Read it.

There is an endlessly repeated witticism by the poet Anatole France that ‘the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’ What France certainly did not foresee is that an entire country – and an ostentatiously progressive one at that – has decided to take his sarcasm at face value and to its natural conclusion.

Since last year, Canadian law, in all its majesty, has allowed both the rich as well as the poor to kill themselves if they are too poor to continue living with dignity. In fact, the ever-generous Canadian state will even pay for their deaths. What it will not do is spend money to allow them to live instead of killing themselves.

71% Of Elementary School Math Textbooks In Florida Contained ‘Woke Indoctrination’

Warren Pleads For New ‘Rules’ For ‘Unregulated’ Social Media

San Francisco’s “Housing First” Nightmare

LA DA George Gascon causing ‘havoc and mayhem,’ recall effort will be a ‘photo finish,’ deputy DA says

The ACLU Says It Wrote Amber Heard’s Domestic Violence Op-Ed and Timed It to Her Film Release

California’s budget surplus has exploded to $68B (Politico)

In the 2022 Scottish Census, Carnies (A.K.A., “Showman or Showwoman”) Are Their Own Official Ethnicity

Trans activist makes a fuss without facts

UK government wants to regulate Apple TV+, Netflix, and other streaming services  The UK is turning into a right little totalitarian state.

Tyler Cowen.

A series of meritocratic hires will come from a variety of backgrounds and cultures; it’s not as if they all went to Eton together. Those meritocratic hires thus may want some additional layer of shared culture — and the enterprise of tech, so often based on the manipulation of abstract symbols, does not provide it.

Wokeism does. In fact, this semi-religious function of woke ideology may help explain what many people perceive as the preachy or religious undertones to woke discourse.

You might wonder why this shared culture is left-wing rather than right-wing. Well, given educational polarization in the U.S., and that major tech companies are usually located in blue states, it is much easier for a left-leaning common culture to evolve. But the need for common cultural norms reinforces and strengthens what may have initially been a mildly left-leaning set of impulses.

‘Defund police’ Democrats poised to expand power in party in 2022 midterm elections

After years of progress on gay rights, how did the US become so anti-LGBTQ+? (The Guardian) Perhaps when progressives starting being assholes about it.

An opportunity for a bipartisan victory on LGBTQ nondiscrimination (The Hill) In the Narrative Media, ‘bipartisan victory’ means ‘Democrats win, Republicans lose’.

NewsGuard FINALLY Downgrades Daily Beast for Hunter Biden, Rittenhouse Flubs

Kansas Senate Overrides Governor’s Veto On Transgender Sports Ban Bill

California To Hike Gas Tax Despite Record High Prices At Pump

Chinese Regime Seeks To Control Global EV Supply Chain, Leaving US Vulnerable: Experts

San Francisco Spent $160 Million Only to Have Homeless Die in Rat-Infested Hotels

Government Disinformation Board Determines All Criticism Of Government Disinformation Board To Be Disinformation  Babylon Bee.

YouTube U-Turn: Censors Strike Again for No Good Reason, Just as Inexplicably Reverse Course

Ilhan Omar Wants Taxpayers To Pay Off Her Student Loans. Her Husband Could Do That With His Vineyard Earnings.

Read it.

It’s no coincidence that the plot to impeach Justice Clarence Thomas comes at the same time as Ketanji Brown Jackson’s appointment to the Supreme Court.

Conservatives see the Supreme Court as a forum for legal arguments about government power, while leftists see it, like all institutions, as a forum for moral arguments about the urgent measures needed to address the victimhood of oppressed groups. The former see legal arguments as moral because they are grounded in the Constitution and the nation’s founding while the latter see legal arguments as tools for achieving moral outcomes for the oppressed.

California to raise its gas tax, already the highest in the nation I guess people aren’t leaving the state fast enough.

Amend the Constitution to bar senators from the presidency (Washington Post) George Will gets a bug up his ass.

‘We have a democracy problem’: how Texas voter suppression helps keep climate action off the table (The Guardian) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

China is hunting Uyghurs around the world, with help from some surprising countries (NBC News)

Florida is the least affordable place to live in the U.S. (CBS News) Less affordable than California? Pull the other one.

Billionaires Are a Policy Failure That Must Be Addressed (Newsweek)

Mayorkas testifies DHS is creating ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ (The Disinformation Fighters)

Los Angeles DA George Gascon hit with new lawsuit: ‘Required prosecutors to unlawfully hide the truth’

‘Woke-a-Cola’: Coke CEO becomes first target in activist shareholder’s busy week

The US may not share Britain’s obsession with class – but it hates women every bit as much (The Guardian)

The Supreme Court’s threat to the separation of church and state (Washington Post)

More Secret Gender Transition Closets Discovered In Public Schools

Oklahoma GOP Governor Sign Nation’s First Law Banning Non-Binary Birth Certificates

Is Critical Race Theory Being Taught in Our Schools? Here Are the Facts

Iowa Dem Wants To Keep Kids in ‘Failing’ Public Schools, Just Not Her Daughter

The Anti-Israel Past of NYT Jerusalem Bureau’s Latest Hire

New Discovery+ Series ‘Generation Drag’ Celebrates Child Drag Queens

Showtime Series Lies, Pretends NBC, CNN Yelled at ‘Terrorist’ Michelle Obama

People Who Say They Aren’t Censoring Anyone Really Mad They Won’t Be Able To Censor Anyone  Babylon Bee.

Big Banks Nailed Over Woke Agenda During Annual Shareholder Meetings

Socialist ‘Squad’ Member Defends Vote To Protect Russian Oligarchs

MSNBC Hits Dems From The Left For Accepting GOP Open Borders ‘Myth’  The Narrative admits no deviationism.

Lockdowns for Thee But Not Me: The View Defends Attending WHCA Dinner

Read it.

