Georgia official texted Mark Meadows as Trump badgered secretary of state to ‘find’ votes (CNN)

Accuser Drops Don Lemon Assault Suit, Recants Claims (Daily Beast)

Dems grimace at Manchin’s bipartisan energy detour (Politico)

How real is the chance of criminally prosecuting Donald Trump? (CNN)

DeSantis rips Trevor Noah for ‘lying’ about his presence at correspondents’ dinner

Trump Lawyers Tried to Hide His Bizarre, Fruity Testimony (Daily Beast) Bizarre!

Kevin McCarthy is a shining symbol of democratic decay (Washington Post)

Conservatives don’t want true democracy, and ‘nice’ Republicans are no exception (The Guardian) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

A growing threat to democracy: Trumpist gubernatorial candidates (Washington Post)

The right’s gender wars are an assault on democracy (The Hill)

Hasan Slimes Musk: Will Hand Twitter to ‘Neo-Nazi’ GOP, Musk Fires Back

Wall Street Journal Claims “Shadow Crew” Of Billionaires Urged Elon Musk To Buy Twitter

ABC: ‘Shockwaves’ as Alito Heaps ‘Scorn’ and Prepares to ‘Upend’ ‘Lives of Women’  Yeah, Abortion Barbie is going to be in deep doo-doo.

DC Will Channel Money From Trump Hotel Settlement to Woke Nonprofits

Read it.

Most automakers are dying to sell you—and the world—an electric car. But they’re up against the challenge of our global-warming time: dauntingly tight supplies of both batteries and the ethically sourced raw materials required to make them.

Tesla and Volkswagen are among the automakers who see manganese—element No. 25 on the periodic table, situated between chromium and iron—as the latest, alluringly plentiful metal that may make both batteries and EVs affordable enough for mainstream buyers.

That’s despite the dispiriting history of the first (and only) EV to use a high-manganese battery, the original Nissan Leaf, beginning in 2011. But with the industry needing all the batteries it can get, improved high-manganese batteries could carve out a niche, perhaps as a mid-priced option between lithium-iron phosphate chemistry, and primo nickel-rich batteries in top luxury and performance models.

“We need tens, maybe hundreds of millions of tons, ultimately. So the materials used to produce these batteries need to be common materials, or you can’t scale.”
—Elon Musk

Read it.

A bit of foreshadowing, perhaps? Big Tech behemoth Amazon reportedly announced it would dole out big money to reimburse employees who travel for treatments including abortions. The news dropped just one day before Politico shared a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion revealing SCOTUS is expected to overturn the notorious 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Reuters reported in a May 2 story that Amazon “will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for non-life threatening medical treatments including abortions.” To put that in perspective, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found that 23.7 percent of women in the United States — almost one in four — will have an abortion by age 45. Amazon data indicated that 46.9 percent of the company’s total workforce of 918,261 employees in 2020 were women.

Read it.

The result of his research is a simple wristband that uses your DNA to help you make healthy choices as you shop for groceries.

By analysing the part of your genetic code determining susceptibility to nutrition-related health conditions like diabetes, DNANudge tells you which foods are best for you, and which you should avoid.

The wristband scans shop barcodes and shows a green light if a product is OK and red if it may be harmful in the long run. The wristband’s linked smartphone app suggests healthier alternatives when the red light comes on.

We have the technology.

It still creeps me out.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

I have a simple theory about why Donald Trump ended up running and governing as a conservative, after a lifetime of inconsistent views that much of the time aligned him with liberal Democrats. Startled by the vicious reaction of the media and the left after he said some mean things about Obama and illegal immigrants, he decided to throw in fully with conservatives, who were willing to be (mostly) more loyal.

I wonder if the same thing is happening to Elon Musk. His ideological and political history is similarly murky and unsound at many points in the past (and present), but as he sees the hysterical reaction of the media and the left to his proposed takeover of Twitter, like Trump he appears to have started recognizing who his friends are (or could be), and why the left and the media are his implacable foes. Connect the dots accordingly.

Read it.

Dan O’Dowd is hardly the first California tech titan to bankroll his own campaign for high political office. What makes him unusual is that he has no interest in winning the US Senate seat he is vying for, or even in challenging the other candidates competing in the 7 June primary.

