A map released on Thursday by US Drought Monitor shows that the convey belt of severe rain and winter storms for the last two months has significantly eased California’s extreme drought.

The Sierra Nevada region in north-central California, the coastline stretching from Monterey Bay to northwest Los Angeles County, and parts of northwest California, including Humboldt and Del Norte counties, are no longer classified as being in a state of drought.

The middle of the state is now labeled as “abnormally dry,” while northeast California and the high desert of southeastern California remain in “severe drought” and “moderate drought” classifications — but easing from extreme levels several months ago. 

On Jan. 12, the drought map showed that conditions in various regions had started to improve after a series of storms in the first two weeks of the month.

Here’s what the drought map looked like on Jan. 5. 

And on Dec. 9. 

Since the recent snowstorms, snowpack levels across the state have reportedly reached a 40-year high. 

There’s so much snow in Southern California that Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency. 

San Bernardino Co. Snow Response:

– 4 to 5 feet of additional snow overnight
-500 miles of mountain roads need plowing
-Over 96 responses to residents
-No serious injuries/deaths
-still waiting on additional resources after emergency declaration @FOXLAhttps://t.co/fYy07DbUgj pic.twitter.com/TgvOhZScxa

— Mario Ramirez (@MarioFOXLA) March 1, 2023

All the storms have been a boon for California’s reservoirs. The latest figures show 94% of major reservoir levels are at normal for this time of year. This is great news following last summer when reservoir levels were dangerously low. 

Here are stunning before and after photos of Lake Oroville, one of California’s largest reservoirs. 

And just like that, Mother Nature heals itself without any assistance from Democrats who tax the heck out of people in the name of ‘saving the planet.’ 

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

Speaking to the US House Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl falsely testified that Iran could make enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in “about 12 days.”

Kahl claims that Iran’s enrichment capacity has increased sufficiently over the course of the past five years — since the US abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka the “Iran nuclear deal” — to reduce that timeline from more like a year, and regrets that the JCPOA is “on ice.”

Kahl as the third ranking DOD official said in his testimony, “Because Iran’s nuclear progress since we left the JCPOA has been remarkable. Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the JCPOA it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days.”

He continued: “And so I think there is still the view that if you could resolve this issue diplomatically and put constraints back on their nuclear program, it is better than the other options. But right now, the JCPOA is on ice.”

But other officials concede that Iran is not stockpiling any uranium enriched beyond 60%, well short of weapons grade, and also doubt Iran’s other technical capacities to build nuclear weapons.

Iran may produce fissile material for a bomb ‘in about 12 days’ – says US senior official @ColinKahl pic.twitter.com/5FyEvSpoEf

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) February 28, 2023

Getting a bomb’s worth of 90% uranium is no small task, even before trying to make it into a deliverable weapon. Iran’s weapons development capabilities would be in doubt even if they were stockpiling uranium, which again they aren’t.

Pentagon officials still maintain that getting back into a deal with Iran is preferable to not having one.

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC) – the so-called Two Sessions – will kick off this weekend (starting on Saturday, March 4 and Sunday, March 5, respectively). During the one-week long “Two Sessions” event, the Government Work Report delivered by outgoing Premier Li Keqiang and the 2023 fiscal budget proposed by the Ministry of Finance will be discussed and approved by the NPC. Because this year’s Two Sessions coincide with the once-in-a-decade personnel reshuffling at the State Council as well as all the ministries under the State Council, they carry special importance.

The TL/DR summary of what to expect, comes from Bloomberg’s in-house China expert Tom Orlik who writes that the Congress/Conference will see a further direct concentration of economic and financial power under the CCP:

While the assumption among many China watchers is that the changes represent a further tilt away from markets that is ultimately bad for growth, recent moves to end Covid Zero restrictions, boost support for the property sector and seek better ties with the US suggest that investors shouldn’t rush to conclusions. The potential positive way of looking at the looming personnel and organizational changes is when Xi has a team around him who he’s familiar with and who he trusts. Perhaps there’s just some more space to get some good things done, to make some pragmatic decisions.

For those less pressed for time, here is a more detailed summary on what to expect at the Two Sessions, as excerpted from a recent note by Goldman analyst Hui Shan

Three things to watch: growth target, fiscal budget, and personnel changes

On the first day of the NPC (Sunday, March 5), the sitting premier Li Keqiang will deliver his last Government Work Report (GWR) which will contain the government’s various economic targets, most important of which is the GDP growth target. Goldman’s baseline expectation is a relatively conservative “around 5%” GDP growth target, although the bank forecasts actual GDP growth to be 5.5% in 2023. Last year’s miss on growth target (3.0% actual growth vs. “around 5.5%” target) may cause policymakers to set a low bar to ensure success this year as evidenced by provincial governments’ conservative targets for 2023. Investors currently expect a growth target in the 5-5.5% range, and a significantly higher target (e.g., 6%) announced over the weekend could be market-moving.

