Scott Johnson at Power Line.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a fool. He nevertheless thinks extremely highly of himself. His vanity is only one component of his clown show. To borrow a line from Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind,” it’s a wonder he stills know how to breathe.

Heritage Foundation scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth contributed the latest episode in Whitehouse’s long-running Looney Tunes saga when she testified on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee on “the real price of fossil fuels” (hearing posted here). As Director of Heritage’s Energy and Climate Center, Furchtgott-Roth testified on the real cost of Biden’s energy agenda.

Whitehouse posed a line of questions that sought to discredit Furchtgott-Roth on an ad hominem (or ad feminam) basis. The ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy in the context of public policy arguments. However, Furchtgott-Roth came ready to ramble. In the event, Whitehouse played Elmer Fudd to Furchtgott-Roth’s wascally wabbit. She turned Whitehouse’s shotgun blasts back on Whitehouse himself.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

The war in Ukraine had dropped off the front page starting late last year with the Russians slowly grinding down the Ukrainians. Now that summer is not far away, it looks like things will start heating up. The recent drone attacks on the Kremlin have brought the war back to the front pages. The long promised Ukrainian offensive is due any week now and the Russians seem to be preparing something as well.

The drone attack on the Kremlin is another one of those times where you get a glimpse into the psyche of the people running the war for the regime. They greenlight a caper and then claim that the victim of the caper did it to himself. We saw this with the Nord Stream pipeline attack. At first, they cheered, then they made up a story about how the Russians blew up their own pipelines to make Washington look bad.

In this case, the story is the Russians attacked their own buildings so they can have an excuse to kill Zelensky. Poor Zelensky is traveling around Europe right now thinking he is about to get a polonium cocktail from room service. In his last public appearance, he looked like he was about to cry. There is now talk that he may not return to Ukraine at all and just do his job by zoom.

Quilette.

Like the rest of my generation, I have been anxious and apprehensive for as long as I can recall. The crippling anxieties of Gen-Z and younger millennials are everywhere apparent; we have a mental-health epidemic with a higher generational suicide risk, which have variously been attributed to awareness of worldly chaos, the COVID-19 pandemic, and chronic onlineness. We have grown up comfortable indoors, isolated with the computer, console, or TV, and reliant upon Instagram and disembodied voices in place of social interaction. We accept one or two posts as “news” and information we see online as “facts,” usually without further research. South Park has remodeled Cartman after the image of the doomscrolling, internally distraught Gen-Zer, and I can’t help but see myself and my peers in him. This generational affliction has hindered our ability to communicate and problem-solve, and the technology upon which we are so hopelessly dependent has only enabled an inflation of animosity and alienation, further aggravating a crisis of hyperpolarization and mental-health issues.

 

The American Mind.

Since Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 election, a rash of articles, surveys, and books have claimed that many—maybe even most—Americans in flyover country are “Christian nationalists.” That’s supposed to sound scary. But the term is mostly used as a smear against conservative Christians who defend the role of religion in American public life.

Sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry give the perceived threat a scholarly gloss in their recent book from Oxford University Press, Taking America Back for God. They define Christian nationalism as “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular type of Christian identity and culture.” What’s more, it “includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.” That’s quite a parade of horribles.

How many such people are there? In a survey conducted between 2007 and 2017, the pair found a whopping 52% support some form of Christian nationalism.

Washington Free Beacon.

Roughly 700,000 migrants are waiting in Mexico to cross the southern border upon the expiration of Title 42 next week, according to Border Patrol officials.

“Border Patrol shared with us their intelligence that there are approximately 700,000, as of three weeks ago, in the shelters in Mexico waiting to come into the United States,” Jonathan Lines, supervisor on Arizona’s Yuma County Board of Supervisors, said this week. He added that border officials said there is a 500 percent increase in migrants crossing the Darién Gap, which connects South and Central America.

Title 42, a pandemic-era rule that allows agents to immediately turn migrants away at the border, expires on May 11. Once it lapses, the Biden administration plans to expand catch and release protocols that will potentially allow hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants into the country.

Read it.

Illegal demonstrations apparently are continuing to take place at the homes of the Supreme Court justices despite federal law forbidding such activities.

Far-left activists with Our Rights DC posted video on Thursday evening showing them demonstrating at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home, chanting, “We want ethics on the court.” Their remarks come as Democratic lawmakers call for the Supreme Court to adopt new processes for recusals and ethics allegations—essentially making the court answerable to Congress.

This protesting has frequently occurred in spite of 18 U.S. Code 1507, which forbids picketing or parading “in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer” with the intent of intimidating or influencing that person.

The Foundry.

If you search “San Francisco crime spike” on the internet, you will find countless stories—going back years—about how the city’s problems are no big deal or are due to forces beyond the control of its policymakers.

The problem isn’t crime, it’s crime rhetoric, they say.

But rhetoric didn’t cause a cascade of businesses to close and flee the city.

…

It’s better to pay a few extra bucks for shipping than to wait around in a store for a clerk to open a case for shaving cream or to get sucker-punched by a deranged, drug-addled lunatic in Aisle 5.

