The NCAA’s ‘March Madness’ Basketball Brand Will Now Include Women - WSJ

The NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament next March will use the “March Madness” branding long associated with the men’s tournament, the NCAA announced Wednesday, reversing the association’s practice of withholding the slogan from the women’s event.

Sounds great, but won’t add a single viewer.

The only way to increase NCAA women’s viewership is to adopt the CNN model: pay every airport and doctors office in the nation to leave it on and never change the channel.

New FAA Technology Aims to Speed Takeoffs of Planes Idling on Runways - WSJ

The software tools are expected to be available at 27 larger airports around the country within five to 10

Wow! That fast?!

The color orange makes me happy.

Army Football’s Winning Record In Jeopardy As General Milley Keeps Giving Opponents Their Playbook - The Babylon Bee

“I have always believed it’s important to give your opponent a heads up on whatever your secret plans are,” said Milley to reporters

Joe Biden’s Economic Fantasy World - WSJ Opinion

The Biden bill is paid for by the largest tax increase in history. You are entitled to argue that is a cost worth paying, but you can’t argue it costs nothing.

It’s also fantasy to believe that taxing productivity comes at no cost. The dollars that the federal government collects and redistributes may have been more effectively funneled into the economy by those who are paying. Companies pay employers, buy raw materials, and boost their stock prices, all to the benefit of the collective economy. Americans with disposable income do the same thing through discretionary spending.

• Far too many of the tax dollars proposed to be levied will end up propping up unviable green energy businesses that will go to zero.

• Head Start has been around since 1965, with little evidence that kids who went through the program performed better academically. So how is universal Pre-K going to fix that?

• Less than 30% of students in community college complete their program of study. How is that percentage going to go up when they don’t have any skin in the game?

• Paid Family Leave is a problem already solved in the private market through increased paid time off or short term disability plans.

• Utility companies and states are already diversifying their power supply base, to include renewables. Why do they need an additional tax or bonus check for continuing to do the work they’re already doing?

• We authorized $6T in the past year and have inflation near 5%, why is spending another $3.5T a good idea? Oh, and some of that money won’t be spent until 2028 as it is.

On, and on, and on…

Which brings us to the other fiction the president and his friends have been aggressively promoting of late: the idea that the bill is good because the rich deserve to pay more. “I’m sick and tired of the super-wealthy and corporations not paying their fair share in taxes,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter last week. But this favored Democratic talking point, whether articulated from a White House podium, or daubed in blood-red ink on a fancy dress, is bathed in mendacity. Corporate taxes end up being paid by much of the population. Individual income taxes have already become more progressive. According to the Tax Foundation, in 2018, the top 1% of American taxpayers paid more than 40% of all federal income taxes. That is up from 33% two decades ago. The bottom 50% paid less than the top 3%.

The lopsided distribution of taxes is unsustainable.

I love the patterns this spreadable butter has when you open a fresh container.

🧈

In a Troubled U.S.-China Relationship, Moments of Pragmatism Emerge - WSJ

That it appears to have taken a high-stakes deal to spring the Canadians from Chinese jails is a worry for some expats in China, who say Beijing may be emboldened to detain other foreigners in future spats.

Ya think?

It wasn’t easy, but we got it done! Sod installed, dirt patch gone!

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou Reaches Deal With Justice Department - WSJ

On Friday night, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said two Canadians held in Chinese custody since December 2018, or when Ms. Meng was initially detained— Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor —had boarded a plane bound for Canada.

I guess they were victims of hostage diplomacy, after all.

What the ‘Smart Money’ Knows About China’s Evergrande Crisis - WSJ

Between its inception at the end of 1992 and this Aug. 31, the MSCI China stock index has returned an average of 2.2% annually, including dividends. Over the same period, the MSCI Emerging Markets index grew 7.8% annually; the S&P 500, 10.7%.

White House ‘Zero’ Hour - WSJ Opinion

We didn’t know that when you pay for something that makes it free.

Hey Alison, if you’re reading this, I’m ready for a truck. And don’t worry, “it’s going to cost nothing!”