The GWR will mention some fiscal plans such as official on-budget deficit (GS expects 3.2% vs. 2.8% last year) and local government special bond (LGSB) quota (GS expects RMB 4tn vs. RMB 3.65tn last year). However, the more comprehensive fiscal budget proposal is likely released later during the Two Sessions. The projected tax revenue growth may inform us about the government’s expectation on nominal GDP growth, the planned transfer from central to local governments may hint at policymakers’ concern on local governments’ fiscal conditions and their determination in controlling local government implicit debt, and the government-managed fund revenue (mostly land sales revenue) may give us clues on policymakers’ view on the property sector momentum.

During the Two Sessions, changes to Party and state organizations and reshuffling of State Council and ministerial personnel, which were planned at the Second Plenum during February 26-28, will be revealed to the public and approved by the NPC. It has been reported in the media that the financial regulatory authority may be moved to a resurrected Central Financial Work Commission (which was first established in 1998 in the aftermath of the Asia Financial Crisis and abolished in 2003) led by Ding Xuexiang, a Politburo Standing Committee member. The current Financial Stability and Development Committee under the State Council and led by Liu He may cease to exist. And He Lifeng, a Politburo member, may replace Guo Shuqing, a Central Committee member, to become the party secretary of the PBOC. If true, these changes indicate an elevated importance of, and more party control over, the financial regulatory system.

Beyond these three key parameters, statements on sector-specific policies can be important to investors as well. For example, characterization of the property market, consumption boosting measures, and internet regulations are worth monitoring. Such discussions may be provided in the GWR, press conferences with ministers in economic and financial areas, and/or in official news reports by Xinhua, People’s Daily and CCTV. Additionally, statements in the GWR regarding Taiwan may also gather market attention

Where we are in the post-Covid recovery

To gauge policy stance to be unveiled at or after the Two Sessions, one must first assess where China is in its post-Covid economic recovery. Based on GS tracking of high-frequency data, mobility measures such as the 100-city traffic congestion index have mostly normalized (Exhibit 2). Channel checks and anecdotal evidence suggest that high-end consumer markets have been recovering quickly. In the property market, the 30-city daily property sales data showed notable improvements in recent days (Exhibit 3). Similarly, the NBS 70-city property prices and the Beke’s 50-city existing home prices showed increases in the latest readings. However, it should be noted that high-frequency data in the property sector tend to overweight large top-tier cities where fundamentals are more supportive of a faster recovery. Smaller lower-tier cities, by contrast, continue to struggle due to weak demographic and economic fundamentals as well as dampened price expectations. For many consumption categories, 2022 demand was dramatically below trend and there is still a long way to go for China’s post-Covid recovery, especially for services sectors, mass markets, migrant and young workers.

Four policy expectations

As mobility, consumption, and property have begun to show clear signs of recovering, the growth acceleration that the market expect this year is broadly on track. As a result, cyclical policy in aggregate should be less stimulative this year than last year. In fact, the PBOC has allowed interbank market rates (e.g., DR007) to increase to the level of policy rates (e.g., 7-day OMO), a sign of policy normalization after very loose liquidity conditions during and after the Shanghai lockdown last year (Exhibit 4).1 Despite higher headline official on-budget deficit and LGSB quota that will likely be released on the first day of the NPC, Goldman expects the augmented fiscal deficit, a more comprehensive gauge of fiscal stance, to narrow by 1.5% of GDP from 2022 to 2023.

But this is not to say that policy will tighten in the same abrupt and significant manner as it did in 2020H2. Precisely because the withdrawal of policy support and the imposition and tightening measures were too much too fast back then, policymakers will be more patient this time around, especially when the potential downside risk from weaker external demand remains considerable and confidence remains fragile. Even though the February PMIs were much stronger than expected and property prices in top-tier cities appear to be edging higher again, a meaningful withdrawal of policy support is unlikely until at least Q3 this year.

Policymakers have been reiterating the message of enhancing domestic demand and boosting private consumption since last December’s Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC). However, the likelihood of significant nationwide cash handouts remains very low. Between budget constraints and cultural preferences, the government will continue the past approach of using infrastructure investment to stimulate the economy when needed. Consumption-boosting measures will likely stay within the realm of tax subsidies for autos and home appliances, accelerated rental housing construction, and small-scale local consumption coupons.

Although the precise policy stance announced at or after the Two Sessions is difficult to predict, especially with the once-in-a-decade reshuffling at the State Council and in various ministries, there should effectively be a “policy put” for at least 5% growth this year. With GDP growth only reaching 3% last year and with 2023 marking the first year of the new premier’s 10-year term, the government’s tolerance for below 5% GDP growth this year will be low.