Read it.

Stretched limos are gone for now, but luxury chauffeur services are still thriving. It’s just the mode of transport has changed. And in a country where progressive policies have sparked a nationwide crime wave in major metro areas, no one in their right mind would dare drive around in a moving target.

One of the virtues (if one can call it that) of high urban crime rates is that it persuades rich people to be less conspicuously consumptive.

Victor Davis Hanson.

How odd that those on the Left who in the past decried “American imperialism” are now proving the greatest imperialists of all.

The Foundry.

The White House wants every K-12 student to be part of the welfare system. And in its zeal to achieve that goal, pesky things like Congress or the risk of expanding already poorly performing programs pose no obstacles.

President Joe Biden’s administration is continuing the work of President Barack Obama’s team and trying to put as many students as possible on federal school meal programs. The current administration is proposing a significant expansion of school meals, turning a program meant for children from low-income families into an entitlement—akin to welfare—for all students.

Created in 1946 to help poor school-aged children who did not have food to eat at school, the National School Lunch Program has since spawned breakfast and other meal services.

Read it.

According to a report from Chicago’s WGN9, a hidden AirTag led to the arrest of two men who stole $1.1 million from an armored Brink truck. The device was hidden in one of the plastic money bins, likely placed there by the asset owner.

The men removed seven plastic bins containing about $100,000 each and ten deposit bags worth $50,000 each. After transporting the stolen money across town and through a few hiding spots, the money and the AirTag arrived at the suspect’s hideout.

They don’t make hideouts like they used to.

Irish reporters ask Trump why he’s golfing in Ireland instead of attending NYC civil rape trial (N.Y. Daily News)

Judge Tosses Trump’s Lawsuit Against NY Times, Orders Him to Pay All Legal Fees (Daily Beast)

Exclusive: Special counsel probing Trump Organization’s handling of Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage (CNN)

Donald Trump’s Rape Trial Goes From One Disaster to Another (Daily Beast) Walls are closing in, etc. etc.

How Trump’s Legal Jeopardy Will Test American Democracy (Daily Beast) In the Narrative media, ‘American democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

Behind Trump’s musical tribute to some of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters (Washington Post)

Trump is inviting Dems to make 2024 about Jan. 6. And they’re obliging. (Washington Post)

How to make your wardrobe sustainable (BBC) God forbid you have an unsustainable wardrobe.

Ocean Temperatures Reach Unprecedented Territory, Alarm Scientists (The Weather Channel)

Aussie Green Energy Shock: Snowy Hydro Cost and Completion Time Blowout

“The thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial”

EU Backs Controversial Dutch Plans To Shut Down Farms In Bid To Reduce Nitrogen Emissions

The Left’s Favorite Pro-Renewable Energy ‘Watchdog’ Doesn’t Legally Exist

RFK Jr. Says Climate Change Being Exploited To Push ‘Totalitarian Controls’

‘Paper can’t be a solution to plastic waste’: Canadian environmentalists warn about the rise in single-use paper products  Sure it can.

Westinghouse announces a new small modular nuclear reactor

ATLANTA ACTIVE SHOOTER: Suspected gunman arrested after killing 1, injuring 4 others in Midtown (WSB Atlanta)

Even After Capture, ABC/CBS Refuse to Say Texas Shooter Deported 4X

Is There a Difference in How White Men and Black Men Fight?

WP: The Great Replacement Isn’t Great Enough!

Crazy People Are Dangerous: Can You Guess Where ‘Defund the Police’ Leads?

New video reveals Tucker Carlson’s coarse remark about Dominion lawyer (The Guardian) Coarse!

The other thing that Tucker Carlson’s text message makes undeniable (Washington Post) Philip Bump is undeniable. Undeniable!

See the text that may have gotten Tucker Carlson fired (CNN) ThoughtCrime!

“How White Men Fight” (Mother Jones) White men aren’t allowed to fight!

Newly revealed text confirms Tucker Carlson is also privately racist (MSNBC) As opposed to MSNBC, which is publicly racist.

Uh, Oh! NPR Gets Triggered Over Elon Musk — Again

Poll: 36 Percent Would Watch Carlson Online

Dem Senator: Scalia accepted over 70 undisclosed gifts similar to Clarence Thomas (AlterNet)

Emails Reveal ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Herschel Walker Money Scandal (Daily Beast) Jaw-dropping!

Calif. Teacher Fired Over Gender Policies Sues

Attempt To Remove Soros-Backed Prosecutor Moves Forward; She Vows To Fight ‘Witch Hunt’

‘He’s Wrong,’ Expert Says as Education Secretary Implies Book Banning Responsible for Falling Civics, History Scores

Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition. (ProPublica) Think of it as reparations in action. Crow still has no business before the Supreme Court.

Daughter of Representative Katherine Clark sentenced to probation for assault on Boston police officer (Boston Globe) Good thing she wasn’t a Republican or she’d be in prison for years.

