet, the Resident of the United States has declared half the country to be political enemies, race relations are in the toilet, and the world is tottering on the brink of war. But at the same time, there is an absurdity to it all that says we should, if nothing else, laugh.”