Two key risks, one external and one domestic

The most significant downside risk to China’s 2023 economic growth is exports. Chinese exports fell sharply in late 2022 (-9.9% yoy in December), in line with the experience of other export-oriented economies such as South Korea and Taiwan and suggesting external demand has indeed been softening. Recent media reports also highlighted empty containers at ports and dwindling overseas orders. Goldman’s baseline expectation is flat real goods exports this year as its global team projects no recession in the US or Europe over the next 12 months. However, if exports turn out to be a lot weaker than expected, policymakers may need to boost monetary/fiscal easing and infrastructure building again. Given the more limited fiscal space after last year’s efforts to stabilize the economy, additional infrastructure investment would likely be financed through policy banks and commercial banks instead of government debt.

Onshore conversations suggest business and consumer confidence remains the main risk to growth domestically. Without confidence, the post-Covid recovery may not be sustainable as private firms are reluctant to invest and households are reluctant to spend. The recent message from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection against “financial elites” and “hedonism and extravagance” has raised concerns that anti-corruption campaign could intensify this year. Hence, communications from the top economic and financial policymakers in the new government after the Two Sessions will be particularly important to watch.

There are certainly other risks in the economy. US-China relations have weighed on investor sentiment after the balloon incident, US Secretary of the State Antony Blinken postponing his trip to China, and media reports of China considering supplying arms to Russia. We may see more negative headlines in the coming months. However, this is a structural issue and the impact on economic growth this year still looks limited thus far. Financial risks from small and rural banks and local government financing vehicles (LGFV) could re-emerge later this year if NPLs are recognized and interest rates rise after policy normalization. But such risks can be managed and the Zunyi LGFV bond restructuring in January was an example. Risks of policy overtightening also appear low due to the experience of 2020/2021, and as discussed earlier, policymakers will be more patient this year.

Overall, China’s post-Covid recovery has just started with some encouraging signs, setting the stage for Goldman’s forecast of 5.5% full-year GDP growth (and 6.5% yoy in Q4) which is above consensus (Bloomberg consensus 5.2%). The government is likely to remain patient in withdrawing support, and to stand by to ease in the event that recovery disappoints or exports fall short. After the strong February PMI print, the market will be focusing on hard data such as January/February trade (to be released on March 7) and retail sales (to be released on March 15). If these hard data surprise meaningfully to the upside, the risk-on market movements featuring stronger RMB and higher equity/rates/commodities will continue.

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

China’s communist regime is engaged in a concerted effort to undermine and replace the United States by weaponizing Americans against one another, according to testimony received by a new congressional committee focused on competition with the regime.

The House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its first hearing on Feb. 28, titled simply “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America.”

Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) described the competition between the United States and CCP as an “existential struggle,” and said that the CCP, which rules China as a single-party state, was pitting “America against America,” hoping to topple the United States from within.

Ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) agreed with the assessment, saying that the regime sought to exploit the political divisions endemic to democratic societies against the United States.

“The CCP wants us to be fractious, partisan, and prejudiced,” Krishnamoorthi said.

“We must rise to the occasion and prove them wrong.”

To that end, however, Gallagher noted that many powerful and monied interests within the United States had made their fortunes outsourcing American jobs to China, and were pushing back on U.S. efforts to secure itself against the regime.

“The CCP has found friends on Wall Street, in Fortune 500 C-suites, and on K Street who are ready and willing to oppose efforts to push back,” Gallagher said.

“This strategy has worked well in the past, and the CCP is confident it will work again. Our task on this committee is to ensure that it does not.”

‘Tech-Powered Dystopia’

Former National Security adviser H.R. McMaster testified on the issue, saying that the United States had “fallen behind” in the strategic competition with the CCP and that continued investments into China by American corporations were “underwriting our own demise.”

McMaster said that the “false promises of liberalization” had led to a corporate and political class within America that had largely expected continued investment in China to transform it into a more modern and democratic society.

Instead, he said, the regime had doubled down on its Marxist ideology and was now exporting destructive ideologies to erode support for the West.

To that end, McMaster said that a “curriculum of self loathing,” which asserts the United States is the reason for the world’s problems, had taken hold of much of the popular and academic culture in the West, and prevented the nation from adequately defending itself against continued espionage, theft, and repression by the CCP.

Likewise, Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) said that corporate America was “scared and worried” about the possibility of angering CCP authorities, and that the regime was exploiting that fear to undermine the United States on the world stage.

“China has a plan to replace the United States,” LaHood said.

As such, Gallagher said that the Select Committee would help to coordinate legislative efforts from across congressional committees, and focus on tackling the CCP’s ideological, technological, economic, and military efforts against the United States and its allies and partners.

