Read it.

The agricultural industry is no stranger to automation. Robotics was first introduced into the industry to help guide vehicles in the 1920s, and it’s now common for farmers to use GPS-guided planters, sprayers, and combines, not to mention the wide array of automated machines used elsewhere in the agricultural supply chain.

But there’s one job that has been prohibitively difficult for robots: picking soft fruit. It requires a delicate and dexterous touch, as well as the ability to maneuver around the plants so that the fruit can be accessed from the best angle.

The UK-based startup Dogtooth Technologies is developing robots with just such abilities. What’s more, the robots are able to gently pick berries at night and then deliver them to a chamber where the fruit can be inspected for defects. Freethink explores Dogtooth Technologies and the future of robot farming in this episode of Hard Reset.

From Forgotten Formula to Climate Game Changer: A New Tool for Converting Carbon Dioxide (SciTech Daily)

Did WaPo reporters conspire with extremists to attack National Gallery of Art? (Hot Air)

Aarhus University Researchers Find Arctic Warmer, Ice-Free in Summertime 10,000 Years Ago!

Environmentalists Are Why We Can’t Have Infrastructure

Washington Post Was Tipped to Art Gallery Vandalism, Helpfully Recorded and Reported It

Netherlands Arrests 1500 Extinction Rebellion Protestors

CNN Warns of Weather ‘Misinformation’

MAGA Supporters Scammed With Worthless Trump Bucks: Report (Daily Beast)

Trump Supporters Scammed By Novelty Items—‘Trump Bucks’—Advertised As Legal Tender (Forbes)

The Mar-a-Lago classified docs case keeps getting worse for Trump (MSNBC) Really? Where’s the indictment?

Many GOP insiders fear that Teflon Don is back (Politico) But not as many as in the Narrative media.

‘We’re kind of tearing our hair out’: Republicans frustrated they’re stuck with Trump (Raw Story)

“What’s More Tragic Is Capitalism”: BLM Faces Bankruptcy As Founder Cullors Is Cut By Warner Bros

The Humpty Dumpty left uses “ban” to mean whatever they say it does

Henry Kissinger is turning 100. A long-running meme wishes otherwise. (Washington Post) The left has no problem with wishing death to their political opponents–alth0ugh, if someone on the right does so, it’s ‘hate speech’ and you could even go to jail.

Henry Kissinger is 100, but his legacy is still shaping how US foreign policy works (Vox)

Nikki Haley let the Confederate flag fly until a massacre forced her hand (Washington Post) Another smear-job from the propaganda arm of the Democrat party.

PBS Hosts Testy Talk Between Isaacson and NR’s Lowry: ‘I Get to Be the Interviewer Here’

BBC’s War On “Disinformation”

EU Official Threatens Twitter For Pulling Out Of Anti-Disinfo Pact

The Right Is All Wrong About Masculinity (N.Y. Times) David French continues to punch right as he carries water for the Left.

NBC’s Todd Cries: GOP Hasn’t Confirmed A Dem SCOTUS Nominee Since Cleveland!

‘Start the Kevin McCarthy death-clock’ after compromise with Biden: Rick Wilson (Raw Story)

MSNBC’s Phang Denounces Other Networks For Giving Airtime to GOP Prez Candidates!

Former employee reveals shocking conditions in NYC migrant hotel: ‘Free for all’ (Fox)

Migrant children in NYC left alone to drink, do drugs, ex-Midtown hotel worker says (N.Y. Post) Getting them used to life as Democrats?

Colonie supervisor says NYC violated county emergency order on migrants (Times-Union)

Outrageous! Taxpayers will pay Randi Weingarten a pension because of government’s special deals with unions (Fox)

Winnie the Pooh ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ Book Draws Parents’ Ire (N.Y. Times) Blue cities training up a new generation of victims.

Citywide Youth Curfew Begins In Baltimore As Mayor Strives To Restore Law And Order

Christian Students Sue Professor, Claim She Forced Them To Pay $99 To Fund Left-Wing Activism

Private spies hired by FBI and corporations infiltrate Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp

CNN Claims Work Requirements Are Offensive to Poor People

Kerik to Newsmax: Blame NYC Teen Crime Spike on City, State

Bud Light Offers $2.99 18-Pack After Sales Tumble Accelerates

Kamala Harris brushes off Afghanistan failures in West Point speech (N.Y. Post)

GOP Lawmakers Demand FBI Briefing On Jan. 6 Pipe-Bomb Probe Following Whistleblower Disclosures Regarding Suspect

Gingrich: Where Are Woodward And Bernstein When We Need Them  Shilling for Democrats, of course. Follow the money.

In Pursuit of Consensus, Did Biden Find the Reasonable Middle or Give Away Too Much? (N.Y. Times) Note that there is no concern about whether McCarthy gave away too much, because the Republicans are not their team.