You’d think that I could simply tell them that I’m not doing business in California and be done with it. No — California defines “doing business” in a number of ways, one of which is to have more than 25% of your payroll in California. Which I had, because I had only one employee.

So now, because I employed one of their residents, I’m fully subject to California regulation. I have to file all of the employment-related forms, including those pertaining to withholding and unemployment insurance (which I expected). I also have to register my company with the California Secretary of State and renew my information every year or face penalties, and apparently I have to file a corporate income tax return

You’d think I’d be able to file a simple return, file zeroes on it, and be done with it. But no — I had to pay my accountant to do it, and the form is literally 42 pages long. That cost a few hundred dollars. And in the end, I still owed them $800. For 2019 alone; I’ll also owe them for 2020 and 2021.

I owe $800 for the “minimum franchise tax”. California charges this fee to everyone for the “privilege” of “doing business” in California, whether they have revenue or not. Only a few states have a business franchise tax, and California’s is wildly higher than anywhere else. This is in addition to California’s generally out of control taxes.

America’s parents just want our culture back

The real reason today’s Republican Party hates corporations like Disney (Philadelphia Inquirer) Only a ‘journalist’ knows for sure.

Watchdog group sues FEC over citizenship of liberal donor (The Hill)

Big Tech censored Biden criticism more than 600 times over 2 years: report

Schumer, Pelosi-affiliated groups funnel millions in anonymous donor cash into midterm elections

NBC & CBS: ‘Bully’ Elon Musk Buying Twitter Unsafe for Women & Minorites  Ah, the old standard: “Women and minorities hardest hit.”

Internet Searches For “Delete Twitter” Soar As Blue-Check Libs Meltdown Over Musk Deal   I don’t know if Elon will make any money on this deal, but I’m getting a million dollars worth of entertainment.

Latest Durham Filing Destroys Hillary And DNC Attempt To Block Documents Behind Russia Hoax

Musk’s Twitter Purchase Fails After 138,000 Board Votes Found Overnight  Babylon Bee.

CNN, MSNBC Cry Racism Over Florida GOP Map, Spread Misinfo

Twitter Goes On Internal Lockdown To Prevent Woke Employees Taking Revenge For Elon Musk Takeover

God Criticized For Assigning Gender At Conception  Babylon Bee.

Obama argues unregulated social media is a threat to democracy  In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

WH Journo Frets About ‘Purveyors of…Misinformation’ Being Allowed on Twitter

EU Puts Elon Musk On Notice Over Free Speech Plans For Twitter

NBC Allows 12 Seconds on Hero Guardsman Who Drowned at Border, CBS Still Silent

Twitter’s Top Lawyer Breaks Down In Tears During Musk Takeover Meeting  Since she is their censor-in-chief, I’m sure she did. Were I Elon she would get her walking papers first day.

Ozzy Osbourne Is Checking Out of Hotel California. Why? Taxes.  Yup, time to leave.

Morning Joe On Musk Twitter Takeover: ‘We All Believe In Free Speech, BUT…’

ZMan peers behind the curtain.

One of the great truths of American politics is that for the last few generations one side has been motivated by dreams of destroying their enemies, while the other side dreams of befriending the enemy. The people we call the Left in America are the former case and this is their primary definition. Their ideology changes, but the one constant is their desire to clear the field of their enemies. The other side is the Right, which exists to find some sort of accommodation with their friends on the Left.

This impulse to seek a compromise is why American politics has followed a familiar pattern since the Civil War. The Left proposes some novelty and the Right resists, always trying to reason with them. In the end they always cave. As Robert Lewis Dabney observed a century ago, “it (conservatism) demurs to each aggression of the progressive party and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation.”

In election misinformation fight, ‘2020 changed everything’ (Associated Press) Yeah, the Bad Guys won, and managed to get away with it.

Why Starbucks has become a huge unionization target — and why the company is in a panic (L.A. Times) Because that’s where the money is.

NLRB sues Starbucks for retaliating against 3 workers involved in unionizing (NPR)

The Plan to Make Michigan the Next Space State (The New Yorker) The NIMBYs, of course, aren’t having any of that.

Some Republicans fear party overreach on LGBT measures (Washington Post) The RINOs mostly.

Democratic socialist congressional candidate says $15 minimum wage is ‘antiquated’: ‘$30 is the floor’

As it happened: Macron vows to govern for all after election victory (BBC) And if you believe that one, he’ll tell you another one.

With More Enforcement Power Than Ever, State Relies On Activists To Enforce Duplex Law

SFPD rate of solving crimes, already well below national average, gets worse

Endorsement: Chesa Boudin is many things. Incompetent isn’t one of them. Vote no on recall (S. F. Chronicle) But ‘evil’ is. Vote YES on recall.

Labor Unions Rally Support for SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin (NBC)

Almost a year on, new Boston police watchdog has processed only a few complaints of officer misconduct. Some advocates are disappointed. (Boston Globe) No doubt they are.

Extreme Wealth Tax, Vaccinations Without Parents: 5 CA Bills To Know

Doublethink with Taylor Lorenz

What Democrats Don’t Want You to Know About France’s Election

Humans Dying in Mayor Frogface’s Town  BRAAAAAAAINS!

Waterloo faculty job only for ‘women, transgender, non-binary, or two-spirit’

WashPost’s Margaret Sullivan Hopes Incoming New York Times Editor Shreds Objectivity

Wisconsin Dems Rely on Front Group To Attack Republican Incumbent While Decrying Dark Money

Border-State Dem Has Politically Convenient Epiphany on Border Security

Lefty Meltdown Commences! Twitter Users Lose it Over Elon Musk’s Successful Takeover Bid

Caravan Of Liberal Refugees Arrives At MySpace Border  Babylon Bee.