Read more here…

A mysterious spate of mass illnesses across various parts of Iran only impacting groups of girls is beginning to cause panic and alarm, ironically also at a moment of continuing anti-government protests focusing on women taking off the veil. 

Girls in up to 15 cities have been affected, Iranian authorities have said, in what are suspected to be mass poisonings. There’s currently speculation that an unknown entity, possibly hardline Islamists, may be throwing some type of poisonous gas mixture into schools and school yards, causing dozens of girls at a time to fall ill. The bizarre incidents began being reported back in November.

Al Jazeera reports based on the latest statements from Iranian lawmakers that “Similar poisonings have since happened in several other schools in Qom, Tehran, the city of Borujerd in the western province of Lorestan and the northwestern city of Ardebi.” And further, “Scores of schoolgirls have been affected in each incident, and some have had to be hospitalized.”

However, there have been no confirmed deaths in the incidents where the impacted students reported smelling unusual odors such as “rotten tangerines” or strong chemical smells, or even scents akin to perfumes. There have been rumors of a death resulting from the alleged poison attacks, but this was denied by local authorities. 

School girls have reported feeling headaches and nausea, and there have been some reports of individuals experiencing temporary paralysis of their limbs.

Really disturbing scenes from @1500Tasvir of Isfahan University of Technology students today being taken away on stretchers after another poison attack. Girls are being raped, blinded, imprisoned, killed, and now poisoned in #Iran. pic.twitter.com/Duit9QXOmS

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) March 1, 2023

There’s growing suspicion that these could be attacks by hardline Islamists who condemn the idea of women receiving education, akin to neighboring Afghanistan’s recent banning of all girls’ schooling under Taliban rule. A top Iranian officials has suggested this is the case: 

But a deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, earlier this week became the first official to confirm that the poisonings have been deliberate. He told state-linked media that “some people” wish to stop girls from going to school. He did not elaborate.

Panahi said the poisonings have been caused by commercially available chemicals and cannot be transmitted because no viruses or bacteria are involved.

In some instances entire classrooms of students and teachers reported smelling odors before mass sicknesses…

One girl noticed a strange smell, and told her teacher she struggled to breathe. The teacher asked the other students if they smelled anything. Then the whole class fell ill.

A string of mysterious, alleged poisonings stokes fear in Iran. My story:https://t.co/KFhYJCW9Bu

— Sune Engel Rasmussen (@SuneEngel) March 2, 2023

As the poison attacks have in the past days been subject of growing international media attention, Washington has weighed in, with US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby calling the situation “deeply concerning” on Thursday. Investigations at multiple locations are still ongoing.

Authored by Adam Carrington via RealClear Wire,

We live in politically divided times. How we describe the sources of our divisions, though, varies. Some focus on principles such as equality, justice, liberty, and order. Some take up policy disputes related to those principles while others look to economic class, race, or even geography.

Does using these lenses to view our divisions violate our founding principles? Since humans will disagree about justice, especially its application, one can defend principled lines. Indeed, our Founders created mechanisms of elections and deliberative bodies to adjudicate those differences. Moreover, one can rightly conclude that race presents a troubling source of division in light of our commitment to human equality.

But what about economic or social class?

The issue of class holds particular salience today, because its relationship to our broader partisan divides has changed drastically over the past several decades. In a recent New York Times piece, Nate Cohn describes our partisanship in terms of education, a demarcation of social class that has largely replaced distinctions by economic class and even shows signs of mitigating racial voting disparities.

In his explanation, Cohn shows how the growth of voters with college degrees has changed the political landscape. That block has increased dramatically over the last 60 years, rising to 41% of the voting population in the 2022 midterm elections. As that group has gained influence in the Democratic Party, those without college degrees have moved toward the GOP. Accelerating in 2016, working class voters now vote for Republicans at levels unimaginable decades ago.

The difference in education marks a division in principles and resulting policy preferences. College-educated voters tend to hold more progressive views, especially on cultural matters like sexuality, abortion, and, to the degree it is cultural, immigration. Those without a college degree lean more conservatively on such matters. These divisions have replaced partisan lines more delineated by economic factors of rich, poor, and middle class and are lessening the voting gaps according to race. Turning from their existence to their legitimacy, one might argue that both instances of class divides contradict our commitment to equality – constituting various flavors of “identity politics” where we vote according to who a person “is” rather than what they believe or how they act.

The Founders were keenly aware of class divisions. In Federalist 10, James Madison noted that “the diversity in the faculties of men” resulted in “the possession of different degrees and kinds of property.” He continued that “from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.”

We certainly do form partisan coalitions along class lines. The differences in “degrees” of property explain the divide in economic class. The distinction in “kinds of property” also reveal our educational alignment. A college degree is a discrete kind of property that privileges (or discourages) acquiring other intellectual or material possessions.