Senior moment with a local twist

Washington Post.

Those who came up in the ‘move fast and break things’ era are learning to slow down and make things.

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

A global consensus has emerged that governmental responses to covid-19, which mainly involved shutdowns, limitations on mobility and other aspects of freedom, mask mandates, and vaccination requirements, did an enormous amount of harm. The issue is sometimes posed in terms of whether governments’ responses did more damage than the epidemic did. But that isn’t actually the right question. The epidemic happened. The question is whether the epidemic + government restrictions on freedom was better or worse than the epidemic alone would have been. And the answer is, worse. The net effect of government responses was catastrophically bad.

Vox.

People who pretend to be other people for a living will say anything they’re paid to say. That’s their business model. If you’re fool enough to believe them, well….

On the other hand, in world in which I get my heater, air conditioner, water softener, dryer vent, and garage door inspected annually, it’s not to much of a stretch to extend that to my body.

James Hansen Warns of a Short-Term Climate Shock Bringing 2 Degrees of Warming by 2050 (Inside Climate Narrative News)

California’s cliffs are crumbling as climate change reshapes the coast (Washington Post)

The Corruption Of Climate Science

Germans Are Outraged About The Country’s Oil And Gas Boiler Ban

Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

Why Texas’ GOP-controlled House wants to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton (Associate Press)

Clarence Thomas’s newest opinion would literally bring back child labor (Vox) No, it literally wouldn’t.

Tech layoffs ravage the teams that fight online misinformation and hate speech (CNBC)

“Sexualizing Kids”: Trump Jr. Explains Woke Brand Boycotts After NBC Smears Conservatives

Smith College Drops Use Of Word “Field” As Racially Insensitive

Racist Double-Standard Democrats Malign Tim Scott’s Melanin

DeSantis’s shameless defense of the Amanda Gorman fiasco is revealing (Washington Post) Greg Sargent loses his shit.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Revealed – Bill Gates’s younger Russian ‘lover’ and her links to notorious Kremlin spy Anna Chapman (UK Daily Mail)

HOT TALK: House Democrat Whip Rains Fire on Evil People-Hating Republicans on NPR

Save the world economy or his own job? McCarthy can’t decide. (Washington Post) Who knew that Dana Milbank could read minds?

NBC, CBS Echo Dems On GOP’s ‘Cruel’ Work For Welfare Debt Limit Demand

MSNBC, Abrams Team Up To Spread Fake News On Poem-Banning ‘Tyrants’

AOC Heckled and Shouted Off Stage by NYC Voters: ‘Put America First’ (TownHall)

Prosecutors in Trump’s criminal case say they have recording of Trump and a witness (CBS News)

Nicolle Wallace Conspiracy-Mongers Trump/Saudi Classified Docs Connection

‘Trump Bucks’ promise wealth for MAGA loyalty. Some lose thousands. (NBC News)

Immunologist Akiko Iwasaki: ‘We are not done with Covid, not even close’ (The Guardian) Not as long as there is grant money to be had by promoting PANIC!

Workplace expert explains how CEOs are being dragged into culture wars (CNN) “Dragged into”? They’re jumping in with both feet.

“It’s Time To Pay”: Democrat Voters Demand Fulfillment Of Past Promises From Reparations To Sanctuary Cities

NYC Democratic Councilman Under Fire for Anti-Italian Bigotry  Notwithstanding that he is a Person of Color.

NYC Outlaws Discrimination on the Basis of Weight, Height  Short people and fat people appear to be a vital Democrat constituency.

Study: At all levels of public office, threats now come with the job (Washington Post) Perhaps because government employees have never been more willing to act tyrannically.

‘Everything Was Just a No’: Progressives Frustrated After Colorado Legislative Session (Bolts)

Justin Trudeau Championing “2SLGBTQI+” Rights

EU Council President Atones for Overspending by Spending More

Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

State Farm halts new property insurance policies in California

Attacks on trans athletes have little basis in science (S.F. Chronicle) Narraitve sophistry.

LA Nonprofit Giving Meth Pipes To Homeless Sparks Debate Over “Harm Reduction” Approach

Fluoride Lawsuit Against EPA: Alleged Corruption, Shocking Under Oath Federal Statements

FIRED UP: Targeted Groups Blast DHS for Weaponizing Tax Dollars Against Americans

Karine Jean-Pierre Struggles To Defend Biden Skipping Town During Debt Crisis

WATCH: Joe Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 44)

FBI Raids Liberal Journalist’s Home in Connection With Tucker Leaks

Biden keeps turning his political enemies into ‘terrorists’ (N.Y. Post)

WashPost Buries Poll with Half of Blacks Saying Biden Policies ‘Made No Difference’

Congressional Black Caucus Launches ‘Summer of Action’

Black Lives Matter Teeters On Bankruptcy As Insider Transactions Continue

Jim Not-So-Dandy

Joy Behar Attacks Tim Scott For Daring To Be A Black Conservative

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

You would think a team named “Dodgers” would know how to dodge a culture war battle they can’t win (see: Target, Bud Light), but no, the Los Angeles Dodgers managed to get picked off in the most embarrassing fashion in a pickle-style rundown entirely of their own ineptitude. Surely the conservative (and Catholic) O’Malley family that used to own the Dodgers—before the onerous estate tax forced the family to sell the team back in the 1990s after Peter O’Malley died—are rolling in their graves.

