Reed it.

“You seem to find this whole thing rather amusing,” snapped a short angry man with a Not My King sign, about half an hour into the Republic protest against the coronation of King Charles III. I must admit I did. Kettled into a small enclave just off Trafalgar Square, an angry swell of old school socialists, Twitter anarchists, Lib Dem mums, eccentric vicars, boomer hippies, blue haired students and Covid conspiracists had somehow foundthemselves part of the coronation spectacle. Before the bells of St Martin in the Fields, the full shouty brunt of British republicanism was aimed at a bewildered stream of Chinese tourists and young families out for a day in London.

The survival of the British monarchy is one of the great wonders of modern history. Spending the morning of the coronation with Republic, it began to seem less mysterious. Despite everything in recent years, the Monarchy is still liked more than most of our institutions and probably every one of our elected politicians. No one gathered there could really explain why. The arguments were articulated in between the shouty chanting: things about “modern Democracy” and a “family of Lizards”, none of which quite landed the blow as the day unfolded around us.

Read it.

Germany returned the Benin Bronzes last year with plans for a permanent museum in Nigeria financed by the German taxpayers. The plan now seems unlikely after the Nigerian president handed ownership of the artefacts to a local chieftain.

Read it.

Have you ever come across the New York Destination fee? Or New York amenity fee? Or resort fee? No? Well, me neither. Until our recent NYC trip. Seems this kid has many names. And is common practice in quite a few US cities (Las Vegas being a really notorious one apparently). Until about two years ago, this wasn’t a big topic in New York. But things change. To save you the same nasty surprise we had checking in, let me tell all you need to know about the New York destination fee. What you get for it (or not), how much it is per night and if there is a way to avoid it.

Electriv.com

The Norwegian company ENRX wants to inductively charge electric vehicles with 200 kW while driving on a section of highway in Florida. A one-mile section of a four-lane highway near Orlando is to be electrified.

ENRX was founded in March this year, as a merger of EFD Induction, a provider of induction heating solutions, and IPT Technology, an expert in wireless power transmission. ENRX has teamed up with the Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) and the Aspire Engineering Research Center for an initiative to build a 1.6-kilometre section on a four-lane highway near Orlando that will inductively charge the batteries of moving electric vehicles at 200 kW.

The principle is clear: the electric vehicle batteries are fitted with a special receiver pad and charged as they drive over the coils embedded in the road. In the process, the energy is transferred from these coils to the receiver pad mounted on the vehicle floor, which according to ENRX should provide “a safe, wireless power supply” even at motorway speeds.

Not in California. Not in New York. Not in Bernie Sanders’ state. Not in Elizabeth Warren’s state. In Florida–Ron DeSantis’ state.

US weighs restrictions on investment in Chinese AI firms (Fox)

Brussels to Sanction Chinese Tied to Russia

China Wants Killer Robots To Fight The Next War

Iran Hid Arms in Earthquake Aid to Syria In Order to Attack US Troops

Growing Pushback Over BlackRock In Ukraine: “Taxpayers Pay The War Bills, Private Firms Get The Profits”

Arab League Agrees To Reinstate Syria After 12 Years

Russia Launches Mass Strikes Across Ukraine

Sanctions don’t work

WARPLANES: Shahed-136 Scam

SUBMARINES: Iran Builds More Big Submarines

China’s Arctic Ambitions Pose a Threat to the Western World

The 3 likely ways Bud Light disaster might end – and only one is good news (Fox)

Chicago gay bars boycott Anheuser-Busch as brewer shuns Dylan Mulvaney (N.Y. Post)

AB InBev boss blames ‘misinformation’ after rightwing backlash against Bud Light (Financial Times)

Anheuser-Busch Cuts Ties With Marketing Firm Responsible For Dylan Mulvaney Disaster. (OutKick)

NYC building that once housed ‘Brooklyn’s hippest hotel’ turned into migrants shelter (N.Y. Post) Time to leave.

NYC migrant crisis (Fox 5 New York)

NYC has to stop putting migrants’ needs ahead of the general public (N.Y. Post)

NYPD training facility turns into makeshift shelter for asylum seekers (Spectrum News) NYC gets a taste of Texas.