O’Dowd, a software entrepreneur with a 40-year history of working on military, aerospace and other commercial contracts, is running, rather, out of frustration at his fellow tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk, whom he accuses of endangering road safety with a driver assistance software package he’s put in his Tesla electric cars.

Read it.

In a stunning breach of Supreme Court confidentiality and secrecy, Politico has obtained what it calls a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would strike down Roe v. Wade.

The draft was circulated in early February, according to Politico. The final opinion has not been released and votes and language can change before opinions are formally released. The opinion in this case is not expected to be published until late June.

CNN has not independently confirmed the document’s authenticity. Politico says it has authenticated the draft. A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment to CNN.

Until now, Supreme Court confidentiality could absolutely be relied upon. If this is legitimate, it marks another step down in the ongoing degeneration of our culture.

The reason Politico published it, of course, is an attempt to bring political pressure to bear on the Justices in hopes of altering the decision and maybe boost Democrat chances in the midterm elections.

UPDATE: Read Justice Alito’s initial draft abortion opinion which would overturn Roe v. Wade

Mayorkas admits he ‘could have done a better job’ explaining mission of ‘disinformation’ board

Price of diesel hits all-time high, straining the trucking industry

Top Honduran official says mass migration to US ‘possible’ when title 42 ends, stresses economic help

Joe Biden sure looks like he’s lying about Hunter’s biz

What did Biden know about Hunter? The stonewalling needs to end

Texas Gov. Threatens To Declare ‘Invasion’ As Illegal Immigration Expected To Skyrocket

The Nurse Ratched of Disinformation

‘Fond Portrait’ Flop: AP Duo’s Jill Biden Biography Sold Only 250 Copies in First Week

CRICKETS: Nets Silent on Biden Telling Teachers ‘They Are All Our Children’

Meet Biden’s New ‘Minister of Truth’ at DHS

Mexican Cartels Use Social Media to Recruit Young Americans, Border Patrol Veteran Says

Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes (Associated Press) Trump! Schemes!

Mark Meadows claims US Capitol attack panel leaked texts to ‘vilify’ him (The Guardian)

Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk Wimp Out on Their Twitter Chest-Thumping (Daily Beast)

One by one, Republican midterm candidates are falling into line with Trump (The Guardian) What do they know that Robert Reich doesn’t know. (Quite a bit, I suspect.)

NY Times Goes to War on Tucker Carlson: ‘Most Racist Show in History of Cable News’

Tucker Carlson vows he won’t read N.Y. Times series about him (Axios)

Ministry Of Truth Announces Target Of Today’s Two Minutes Hate Is Tucker Carlson  Babylon Bee.

Is Tucker Carlson a Racist? No Check vs Blue Check Definitions of “Racist”

MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell Returns to Twitter, Gets Re-Banned (Daily Beast)

“All’s Well That’s Orwell” – Musk Tosses Tactical Nukes At ‘Ministry Of Truth’ And Trust-Fund Journo

CBS Fawns Over Book From NYT Reporters, Skirts Dirt on Democrats

Tucker vs New York Times, Round 2: ‘Nativist Tilt and Racial Scaremongering’

The US should prepare for a predictable Southern summer surge of Covid-19, Birx says (CNN)

Birx says US must prepare for summer COVID surge as immunity wanes (The Hill)

New South African Covid Variants, Omicron BA.4 And BA.5, Found In U.S. For First Time; May Be More Transmissible Than BA.2 (Deadline)

‘I personally think it’s too soon to be removing masks from planes’: Oprah Winfrey slams federal court for lifting mask mandate on aircraft as she reveals she was so fearful of COVID she didn’t leave her mansion for a YEAR (Daily Mail) Masks are the MAGA hat of the Left.

These longstanding Bay Area restaurants just closed permanently (S.F. Gate)

Biden Gives Up on Mandatory Vaccines for Migrants

Fauci Ditches White House Event Over COVID Risk… Then Gets Cozy With Maskless Don Lemon

NYC Raises COVID Alert Level From “Low” To “Medium”, South Africa Faces Another Outbreak

Russia’s trolling on Ukraine gets ‘incredible traction’ on TikTok (The Guardian)

Expect Putin to make a big announcement on May 9 (CNN)

Pelosi, in surprise Kyiv trip, vows unbending US support (Associated Press)

The loneliest Russian in the world

Why are we supporting Ukraine?