AOC Cries Outside Disney World In Dress Reading ‘Groom The Kids’  Babylon Bee.

The College Admissions Sausage Factory

Google Rolls Out Feature That Corrects You With Woke ‘Inclusive’ Language; Report

MSNBC: ‘Safety’ of ‘Women and People of Color’ in Jeopardy After Musk Takeover of Twitter

Constitutional law experts: Disney could ‘absolutely’ sue Florida for retaliation (WFTV Orlando)

Feeding LA’s Homeless Industrial Complex

Uh-Oh: “The End of the All-Male, All-White Cockpit” — Putting the DIE in Diversity Inclusion Equity

The Plot To Undermine America’s Institutions

Leftists Demand Pulitzer Prizes Require Taking a Diversity Survey

No One Expects Young Men to Do Anything and They Are Responding by Doing Nothing  Works for me.

Read it.

First off, AWFLs (I love that acronym: “affluent white female liberal”) seem to have relatively fixed notions of what constitutes personal security.

Credentialism. If you took the right course or earned the right certificates you are entitled to the matching job. I recall seeing a video of then Gov. Chris Christie facing a hostile crowd of teachers. A woman stood up and declared that because she had a master’s degree, she was entitled to a certain guaranteed salary level. When Christie said that if her degree were actually that valuable, why not take it out into the job market and get paid for it. There was a brief “does-not-compute” moment by her and then the crowd followed with angry outbursts.

…

Guarantees.  Women are by nature more risk-averse than men. “Safety net”, “single-payer” and anything else that sounds like it reduces the possibility of loss tends to be welcomed, especially by single women. Increased taxes only fall on the rich so that becomes the cognitive equivalent of having Daddy pay for it, which is the least he can do after having abandoned …

Read it.

If you look closely at everything China has done since 1999 – at all aspects of its economic, military, diplomatic, and technological relations with the rest of the world – it’s like watching “Unrestricted Warfare” come to life. One can find other glimpses into the secretive mentality of the CCP leaders, but this one is the single most important book for understanding the China of today. “Unrestricted Warfare” is the main blueprint for China’s efforts to unseat America as the world’s economic, political, and ideological leader. It shows exactly how a totalitarian nation set out to dominate the West through a comprehensive, long-term strategy that includes everything from corporate sabotage to cyberwarfare to dishonest diplomacy; from violations of international trade law and intellectual property law to calculated abuses of the global financial system. As one of the authors stated, “The only rule in ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ is that there are no rules.”

Duh – Communist.

Read it.

In recent years, the attitude of liberals toward Critical Race Theory has been summed up as: “It doesn’t exist. And it’s awesome!” But as the infiltration of CRT into curricula across the country has become impossible to deny, promotion of racism and anti-Americanism has come out of the closet. Thus we see the public schools in St. Paul announcing a new “Critical Ethnic Studies” curriculum.

REQUIRED for all 10th graders.

Time to leave.

Lower-income Americans have thrived under Biden. It probably won’t last. (Philadelphia Inquirer) A more blatant lie I have rarely seen.

O’Rourke highlights Texas property taxes in new attack on Abbott (The Hill) First time I’ve ever seen a Democrat object to high taxes. His campaign ought to use a pander-bear as its mascot.

The Supreme Court would risk more than legitimacy by imposing Christian nationalism (Washington Post) Whatever world Jennifer Rubin lives in, it isn’t this one.

Serbia ‘sliding towards autocracy’ as president secures second term (The Guardian) I’m guessing he isn’t socialist enough.

Former McDonald’s CEO to fight woke corporate politics

NorCal tourists kidnapped at gunpoint inside Airbnb, police say (S.F. Gate) That’s what ‘defund the police’ gets you. Time to leave.

Meta COO Pressured Tabloid To Shelve Piece On CEO Boyfriend: Report

Massachusetts Parents Sue School District For Hiding Child’s ‘Alternate Gender Identity’ From Them

CNN Host Rolls Out Red Carpet for Abortion Clinic Owner to Strike a Moral Pose

Internet Archive ‘Excluded’ Taylor Lorenz Twitter Profile From Search

‘It’s A Lie, Simply A Lie,’ Israeli PM Calls CNN Host A Liar

CNSNews on MSNBC Attacking Parental Rights Since 2013

Stelter: ‘Too Early to Know’ if CNN+ Was ‘a Success or a Failure’  Really – Brian Stelter is a Seinfeld character.

Secret Service Failed To Keep Records Of Visitors To Biden’s Delaware Homes

Child Of Leftist Parents Tired Of All The Crying  Babylon Bee.

Open Letter to NPR: Why Leave Nina Totenberg’s Sister’s Name Out of Your Story on MTG?

Read it.

As millions of Jews continue to celebrate Passover, a holiday dedicated to the achievement of a free society devoted to the God-given rights of all people, this week also marked the left’s favorite holiday—Tax Day.

Tax Day represents more than the left’s desire to endlessly take the fruits of our labors and expand the government. Its tax plans are designed specifically to make the government the sole decider of what is produced, who benefits from it, and how our economy is shaped—socialism in practice, if not overtly by name.

The double, triple, and intentionally punitive taxation of investment—the engine that drives our economy—is how the left visits this plague on every American household.

By taxing these means of production at high enough rates, and multiple times, it hopes to drive private investment into the ground, leaving only the government in a position to dictate the details of our economy.

And this ongoing hatred of investment is behind the constant headlines “Billionaires Pay Less Taxes Than Their Secretaries!” — which is a lie; what they do is pay lower tax rates than their secretaries, because their income comes not from wages but from dividends and capital gains — the fruit of investment.

Statists would like nothing more than to tax the fruits of investment as if it were merely wage labor, as well as to strip entrepreneurs of the wealth they have gained by taking risks and working hard.