Scarborough Ignores Sotomayor News To Ask What If Thomas ‘Were Justice Sotomayor’

Liberal SCOTUS Justice Took $3M From Book Publisher, Didn’t Recuse From Its Cases (Daily Wire)

CNN Welcomes Back Toobin To Attack Clarence Thomas As Unethical

Hate-Filled KC Star Smears Pro-Women Group as ‘Anti-Trans,’ Refuses to Run Op-Ed

The GOP megadonors with buyer’s remorse (MSNBC) Charlie Sykes goes full prog.

Media Matters Accidentally Makes Tucker Carlson Look Awesome With ‘Leaked’ Videos

ABC, NBC Buzzards Circle Justice Thomas, Ignore NEW Sotomayor Book Scandal

MSNBC Admits No Evidence Of Corruption, Still Demands Thomas Resign Or Be Impeached

Top Senate Democrats push for new ethics rules in wake of Clarence Thomas report as Republicans defend justice (CNN)

GOP frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters (CNN)

Lauren Boebert hit with new campaign finance complaint for ‘illegally spending $60,000’ (Raw Story)

In defense of Justice Thomas

Ben Shapiro.

This week, the media found its latest iteration of its favorite narrative: white man harms black man.

That iteration featured a 24-year-old white Marine from Queens attempting to suppress a 30-year-old homeless, psychotic black man, Jordan Neely, via use of a suppression hold. Neely was apparently threatening people on the subway when the Marine took him down from behind, keeping him in the suppression hold for 15 minutes; Neely died shortly thereafter.

The extraordinarily inflammatory and insipid Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., immediately rushed to Twitter in order to gin up outrage: “Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It’s disgusting.”

Read it.

A freshman Democratic congressman who just happens to represent Wall Street made a perfectly timed sale of his ownership stake in a troubled California bank, exiting his position just days before it saw its stock price enter freefall.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D., N.Y.), who represents the Financial District in Lower Manhattan, sold upwards of $15,000 worth of stocks of PacWest Bancorp on March 6, his financial disclosures show. The timing of Goldman’s sale couldn’t have been more fortuitous—its stock plummeted in value just two days later as investors fled from small and mid-sized banks amid news of Silicon Valley Bank’s pending failure. PacWest’s stock was valued at $27.40 the day Goldman exited his position in the bank. It’s now worth just $3.42, a staggering decline of more than 87 percent.

Such trades are standard fare for Goldman, who is giving former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) a run for her money as Congress’s most prolific stock trader. In his first four months in office, Goldman has made over 500 stock trades valuing between $10 million and $30 million, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of his financial disclosures.

The American Mind.

In an incident sadly familiar to many New Yorkers, a man living on the streets with a long history of mental illness started screaming, acting erratically, and threatening the people sharing his subway car earlier this week. “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison,” screamed the 30-year-old Jordan Neely, who had 44 arrests under his belt and an outstanding warrant for felony assault, as he flailed around throwing items of his clothing. “I’m ready to die!”

In response, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran put Neely in a chokehold, incapacitating him and releasing him after he stopped struggling and passed out. A freelance reporter who took video of the incident, Juan Alberto Vazquez, told news outlets that no one on the train initially thought Neely was in any worse shape than being unconscious, but by the time the police who met the train at the station took him to a nearby hospital, Neely was pronounced dead.

Police questioned the young man, whose name they did not make public, but released him without charges pending an investigation. In the next 36 hours, the usual suspects began to gin up the outrage machine. Readers online lambasted The New York Times for not immediately declaring Neely a murder victim and characterized the incident as having racist implications; Neely is black, and the Marine is white. Governor Kathy Hochul declared the case “troubling.” AOC tweeted, “Jordan Neely was murdered” and declared that funding the police is “militarized” and “disgusting.” By the end of the week, it’s likely Jordan Neely will be on the front of every paper, forcing the country to consider whether erratic and threatening behavior from someone clearly out of his mind justifies the application of force in self-defense.

Ann Coulter.

Having failed to destroy Clarence Thomas 32 years ago with preposterous sexual harassment charges (disbelieved at the time by 60% of Americans), now the left is resorting to attacking the ethics of a man vastly more honorable than the collection of degenerates reviling him.

The sole purpose of the media’s sudden fixation on the Supreme Court’s “ethics” is to morally intimidate conservative justices by reminding them that the left controls the culture. Since they lost abortion, liberals have been in a panic that the court will junk other liberal sacraments, like gay marriage and affirmative action, too. That’s the reason for the stream of calumnies directed at the justices.

As usual, the main target of the left’s rage is Thomas. We’re supposed to be appalled that Thomas’ billionaire friend Harlan Crow took the justice and his wife on a vacation that (the media claim) would have cost Thomas more than $500,000!!!

Well, yeah, but Thomas and his wife, Ginny, weren’t going alone. They hadn’t just won a cruise sweepstakes. They were joining Crow on a vacation he was taking anyway. Cost to donor: a few extra chicken cutlets and string beans.

…

The media want us to believe that generosity from personal friends is an ethical issue, but that’s because that’s not how liberals bribe government officials. They bombard their targets with the sort of public adoration that money can’t buy — or the sort of public hate that money can’t block. Your choice: Be beloved from every corner of society or be subjected to nonstop ridicule.

Associated Press.