Yet in Federalist 10, Madison argues these divisions won’t go away. They won’t go away because human beings can’t help thinking (at least in part) along these lines. They also won’t go away because of the commitment to the principle that government exists in large part to protect property rights – including their unequal and varied distributions.

This illuminates an essential principle that oversees our class divisions, neither seeking to destroy them nor merely placating them. In Federalist 51, Madison wrote, “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.” We must order our class divisions, whether economic or social, in the pursuit of justice.

Class divides, including ones in education, can inform justice. In the “Essex Result” (1778), future federal judge Theophilus Parsons argued persons from different classes tended to make distinct, helpful contributions to the pursuit of justice. He saw that the few wealthy and educated people were better suited to contribute “wisdom, firmness, consistency, and perseverance.” The many, he noted, is where “we shall find the greatest share of political honesty, probity, and a regard to the interest of the whole.” You need both sets of virtues to pursue justice well. Thus you need both sets of perspectives to participate in politics. While operating according to majority rule, our system seeks to integrate these different elements into wise and moral policymaking – a kind of checking and balancing of interests toward the common good.

At the same time, class divisions can threaten justice. Federalist 10 warned of “factions,” a group of persons driven by impulsive passions who sought to violate individual rights and the common good. Madison pegs the permanence of our class divisions as one reason we cannot completely rid ourselves of factions and their nefarious goals. Different classes will ever be tempted to say their class should alone rule and their interests as the only just ones, thereby laying the path to violating the rights of others. We can see elements of these perspectives at work in our contemporary politics, wherein the college educated look down on the morals and intellect of “the rest” while “the rest” question the wisdom and values of the college-educated.

Thus our assessment of class divides, whether the older economic ones or the newer educational ones, cannot be a simple endorsement or condemnation. Instead we must return to the wisdom of the Founders. These ever-present divides must be channeled toward good and steered away from bad. We must seek justice, affirming human equality and liberty even as we recognize distinctions among us. While the Founders would tell us we have no other choice, they also would tell us not to despair. Our divisions may be a source of a better unity.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

After last month President Putin declared Russia has suspended participation in the New START nuclear arms control treaty, and at a moment the Kremlin is accusing Washington of aiding cross-border sabotage and drone attacks on its soil, proof has emerged that the two superpower rivals are still talking at the highest levels. 

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday during the Group of 20 (G-20) conference about the war in Ukraine and the New START nuclear treaty,” The Associated Press reports Thursday.

The two top diplomats spoke for about 10 minutes on the sidelines of the summit, which is the first such in-person meeting since the war’s start, coming shortly after the Ukraine war has entered its second year. Additionally the G20 reportedly ended without finding consensus on Ukraine, with India’s foreign minister citing “divergences” among countries represented. 

Blinken referenced the talk with Lavrov at a press conference afterward, a summary of which said:

At a news conference, Blinken said he told Lavrov that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes and would push for the war to end through diplomatic terms that Kyiv agrees to.

“End this war of aggression, engage in meaningful diplomacy that can produce a just and durable peace,” Blinken said he had told Lavrov. But, he noted that “President Putin, has demonstrated zero interest in engaging, saying there is nothing to even talk about until Ukraine accepts the new territorial reality.”

Blinken said he also urged Russia to reverse “its irresponsible decision and return to” participation in the New START nuclear treaty.

“Mutual compliance is in the interest of both our countries,” Blinken said he told Lavrov, adding that the United States was always willing to discuss arms control with Russia no matter what irritants there are in the bilateral relationship.

Also very notable is that Blinken indicated he put forward a “serious proposal” for the release of detained ex-Marine and US citizen Paul Whelan. He stressed that “Russia should take it.”

Lavrov didn’t specifically respond to Blinken’s description of the meeting, and it’s unclear how he presented the Russian position. But a statement by Lavrov did emphasize that G20 was a failure in terms of addressing the Ukraine crisis: 

“Unfortunately, the declaration on behalf of all G20 ministers could not be approved. Our Western colleagues, just as they did a year ago under the Indonesian presidency, tried by all means, by hook or by crook, using various rhetorical statements, to bring to the fore the situation around Ukraine, which they, of course, present under the sauce of the so-called Russian aggression,” he said.

“Nothing good has come of this. The discussion, at least in some of the speeches by Western delegations, especially the G7 countries, has boiled down to emotional statements. And all of this, of course, was done at the expense of a normal discussion of the problems that really stand on the G20 agenda.”

As for India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, saying “The experience of the last few years – financial crisis, climate change, pandemic, terrorism and wars – clearly shows that global governance has failed.” He added: “We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can.”