Why Dnipro is Ukraine’s future

DoD Sends “Phoenix Ghost” Kamikaze Drones To Ukraine 

The Countries Committing The Most Of Their GDP To Ukraine Aid

Zelensky Compound NDA

Hungary Throws EU Neighbors Under The Bus, Says 10 Nations Technically Buying Gas-For-Rubles From Putin

MURPHY’S LAW: Son Of Stinger On The Way

As battle for Ukraine enters a new phase, so does lethal US aid

Infographic: The weapons and equipment the US has given Ukraine so far

ARTILLERY: Caesar Arrives In Ukraine

House Republican Introduces Bill To Give Biden Sweeping Authorities To Wage War In Ukraine  Well, it’s Kinzinger, but he identifies as Republican.

The Art Of The Deal

Germany Threatens Immediate Embargo On Russian Oil

US & Ukraine Contract With Private Sector Spy Firms To Target Moscow’s Forces

Russian TV Warns Britain Can Be ‘Drowned In Radioactive Tsunami’ By Single Nuclear Sub Strike

Italy Says It’s Open To Paying For Russian Gas In Rubles…Then Denies It

Pelosi’s ‘Victory’ Rhetoric During Surprise Trip To Kiev Making Some Allies Nervous

To maximize Ukraine coverage, BlackSky shifted orbits for its newest satellites

John Deere tractors ‘bricked’ after Russia steals machinery from Ukraine

Russia’s Progress In Donbas “Minimal At Best” As 5,000 Javelins Have Entered Ukraine: Pentagon

Read it.

Professor Giles Oldroyd, who leads research into sustainable crop nutrition at the University of Cambridge’s Crop Science Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University, is coordinating a global effort to transfer the nitrogen-fixing ability of legumes into non-legume cereals so that crops like wheat, maize and rice can, in effect, make their own fertiliser.

“Analysing the genetics of both legume and non-legume plants, we have discovered that non-legumes already have many of the genes needed to form the root nodules that house the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, Professor Oldroyd said. “There is substantial overlap in the developmental programmes plants use for lateral roots and nitrogen-fixing nodules. Studying the evolution of plant genes also indicates that some non-legumes did once form symbiotic relationships with nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria but have lost this ability over time.”

Read it.

Taking stuff that’s bad for the planet and changing it into stuff that’s bad for the people.

There’s a breakthrough for you.

Read it.

In the last three years, political operative Jason Belton joined a billionaire Democrat’s presidential campaign, became a campaign manager for a U.S. Senate race, and won election to a South Carolina Democratic Party leadership position—all while under federal indictment for trafficking nearly nine pounds of cocaine.

Read it.

Mujahideen who have made the hijra to Sweden are busily assembling the Islamic Caliphate there — and Swedish taxpayers are paying for the privilege of hosting it.

New gas pipeline boosts Europe’s bid to ease Russian supply (Associated Press)

Megayachts and oligarchs: ‘We’re scared of getting close to wrong money’ (BBC) It’s all about the oligarchs.

White House braces for potential showdown between Biden and Putin at G20 (CNN)

Russian Cyber Attacks Fail To Materialize After Biden Warned ‘It’s Coming’

Russia Sanctions Add Shock Internet Censorship Twist for UK ISPs

Clash Of Christianities – Why Europe Cannot Understand Russia

Crisis Or Hiccup? Assessing The Logistics Impact Of China Lockdowns

Biden jokes Trump was a ‘horrible plague’ in remarks at White House Correspondents’ Dinner (CNN)

Biden returns to White House Correspondents Dinner — here are the pitfalls of presidential humor

Misinformation’s wingman? (Seattle Times)

Elon Musk is threat to our democracy, cries Elizabeth Warren as she works to undermine it

Here’s What the Hell Joe Manchin Is Doing (Daily Beast) The best of American high-school journalism.