Republican state senators in Oregon didn’t show up to work on Wednesday, denying the Democrats who control the chamber a quorum and casting doubt on planned votes later this week on legislation pertaining to gun safety, abortion rights and gender-affirming health care.

The American Mind.

It might not matter whom Republicans run for president in 2024.

America’s propaganda press traffics in disinformation. Its Big Tech oligarchs censor news and information helpful to conservatives, while elevating biased news and information that helps the Left. And its election systems have been overrun by privately funded groups that run Democratic “get out the vote” campaigns to traffic ballots into ballot boxes. We catalogued this particularly complex problem in Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.

Instead of election day, we now have an “election season”—during which, over a period of months, we flood homes across the country with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, regardless of whether secretaries of state or local registrars have any idea if those ballots are being sent to the correct addresses. This in a country where 11% of residents move every year. We then wait for sophisticated partisan turnout operations funded by activist billionaires and run by ideological statisticians to round up those ballots in entirely selective ways.

Trump had ‘40 zillion hands’ during alleged groping attack, called accuser a ‘c-nt’ on 2nd meeting: testimony (N.Y. Post) And if you believe that one, she’ll tell you another one.

Trump assault accuser Jessica Leeds on taking the stand in E. Jean Carroll’s Trump rape civil trial (MSNBC)

Trump Makes at Least One Good Decision at His Rape Trial (Daily Beast)

E. Jean Carroll sounded ‘breathless’ and ‘emotional’ in call after alleged rape, friend testifies (CNN) With visions of dollar signs dancing in her head.

Why CNN Gave Trump a Prime-Time Town Hall—And Why Trump Accepted (Vanity Fair) Mind-reading in the Narrative media! It is of course ludicrous to pretend that anybody writing for Vanity Fair has a clue as to why Trump does what he does.

Trump’s Next Criminal Charge Is Practically on the Calendar (Vice) Practically! Almost certain! Very close! Just about!

There remains little value in broadcasting Trump’s comments live (Washington Post) There remains little value in reading what Philip Bump writes.

E. Jean Carroll’s Quest for Justice and the Carnage of Donald Trump’s Misogyny (Vanity Fair) Hey, we’ve got a few spare minute, let’s bash Trump.

Dem Megadonor Funding Trump Rape Lawsuit Visited Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Pedophile Island’

Judge Rejects Zooey Zephyr Effort to Return to Montana House

House Democrats prepare long shot plan to try to force debt ceiling increase (ABC News)

California Bill Would Require Books on ‘All Gender Expressions’ in Every Elementary School

Congress Failed to Hold DOJ, FBI, ATF Accountable for 1993 Waco Disaster. Something Like It Could Happen Again.

Democrat Cities Have Highest Homicide Rates, Report Finds

Oregon ‘Gender-Affirming,’ Abortion Access Bill Advances to State Senate

Ireland Government’s Hate Speech Bill Promotes ‘Thought Crime Legislation’

Lina Khan: We Must Regulate A.I. Here’s How. (N.Y. Times) “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” — Benito Mussolini.

Switzerland Wants Children to Eat Less Chocolate, More Insects (Wall Street Journal)

Pro-Life? Leftists Accidentally Acknowledge Serena Williams Is Pregnant With a Baby, Not a Clump of Cells

‘They Worked Together,’ CNN Relitigates And Denies The 2000 Election

Nordstrom Closing 2 San Francisco Stores, Cites Crime

It’s Not Just Math and Reading: U.S. History Scores for 8th Graders Plunge

European Green War on Agriculture: Farmers Banned for Life if they Want Compensation

The View Denies Existence of Antifa, ‘Thought it Was a Kitty Cat’ Name

Germany: Trans Women Will Be Drafted as Men  Heh.

Calling A Bluff: Florida Man Shows Fallacies Of Inclusivity By Winning Women’s Poker Event

Dem Rep Katie Porter’s Hand-Picked Replacement Just Got a DUI

Nashville Police Block Release of Transgender Shooter’s Manifesto  Every public employee every day: “We can’t tell people that!”

Caught Off Base: Illinois Lobbyists’ Bribery Convictions Stop Political Softball Game Put on by Lobbyists

Footage Found Of Gas Stove Participating In Jan 6 Riot  (Babylon Bee)

Person believed to be the man accused of killing 5 neighbors in Texas is apprehended after manhunt (NBC News)

Officer Who First Stopped Tyre Nichols Won’t Be Charged

Carlson’s Text That Alarmed Fox Leaders: ‘It’s Not How White Men Fight’ (N.Y. Times) The Times, of course, is All About Race.

MSNBC’s Racial Arsonists Cry: Woke Means GOP Wants Black People Erased!

Boy, 14, Shoots 9 Dead in Serbian Classroom  Didn’t know they had Aspiring Rappers in Serbia.

NYT: Tucker Was Fired for Noticing Difference Between Black and White Fights

Mexican Illegal Alien Who Slaughtered 5 Is Caught, WP Illustrates with Another Photo of White People Standing Around

When Race Trumps Merit, with Heather Mac Donald

Several Arrested for Helping Illegal Immigrant Murder Suspect Hide

Left Assails Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Chief Diversity Officer for Pronouncing DEI ‘Dead’

Jackson Mahomes Arrested for Aggravated Sexual Battery

Shooting in Atlanta Building Leaves 1 Dead, 3 Injured (NewsMax) The picture makes it clear that the shooter was a Person of Color.