What Are They Hiding? Pro-Transgender Groups Refuse to Hand Over Internal Documents Even as They Move to Oppose Florida’s Medicaid Rule

Fox Sends Cease-And-Desist Letter To Media Matters Over Leaked Tucker Tapes

Downtown San Francisco Becomes A Ghost Town As Major Retailers Flee

Mayhem Unfolds In Oakland As Soros-Backed DA Fails To Enforce Law And Order

California Approves Reparations Recommendations, Proposing $1.2 Million Checks For Black Residents

California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense

Liberal Utopia: Two-Mile-Long Vehicle Encampment Spotted In California

EXCLUSIVE: Colorado Would Force Her to Create LGBTQ Wedding Websites. She’s Fighting Back.

In NYC Subway, Leftist Governance Reaps What It Sows

The Risible Case For Reparations

Money for Nothing: Reparations and Riots

Mayorkas deflects blame on border crisis, says it’s been an issue ‘since the ‘90s’ (Fox) Yeah, but it’s your job to fix it.

In Bordertown USA, Biden sends in troops — and Trump rubs his hands (The Times)

Abbott: We don’t need 1,500 soldiers at the border, we need 15,000 or 150,000 (The Hill)

Mayorkas ripped for saying there are ‘orderly pathways’ to enter country legally: ‘That’s for suckers’ (Fox)

Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner Devon Archer urged to spill Biden dirt to avoid prison (N.Y. Post)

Biden Black Voters Lacking ’20 Enthusiasm

Desperate Dems Float 14th Amendment As Debt Ceiling Override

Will Biden’s Plan To Tax Crypto Mining Reduce Emissions? Critics Say No

New Disinfo Office to Combat Foreign, US ‘Public Opinion’

Parody Becomes Reality: Babylon Bee Predicts Gender Bender Friendly Military Recruitment

Biden Admin Backs Down In Standoff With Catholic Hospital Over Chapel Candle

Israeli Whistleblower With Info On Biden Corruption Disappears In Cyprus After Saying Biden Regime Wants To ‘Bury Him’

How Did They Get Here? What We Know About Unaccompanied Children Arriving at Southern Border

U.S. Offers Palestinians $100k to Promote ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ in Arts and Sports

Inside the ‘Death Match’ that Helped Doom Tucker Carlson at Fox (Rolling Stone)

Republicans like Abbott and Cruz who are politicizing gun violence (MSNBC) She actually said that with a straight face.

Massacre witness refutes right-wing talking point: ‘It wasn’t mental health that killed these people’ (Raw Story) Nope, the gun just pulled it’s own trigger; the crazy person holding it was just, like, standing there.

Like A Tweet, Lose Your Job

Asa Hutchinson: Trump Has ‘Moral Responsibility’ for Jan. 6  No, he doesn’t.

Vietnam and Laos record hottest temperatures ever as heat wave grips Southeast Asia (CNN)

Climate change: Vietnam records highest-ever temperature of 44.1C (BBC) Communist regimes get a preview of their eventual destination.

Weather tracker: Vietnam and Laos set records for highest-ever temperatures (The Guardian)

Germany And The EU Are Hopelessly Behind On EVs & Artificial Intelligence

Climate Extremists Vandalise Historic Roman Monument

Manmade: Studies Suggest That Wind Parks Cause Climate Change, Even Regional Drought

What to know about the newest COVID-19 variant (NPR)

How China Used a Prominent HBCU to Spin Its Pandemic Response

FDA Issues Emergency Bacteria Warning For 500,000 COVID-19 Tests

E. Jean Carroll Demands Trump Follow Court Order, Remove Rape Trial Posts (Newsweek) Free speech? Not for Trump!

Texas mall massacre gunman identified as witnesses describe horror of the shooting spree that killed 8 people (CNN)

Dallas mall shooter: Who is Mauricio Garcia? (Fox)

Texas mall shooter wore neo-Nazi symbol and shared ‘white-supremacist content online’: report (AlterNet) Another ‘white Hispanic’?

RWDS’: What the Patch Found on the Texas Gunman’s Chest Stands For (Daily Beast)

Texas Mass Shooter Posted Neo-Nazi Content, FBI Document Reveals (Rolling Stone) I guess Brown Is The New White.

WP: This Tall White Man with the Backward Baseball Cap Must be the White Supremacist Shooter (Just Look at Him)

‘Right Wing Death Squad’? Bizarre Claims About Texas Outlet Mall Gunman

Cytokinopathy with aberrant cytotoxic lymphocytes and profibrotic myeloid response in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis (ScienceImmunology)

Small study points to possible cause of myocarditis following mRNA vaccination in young men (NBC News)

Study reveals insights into post-vaccine heart inflammation cases (MedicalXPress)

What explains rare heart condition among young men after Covid vaccines? A new study offers clues (STAT)

It’s not 8 glasses a day anymore. Here’s how much much water you should drink each day (Fortune)

How Business Leaders Beat Back COVID—and Government Didn’t

Parents More Likely To Question Routine Childhood Vaccinations Post-COVID: Research Report  And whose fault is that?