Thus Modi seemed to agree with Russia’s negative assessment concluding that G20 leaders fell far short of producing any meaningful resolutions on Ukraine. 

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has ignored a House Oversight Committee request for records of his business activities and potential access to classified information, but Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is holding off on a subpoena for now.

On Feb. 8, Comer sent Hunter Biden a letter (pdf) requesting that he turn over a variety of records, including any communications with his father about his various foreign business activities and associates and any classified documents he may possess. Comer gave Hunter Biden a Feb. 22 deadline to respond to the information request.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, outright rejected the information request in a Feb. 9 response letter shared with the Washington Post.

Despite Lowell’s rejection letter and the missed deadline, Comer has yet to follow up his information request with a more forceful request through a legal subpoena. In comments with Punchbowl News, which were published on Wednesday, Comer said he is holding back on a subpoena for now, in order to ensure better odds that the subpoena will succeed if Hunter Biden’s legal team challenges the legal demand in court.

“It’s not just issuing a subpoena, it’s about winning,” Comer said.

“We give people plenty of time. When you do subpoenas, if you want to win in court, you have to show good faith effort that you tried to get the information. So we’re checking some boxes,” Comer continued.

“When we do subpoena, if we have to, then we’re going to win the subpoenas in court,” Comer added.

Biden’s Lawyer Says Records Request Not Legitimate

In his letter rebuffing Comer’s initial effort to recover Hunter Biden’s records, Lowell said the Oversight Committee lacked a legitimate reason for seeking the records.

“As your Letter is a sweeping attempt to collect an expansive array of documents and communications from President Biden and his family, I write to explain that the Committee on Oversight and Accountability lacks a legitimate legislative purpose and oversight basis for requesting such records from Mr. Biden, who is a private citizen,” Lowell wrote.

Case law states that a House committee must have a specific legislative purpose to pursue records and it cannot simply be an excuse to launch an investigation.

In his Feb. 8 letter, Comer said the activities of Hunter Biden and his business associates “raise significant ethics and national security concerns” and the Oversight Committee “will examine drafting legislation to strengthen federal ethics laws regarding public officials and their families.”

“We will also analyze and make recommendations regarding federal laws and regulations to ensure that financial institutions have the proper internal controls and compliance programs to alert federal agencies of potential money laundering activity,” he wrote. “The Oversight Committee is committed to exposing the waste, fraud, and abuse that has taken place at the highest levels of our government, and your documents are critical to our investigation.”

Read more here…

A major winter storm is expected to dump snow and ice from the Midwest to the Northeast on Friday and Saturday. 

The storm bought blizzard conditions across California’s Sierra Nevada earlier this week. Heavy snow has also impacted highway travel in Arizona. At least 20 inches of snow has fallen in parts of the Flagstaff area. Snow is still falling in the Desert Southwest and southern Rockies. 

Snow, rain, and strong winds will affect much of the Southwest through Thursday. The National Weather Service still has winter storm watches and warnings in effect from Flagstaff to Santa Fe. Watches were published today for Chicago, Detroit, and parts of the interior Northeast. 

Fox Weather provides the forecast timing of the snowstorm: 

Thursday 

After burying California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range under feet of snow amid blizzard conditions, the snow from this storm will spread from the southern Rockies into portions of the central and southern High Plains on Thursday.

Friday 

The winter storm is expected to produce a large area of snow, sleet and freezing rain Friday, extending from eastern Missouri to the southern Great Lakes and interior Northeast. 

Rain is expected initially in parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes, but it will gradually transition to a wintry mix or snow as colder air arrives. Chicago is one of the major cities that will see a changeover to snow Friday.

Areas along Interstate 95 from the New York City tri-state area and points south will see plain rain from this storm system. However, according to the FOX Forecast Center, much of New England, including the Boston metro area, is expected to see a changeover to a wintry mix or snow by late Friday.

The wind will also be a concern as the area of low pressure slides eastward across the region. Wind gusts between 35 and 50 mph are possible across the Midwest and interior Northeast in association with the winter storm, which could create areas of blowing and drifting snow with reduced visibility in some locations. There might even be a few power outages due to downed tree limbs or branches.

Saturday

The action from the winter storm is expected to be centered over upstate New York by Saturday, with rain and snow showers lingering from the eastern Great Lakes to New England before ending late Saturday.

Fox Weather provides total snowfall forecasts for the Midwest and Northeast by the end of the weekend. 

Although March signifies the onset of meteorological spring, the interior Northeast is bracing for yet another winter storm. Earlier this week, a snow drought ended in New York City. 

Authored by Seth Smith via The Brownstone Institute,

Three years ago few of us knew the impending storm that was brewing; one that would upend the very fabric of global democracy, destroy whole communities, businesses and families and cause a vast number of children and adolescents to become unmoored and disengage from society, among many other deleterious outcomes. 