Read it.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. Just like I couldn’t take him to the last big Avengers movie, to see which of his favorite heroes might have gotten un-murdered, after they got murdered in the big Avengers movie before that, which I also couldn’t take him to. My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie, and he really wanted not to see it; that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

I loved superheroes when I was his age. Now I’ve gone back to reading and watching superhero material to keep him company. The only problem is that the superhero industry hates children. It’s the most childish thing about the genre—not the musclebound people in tights, but the insistence that the musclebound people in tights should be grim and mature.

Read it.

My generation we grew up being told that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me’. Western culture of course changes with each generation: now free speech is considered violence by some. There’s a whole thing happening at Twitter in particular about it. Expect it to get louder now actual money might be on the table. And do we get free speech back, or another billionaire plaything that dies in darkness, like CNN+ just did after three weeks and $100m down the drain?

Yet sometimes there obviously *is* a link between words and broken bones. Mike Tyson just repeatedly punched a man on a plane… because he repeatedly insulted a former boxing world heavyweight champion. The Russians say, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” And, boy, are there some stupid games –and words– out there. And some stupid plans and game-plans.

Relatedly, Tyson also once opined, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” On Wednesday, markets tried to plan for “peak inflation”; on Thursday, they were punched in the face, US stocks slumping (S&P -1.5%) and bond yields soaring (US 2s +10bp at the close, 10s +8bp, and 30s +6bp).

I can’t imagine any circumstance in which I would disagree with Mike Tyson – to his face.

Read it.

There have been cases before of thieves using a burner iPhone and Apple Pay to spend on stolen credit cards. But now a new report quotes one fraudster as describing Apple Pay as the “easiest way” to make money.

Read it.

It appears that parts of Europe are about to launch a Chinese-style social credit system. The first rollout will reportedly be in Italy, but based on the following article, the planning for the Bavarian version was first: it began back in 2019.

Read it.

Before starting this research, I was unaware of the presence of yellow dots on printed paper. I find it remarkable that something so common on an everyday object could be this unknown to the public. Learning and becoming a master on a subject few people even know about feels fantastic. Even the majority of law enforcers have only heard rumors that it exists. The research itself was challenging because of the monotonous coloring and reviewing of the patterns. However, the moments when I found something useful were rewarding enough to continue.

‘Daily Show’ correspondent sees Hungary as ‘cautionary tale’ for US (The Hill)

The Great Immoral Panic of 2022 sweeps America (Philadelphia Inquirer) “Bunch” I assume refers to his panties.

It’s not enough to push back against authoritarianism (Washington Post) Jennifer Rubin is offended by the mote in someone else’s eye.

DeSantis saves Florida kids from being indoctrinated with math (Washington Post) Dana Milbank apparently can’t read very well.

Leftist-Approved Price Gouging

Californians Rally Against ‘Infanticide Bill’

These Democrats Say Health Care Is a Human Right for All, Except Their Campaign Staff

Spotify Won’t Renew Podcast Deal With The Obamas

New NYT Editor Takes Over What NY Mag Deems a Staff With Maoist ‘Struggle Sessions’

CBS Insists Parents ‘Trust…Teachers’ on Sex Ed, ‘Don’t…Call Your Politician’

Australian Olympian Calls For An End To Transgenders In Women’s Swimming

Alcindor Laments Dem Focus on Inflation Amidst GOP Culture War

Billionaire-Owned WashPost Whines IRS ‘Urgently Needs More Money’ Day Before Tax Day

Liz Cheney Rakes In More Money From Northern Virginia Than From Her Home State, Wyoming

Obama Keynotes Disinfo Conference Alongside Allies Linked to Fake News Scandals  Well, nobody knows more about Fake News than Obama.

Execs Pull the Plug on CNN+ After Just 23 Days

Largest State Library Association to Host Drag Queens at Annual Conference

Read it.

Modern science was supposed to increase our understanding of the world. Instead, we seem to know less. Science has always introduced doubt regarding long-held verities. But now the authority of science, rather than the scientific method, is used to create confusion about things that had once been considered obvious and indisputable.

There have always, for instance, been rare individuals who did not precisely fit into the categories of either man or woman, but never before in human history did these exceptions lead to biological males competing in, and dominating, female athletic tournaments. There is more than compassion or tolerance at work here. America’s political and intellectual elites claim not to know what distinguishes male from female. Just a few weeks ago, the newest justice to the United States Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, stated flatly that she could not define what a woman is. This newly discovered ignorance is, supposedly, derived from superior scientific insight. Our technology advances, but our wisdom diminishes.

Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox.

Land ownership has shaped civilizations from their beginnings, with a constant interplay between great powers—the aristocracy, the state, the Church, the emperor—and those below them. History has oscillated between periods of greater dispersion of ownership, and those that favored greater concentration.

Today, we live in an era of ever-greater consolidation, not from knights in armor, or Communist cadres, but from the forces of big capital and an ever-more intrusive regulatory state. The result has been record-high housing prices, well above the increase in incomes resulting in a systematic decline in the ability of people, particularly the young, to buy their own house as prices rise even in less expensive areas. Supply also faces great constraints, due in part to labor and supply-chain woes and the demand shock of the pandemic and remote work.

Unless reversed, young people will be forced into a lifetime of rental serfdom.

Read it.

When the Soviet communists’ hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered at the Kremlin for the last time on Dec. 25, 1991, some said that the last refuge of Marxism was in the academic institutions of the West.

They were right. That totalitarian ideology has infected American colleges and universities and other institutions that are purveying cancel culture, wokeism, censorship, and gender dogma that rejects reality.

But students, parents, and others are fighting back. And two colleges—Oberlin College and Shawnee State University—recently got exactly what they deserve: large legal judgments against them for defamatory and discriminatory misbehavior.