Some Black Californians Might Get $1.2M in Reparations  Even though California was never a slave state, and nobody living ever was a slave or ever owned a slave. Time to leave.

Going for Broke: California’s Reparations Tax Force Ups Potential Payouts to $1.2M Per Person

Editorial: Texas governor’s ‘illegal immigrants’ remark deflects from mass shooting horror (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Abbott’s tweet labeling Texas shooting victims ‘illegal immigrants’ was inhumane (Star-Telegram)

Clarence Thomas’s ethics are not the Supreme Court’s only problem (Washington Post) Philip Bump is not the only witch-hunter at the Washington Post.

An Anti-Trans Doctor Group Leaked 10,000 Confidential Files (Wired) Which they would have applauded had it been a pro-trans doctor group.

NYC’s Adams: Abbott’s Migrant-Busing Targets ‘Black-Run’ Cities  Which is any city run by Democrats.

6 Takeaways as Senate Democrats Target Clarence Thomas and Legitimacy of Supreme Court (The Foundry)

The Corrupt High Court (Talking Points Mem0)

How 18 Republicans Just Made Democratic Recapture of the House More Likely (The New Republic)

The Republican threat to our children (Robert Reich) Robert Reich is like Bernie Sanders’ idiot younger brother.

Democrats’ Attack on Supreme Court Intensifies

John Roberts Does Understand How Checks and Balances Work (Slate)

Texas’s Solution to School Shootings: Training 8-Year-Olds in “Battlefield Trauma Care” (Vanity Fair) More useful than gun bans that don’t stop

Former Nevada assemblyman, election denier Jim Marchant running for US Senate (Nevada Independent) Denier! Denier! Denier!

Ruhle Wonders Why Roberts’s Wife Is Allowed To Work For Law Firms  I wonder why Ruhle is allowed to soil the airwaves with her bile.

Kings College Professor Banned From Using ‘Male’ And ‘Female’ In Research

Tucker Carlson sent a racist text to a producer: ‘It’s not how white men fight’ (CNN) Sure,  I believe that….

Senate Committee Hearing Exposes Left’s Campaign to Manipulate Supreme Court

The Democrats’ war against the conservative justices on SCOTUS

‘Digital Brownshirts’ at It Again! NYT Boosts Group Pushing Google to Censor

Unilever Welcomes Regulators’ Ongoing Greenwashing Crackdown (AdWeek)

Why Companies React to ‘Greenwashing’ With ‘Greenhushing’ (Sourcing Journal)

The coming crackdown on corporate greenwashing (EcoBusiness)

The FCC Is Supposed to Protect the Environment. It Doesn’t. (ProPublica) No, it isn’t. It regulates communications. The environment is none of its concern.

Scientists Say Meat Is Crucial To The Human Diet – Warn Against Vegan ‘Zealotry’

The New Pause Lengthens by Two Months To 8 Years 11 Months

The Practical Impossibility of Large-Scale Carbon Capture and Storage

Nature-based solutions are cleaning up cities

Congress Needs to End This Massive Government Slush Fund

ZeroHedge.

Following Tucker Carlson’s ouster from Fox News, the network has experienced a precipitous decline in ratings, while Carlson has been receiving offers left and right from other networks.

For starters, Patrick Bet-David, CEO of online content company Valuetainment, offered former Fox News host Tucker Carlson a $100 million deal over five years, plus a board seat at the company, in a high-profile courting attempt on Tuesday.

“Dear Tucker, I’ll get right to the point. We want you to partner with us in what we feel is a noble and necessary effort to define the future of media,” wrote David, who also hosts the Valuetainment brand’s podcast, in the opening of the letter of intent posted on Twitter on May 2 according to the Epoch Times.

Read it.

A Heritage Foundation economist called out Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., for his membership in a whites-only club in response to the senator’s attack on the conservative think tank.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center For Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation, also made clear fossil fuels played a larger role in Whitehouse’s personal wealth than the budget of Heritage. (The Daily Signal is the multi-media news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“I don’t have the benefit of being able to rely on a family fortune made in the Minnesota gas business, or having my spouse’s family fortune come from United Gas,” Furchtgott-Roth said. “And The Heritage Foundation is a club that anyone can join, not just white people. During 2021, it had hundreds of thousands of individual, foundation and corporate supporters representing every state in the United States.”

ZMan peers through the bars.

One of the interesting elements to the Tucker Carlson story is that no one knows why he was fired, but lots of people are sure they know why he was fired. The only thing from Fox so far has been a brief statement in which they announced his departure and thanked him for his service to the company. Carlson made a short video from his home studio telling his fans that everything is going to be fine. Otherwise, there is nothing solid on which to base a theory.