“Cytokine Storm” Debunked: Machine Learning Exposes Killer of Covid-19 Patients

Media’s long con to bury Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal (N.Y. Post)

Yellen Warns Against Debt Ceiling Talks With ‘Gun to the Head of the American People’  That’s not what she minds; what she is really objecting to is the gun held to the head of the ruling class.

Gingrich Steamrolls Williams on Hunter’s Corrupt Business Dealings

‘Not a Good Number’: CNN Reports on Bad Polling Numbers for Biden

limate scientists first laughed at a ‘bizarre’ campaign against the BoM – then came the harassment (The Guardian)

America Needs Permitting Reform To Reduce U.S. Reliance On Foreign Energy

A Heavy Dose of Reality for Electric-Truck Mandates

Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out Has Been a Disaster

Marc Morano to Newsmax: Energy ‘Conspiracies’ Became ‘Reality’

Trump plays the inside game to stave off ’16-like convention chaos (Politico) After years in business, Trump became an experience businessman–apparently, after years in politics, Trump is becoming an experienced politician. Shocking.

Call It Trump’s Coup Attempt, Because It Damned Well Was (Huffington Post) Narrative red in lie and smear.

Jamie Raskin Says Jack Smith Could Conceivably Charge Trump With Seditious Conspiracy (PoliticusUSA) The cloth cap covers the tinfoil.

Eric Adams blasts FEMA for limited asylum-seeker funds, will move migrants out of NYC (N.Y. Post)

NYC sending migrants to upstate county ‘not equipped to handle’ influx (Fox)

Suburbs pushback on mayor’s plans to bus asylum seekers north of NYC (CBS New York)

NYC to get $30.5M in federal migrant crisis funds, far less than $350M Adams admin requested (AMNY)

To protect democracy from machines, Congress must modernize our constitutional right to petition (The Hill)

Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova: “Women’s Sports Is Not The Place For Trans Athletes”

Science? Pro-Trans NPR Flunks Basic Biology, Decries Use of Terms ‘Gametes,’ ‘Ova’

Majority Of Germans Say Migrants Bring More Problems Than Benefits, Want Limit On Refugees Imagine that.

‘Just Brutal’: ABC Stunned by Biden Getting Clobbered by Trump in Poll

Will Democrats Die on the Trans Hill?

Goodbye Climate Alarmism: The Age of AI Alarmism Has Begun

Russian Tank With ‘Cope Cage’ Covered In Explosive Reactive Armor Emerges  Obviously a defense against Javelin and similar ATMs.

Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv Claims Patriot Intercepted Kinzhal Air-Launched Ballistic Missile

Digital Fentanyl: The CCP’s Cyber Campaign To Destroy America

Rebrand of the Rebrand: MAGA Oz Pivots Back to Being Dr. Oz (Daily Beast)

ABC: Tucker Carlson Promoted ‘Racist Views’ as Voice for ‘White Supremacy’  It’s all they’ve got, so it’s what they use, even though it’s obvious nonsense.

Senate Judiciary chair says ‘everything is on the table’ in response to Clarence Thomas revelations (CNN) Presumably including lynching Clarence Thomas from a lamp-post in front of the Capitol.

The Sotomayor exception  Rules are for thee but not for me.

The Gun Industry Wants America’s Malls and Schools to Be War Zones (The New Republic) Obvious nonsense.

A California panel has called for billions in reparations for black residents (NPR) Except that California wasn’t a slave state.

Activists demand higher payments from California reparations task force: ‘$200 million’ per person (Fox)

A reparations task force begins historic vote (CBS Sacramento)

California task force OKs reparations plan that could cost state $800B (N.Y. Post)

America’s First Black President Left A Legacy Of Slavery

California Reparations: O.J. Simpson and Bill Cosby to Finally Get Their Just Deserts

Detroit: Bankrupt Black City to Pay Reparations to Itself

8 Killed, 7 Wounded In Mass Shooting At Texas Mall – Cop Kills Gunman Another crazy white supremacist? “Investigators on the scene asked for a translator to assist with their questioning.” (Texas Mall Shooter Identified as Mauricio Garcia, 33)

Elon Musk: Why Does The Media Misrepresent Interracial Crime Stats “To Such An Extreme Degree”?