But there’s a larger lesson here. Back in 1984 I attended the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco as a credentialed reporter (you can read the long feature Ken Masugi and I filed, “Revenge of the Nerds,” here). The day before the convention opened, there was a large gay pride parade on Market Street, which I watched from the sidewalk for the show. It was what you would have expected—a flamboyant and festive display of gay fetishes and skimpy costumes made mostly of leather, along with lots of banners expressing grievances against the Reagan Administration for not instantly curing AIDS with more money.

I somehow got to chatting on the sidewalk with a Republican campaign operative who was observing the convention, and he remarked, “In 1972 we paid people to do this to McGovern, and now the Democrats are doing it for us for free.” Sure enough, Democrats running the convention were careful to keep this sideshow out of sight as much as possible. They knew political poison when they saw it, though Jeanne Kirkpatrick nonetheless later stuck them with the label “San Francisco Democrats.” Though she had foreign policy chiefly in mind, there was a distinct undercurrent of their victim mentality that defines the party’s dominant ideology today.

Washington Post.

The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material can be used, like wood or silicon, as long as it can be smashed into small particles and remade with microscopic pores. But there are many questions about how to scale the product.
“What we have invented, you can imagine it’s like a small-scale, man-made cloud,” said Jun Yao, a professor of engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and senior author of the study. “This is really a very easily accessible, enormous source of continuous clean electricity. Imagine having clean electricity available wherever you go.”
That could include a forest, while hiking on a mountain, in a desert, in a rural village or on the road.

Read it.

Dozens of torturers who served Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government have evaded the Dutch immigration authorities’ notice and are walking about freely in the Netherlands, according to a recent investigation.

The matter was brought to light by news outlet Trouw and radio program Argos. Their investigation, published on May 19th, relies on testimony from Syrian refugees who had fled their country due to the Syrian civil war who claim to have encountered their former torturers while in the Netherlands.

Among these is Rehab Abdulftah, who in 2013 was detained for five months in the particularly brutal “Branch 227” in Damascus, which was run by the Syrian military secret service. While walking in Amsterdam, Abdulftah saw one of her former jailers. “Everything that had happened in Syria came back to me, I cried and ran away,” she said, adding that she did not dare go to the police.

Veronique de Rugy.

Whenever we have a national conversation about government debt, Democrats invariably respond that spending is not the reason the debt is now nearly equal to our national GDP. The real cause of our indebtedness, they inform us, is that taxes aren’t high enough and the rich don’t pay their fair share. From increasing the marginal tax rate to more than 70% for higher-income earners, to taxing 100% of income above $1 billion, to the president’s recent debt-ceiling plan, Democrats overflow with ideas about how to tax us more.

Not only do these ideas reflect incredible ignorance of economic reality, they’re also unlikely to have any meaningful effect on our debt levels and would surely slow the economy.

Let’s be clear: America’s debt problem isn’t the result of former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts. While I believe these tax cuts should have been offset by closing some of our many loopholes and reducing government spending, they didn’t cause our fiscal problems. The fiscal imbalance is not because of reduced revenues. Last year, federal revenue as a share of the economy was a full percentage point above the historical average.

The Spectator.

Jordan Neely was given a hero’s funeral in Harlem last Friday, eulogized by New York’s most prominent race activists before an audience of the city’s Democratic elite. Neely died on May 1 on a New York City subway car, after being restrained by a Marine veteran who was trying to protect his fellow passengers from Neely’s psychotic outbursts.

Neely has been turned into a symbol of a racist system of law enforcement and of civilian values that exaggerate the threat of mentally ill vagrants to keep minorities down. Three weeks after Neely’s death, on May 21, another homeless man in New York City slammed a woman’s head into a subway car, likely paralyzing her for life, if she even survives. Neely’s champions have been silent about this latest subway assault.

All the pathologies afflicting American cities were present in that fatal encounter and its aftermath: the grotesque parody of compassion that is conventional homeless policy; government’s elevation of the supposed interests of the anti-social and dysfunctional over those of the law-abiding and hard-working; anti-white race-baiting and racial bathos.