The best reason so far was the first reason. The timing suggested it had something to do with the lawsuit Fox was forced to settle with Dominion over their coverage of the election shenanigans. Facing a rigged trial, Fox agreed to pay Dominion an absurd amount of money for hurting their feelings and the feelings of the crazies who demand we believe Joe Biden is more popular than Jesus. Right after they made the deal, Tucker and Dan Bongino get fired.

Given the nastiness of the people who chant “election denier” it is perfectly reasonable to think they would demand a pound of flesh from Fox. Many of the crazies jumped on this idea because it made them feel like winners. On the other hand, the Murdoch clan may have decided that they were dragged into this mess by people like Carlson, so they were going to purge the ranks of these people. Again, the timing of this is what lends support to the claim Carlson was fired over the lawsuit.

UnHerd.

The loss of faith across the West in our institutions, leaders and representatives in recent years has been radical. When, I wonder, did that contract expire? Maybe in 2003, when the lies with which the Iraq war was launched were so blatant that even those telling them seemed unconvinced. Or maybe later, in 2016, when Brexit happened and Donald Trump happened and European “populism” happened, and suddenly any opposition to liberal globalism became fascism or bigotry or the work of Russian bots.

But it was the pandemic — or rather, the response to it — that changed everything for me. I hadn’t been prepared see, in my allegedly free and democratic country, a merger of corporate power, state power and media power in the service of constructing a favoured narrative, of the kind which had previously only characterised totalitarian regimes. What the Covid regime brought home to me was that I had not, despite what I believed, really understood the real nature of power until I saw it exercised in its raw form over my life. Specifically, I had not understood the power of the state.

Nothing has the power or reach of a modern state. Its sheer scale and strength gives it the ability to corral, organise, define, measure and control its population in a manner that is unmatched in human history, and that power only grows and deepens. The momentum of a state is always towards the centre, always towards the agglomeration of more power. A state is like a black hole: at a certain point, it begins to suck in everything around it. As it grows, it will tell stories that justify its existence. Democracy, liberty and progress are some of the more recent banners beneath which state power has gathered, but there have been others: racial or ethnic homogeneity, human equality, religious purity. All of these stories have the potential to unite a people around a state core.

Read it.

That the West is synonymous with the idea of liberal democracy is common thinking nowadays. That sentiment is amplified and strengthened with the pretty unanimous backing of Ukraine against Russian aggression by the countries considered to be part of the West.

Such thinking is well conveyed in the last interview of the famous American historian Stephen Kotkin, conducted by Peter Robinson. For Kotkin, the West is characterized by strong independent institutions, a free judiciary, the rule of law, etc. Or more broadly speaking, by liberal democracy. Thus, it is quite logical that he included “North America, Europe, the first island chain in Asia, and many other partners, Israel, in the Middle East” in the West. He added that the West “needs to be expanded and needs to be cultivated like a garden.” This is different from the “civilizational” definition of the West in Samuel Huntington’s famous book The Clash of Civilizations, according to which the Catholic and Protestant countries in Europe, along with the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, constitute Western civilization.

Does Kotkin’s trans-geographical and transcultural understanding of the West imply that the U.S., Great Britain, or France cease to be part of the West if they become autocratic? Given that Kotkin defined “Western” countries as liberal democratic ones, it is interesting that India is not included in the West, although it has never ceased to be a democracy since its independence from the British Empire in late 1940s. The exclusion of India makes sense when we consider the rest of Kotkin’s narrative in which the democratic West is fighting autocratic Russia.

Steve Sailer.

A central conundrum of the 2020s is why respectable opinion has gotten so out of touch with reality on questions touching race, such as crime. Are mainstream pundits lying, intimidated, deluded, hate-filled, or just stupid?

It’s an important and difficult question.

I ponder this because I’ve developed a reputation as the go-to guy on Twitter when celebrities say something smugly stupid about crime statistics. Most every day I see a tweet summoning me by showing Batman staring up at the Bat-Signal of my avatar, the 18th hole at Cypress Point Golf Club. (Yeah, it’s pretty cool.)

John Stossel.

Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media star from Guatemala, is running for president of her country to try to educate people about the damage socialism does.

People do need educating.

“It’s like Stockholm syndrome,” says Alvarez in my new video. “When you ask people, ‘Who should take care of health, education, football, arts, whatever?’ They always answer, ‘government.’ How are you going to not have corruption if you leave everything in the hands of the government?”

Cal Thomas.

The very term “debt limit” makes a mockery of any kind of responsible budgeting. Each time the government reaches the “limit” it gets raised with the familiar scenarios that include threats of a government shutdown (an idea that increasingly appeals to some conservatives) and the claim that the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. is at stake. We have faith and credit? Who knew?

Republicans usually cave, or in the case of a shutdown, succumb to media pressure and the Democrats and allow the spending and debt to grow, along with trillions in interest on our $31.4 trillion debt.

And Republicans are no different. President Ronald Reagan took the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. Bush41 took it to $300 billion. Clinton got it to zero. Bush43 took it from zero to $1.2 trillion. President Obama halved that to $600 billion. Trump jumped it back to 3.3 trillion.

The Foundry.