A third, Clemson University, narrowly escaped getting hit with a similar type of judgment after it agreed to reverse its false finding that a male student had committed a sexual assault and paid him to go away.

That student won a defamation lawsuit against a female student, her boyfriend, and her father for making bogus charges and conspired to hide what really happened.

Ann Coulter. is delightfully dyspeptic today.

With the mind-boggling rise in violent crime since the Democrats turned all policing policies over to BLM, the media have become obsessed with convincing us that it’s all the fault of the pandemic. (At least they’re not blaming it on Putin this time.)

Joel Kotkin.

At least he said ‘working classes’ rather than ‘working families’.

The French elections reflect the essential political conflict of our time. On one side, there is a powerful alliance between the corporate oligarchy and the regulatory clerisy. On the other, there are two beleaguered and angry classes – the small-business owners and artisans, and the vast, largely unorganised service class. The small-business class generally tends to favour the populist right, whether in America, Australia or Europe. These people want the government out of their business and to be left alone. Meanwhile, workers tend towards the populist left, which promises to relieve their economic pain.

The common feature is the politics of anger and resentment.

How Orwell Diagnosed Democrats’ Culture War Problem Decades Ago (Politico)

American businesses should wise up. Republicans endanger capitalism. (Washington Post) This would be the same capitalism that Jennifer Rubin actually hates, I suppose.

CNN reporter breaks down rejected Florida math textbooks (CNN) Because CNN reporters are experts on math.

Latter-day Saint leader joins open letter to Georgia: LGBTQ, religious rights don’t have to conflict (Deseret News) Even Mormons go Woke.

Student loan borrowers will get help after an NPR report and years of complaints (NPR) The Cloud People take care of their own at the expense of the Dirt People.

Biden’s latest student debt move will bring 3.6 million borrowers closer to loan forgiveness (CNN) The Cloud People take care of their own at the expense of the Dirt People.

Joy Reid obsessively invokes ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ when sounding alarm on GOP’s anti-abortion push  When you’re a one-trick pony, that’s all you’ve got.

Virginia School Board Misleads Supreme Court To Defend Anti-Asian Admissions Plan

‘Legal Advice’? Clinton Lawyers Scramble To Keep Fusion GPS Docs Secret

STUDY: 17,000 Reasons Bezos-Owned WashPost Hopes Elon Musk ‘Doesn’t Win His Bid for Twitter’

PA Elementary School To Vote On After School ‘Satan Club’

A university pays $400K to professor who refused to use a student’s pronouns

New York Times Chooses Passover and Easter to Mock God and Bible

Former Intelligence Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big Tech Monopoly Power is Vital to National Security

ZMan sums it up.

Most of what we consider public life in modern societies is public reactions to things done by the powerful. The New York Times makes up a new hoax and the week is spent on the hoax. The usual suspects swear by the obvious lies and normal people spend days picking apart the lies. Occasionally, we get the reverse where some uncomfortable truth gets loose and the usual suspect go bananas trying to “debunk” it while normal people cling to it as blessed relief.

This is the news cycle in a nutshell. There is very little news. It has been at least a generation since the major news outlets in America have done reporting. Most of it is just stenography. The “journalist” copies what a government spokesbot has sent to them and dresses it up with some commentary. Then there are the narratives that are designed to give the public a way to repeat the official truth that sounds convincing to them and their acquaintances.

…

Narrative journalism is just accepted these days. The “news” has always been a form of passive-aggressive political activism so its evolution into story telling on behalf of powerful interests seems natural. When you think of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal as propaganda arms of their respective clients in the managerial elite, it all makes sense. Instead of the Ministry of Truth we have the mainstream media “speaking truth to power.”

Read it.

Qualified immunity allows law enforcement officials to get away with all manner of bad deeds. Now, the city of Durham, North Carolina, is proving that even if you overcome that obstacle, it won’t necessarily be enough to get justice.

After a Durham detective fabricated evidence, Darryl Howard was wrongfully convicted of murder and imprisoned for more than two decades. A jury awarded Howard $6 million in the ensuing lawsuit, but the city if refusing to pay it.

Worse yet, the city is asking Howard to pay the legal fees of two city employees dismissed from the suit.

The mayor of Durham, N.C., Elaine M. O’Neal:

She looks pretty white to me but undoubtedly ‘identifies’ as black.

Democrat, of course.

Read it.

In the early days of the “pandemic” — I don’t remember exactly when, but I recall seeing articles about it at the time — someone leaked internal German government documents that discussed in the most cynical fashion possible strategies for frightening the populace in order to induce them to accede to the state’s directives.

The relevant documents are sometimes referred to as the “panic papers”. In the following video, a speaker highlights relevant quotes from a document that proposes ways to achieve “the desired shock effect”.

Ilhan Omar mocked for voicing outrage over Easter worship on plane: ‘Why do you hate Christians?’  Hint: Because she’s Muslim. Duh.

Americans’ taxes used to be public — until the rich revolted (Washington Post) After all, what possible objection could you have to everybody and his dog pawing through your financial affairs?

Justices reject states’ appeal over cap on tax deductibility

Out to Mislead: Media Spew Inflated Mass Shootings Stat for 2022

Expect More Riots This Summer

Apple Includes “Pregnant Man” Emoji In Latest Software Update  Sure, that’s what it means.

Justice Sotomayor: Intelligent, Well-Informed, Reasonable-Minded People Must be Banned from Capital Case Juries

Interest In Immigration Surges As Wealthy Chinese Look To Flee Shanghai  No time is a good time to live in a Communist country.

EU Exhumes 18 Year Old Embezzlement Charges To Derail Le Pen Presidential Bid

WATCH: Bezos Was a ‘White Knight’ for Washington Post Purchase. Now, Musk’s Twitter Buyout a ‘Danger’ To Free Speech.