A Black 11-year-old called 911. Police arrived and shot him, his mom says. (Washington Post)

How Black Lives Matter Got Police Violence Wrong

Washington Post: “George Floyd? the Name Is Not Ringing a Bell. Can You Remind Me Who He Was?”

Aspiring Rapper Update

NYC Council’s Italian-American caucus lodges ethics complaint against Councilman Chi Ossé, cites ethnic slights (N.Y. Daily News)

Supreme Court delivers blow to wetlands protections in win for Idaho landowners

‘Start Pushing Back’: Lawmakers Slam LGBTQ+ ‘Youth Carnival’ That Bars Parents

The Public’s Trust In The Fed Is At Multi-Decade Lows

Seattle Official Rejects Calls For Resignation Over Homeless, Pedophile, Sex-Offending Board Nominee

Dollar Tree Plunges After Profit Tumbles As Thieves Pillage Stores

Mayor London Breed Chased Off By Violent, Screaming Mob During Presser In SF Junkie Nest To Denounce Drug Epidemic

Alabama Lawmakers Advance ‘What Is A Woman’ Bill Defining Male, Female Sex

Media’s Coverage of Debt Limit Fight Is Intolerably Dishonest (The Foundry)

Danish High Court: Trans ‘Woman’ Must Serve Prison Sentence With Biological Males

European Court Rules Against Romania for Lack of Same-Sex Partnerships

Report: Satan-Worshipping Trans Babies May Be Unable To Find Clothing If Target Pulls Pride Displays (Babylon Bee)

Texas Children’s Hospital to Stop Trans Medical Procedures

British Cycling Bans Trans Women From Female Category

MSNBC Wonders If Target Is ‘Cowardly’ Or ‘Economic Terrorism’ Victim

UN ESG Group Collapsing Under Pressure From Republicans

The truth about ‘book bans’

Dems Demand ‘MAGA Supreme Court’ Reform Over Ruling Backed by All Liberal Justices

Are Walmart Heirs Forsaking the Left? Arts Center They Fund Cancels Drag Shows for Kids.

Facing Lawsuit, Portland Agrees To Crack Down on Homeless Camps

US study finds 1 in 10 get long COVID after omicron, starts identifying key symptoms (Associated Press)

What is long COVID? 12 defining symptoms revealed (N.Y. Post)

Study looks at why some people got long COVID where others did not (KGW)

Scientists propose long Covid definition based on key symptoms in large study (CNBC)

Slowing ocean current caused by melting Antarctic ice could have drastic climate impact, study says (The Guardian)

Antarctic currents supplying 40% of world’s deep ocean with nutrients and oxygen slowing dramatically (LiveScience)

Antarctic alarm bells: observations reveal deep ocean currents are slowing earlier than predicted The Narrative Conversation)

Antarctic ocean currents have slowed since 1990s, sparking fears of collapse (Newshub)

Clean Energy Experts Are Stretched Too Thin (Inside Climate News)

US, EU Politicians Demand Withdrawal Of COP28 Chief

SCOTUS KILLS WOTUS: Enormous Setback for Obama Era EPA Power Grab

The Trevi Fountain Runs Black

CNN Publishes Blatantly False Claim About Wildfires – There’s No Link to Fossil Fuels at All

Watch British Police Protect Road Blocking Climate Protestors

Belgium Split Over EU Environmental Plan

Amazon Backs Out of Climate Pledge, Deletes Shipment Zero Initiative Blogpost

France Unveils Its Climate Plan for Greenhouse Gas

Durham Report: 63% Believe Russia Smear Was ‘Hit Job’ Against Trump (Rasmussen)

Evidence grows that Trump hoarded documents — and showed them to people (Washington Post) Philip Bump tries to scraaaaape the barrel….

Trump and the Saudis: Is Jack Smith finally looking at this clear-cut corruption? (Salon)

Mexican Leader to Fla. Hispanics: Ditch DeSantis (NewsMax) Lopez Obrador is a socialist, so of course he hates DeSantis.

GOP Rep Complains Biden Isn’t Appointing Enough Straight White Guys as Judges (Daily Beast)

Florida groups warn America of danger from ‘dictator’ DeSantis (The Guardian)

Welcome to LIV, where the money is dirty and the golf doesn’t matter (Washington Post) How dare they play at a Trump golf course! Don’t they know he’s Hitler?

DeSantis’s Launch Was Not the Only Thing That Crashed (The Atlantic) David Frum is a reliable Republican-hater.

Samuel Alito’s Assault on Wetlands Is So Indefensible That He Lost Brett Kavanaugh (Slate)

How major brands were forced into the conservative plan to target LGBTQ people (NBC News)

NYC Mayor Eric Adams Asks To Suspend ‘Right To Shelter’ Rule, Citing Illegal Immigrant Influx

Here Are the Two Democrats Who Voted With Republicans to Block Student Debt Relief (The New Republic) Hunting or heretics and sinners.