In the real world, Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation says the bill raises $2.1 trillion over 10 years. Somebody must be paying more. Among the tax hikes are a 5.5 percentage point increase in the corporate income tax rate that will be paid by workers in lower wages, consumers in higher prices and investors in lower returns. Though they’ll be pleased to know this all adds up to “zero dollars.”

Vindication Over Hunter’s Emails - WSJ Opinion

This is barely a scoop, since neither Hunter Biden nor Joe Biden’s campaign denied last year that the laptop provided to the Post by Rudy Giuliani was Hunter’s. Both men counted instead on the rest of the media to serve as a cordon sanitaire, and did they ever. Twitter barred the Post’s feed for a time lest Americans be able to read about the emails and their content.

A dark chapter in new media censorship, confirmed. They got the outcome they wanted by manipulating their control over the information flow.

But alas, among their users, who cares?

All Haitian Migrants Cleared From Del Rio, Texas, Border Camp - WSJ

Biden, talking about the images of Border Patrol using horses for crowd control,

“It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are,” Mr. Biden said.

Yeah, it sends the message that they should listen to Kamala Harris and not come here!

The Biden administration has sent roughly 2,000 Haitian migrants back to Haiti on 17 deportation flights, Mr. Mayorkas said. He also said that most Haitian migrants were released into the U.S. with dates to check in at immigration offices (emphasis mine)

Oops. Looks like the migrants continue to receive the correct message from this Administration: if you rush the border, you have a better than 50% of making it in.

House Passes Bill to Protect Abortion Rights, Countering Texas Restrictions - WSJ

The Women’s Health Protection Act would stop states from enacting restrictions on abortion before fetal viability.

Women can only achieve health if they’re guaranteed the unlimited ability to kill their child?

There is no logical framework that supports that argument.

Retirement Savers Love the Backdoor Roth IRA Strategy. It Might Not Last. - WSJ

The legislation also proposes eliminating Roth conversions of after-tax contributions to traditional individual retirement accounts starting Jan. 1, 2022.

Classic Washington: aim at billionaires, miss and hit every American household making more than $208,000.

So much for not increasing taxes on anyone making more than $400,000.

Kamala Harris Deeply Troubled By Images Of Haitian Migrants At Border Whom She Distinctly Remembers Telling Not To Come Here

“It is absolutely heartbreaking to give a speech in which I explicitly directed migrants not to approach the U.S.–Mexico border and then have them show up anyway, expecting to be let in. To see these desperate families with no better option available to them fail to take my message to heart—it shakes me to my core. It’s like they didn’t even hear me.”

Hang in there, Kamala!

Speaking on the passage of an amendment that added $30B to next year’s defense budget:

“We ask Americans and people in this country, year after year, to engage in magical thinking that defense spending comes at no real cost. It does,” said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez

We really are talking past each other using the exact same words.

House Set to Pass Defense-Policy Bill With Military-Justice Provision - WSJ

a requirement for young women to join men in registering for the military draft.

No discussion, no public debate, just silently sneaking it into a massive bill that no one’s read.

Voters Want to Curb the Influence of Big Tech Companies, New Poll Shows - WSJ

83% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans—agreed the federal government “needs to do everything it can to curb the influence of big tech companies that have grown too powerful and now use our data to reach too far into our lives.”

These are the same voters who have Amazon, Facebook, and Google apps installed on their phones.

Powell’s Reappointment Credential - WSJ Opinion

The median personal-consumption expenditure inflation estimate for 2021 by the Fed board and presidents rose to 4.2% on Wednesday—up from 3.4% in June, 2.4% in March, and 1.8% in December. Think of how many economists the Fed employs to be so wrong about its core mandate.

A big whiff, and yet, inaction?

The New Government Basic Income - WSJ Opinion

Millions of Americans have received checks from the IRS this year, and no doubt they like the money. But this is like free starter chips at the casino. The point is to condition American families to government benefits before the middle-class bill arrives in the future in the form of higher payroll, value-added, or energy taxes. There is no free entitlement state.