Illinois Dem Pays Another $25K in Donor Funds to Political Rival She Bribed

More States Move to Affirm Parental Rights in Education

Despite Raging Inflation, Congress Bent on Continuing Spending Spree

NY Times Visits the Old City, Grants Islam More Deference Than Christianity, Judaism

Commentators SLAM Crybully Taylor Lorenz for Doxxing Libs Of TikTok, Disgracing Journalism

The Antiplanner seconds Joel Kotkin.

The war in Ukraine has forced people of the “West”—a term that has come to mean most of Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand—to confront a social system that we have pretended went extinct hundreds of years ago: feudalism. While feudalism has mostly disappeared from the above-named nations, it is thriving in Putin’s Russia, as well as many other places around the world.

ZMan does some sociology.

Yesterday a federal judge struck down the CDC mandate requiring passengers to wear ceremonial face coverings on public transport. For the last two years airplane passengers have been required to wear masks at the airport and on the plane, unless they were eating or drinking. Of course, this has allowed the petty dictators to harass people while traveling. The mask-marms have been looking for reasons to fly just so they could harass people. Now that is over.

…

It is a little hint as to why the sociopaths in the media keep getting away with these mass hoaxes that have become a feature of life. People wake up and see that everyone is now into the latest thing. Maybe that thing is outrage over a police shooting or maybe it is some new abstract concern. All of the right people are on their soapboxes and all of the best people are following along with them. It is only normal for people to want to do the right thing and support the latest thing.

The First Post-Trump Republican Race (The New Yorker) A bit of wishful thinking there.

Trump’s clout on the line in Senate GOP primaries (The Hill) Guess somebody didn’t get the memo that we’re now ‘post-Trump’.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal: Student debt cancellation is ‘racial justice,’ ‘gender justice,’ ‘economic justice’ Surely she could have gotten a few more varieties of justice in there?

NYC Mayor Eric Adams agrees progressive politics play a role in increased crime across American cities

Rapper-turned-Brooklyn Dem candidate spews anti-cop hate, wants to defund NYPD  He looks pretty white to me.

‘The Minutes’ on Broadway Brilliantly Shows How Democracy Dies Under Strip Lighting (Daily Beast)

Illinois offering free health care to some illegal immigrants  God knows Americans aren’t worthy.

The red-blue divide is growing even bigger (CNN) Gee, imagine that.

How Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Rigged the 2020 Election to Defeat Trump

Univision Now Promoting Classes On How To Swim Across The Rio Grande

Scarborough Warns Dems: Deal With Border Chaos and Crime, or ‘Thugs Like Trump Will’

Dems Explain They Don’t Want Billionaires Controlling Our Media Unless They’re Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bloomberg, Buffett, Or Soros  Babylon Bee.

Free-Thinking Nonconformist Comes Out As Non-Binary Just Like Every Single One Of Her Friends  Babylon Bee.

The American socialist worldview is just broken

Durham: Five Witnesses Connected To The Clinton Campaign’s False Russian Claims Have Refused To Cooperate

CENSORED: How ABC, CBS, NBC Suppressed the Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal

It’s Not Just Jews: Ilhan Omar Doesn’t Like Christians Either

Stelter: Allowing Free Speech on Twitter Will Be Playing in the ‘Gutter’

Read it.

“Don’t teach kids what to think, teach them how to think.” There is some truth to this. Any decent teacher knows that if a student arrives at an answer by themselves, instead of simply being given it, there is a better chance they’ll remember it. Students have the right to develop their own opinions, and should be offered tools to aid critical thinking.

But is this warm, cuddly mantra as profound as it appears? In their new book Dumbing Down, economist Magnus Henrekson and political scientist Johan Wennström assess the decline of Swedish education in the context of its starry-eyed departure from classical knowledge to the realms of “post-truth” schooling.

Read it.

California has always been like a trendy nightclub that can get away with a hefty cover charge because everyone wants in. I once asked Arthur Laffer, of the famous curve, how California could keep getting away with such a high cover charge—i.e., high taxes and crushing regulation—when virtually no other state could get away with it. I was expecting a technical economic term—”exploitable asymmetries”—that is, the great climate and abundant natural beauty that many people are willing to pay a premium to enjoy (like me), but no. Instead, he said, “That’s like asking why pretty girls are mean. Answer: Because they can.”

But maybe California can’t any more. Even the pretty mean girls age, and start to show wrinkles, gray hair, and such. The Census data showing more middle class people leaving California than coming in reminds of the old Yogi Berra line about a popular New York restaurant: “Nobody goes there any more; it got too crowded.”

Florida rejects math books with ‘references’ to critical race theory  (Washington Post)

Rich countries that let inequality run rampant make citizens unhappy, study finds (The Guardian) Especially with the Narrative Media harping on it day and night.

This one simple trick will help get kids out of poverty (The Guardian) Give them money – your money

Millions of Kids Fell Into Poverty and No One Noticed (Daily Beast) Except the Cool Kids at the Daily Beast.

DA Chesa Boudin: Five Takeaways From a Fiery Live Interview (S.F. Standard) Straight from the horse’s ass mouth.

Twitter faces the ‘nightmare’ of being forced into free speech (The Hill)

Everyone has a theory of why crime is rising. This one doesn’t get discussed enough (L.A.Times) Income inequality! Is there anything for which it can’t be blamed?

exas A&M, America’s Largest College, Won’t Say Why It Defunded Its Campus Drag Show  (Daily Beast) Yeah, that’s a real head-scratcher, all right.

He wants to destroy Elon Musk. He could end up endangering the Dems’ Senate plans. (Politico)

What We Keep Getting Wrong About the Right (Daily Beast) The Daily Beast? Almost everything.