Dishonest Joy Reid Deceptively Edits RNC Chair’s Comments on Debt Limit Crisis

Christian Teacher Banned for ‘Misgendering’

‘Squad’ Dem Bowman: Republicans ‘Economic Terrorists’

Twitter Engineering Chief ‘Resigns’ Day After DeSantis Campaign Launch Glitches  A little bit of sabotage by a Woke holdover?

ELECTION INTERFERENCE: LinkedIn Censors GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy

CNN Can Never Wash Away the Trump Disaster Stench (Daily Beast)

Biden Blasts ‘Science Defying’ Supreme Court Ruling Against EPA Overreach

State Department Partners With Left-Leaning Media in Propaganda Push, Documents Reveal

Wray to Meet Comer Over Alleged Biden Pay-to-Play Document

Top Biden official repeatedly met with Soros’ foundation and other influential left-wing groups, docs show (Fox)

Biden DOJ Drops All Charges Against Soros-Backed DA Who Resigned: Turley The Crust take care of their own.

Legislation To Block Biden’s ATF Rule Stalls As Millions Set To Become Felons Overnight 

The Russia Collusion Hoax Lives On. Or Does It?

Biden Says Anyone Can Crash Twitter, It Takes A Real Leader To Crash Economy (Babylon Bee)

2 in 3 Americans Say Biden Reelection Would Be ‘Disaster’ or ‘Setback’ for America

Left Seeks to Extend Voting to Prisoners, Noncitizens to Expand Base

The Guardian.

Ten lighthouses that for generations have stood like sentinels along America’s shorelines protecting mariners from peril and guiding them to safety are being given away at no cost or sold at auction by the federal government.

The aim of the program run by the General Services Administration is to preserve the properties, most of which are more than a century old.

Washington Free Beacon.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) is under federal investigation for allegedly accepting a luxury car and apartment from a halal meat company.

Federal agents are investigating whether Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian received the gifts from IS EG Halal, a New Jersey company that won an exclusive contract with the Egyptian government to certify halal meat exports to the country, a decision that attracted scrutiny because the business is run by a Christian and lacks experience in halal certification. Now law enforcement is working to determine whether Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that dishes out billions of dollars to Egypt, took action in the Senate to benefit the company in exchange for gifts.

This is not the first time that Senator Menendez has been investigated for corruption.

Menendez was previously tried in 2017 in a public-corruption case, which ended in a mistrial. He was tried for allegedly taking $1 million in gifts—including private flights and trips—from a Florida doctor who wanted help with visas.

Read it.

In 2017, Dr. Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago complained that the residual effects of Christianity were holding Western civilization back. How? It was Christian ethics, he said, that were preventing legal infanticide from making a comeback.

“The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think that comes from religion, in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul,” he wrote. “It’s the same mindset that, in many places, won’t allow abortion of fetuses that have severe deformities. When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.”

Many philosophers share Coyne’s views. Princeton bio-ethicist Peter Singer argues that only religious superstition is keeping us from killing infants, a practice he believes to be perfectly ethical. As he wrote in Practical Ethics: “Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.” For Singer, the baby-killing of our bloody pagan past is a source of nostalgia rather than horror.

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

How bad is America’s education system? Worse than you can possibly imagine.

Tom Veal.

In the post mortems on Ron DeSantis’s less that wholly satisfactory campaign debut, I’ve seen plenty of derision – Donald Trump is firmly aligned with the Left here – and some pro-DeSantis apologetics, mostly along the lines of, “Everybody will forget this in a week or two.” What I haven’t seen is so much as a breath of suspicion that the Twitter Spaces meltdown might not have been simply the result of the deployment of not-adequately-tested technology. Yet the grounds for suspicion sit in plain sight.

When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, many, many employees did not welcome their new overlord, to put it mildly. They were overwhelmingly Musk-hostile for a variety of reasons, some stemming from his imperious management style, others from dislike of his perceived political opinions, which jibe poorly with the tech world’s longstanding woke orthodoxy and increasingly woke orthopraxis. Many malcontents were fired in the wake of the takeover, but Musk couldn’t, even if he seriously tried, get rid of them all and conjure a loyal work force into being.

Read it.

Authorities in Germany have arrested two brothers, both Syrian nationals, on suspicion of planning to carry out an Islamist terror attack on a packed church in Sweden, a joint press release by state and federal police and the public prosecutor’s office revealed on Tuesday, May 23rd.

In the joint press release by the German federal police, Hamburg state police, and the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office, authorities say that the two brothers, 24-year-old Ahmad K. and 28-year-old Anas K., were arrested for preparing to detonate a homemade explosive device at an unspecified church in Sweden, the Berlin-based newspaper Die Welt reports.

