We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Reporter who wrote in NYT that 900,000 children had been hospitalized with COVID when the real number was 63,000—and that 4,000 had died from MISC-C when the real number was 68—tells Harvard governments should be more active in policing “misinformation.”
How Trauma Can Become a Catalyst for Personal Growth. For some people, adversity isn’t something to just get past. As I discovered, it can also be the impetus for new, positive behaviors.
I remember when the situation in Ukraine began, we were assured the Russian claims of "Nazis" wasn't true. Since that original falsehood, the NYTimes has walked back the position slowly. But sometimes reality gets even more absurd than you can imagine. After all, when the Left, which once called Trump a 'Nazi', offers up a real Nazi for a standing ovation, you have to begin to wonder who the 'real Nazis' are. I've always known it is the Left, masquerading as they do as "anti-fascist" which allows them to behave in a fascist manner.
Point is, when you celebrate a Nazi, simply because he's Ukrainian and fought Russians in WWII, you confirm that you have created a self-perpetuating cycle of BS which is beginning to pile up. It becomes even worse when you utilize your media ties to block the information surrounding that person. The Left will say "but lots of German soldiers weren't Nazis." Soldiers, yes. Waffen SS, not so much. Let's just get a grip and call things what they are.
The cycle of leftist hypocrisy and lies is growing. We're just caught in their vortex.
I'll expand this and point out "Anti-Gouging Laws" are a form of sanctions and not only make strenuous situations more difficult, but they also create their own markets (among people willing to pay, pay cash, and keep their mouth shut). Lots of government agencies will claim they 'work' and cite a few specific and unusual examples and claim "victory." Pyrrhic, at best. The same is true with governments discussing sanctions.
International sanctions rarely work because of the point made in the title - they create 'black' markets. Russia's oil has sanctions against it? So what. Some country that doesn't care about the West will buy it on the cheap, then resell to nations that support the sanctions but are happy to play intermediary, and eventually it gets back to the West one way or the other. Either as refined product, or by markets elsewhere that undermine the larger market and disrupt supplies.
The communist world had sanctions against many Western goods - but they were always available in communist nations. My father traveled to Russia with a suitcase carrying a few extra cases of Marlboros (he didn't smoke) and a few pairs of Levis. Always good to have the local currency (contraband) ready just in case. A friend who travelled to Argentina 8 years ago, where currency controls were in place, was directed to join a "currency club" where they got a "preferred rate of exchange". The official Argentine rate was so bad, many people set up these "clubs" where they'd exchange at a better rate, knowing they could get the currency out and exchange at better rates outside of Argentina.
There aren't many examples of sanctions working and doing what they're supposed to do. Usually sophisticated nations can find ways out of, or around, sanctions.
In the modern world, the claim was Russia's removal from the SWIFT payment system would cripple them. Someone forgot that the decentralized nature of the internet and cryptocurrencies made the hegemonic controls of a SWIFT system problematic. If you're going to cut someone out of the system - when might YOU be cut out of the system (for any variety of political reasons)? Russia isn't crushing it, economically, but the claims about how poorly it would be doing by now were clearly overblown and based on a poor understanding of modern economic interactions.
Your tax dollars at work: 
Photo for our Woodchuck-hating readers. Our guy likes the tomatoes I put on the table to ripen