Following an 18-part investigative series in The New York Times alleging various forms of maleducation and malfeasance in New York City yeshivas, the city began implementing regulations targeting these Hasidic Jewish day schools.

These included requiring certain classes (currently not taught at yeshivas) to be taught for a specified length, allowing the New York City Public School System to declare yeshivas “non-compliant” and send parents to jail for truancy for sending children there, and allowing New York to investigate any private school after a complaint from any individual (not just from parents, teachers, or students of yeshivas).

Last month, a New York district court struck down these regulations, but the state has filed a notice that it is appealing the decision.

Hasidic community leaders have complained that the Times reporters, who are now under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, presented a profoundly biased and inaccurate portrait of their schools.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

Keeping up with the insane manifestations of wokery could be a full time job, and it is becoming repetitious and boring, like climate change. But wokesters, in apparent competition for peak clownery, keep saying, “Hold my Bud Light—watch this!”

So behold the Essex Wexford School District in Vermont, which will cease referring to fifth graders as boys or girls:

Glenn Reynolds has been saying for years now that sending your kids to public school is child abuse. And no wonder home schooling is soaring.

Biden will end Covid vaccine mandates for federal workers and international travelers on May 11  What took them so long?

DHS to lift Covid vaccine requirement for non-US travelers (CNN) What took them so long?

Texas AG to Probe Big Pharma on COVID-19 Vaccines

Fauci, Weingarten Denials ‘Slap in the Face’ to Parents

E. Jean Carroll takes stand in Trump rape allegation case for a third day (CNN)

Trump’s Lawyers Go After E. Jean Carroll’s ‘Fabulous’ Life (Daily Beast)

Trump attorney seeks mistrial in E. Jean Carroll civil rape trial (MSNBC)

Twitter Users Slam CNN For Scheduling Donald Trump ‘Town Hall’ Meeting (Huffington Post)

Trump Lawyers: Let Him Discuss Hush Money Evidence

Trump’s Rape Trial Does Not Appear to Be Going as Well as His Lawyer Had Hoped (Vanity Fair)

Here’s how right-wing media shields Trump from his scandals (Washington Post)  Philip Bump is Jennifer Ruben’s understudy at the WaPo.

Texas governor goes out of his way to say Texas shooting victims were ‘illegal immigrants’ (MSNBC) ‘Out of his way’? There’s no evidence that this was ‘out of his way”; this is just a gratuitous smear.

Kansas teacher rips district for diversity training amid teacher shortage: ‘Repeated white shaming’ (Fox)

Republicans Fine With Supreme Court Justices Having No Formal Code Of Ethics (Huffington Post) As were Democrats, before the witch-hunt started.

Copenhagen mayor to California’s ‘Danish Capital’: Stop acting homophobic (L.A.Times)

Minnesota lawmaker Sen. Bahr is shirtless during Zoom meeting: Video  Cal is a Republican, of course; nobody would mention it if he were a Democrat.

2 Wisconsin Republicans want 14-year-olds to be allowed to serve alcohol in restaurants (Insider) Dunh dunh DUNHHHHH…..

2024 Presidential Candidate Wants To ‘Shut Down The FBI,’ Replace It

MSNBC’s Ruhle Claims A Lot of Culture Wars Made Up By GOP

What Is a Woman? Many Philosophers Know, But Aren’t Allowed to Say

Who paid for Ron DeSantis’ trip overseas? No one will say. (Politico)

What the Supreme Court Does in the Shadows (The Atlantic)

Megyn Kelly Warns Tucker: Fox Trying to Destroy You

The Next Front in the GOP’s War on Women: No-Fault Divorce (Rolling Stone)

Tucker Carlson’s creepy behind-the-scenes comments (Media Matters for America)

The aggrieved Justice Alito points fingers but offers no proof (Washington P0st) Ruth Marcus needs to learn how to read. Alito pointed no fingers, precisely because he doesn’t have the proof to do so. He already said that.

‘Disgraceful’: GOP Senators Accuse Dems of Threatening to Yank Supreme Court Justices’ Security Funding

CNNer: GOP Has ‘Gun’ Pointed at ‘Head of the Global Economy’

MSNBC: ‘Really Disturbing’ for GOP to Play Thomas ‘High-Tech Lynching’ Video

Woman arrested for allegedly throwing wine at Rep. Matt Gaetz (CNBC) But, of course, only Republicans indulge in political violence.

Soros Henchman Attacks NY Post for Exposing Billionaire’s Ties to Radical DAs

One Year Later: Dobbs Leak Led to Attacks on Justices, Pro-Lifers, Catholics

Black waiter forced to serve N-word spewing diners decked in Confederate flags: report (Raw Story) And of you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one. (Prediction: Just Another Hoax.)

Ex-officer Thao Convicted of Aiding George Floyd’s Killing

Black turnout dropped sharply in 2022 midterms, Census survey finds (Washington Post)

How Biden’s Plan to Penalize Responsible Homebuyers Could Ravage Retirement Savings by $31,000

Secretive Su: Biden Admin Won’t Release Records of ‘Transparent’ Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su

Fallen Journalists Memorial Approved for D.C.’s National Mall

HHS: Two Hospitals That Denied Abortions Broke Law

Nets Skip Deadbeat Hunter Biden’s Court Appearance Over Child Support

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott promises to keep busing migrants to Democratic cities (NBC News)

Mark Morgan Calls Out Hypocrisy of Corporate Media’s Silence Over New Photos of ‘Kids in Cages’

Biden won’t move on debt ceiling terms even as he seeks to restart talks (Politico) So, for Biden, ‘talks’ means ‘do it my way’. Good to know.