While 28-year-old Anas K., the case’s primary suspect, was arrested at his home in Hamburg during the early morning hours of April 25th, his brother, 24-year-old Ahmad. K., who was initially only suspected of being an accessory, was arrested on Tuesday, May 23rd, at his apartment in Kempten, Bavaria.

Upon carrying out searches of the brothers’ residences, investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) recovered evidence linking the men to the planned attack, including bomb-making chemicals and clues pointing to the alleged target of the attack on a number of burner cell phones and computers.

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.

ZMan peers behind the curtain.

This week we have seen two more contenders join the Republican primary field, promising to be happy warriors to save America. Tim Scott from South Carolina and Ron DeSantis of Florida bring the field to eight, as far as the candidates with any chance of getting on the debate stage. With the exception of Trump and Ramaswamy, the field is all doing some version of conservative nostalgia. That is a mix of the crucible, the covenant, and the creed.

That last bit comes from a short little book titled After Nationalism which describes the three main ways the American ruling class has unified the country. The crucible is the melting pot story of America. The covenant is the claim that America has a special purpose in the world. The creed is the old familiar civic nationalist argument that America is just a collection of ideas. Conservatism has relied on all three to market candidates and programs over the years.

The theme of the book is that those three unifying narratives are no longer working as the country devolves into warring tribes. You can see that in the presentation from the Republican candidates as they announce their campaigns. The Tim Scott show was like a 1990’s Conservative Inc. fantasy about the black vote. The DeSantis campaign teased his announcement with this ad on Twitter, which is Bush era patriotism without the promise of a crusade against Islam.

COVID still kills 1 person every 4 minutes despite the global emergency being officially over (Fortune)

336.8 million years of life were lost due to COVID-19, WHO says (Boston Globe)

COVID still killing 1 person every 4 minutes as vaccine rates fall (Seattle Times)

COVID kills 1 person every 4 minutes as vaccine rates fall (St Louis Post-Dispatch)

GOP Lawmakers Press for Withdrawal From WHO

China faces a new Covid wave that could peak at 65 million cases a week (NBC News)

FDA Grants Full Approval to COVID Pill Paxlovid

How Biden gave McCarthy a ‘victory’ on the debt limit — while giving away absolutely nothing (MSNBC) As always happens.

VP Harris allegedly silent on plea from world’s former ‘murder capital’ as leaders offer US migrant advice (N.Y. Post)

House passes measure overturning Biden’s student debt forgiveness program (The Hill)

Biden Admin Pushing to Make AI Incubator for Leftist Politics

Biden Marks Anniversary Of Uvalde Massacre By Renewing Call For Stricter Gun Control (Huffington Post) Amazing how none of the proposed measures would have prevented, or even mitigated, the ‘massacre’ that prompted them.

IRS: DOJ Behind Biden Probe Whistleblower Removal

CBS Rediscovers Hunter Biden Scandal With IRS Whistleblower Interview

How Biden’s DHS Is Weaponizing an Anti-Terror Program Against Christians, Conservatives & the GOP

Biden Admin’s Grants to Left-Wing Projects Aim to ‘Destroy’ Conservatives, Watchdog Says

Tennessee to Send 100 National Guard Troops to Southern Border

Migrant Children Released into United States by Biden Admin Are Being Put to Work, Lawmakers Say

Democrats unanimously back debt ceiling discharge petition (The Hill) No doubt they do

.House Ethics Committee Concludes Probe Into Rep. Eric Swalwell’s Associations With Alleged Chinese Spy  The Crust take care of their own.

Parents Take School Board to Court for Assigning LGBTQ Books Without Their Consent

Criminal Justice Disaster

“There’s Poop Everywhere”: San Francisco’s Office District Not Only A Ghost Town, It’s Also Covered In Sh*t

Drag Queen Urges People to ‘Come Out’ in North Face Pride Ad

Withdrawing Your Own Cash? NatWest Bank Wants To Know Why… And See Proof  Time to change banks.

NBC Bemoans Target Removing Transgender, Pro-Satan Clothing

Supreme Court sides with grandmother who lost home, equity because of back taxes (USA Today)

Teachers’ Union Told LA Dodgers Students Could Die If Drag Queen Nuns Weren’t Re-Invited to Pride Night

Target loses $9B in week following boycott calls over LGBTQ-friendly kids clothing (N.Y. Post)

Mitchell, Socialist Rep. Want To Spend Even More Money Amid Debt Fight

Moving to France Showed Me True Cost of ‘Free’ European Health Care, Child Care, and Retirement  TANSTSAFL.