Another Smash Up at the Leftist Intersectionality

100k Detroit homeowners illegally taxed $600M still waiting to be compensated

U.S. Government Investigating TikTok: Report

Journalist Calls For Genocide on Twitter

Read it.

What, you may ask, is the job of the mainstream media, and how does Elon Musk threaten it? You may have missed the explanation provided by the deep thinkers holding down the fort on MSNBC’s morning show. “She said the quiet part out loud,” as Michael Doran put it.

What more is to be said? This says it all. What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed, though not quite in the way that Alexander Pope meant.

Read it.

I think one of the great misconceptions about economic crisis is that solutions are always dependent on centralized government action. In truth, most financial disasters are actually caused by too much government action and involvement. Central banks like the Federal Reserve are also primary culprits; as I outlined in last week’s article their machinations, which are independent of government oversight, fall into the category of deliberate sabotage. The Fed bankrolls corruption through fiat money creation while government officials and corporations utilize that money to wreak havoc on our living standards.

Head of S.F. police union gets her window smashed. And she’s pissed (S.F. Examiner)

Man who paid $2.9m for NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet set to lose almost $2.9m (The Guardian) Heh.

The silent majority against Republicans’ moral panic on schools (Washington Post) If’s official–proglodytes can’t count.

Mysterious Pregnancies at All-Woman Prison

Good Friday: NBC Chats With Leftist in ‘Thank God for Abortion’ Shirt

NY Times: GOP Pushing Mean-Spirited Identity Issues to ‘Inflame…Base at All Costs’

California’s Vanished Dream, By The Numbers

MSNBC Blast From The Past: It’s Our Job To Control How People Think… Not Elon Musk’s

A “Robin Hood Mentality” Emerges On America’s Streets As Gangs Of Thieves Start To Prey Upon The Rich

Michigan School Under Fire After Student Leaks “McCarthyist” Questionnaire

‘The lunacy is getting more intense’: how Birds Aren’t Real took on the conspiracy theorists (The Guardian) The Left is what happens when kids never grow up.

Jordan Klepper Crashes CPAC and Confronts Delusional MAGA Cultists (Daily Beast) Best high-school ‘journalism’ ever.

The Supreme Court may be setting the stage for the mother of all culture clashes (Washington Post)

Mary Trump on the fate of democracy (MSNBC) If her name weren’t Trump, would anybody care?

These Minnesotans are bringing social justice to the Seder table (Minneapolis Star Tribune) There is no escaping the Woke.

Anti-Israel Referendum at Princeton Marred by Fraudulent Instruction From Top Voting Official

MSNBC Warns of ‘Devastating Consequences’ If Elon Musk Buys Twitter, Allows Free Speech

Add Kansas to the Growing List of States Banning Sanctuary Cities

70% of Seattle Light-Rail Riders Don’t Pay

Twitter Suspends LibsofTikTok For Featuring Liberals Talking About Themselves?

Avlon Laments ‘Another Blow to Our Democracy’ After RNC Debate Withdrawal

New AMC Drama ’61st Street’ Depicts Cops as Horrible Monsters

CNN Slams Libertarian Children’s Books—Causing Sales to Surge

Twitter Board Adopts “Poison Pill” To Thwart Musk Takeover, Exposing Itself To “Titanic” Legal Liability  Musk is taking lessons from Trump on Shaking The Box; I suspect he’s having a great time.

David Horowitz.

Bernie Sanders is the founder of the Progressive Caucus and most popular figure in the Democrat Party. He is also the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and therefore a key player in determining how Washington decides to spend taxpayers’ dollars. Bernie is also a lifetime fan of Communist regimes and apologist for their totalitarian practices – and atrocities. He supported Iran’s Islamo-fascist regime in 1979 when it made hostages of 52 American diplomats and embassy workers, held them for 444 days, and chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” – repeating the threats through time.

As an American politician for more than five decades, Bernie’s chief passion has been hatred of billionaires and of wealth in general, and of the economic system that makes wealth possible. He pursues this passion without a scintilla of self-awareness, ignoring the fact that he, himself, is worth $3 million. This personal wealth allows him to own three houses, while the average person is lucky to own one. While presenting himself as a champion of the working classes, and opponent of million- dollar incomes, he has no apparent intention of redistributing his own wealth to less fortunate individuals who may need it more than he does.

The View: SCOTUS to ‘Pass a Bill’ ‘On Their Desk’ to Make NY ‘Open Carry’  The level of ignorance among the ‘journalists’ of the Narrative Media never ceases to amaze.

Two Florida men at The Villages admit to voter fraud in 2020 election (Washington Post)

San Francisco ready for ‘change,’ Pelosi faces criticism from hometown crowd ahead of reelect bid

Dysfunctional Supreme Court confirmation process damages democracy (Knoxville News Sentinel)

Principal at elite Lowell High School resigns, slamming SFUSD in farewell letter (San Francisco Chronicle)

Peruvians are over their president. Latin America seems over democracy. (Washington Post)

‘A plot to destroy democracy’: civil rights group raises alarm at threats to US elections (The Guardian) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

Now nothing will stop the Supreme Court from overturning Roe v. Wade (Washington Post)

UK to give asylum seekers one-way ticket to Rwanda (BBC)

Hawaii Democrat hasn’t been to DC in months, still working as airline pilot

Net Domestic Migration: Shift to From Larger Metros to Smaller Areas Accelerates

In Name of ‘Consumer Protection,’ Government Forces Financial Institutions to Go Woke

Robert Reich Goes Full Orwellian: More Freedom Is Tyranny

LA Sheriff Charges That Policies of Soros-Backed District Attorney Profit Criminals

Twitter Suspends Popular ‘Libs of TikTok’ Account  Go, Elon! Go, Elon!