Perhaps most chilling of all has been the sinister turn in those three years of what was once seemingly a force for good, “public health;” which changed into a punitive and authoritarian entity that wilfully engages in iatrogenesis and the disenfranchisement of those skeptical of the medical-industrial complex through widespread and draconian vaccine mandates. 

In retrospect, America in February of 2020 seems like a libertarian, innocent age compared to our current one. We did not live under the shadow of possible nuclear holocaust. Everyday life was devoid of the nanny-state elements of our current age. Many of us had gone through life never quite knowing what the destructive power of a government run amok looked like. 

Now we know.

Not only do we once again live under the imminent threat of atomic annihilation, as our global “leaders” continue to play out a 21st-century version of Dr. Strangelove, but Covid offered an opportunity to further militarize and subordinate society. For let’s call lockdowns what they were: martial law. 

Moreover, the government and the security state during the last few years has proved itself to be in the service of only a tiny sliver of shadowy and in some cases invisible elites and “experts” whose actions have, in America most especially, been held to little accountability. In the face of lockdowns, which happened to be the most universally undemocratic and destructive event of my lifetime, regular citizens were held in contempt and with little more agency than the serfs of the Middle Ages. Some of us were made completely irrelevant and “non-essential.” 

Yet, amongst this wreckage and horror, many skeptical people, who once believed in benevolent leaders, have been freed from the flawed faith in “good” government. In this freedom lie several important lessons for how to move forward into a (hopefully) less totalitarian future.

Lesson #1: We need to hold the medical-industrial complex accountable.

My skepticism about the medical-industrial complex felt inchoate and somehow unfounded pre-Covid. Sure, I knew I’d be given a lecture at every doctor’s appointment about how I needed to schedule colonoscopies (in my early 40s!), buy new medicines, get blood work done, no questions about my holistic well-being, diet, etc. It didn’t matter which doctor I saw, they were all like that. There was always a feeling that these big buildings and office parks that housed the machinery of the medical industrial complex were, like consolidated public schools or prisons, quite anti-human. But I still . . . believed, more or less. 

What the Covid mania revealed is that much of the medical-industrial complex, like the military-industrial complex, is part of a system of hierarchical relationships that only truly benefits those in power. The beneficiaries being Big Pharma, massive corporate health systems, wealthy physicians and even a security state/biodefense apparatus that sees vast swaths of the global population as dots on a chart to be manipulated, vaccinated and medicalized. 

Even worse, iatrogenesis – the massive health harms caused by Covid medical interventions – generates unseemly and massive profits, again for a tiny segment of individuals with unfathomable power and wealth (Bill Gates is the prime example). This sinister complex relies on sickness, not health to make their profits. I believe this is one reason why Covid was so intensely medicalized and why we all became pawns of the vaccine industry, instead of public health pursuing more holistic attempts for better outcomes for people with Covid. 

None of us has to take this lying down, though. Health consumers can take back their rights through the great work of organizations such as the Children’s Defense Fund and No College Mandates, two groups with writers affiliated with Brownstone Institute. 

Lesson #2: The “real” American left is not MSNBC and has perhaps vanished entirely 

The American liberal-left is a coalition that has deteriorated so far as to be unrecognizable, filled with purity tests, blind obedience to secret service agencies like the FBI, the CIA and shadow organizations in the military like DARPA, with authoritarian leaders who constantly virtue signal and who will censor and cancel those they do not agree with. 

For many years, since the late Obama years particularly, I’ve felt more and more out of place within the cultural ideology of the American left, which has placed identity politics above economic fairness, and in many instances is entirely unrecognizable from the “left” of old. 

Covid remains the demarcation point–when I and millions of others abandoned the movement entirely.

Nothing about being a cheerleader for lockdowns represented traditional leftist values. In fact, I would argue that the natural place for the American left was to viciously oppose lockdowns, because they so deleteriously affected the working class, working poor, and minorities. And yet the silence on the left in the mid-part of 2020, much to my horror, soon became derision and then full scale hatred toward those of us who proclaimed our opposition to lockdowns, even with reasoned analysis or proposals such as the Great Barrington Declaration. 

That we were brutally censored and that all protestations ended up falling on deaf ears was such an alienating experience, many of us who at one time proclaimed to be “of the left” have abandoned the project entirely, and most especially the political party that was supposed to represent us in America, the Democrats. We have emerged politically homeless; some having even established alliances within the welcoming arms of the libertarian and conservative movements. 

This begs the question that many of us have pondered: what is the political left now? And what has it always been? 