San Francisco Mayor Flees Speech on Crime as Violent Crime Is Committed

Shipping in the Arctic faces foggy future as sea ice melts (The Guardian)

Warning: Arctic’s “Last Ice Area” Faces Meltdown (SciTechDaily)

An improved view of global sea ice (European Space Agency)

Are flours made with pulses better for us? (BBC)

‘Worthless’: Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says (The Guardian)

Supreme Court weakens EPA power to enforce Clean Water Act (Washington Post)

Supreme Court rolls back federal safeguards for wetlands under Clean Water Act (CNN) If a drunk pisses on the sidewalk, the EPA will classify it as a “wetland”.

Supreme Court Limits E.P.A.’s Power to Address Water Pollution (N.Y. Times)

CNN Mourns EPA Losing 5-4 At Supreme Court (It Was 9-0)

Climate Activist Scientists Get all Verklempt Their Echo Chamber No Longer Exists on Twitter, Throw Tantrums and Leave

Seattle Firefighters Now Drilled on Ibram Kendi Before Promotion to Top Jobs 

US cities to pay record $80m to people injured in 2020 racial justice protests (The Guardian) “Racial justice”? Say rather “insurrection”.

Black Activists Distance Themselves From Black Lives Matter Amid Financial Collapse  Race hustlers will get you in trouble every time.

‘Black Marxist’ Professor Fired After Vandalizing Pro-Life Display, Chasing Reporter With Machete

WATCH: DeSantis Calls Out NAACP Leaders Who Vacation in Florida

How Blacks’ Experience in Idaho Differs From National Narrative

Kentucky Republicans Who Backed Black Candidate May Have ‘Racist Intent,’ Liberal Columnist Argues

School That Allegedly Had ‘Black’ Classrooms Now in More Trouble (Daily Beast)

White Kentucky Newspaper Columnist SMEARS Daniel Cameron as Betrayal to His Race

San Francisco These Days: Elderly Gay White Photographer Shot Dead for His Camera by a Black Woman, Jury Deadlocks

Three Years of Racial Reckoning: How’s That Working Out for You?

Now’s the time to think about just how bad a DeSantis presidency would be (The Guardian) Let the witch-hunt begin!

Thomas has highest unfavorability on Supreme Court: Poll (The Hill) Not surprising, since he refuses to act like a Democrat Tame Negro.

New poll shows approval of Supreme Court dipping (NBC News) Not surprising, after a years-long witch-hunt by the Narrative media.

Tucker Carlson was fired before he could give a conspiracy-theory-fueled monologue alleging a January 6 protester was actually an FBI informant, biographer says (Business Insider India)

Tucker Carlson’s War Against Fox News Will Only Get Dirtier (Daily Beast)

‘Cat 5’ Politics: NC Gov. Declares “State Of Emergency” Over Approaching Democratic System

FAKE NEWS: CBS Peddles Tall Tale About Poem Being ‘Banned’ From Florida School

Jack Dorsey shares Robert F. Kennedy Jr. video echoing conspiracy theories (NBC News) “The Real Anthony Fauci”. Look for it online.

Here’s a look at the most contentious legislation DeSantis has signed leading up to his presidential bid (Politico)

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch melts down in Twitter glitches (NBC News) Now that there’s an election coming, NBC doesn’t have to pretend to be an unbiased news site any more.

Unhinged Whoopi Claims Gov. DeSantis Used Body Double in Presidential Campaign Ad

Newsom Stigmatizes Conservatives Over Backlash to Target Pride Month Merchandise

Elon Musk’s Event With Ron DeSantis Exposes Twitter’s Weaknesses (N.Y. Times)

Florida Mom Behind Amanda Gorman Book Ban Has Proud Boy Links (Daily Beast) Dunh dunh DUNHHH….

James Comer Now Falsely Claims He Didn’t Link Biden Probe to Trump Poll Numbers (Daily Beast) And the Daily Beast falsely claims that he did. We report, you decide.

TRIGGERED: The Atlantic Cries Elon Musk Turned Twitter Into ‘Right-Wing, Alt-Tech’ Platform

Jan. 6 Megadonor Helping Ohio GOP Preemptively Overturn Will of the Voters (The Intercept)

DHS used terrorism prevention program to fund group linking GOP to white supremacists (Washington Examiner)

Michigan Man Gets Community Service for Shooting Anti-Abortion Campaigner (Associated Press)

CNN Warns Of ‘Stochastic Terrorism’ Amid ‘Totalitarian ‘Target Boycott

Target’s surrender to MAGA rage shows how anti-wokeness really works (Washington Post) MAGA here, MAGA there, MAGA MAGA everywhere! Greg Sargent loses his shit.

Henry Kissinger at 100: Still a War Criminal (Mother Jones) Don’t hold it in; tell us how you really feel.

LinkedIn Censors Presidential Candidate Who Says Fossil Fuels ‘Required For Prosperity’

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes sentenced to 18 years in prison for plot to keep Trump in power (CNN) Pretty extreme, considering that he wasn’t even present on Capitol Hill that day.