New York Times Says Illegal Aliens Voting Is a ‘Fake Threat’ — But Wait, What About…

Zurawik: ‘We Are Headed to Hell’ If Congress Doesn’t Regulate Musk

The Ecological Destruction from the Border Wall, in “American Scar” (The New Yorker)

Politicians are basking in the ‘thrill’ of fossil fuels, but this election is Australia’s last chance to reset our climate attitude (The Guardian)

Big Oil Wants A Piece Of The Electric Vehicle Pie (OilPrice.com)

Real Threats to Biodiversity and Humanity

Sorry, U.S. News & World Report, Plant Growth Is Good, Not a Climate Harm

Half Of France’s Nuclear Reactors Are Shutdown Amid Energy Crisis

Explaining Abundant Polar Bear Sightings on The East Coast as An Upshot of Sea Ice Loss Is Absurd

Electric Bus Catches Fire After Battery Explosion

A review of the pandemic suggests Americans have lost interest in public health (NPR) No, they’ve lost faith in government and the Narrative Media.

The pandemic is becoming less central to daily life for many, but impacts linger for N.H. travelers (New Hampshire Public Radio)

Michigan Investigated Hundreds Of Doctors, Nurses Over COVID-Related Complaints

Shanghai Ship-Jam Spells Supply Chain Trouble

CDC Reports First Human Case Of Avian Influenza  Time to start a new PANIC!

Dr. Birx is Back With the Worst Timed Memoir in History

New COVID Bill Fines Parents For Unvaxxed Kids And Doubles Income Taxes 

Time Columnist Denounces Free Speech As A White Man’s “Obsession”

Even Politico Mocks the DHS ‘Disinformation Police’

The People Behind DHS’s Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board”

One Side Considered: NPR Airs Free Ad for Transgender Advocate at Biden’s HHS

Talkin’ ’bout their (money) generation

Critics Challenge HHS Chief Becerra’s Claim Agency Has No ‘Anti-Racism’ Rule

“Masks are the MAGA hat of the Left.” –Steven Hayward

Read it.

Enamel enables teeth to take a stomping and keep on chomping. The hardest tissue in the human body is tough enough to resist dents, yet elastic enough not to crack during decades of jaw smashing. It’s so incredible that scientists haven’t created a substitute that can match it—until now. Researchers say they have designed an artificial enamel that’s even tougher and more durable than the real thing.

We have the technology.

Read it.

We can blame the agricultural revolution for accelerating tooth decay in humans – if we are to believe an article by three German researchers in the journal PLOS One.

“Caries is a common oral disease in humans, and has been for about 10 000 years. The disease is linked to the shift from hunters and gatherers to farmers. Until the late Palaeolithic period, modern humans rarely had caries,” the German researchers write in their article from 2018.

When humans went from hunting and gathering to farming, we started eating completely different foods.

Be a vegetarian! Have cavities! Lose your teeth!

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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.

Read it.

If the information that we receive is going to be “curated” by the federal government, we should pay attention to the views of the curator. With that in mind, I expended ten bucks for the Kindle version of Nina Jankowicz’s book How to Lose the Information War. It’s easy to see why Biden minions wanted its author on their information control team. For the past several years, she has engaged in research on Russian disinformation campaigns. Her book includes chapters on the responses of the United States, Estonia, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic, responses that she judges to have been sadly inadequate. So she brings a plausible aura of expertise to her new post as executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board (a name that could have been coined only by some bureaucrat who privately loathes it).

The Other McCain is shocked, shocked I tell you.

Back in 2014, when I started researching radical feminism, one of the first things I discovered was the phenomenon of Tumblr, a toxic cesspool that began as a blogging platform with an interface that allowed it to also function as a social-networking site. Tumblr users could “follow” each other, exchange DMs and, most importantly, “reblog” each other’s content. Feminist Tumblr was a notorious bedlam of craziness, where The Discourse™ spiraled into long threads of young women practicing “call-out culture,” i.e., accusing each other of transgressions against intersectional social justice. Whoever your favorite celebrity, whatever your favorite movie or TV show, it was sure to be denounced as “problematic” at some level by the social justice totalitarians of feminist Tumblr — all of whom proclaimed their mental illnesses in their profiles, and none of whom were heterosexual. Tumblrinas were always somewhere in the LGBTQ spectrum, and all of them were suffering from depression, anxiety, ADD, OCD, autism, bipolar disorder and/or PTSD.