It certainly does not resemble the George Orwell version, which had so much influence on me as a college student. The spirit of the left contained in “The Road to Wigan Pier,” for instance, feels like a world gone by, infused as it was with a healthy skepticism, admiration and reverence for the working classes, and the mutually supportive ideas of liberty and egalitarianism. Such humility and nuance have almost wholly disappeared from our current rendition of “leftism.” 

Some of us have even wondered (and indeed Orwell pondered the same thing): does leftism, if unchecked, always loop into something horrendous, the inevitable conclusion not being utopia but the graveyards of Cheong Ek or tendentious, censorious authoritarianism? 

Does dialectical materialism only go down one road in the end, and that toward Stalinism or fascism? 

Yet, despite the loneliness of becoming a dissenter within one’s old political home, the complete destruction of what used to be “left” and in some instances “right” political spheres is in itself freeing. Many of us are carving out new political identities and in some cases new political parties and alliances are forming. This outcome will ultimately be very healthy for the future of democracy. 

Lesson #3: We have proof that “experts” are often wrong. 

A healthy skepticism of the “experts” and elites has always been a hallmark of American life, especially out here in the provinces where I reside. Yet, as Christopher Lasch pointed out in Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy – the last book he published and maybe most prescient – many American elites and professional “experts” have now completely abandoned their advisory roles to become de facto rulers in themselves, worshiped in almost a religious sense by a segment of completely secularized, well-to-do liberals. These elites, however, mostly hold contempt toward the working and middle class. This has been happening for quite some time (Lasch’s book was published in 1996).

The most egregious recent example of this worship and the power of the 21st century technocrat is embodied by the former Director of NIAID, Anthony Fauci, who was the public face of the disastrous Covid response for nearly three full years. The myopic reverence for this man is dangerous on many levels, but it also showcases a grave weakness of modern humanity; many of us will give up even the most basic freedoms because we blindly trust a technocratic “savior” who just may have all the wrong data or simply be a mendacious, cunning bureaucrat. 

Yet, before Covid many of us, including myself, trusted unelected bureaucrats like Fauci far too often with little questioning of their motives. Lockdowns showed their hand and tipped the balance toward egregious authoritarianism. Unelected administrative-state actors should not have any ability to create policy by fiat, and groups such as the NCLA are fighting many of the unconstitutional edicts pushed forward by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the NIH as part of the Covid response.

Lesson #4: The technology that was supposed to lessen inequality actually increases societal rifts.

The modern worship of technology has created an undemocratic information ecosystem rife with inequity, which helped smooth the way for authoritarian and coercive lockdown policies. In fact, with the aforementioned DARPA heavily involved in the Covid response and Big Tech gaining nearly unfettered power during the pandemic, technology’s tentacles are lodged in every classroom, courthouse and boardroom across the country. It seems likely that the architecture for future lockdowns is now firmly in place. 

We should never, at any moment moving forward, accept this as our future. The Western world imitated China’s brutal, authoritarian lockdowns because digital technology facilitated it. These policies would have been impossible as little as 25 years ago. 

And in the end it was all a sham. 

Millions still had to keep the sewers clear, emergency services running, the lights on and our grocery stores stocked. Working class people, many of whom were rightly skeptical of the Covid vaccine, and who subsequently lost their jobs because of the illegal vaccine mandates, were completely ignored by the laptop class who were able to work from home. In the midst of receiving endless curbside deliveries, virtue signaling on social media about “anti-vaxxers,” and sidelining those who actually had to leave their homes and work for a living, Big Tech only fueled the culture wars and ultimately hurt the working class. 

Lesson #5: The most meaningful things are still the most meaningful things. 

If we cannot trust the experts, the government, the global order, or technology, who can we trust? This is perhaps the most important question of all, and one that has been asked from time immemorial. In intense readings of Leo Tolstoy’s non-fiction work during this strange and awful time, especially Patriotism and Government and The Kingdom of God is Within You, I’ve come to realize that in the very act of trusting monolithic institutions or the state in general, we are looking for all the wrong answers and even perhaps asking the wrong questions.

For, like all of the material world, institutions are fallible and crumble. The right questions are much larger and far more personal, and the answers are immutable and have been there forever.

Outside the bounds of our fallible institutions, the most important answers to nearly every question are to be found in authentic feelings of love and belonging. Love for your family, or the little plot of land and house that you own, or the tiny farming community that you live in, the church you belong to, or the group of kind-hearted and supportive friends and writers, like those who have found one another in Brownstone Institute and other grassroots communities. 

Faceless federal institutions and their representatives do not deserve our love, nor in most cases do they deserve even admiration or respect. They are the products of very flawed, uncaring systems and are ultimately artificial creations of a flawed humankind. 

Despite the anguish and pain we have all felt–and the divisions the last three years of authoritarianism have created–don’t let the elites and their petty politics divide your friendships and family. Love is still the ultimate answer.