The Head of the Republican Party Literally Said a Default Could Bode “Very Well” for the GOP (Vanity Fair) As indeed it could, because it would lay bare the intention of Democrats to spend the country into the poorhouse no matter what.

Amanda Gorman’s poem for Biden’s inauguration banned by Florida school (Associated Press) No, it wasn’t. Schools don’t have the power to ban anything. Only government can do that. What they did was remove it from their library as inappropriate for young children, a fact that is obvious on its face.

Greenwald: Regime Journalists Promote The “Right” Conspiracy Theories To Be Successful

Jim Jordan To Try To Defund The FBI To Protect Trump (PoliticusUSA) Amazing how left-wing journalists can all read minds.

DeSantis is adrift in the boundless sea of right-wing jargon (Washington Post) In contrast to Philip Bump, who is adrift in the boundless sea of left-wing jargon,  said sea consisting mostly of bile.

EXCLUSIVE: Maine School Board Asks Church What It Believes About Marriage, Abortion, Gender Before Denying Lease

The Dirty Money Behind the Lynching of Clarence Thomas

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

Of all the strange phenomena of our strange era, the most inexplicable to me is woke capitalism. We see it all around us: Major League Baseball moving the All-star Game out of Atlanta (does anyone remember why?), Delta Airlines aligning itself with the Democratic Party, the Bud Light fiasco.

Along with Budweiser, a number of other companies have driven off the “pride” cliff. This is only a partial list, but let’s start with Target. Target has been aggressively featuring its Pride collection, which includes women’s swimsuits with extra crotch room to make them comfortable for “women” who are men.

Rep. Comer: FBI Doesn’t ‘Respect Anyone in Congress’

Republican AGs Demand Biden Admin Protect Title IX

Texas AG Paxton slaps Biden admin with lawsuit over use of CBP One app: ‘Pre-approving more foreign aliens’ (Fox)

House votes in favor of overturning Biden truck pollution rule (The Hill)

CNN Poll: 60% say debt ceiling increase should come with spending cuts (CNN)

WATCH: Biden Monkeypox Adviser Makes Taxpayer-Funded Appearance in BDSM Harness

PBS Ignores Own Poll Showing 62% of Voters Worried About Biden’s Mental Fitness

Biden Immigration Policies Help Terrorists Take Advantage of ‘Glaring Vulnerabilities’ At Border, Lawmakers Say

Biden Spent $1 Billion To Get Schools Electric Buses. This Michigan District Says Theirs Hardly Work.

WTI Extends Gains After Huge Crude Draw, 8th Straight Week Of SPR Drains

Paternity Parlay: Sportsbook Takes Bets on Hunter Biden Child Support Dispute

Texas Sues Biden Administration Over Asylum Rule

McMaken: Three Lies They’re Telling You About The Debt Ceiling

Nation Unsure How The Government Not Being Able To Borrow More Money Is A Crisis (Babylon Bee)

‘Devout Catholic’ Biden Silent Amid Outrage Over Anti-Catholic, ‘Transgender Nuns’ Promoted By LA Dodgers

Poet laureate can’t define a ‘ban’

Trump lawyers seek meeting with Garland as Mar-a-Lago investigation shows signs of winding down (Associated Press)

Trump lawyers demand meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland (MSNBC)

Trump attorneys request meeting with AG Garland over ‘unfair treatment’: ‘Ongoing injustice’ (Fox)

Trump attorneys request meeting with Garland on special counsel’s investigation (CNN)

Trump Blasts Violation of Free Speech, Trial Date

The deepening radicalization of Donald J. Trump (Washington Post) Absurd. There is nothing radical about Donald Trump, except his refusal to countenance the further communization of America.

DeSantis Allies’ $200 Million Plan for Beating Trump (N.Y. Times)

Why aren’t we talking more about Trump’s business with the Saudis? (Washington Post) Because nobody gives a shit except anti-Trump progs.

Trump’s Lawyers Warn Him: Get Ready to Be Indicted by the Feds (Rolling Stone) They hope, they hope, they hope….

OBSESSED: CNN and MSNBC Mention Trump by Name 399 Times in 10 Hours  It’s all about the clicks. Without Trump, they have no viewers.

New framework will allow firms to assess their impact on nature (The Guadian)

How hot is California going to get this summer? Here’s what experts say (L.A. Times)

Heat Wave and Blackout Would Send Half of Phoenix to E.R., Study Says (N.Y. Times)

Green Projects Hit Iron Wall

How Twitter became a haven for climate misinformation (Public Notice) In the Narrative media, ‘misinformation’ is anything that disagrees with the Narrative.

Recycling is Bad for the Environment: Study