THAT’S NICE. BUT WITH WHAT? Russia to bulk up military on western borders amid NATO moves, Ukraine war. “Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday it will beef up its military presence along its western borders by creating 12 new units in its Western Military District by the end of 2022.”
Between the manpower shortages that have plagued the post-Soviet military for decades and equipment losses in Ukraine, all I can say is: Good luck with that.
UKRAINE WAR: Syria’s barrel bomb experts in Russia to help with potential Ukraine campaign.
Intelligence officers say more than 50 specialists, all with vast experience in making and delivering the crude explosive, have been in Russia for several weeks working alongside officials from Vladimir Putin’s military.
Their arrival is understood to be one factor behind US and European warnings that the Russian military may have been preparing for the use of chemical weapons in the conflict, which has entered its fourth month with little sign of slowing.
Barrel bombs – crude explosives packed in to a drum and dropped from a helicopter – were used to devastating effect throughout the Syrian war.
Under Vlad Putin, Russia is transforming itself from a Third World nation with a First World military to a Third World nation with a Third World military.
TAIWAN: White House Scrambles to Cancel Biden’s Promise to React ‘Militarily’ to Chinese Aggression. “Maybe someone in the West Wing should establish an Office for Explaining What the President Had Really Meant to Say. Obviously, it would be a full-time, high-pressure job, presumably with a high turnover.”
FASTER, PLEASE: New technology makes cancerous tumors eliminate themselves. “Scientists at the University of Zurich have modified a common respiratory virus, called adenovirus, to act like a Trojan horse to deliver genes for cancer therapeutics directly into tumor cells. Unlike chemotherapy or radiotherapy, this approach does no harm to normal healthy cells. Once inside tumor cells, the delivered genes serve as a blueprint for therapeutic antibodies, cytokines and other signaling substances, which are produced by the cancer cells themselves and act to eliminate tumors from the inside out.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Washington State Gas Stations Run Out of Gas, Add a Digit to Charge $10 Per Gallon.
HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Top Trans Medical Org Used Castration Fetish Site for Research to Develop Guidance for Doctors. “WPATH, which sets medical standards for transgender medical procedures according to U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, released new draft guidelines Dec. 3, 2021 which include ‘eunuch’ as a gender identity. The organization pulled information from a website called ‘Eunuch Archive,’ which hosts thousands of members who discuss their castration fantasies and, according to WPATH, hosted a popular post providing instructions for self-castration.”
V’GER SMILES: Something strange is up with 45-year-old spacecraft Voyager 1. “Voyager 1’s altitude articulation and control system (AACS) is sending back some strange readings, and engineers are puzzled as the craft is still operating normally. The AACS is responsible for keeping Voyager in the right orientation and making sure that its antenna is pointing toward Earth so that the spacecraft can transmit data. But now, the AACS is sending back data that doesn’t make any sense — the data looks like it could be scrambled, for example, or suggests that the system is in an impossible state — even though the antenna is still pointing the right way and transmitting just fine.”
CLEANEST ELECTION IN HISTORY: Arizona Sheriff’s Office Investigating Active Organized Voter Fraud in Yuma County.
WOKENESS DESTROYS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES: ‘Woke’ Fed Fell Asleep on the Job.
The Federal Reserve has become increasingly concerned with “woke” issues like inequality and climate change. These concerns have distracted Fed officials from their core mission of price stability. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation hit 6.59 percent in March. The price level is now 4.6 percentage points higher than it would have been had the Fed hit its 2-percent target over the course of the pandemic. With inflation raging at the highest rate in 40 years, it is time to reexamine the Fed’s legitimate responsibilities.
Regarding monetary policy, a central bank has one—and only one— legitimate obligation: to maintain price stability via transparent activities that conform to the rule of law.
Actions inconsistent with long-run price stability reduce overall welfare. They also open the door for wealth to be diverted to special interests at the expense of the general public. This is the road to economic inefficiency, arbitrary wealth redistributions, politicization of monetary policy, and chaos.
The best service the Fed can provide is to singularly pursue a stable, transparent, and predictable monetary framework.
The Fed is a political creature and always has been. Abolish it and return to the gold standard or some other non-fiat currency.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Biden’s Formulagate Has a Third World Hell Hole Feel to It. “The monumental incompetence of everyone in the Biden administration is truly unprecedented. The two people at the top couldn’t figure out how to open a jar of spaghetti sauce without burning down a house and it just gets worse from there.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: World has 10-week supply of wheat, expert tells UN Security Council,‘This is seismic.’
BLUE ON BLUE: De Blasio Readies Run for Congress as Democratic Incumbents Panic Over New Map. “New York lost a seat in redistricting, and that has thrown several incumbents into cage matches that will give Republicans at least three more seats statewide.”
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: Embarrassing! He Brought a Knife to a Gunfight. “Everyone knows the Chicago Way: They pull a knife, you pull a gun. Then there’s the Florida Way: You pull a knife and he pulls a gun while his wife helpfully videos the whole thing for the police to use as evidence against you.”
THUG LIFE WRIT LARGE: Mountains of grain left to rot as Vladimir Putin ‘blackmails the world.’
WOEING: The New Air Force Ones Are Late, So the Old Planes Need More Cash, Official Says. “Air Force acquisition chief cites 2- to 3-year delay, which Boeing blames on subcontractor and supply problems.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Energy Officials Issue ‘Sobering’ Warning About Widespread Summer Blackouts Triggered by Closure of Fossil Fuel Plants.
HE’S A UNITER! Even Democrats Are Getting Sick of Presidentish Joe Biden.
UKRAINE WAR: Putin’s Latest Brilliant Masterstroke. “Three months into this stupid war, there’s zero sign of restraint or wisdom in either Moscow or Washington.”
CHANGE? Fifth Circuit Court Starts Dismantling The Administrative State. “The Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house judges violate the U.S. Constitution by denying fraud defendants their right to a jury trial and acting without necessary guidance from Congress, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday.”
DON’T GET COCKY: Dems in Disarray: Internal Polling Looks Devastating. “Down eight points within battleground districts. In their own polling. Which means that some ‘tossup’ races are just gone for them, and other ‘reach’ races for Republicans may very well be on the board. And if battleground congressional races mirror Senate battlegrounds, the DSCC must also have bad indigestion right about now.”
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