Blinken Denies Role in Hunter Biden Laptop Russian Disinfo Letter

Biden “Punishes Responsibility” As New Mortgage Equity Program Begins

Washington Post Fact Checker Hurls ‘Bottomless Pinocchio’ at Biden on Deficit Reduction

All the President’s Islamists

Feds rethink warrantless search stats and – oh look, a huge drop in numbers

Muslim NJ mayor demands answers after being turned away from White House Eid celebration

GOP Senators: Hunter Emails Show Blinken Lied to Congress

DHS Expects Biden Admin to Deploy Military to Border After Title 42 Repeal: Internal Memo

Biden sends 1,500 troops to Mexico border for migrant surge (Associated Press)

WATCH: Karine Jean-Pierre Claims Border Crisis Is ‘90%’ Solved as Biden Deploys Troops

White House Announces Illegal Immigration Has Decreased 90 Percent Since They Redefined It  (Babylon Bee)

With Vice News Closing, White House Will Have To Lie To Public Directly  (Babylon Bee)

Congress Must Defund Nonprofits Aiding Biden’s Open-Border Operations

‘Difficult To Describe With Words’: CNN Reporter Stunned By Number of Illegal Immigrants In Texas City

Environmentalists Want the FTC Green Guides to Slam the Door on the ‘Chemical’ Recycling of Plastic Waste (Inside Climate Narrative News)

Oliver Stone’s new movie makes the case nuclear power is the obvious solution to climate change (CNBC)

Joe Biden Is Losing Young Climate Voters

Green Energy Industry Admits It Needs Cheap Chinese Goods To Survive

Bureau Can’t Dodge Differences in Temperature Data

Wind farm in Germany is being dismantled to expand coal mine

Austrian Authorities Side With Climate Protesters Over Disrupted Citizens

Environmentalists sue FAA over Starship fallout, claiming regulator is lost in space

The American Mind.

Typically, Americans can agree on what happened in our mass shootings. Our disagreements have centered on how to stop them. Owing to our biased media’s failure to imagine any other cause or solution, the debate usually boils down to a myopic focus on gun laws. But Nashville was different. The revelation that Hale was a biological woman who requested that people refer to her with he/him pronouns (and the later confirmation that she identified as a trans man) offered a twist. Years prior Hale had been a student at the Covenant School where she launched her attack, a detail that suggested her violence might have been a form of revenge.

These details ensured that the meaning of the massacre was contested. In the conflict over “trans rights,” we are witnessing the beginning of a war. I’m not talking about a metaphorical war or another cold war. It is now plain that wherever you stand in the debate over gender identity, literal acts of violence are unfolding across the nation. Sometimes the bullet is the instrument of destruction. Sometimes it’s the blade. Sometimes the bloodshed is self-inflicted. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s even elective. But the bloodshed isn’t allegorical. Both sides insist that lives are at stake, and they aren’t wrong.

The battle over trans identity is the first theater in what will be a much larger conflict over technology, the body, and the human essence. Whoever can secure the high ground in these early skirmishes will possess an enormous advantage in the fight for the future. Exploring the mutually exclusive accounts of the Nashville massacre offers a panorama of this bloody war. Although they agree on some basic facts, each account showcases a well-developed worldview and a network of deeply-held values.

New York Times.

As the government heads toward a possible default on its debt as soon as next month, officials are entertaining a legal theory that previous administrations ruled out.

…

Under the theory, the government would be required by the 14th Amendment to continue issuing new debt to pay bondholders, Social Security recipients, government employees and others, even if Congress fails to lift the limit before the so-called X-date.

I’ve always thought that a federal debt limit was about as useless as a Balanced Budget Amendment. You can’t force people to make smart choices if they’re determined to make dumb choices, and that especially goes for politicians. The federal debt limit has never, not once, prevented the federal debt from growing by leaps and bounds–every time it comes close, the entire Ruling Class rises up to wring their hands about how Disaster Looms and we must Loosen the Belt. Republicans have attempted to use the debt limit to restrict government spending more times than I can count, and it never worked. Not once.

Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Read it.

Apparently, every day is a battle for LGBTQ+ lawmakers. According to an Associated Press report, they “find themselves fighting just ‘to exist.’”

Literally! LITERALLY!

Read on and you’ll find these bills include Florida’s March 2022 Parental Rights in Education law which banned discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade classrooms. And, of course, they identify the legislation as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The lawmakers – and the AP – are especially incensed over bills that “would classify providing gender-affirming care to minors as a form of child abuse.” Isn’t it?

NewsMax.

Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, is “destroying” Japan’s culture by pushing pro-LGBTQ+ legislation, a journalist from Okinawa said.