Good and Bad, Mostly Bad

 

Good and Bad, Mostly Bad

The Washington Examiner has a story that states Iran had a hit team try to kill John Bolton but U.S. prosecutors are not proceeding because Biden doesn't want to upset the Iran Nuclear deal. Is that possible? Can anything be believed? And can anything lead to further action?

"Now, we have a purported plot to kill a prominent American security official. So, why wouldn’t we want to help the Iranians with a program that will yield nuclear weapons in short order, and in the interim help them by lifting sanctions on their anti-American terrorism so they can subsidize more anti-American terrorism — all with the help of our other negotiating partner, Vladimir Putin?"-McCarthy from NR

MLB has canceled Rule 5 which, theoretically, helps the Pirates.

Biden has blamed Putin for the rise in oil prices. Now the price of oil was up 38% in the year before the Ukraine invasion. And other prices that Putin does not influence are up too. And there are countless examples of Biden saying, like Obama, he wants higher oil prices to encourage the movement away from petroleum. The point is, Biden may have no idea about economics but he's happy with higher oil prices.

So, let's say he's right and this is all Putin's fault. The real question then is what is the next step? The obvious problem is our shortage of gas, the obvious solution is to produce our own. Relying on people who hate us to produce dirtier gas clearly makes no sense. 

Soooo...we'll see what he says. But my bet is that, again, the citizen will be seen--and used --as fodder for some politician's higher vision.

What? Iran and world powers will pause talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal due to “external factors,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Friday, after last-minute Russian demands threatened to torpedo otherwise largely completed talks.

We are at the point of having to explain Kamala Harris. And why the administration sends her places. Now she shows up in Poland to explain why the MIGs won't be sent. The Ukrainians are on pins and needles for her answer; she can't answer the question regarding the MIGs and then turns the moment into an embarrassed school girl minute. It was awful. The Americans looked amateurish and unserious. The Ukrainians must still be looking at each other, shaking their heads.

The Left must understand that their symbols are limited to self-aggrandizement, they can not go out and pretend to be anything more.

Surgeon general Vibek Murthy requested major tech platforms submit information about the prevalence and scale of COVID-19 misinformation on their sites, from social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms, and instant messaging systems. He has no such authority, of course, but...

Interesting comparison between Ukraine and Finland. (Russia seems to do a lot of invading. And the Finns are tough.)

https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1498989078649389059

A piece of an interview with Russian expert Fiona Hill that appeared in Politico:
Hill spent many years studying history, and in our conversation, she repeatedly traced how long arcs and trends of European history are converging on Ukraine right now. We are already, she said, in the middle of a third World War, whether we’ve fully grasped it or not.
“Sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again,” Hill told me.
Those old historical patterns include Western businesses who fail to see how they help build a tyrant’s war chest, admirers enamored of an autocrat’s “strength” and politicians’ tendency to point fingers inward for political gain instead of working together for their nation’s security.
But at the same time, Hill says it’s not too late to turn Putin back, and it’s a job not just for the Ukrainians or for NATO — it’s a job that ordinary Westerners and companies can assist in important ways once they grasp what’s at stake.
“Ukraine has become the front line in a struggle, not just between democracies and autocracies but in a struggle for maintaining a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force,” Hill said. “Every country in the world should be paying close attention to this.”
There’s lots of danger ahead, she warned. Putin is increasingly operating emotionally and likely to use all the weapons at his disposal, including nuclear ones. It’s important not to have any illusions — but equally important not to lose hope.
“Every time you think, ’No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Hill said. “And he wants us to know that, of course. It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared…. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”

Chris Evert has called the ATP punishment of Alexander Zverev "lenient" and agreed with Serena Williams about the ‘double standard’ between men and women. He was fined along with a several months suspension.
Zverev shocked the tennis world during February’s Mexican Open in Acapulco when he repeatedly smashed his racquet against umpire Alessandro Germani’s chair and verbally abused the official.
Williams pointed out the double standard she faces and suggested she would "probably be in jail" if she lashed out like Zverev.
The 24-year-old Number 3, who has since apologized both publicly and privately to Germani, has said the controversy was the "worst moment of his life."