Not Just Biden: Lawmakers Say Dianne Feinstein Is Cognitively Impaired

Is the Woke Cultural Agenda of Union Leaders Undermining Support For Unions?

The ACLU Forced an All-Female Prison To Take Transgender Inmates. Now 2 Prisoners Are Pregnant.  Saw that coming.

Kimmel: Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law Made ‘To Get Dumb People Excited’  Well, he’s a dumb person, and it got him excited, so I guess it worked.

Democrats Dominate ‘Misinformation’ Firm Working With Teachers’ Union

VIDEO: Democrat Mocks Asian Congresswoman’s Accent  And Democrats were assholes, every one.

The Squad’s Next Member Compares ‘Defund the Police’ Activists to MLK  Well, for one thing, they’re less Republican.

In Ad Campaign, DC Police Union Slams Politicians Over Surge in Crime

The Urge to Spend Other People’s Money

‘Hard Right Turn’: MSNBC Aghast At Republicans Being Republicans

CDC extends travel mask requirement to May 3 as COVID rises (Associated Press)

WHO says Covid still a global public health emergency even as deaths fall to lowest level in two years (CNBC)

COVID remains a public health emergency for now, says WHO and Biden administration (NPR)

Pfizer’s Bourla: COVID vaccines for new variants possible for Fall (Reuters)

Primary iPhone factory in China now operating as normal, new COVID-19 precautions in place

Watch: Fauci Admits “You Use Lockdowns To Get People Vaccinated”

Proof that Covid Shutdowns Are Useless

‘Covid Relief’ Funds Spent on Tennis Courts and Smoothie Bars  Well, I’m sure that was a relief.

Read it.

Germany is a big source of income for Russia. Conversely, Germany depends a lot on Russia, which provides 55% of Germany’s gas, 34% of its oil, and 53% of its hard coal. And fossil fuels provide the lion’s share of Germany’s energy needs.

Follow the money….

The basic problem with nuclear power for the Crony Crowd is that it doesn’t provide any of the Cloud People with a dependable stream of income – not like oil, gas, wind, solar, chicken farts, and unicorn poop.

CNN’s long history of pushing disinformation, here are five examples

Economist Robert Reich: Despite growing wages, workers are still “being shafted” by corporate greed (Salon)

17 L.A. gangs have sent out crews to follow and rob city’s wealthiest, LAPD says (L.A. Times) Time to leave.

The best solution to high gas prices: tax the oil companies (CNN) How that will lower, rather than raise, gas prices isn’t exactly clear.

Four lessons from France on how to defend democracy (Washington Post) Jennifer Rubin is just chock-full of ideas on how to ‘defend democracy’.

Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden Have Same Problem: Getting the Left to Vote (Daily Beast) That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.

How much energy powers a good life? Less than you’re using, says a new report (NPR)

Far-Right One America News Is in Existential Crisis Amid Mass Exodus (Daily Beast) Not to mention efforts by the Narrative Media to cancel them.

Seattle’s transit system struggles as riders refuse to pay

WashPost’s Wemple Brings the Numbers to Needle Brian Stelter About CNN’s Partisan Filter

MSNBC’s Tur Pushes Gun Control, Fears Increased Police in NYC

California Looks To Reduce Weekly Work Hours To 32

“Sh*t Show”: Triggered Twitter Employees Melt Down Over Elon Musk’s Uncertain Intentions

“Scientist Rebellion” Risking Arrest to Demand Climate Action

CNN+: A Bomb of Epic Proportions

Hayes Politicizes NYC Shooting, Frets SCOTUS Will Approve Concealed Carry

Minneapolis Fed President Goes Woke, Does Political Lobbying, Ignores Inflation

Journalists Have Learned Nothing From the Laptop Fiasco, and They’re Not Sorry

“People Are Afraid” – LA’s Crime Surge Migrates To Wealthy Zip Codes  Because that’s where the money (and the liberal voters) are.

California’s Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

AZ Teachers Union: Parents ‘Drama Queens’ For Demanding Transparency

On the Front Lines of California’s Homeless Debacle

Pharisees Delighted By This New ‘Wokeness’ Thing That Lets Them Constantly Judge And Make Everyone Feel Guilty  Babylon Bee.

California Wants to Regulate Your Bacon. Here’s Why the Supreme Court Should Save It.

Read it.

New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) highlights the areas in Europe and North Africa where the construction of wind turbines or power lines is likely to increase the risk of death for migrating birds.

The dirty little secret of ‘sustainable energy’.

Atlantic writer who called Hunter Biden laptop not ‘interesting’ enough to cover harped on Trump Jr. affairs

The emptiness at the heart of Republicans’ midterm campaign (Washington Post)

Donald Trump Began to ‘Resemble Putin’ As President: Ex-Adviser Fiona Hill (Newsweek)

Ron DeSantis Sparks National Wave of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bills (Newsweek) And a national wave of media mischaracterization.

Former Virginia police officer who stormed US Capitol found guilty on all charges (CNN) Stormed!

Biden’s Sister Blames Trump For Hunter Biden’s Legal Problems

‘Democrats Are Always Two Steps Behind’: NBC Frets Over Dem Failures

California’s High Power Prices Could Derail Liberal EV Dream

A sour and angry America poised to punish Dems this fall (Politico)

Lawmakers pushing WA capital gains tax regardless of judge ruling it unconstitutional

Eric Adams makes plea for mayoral control of NYC schools

Biden expected to announce new gun regulation, eyes new ATF nominee (CNN)

MSNBC’s Phang Uses Debut Weekend to Plug Crist Against ‘Hard-Right’ DeSantis

Los Angeles Prosecutors Decry Disturbing Results of DA George Gascon’s Policies

Antifa Riots In French Cities Because They Didn’t Like The Election Result

Stunning Rise In Chicago Carjackings Leaves Lawmakers Scrambling  Time to leave.