There is no case for reparations (The Spectator)

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

There is no way Joe Biden can make it to election day next year. His growing incapacity to function is becoming more obvious by the day.

Read it.

On Thursday, May 4th, Belgian police arrested seven individuals suspected of preparing for a terrorist attack. As reported by several Belgian media outlets, the suspects have been described as “fervent” acolytes of the jihadist group, the Islamic State (IS).

Of the seven, four are Chechen by birth while three are Belgian citizens. They were apprehended during a series of raids in Ghent and the West Flanders region.

All are in their 20s and are still being interrogated; they face charges of participating in terrorist group activities and preparing a terrorist attack.

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

Read it.

During a peak of violent crime in New York City, ordinary guy Bernhard Goetz made international headlines when he defended himself from an attempted mugging in a subway car by shooting his four attackers. He became known as the “Subway Vigilante.”

In 1981, Bernhard Goetz was one of many New Yorkers to fall prey to violent crime. He had been beaten and mugged by three assailants, none of whom were successfully prosecuted, and like many New Yorkers, he was tired of living in fear of being attacked. Unlike most, he was prepared when it came—with a five-shot .38 revolver and plenty of practice using it.

While on his afternoon subway commute in December of 1984, four youths assumed threatening positions around him—isolating him near the back of the car—and he quickly mapped out a rapid pattern of fire. One of the young men, Troy Canty, said, “Give me five dollars.” Some details of what happened next are in dispute, but the following is agreed upon.

Ukraine Situation Report: Russia Rains Incendiaries On Bakhmut

US-Russia On Verge Of “Open Armed Conflict” After Kremlin Drone Attack: Foreign Ministry

Jake Sullivan: Israel Has Freedom to Act on Iran Nuclear Threat

Watch: Fist-Fight Breaks Out Between Russian & Ukrainian Diplomats At Conference

Offshore Wind Anyone? NATO Claims Russia has MINED Undersea Pipes and Cables

ARMOR: Iran Reveals a New Retro-Tech ATGM

Navy’s Growing Shortfalls on Ship Readiness Frustrate the Marine Corps

Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot

New York City mayor announces plan to transport willing migrants to locations outside the city ahead of expected surge (CNN)

Suburbs pushback on mayor’s plans to bus asylum seekers north of NYC (CBS New York)

‘Gender-Fluid’ Students Win Prom King & Queen at Ohio HS

DeSantis Signs Bill Allowing Fla. Board to Cancel Disney Deals

Colombia Resumes Migrant Flights After Brief Pause

Elon Musk, Don Jr. Push Back Against Crazy New Anti-Free Speech Bill in Ireland

Soros To Help Save Vice News

Pennsylvania Amish Kept True To Their Traditions – Then The Government Came

Georgia Enacts Law Letting Panel Punish, Oust Prosecutors

Rounding Up the 500 Most Dangerous Psychos in NYC Could Make the Streets and Subways a Lot Less Chaotic

All Your Kids Are Belong to Us

GOP moderates privately panic over debt ceiling deal (Axios) RINOs gotta RINO.

Mainstream Media Doesn’t Care That the CIA May Have Helped Cause 9/11

Ga. Gov. Kemp Signs Law Allowing DA Removals  Soros prosecutors, be warned.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH”: Trans Activist Unleashes Primal Scream At SF Board Meeting

California Insists on Wasting Its Scarce Water Supply

Georgia’s GOP governor signs bill that could remove local prosecutors and DAs from their jobs (CNN) They only mind because it’s a Republican doing it.

On PBS, Amanpour Spreads Book-Ban Hysteria: ‘LGBTQ, Black…Indigenous Stories’ Silenced

The Next Fear on A.I.: Hollywood’s Killer Robots Become the Military’s Tools (N.Y. Times)

Race Hustler Al Sharpton Says He Told Alvin Bragg To Prosecute Subway ‘Vigilante’

PBS’s Amanpour Hails GOP Abortion-Rights Hero Vs. ‘Draconian’ South Carolina Ban

Sen. Tuberville Blasts Rapinoe’s Support for Trans Athletes

ABC Edits Kids’ Show After ‘Fat-Shaming’ Complaints

Top 10: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace’s Worst GOP-Bashing Moments

GOP ‘Bringing Back the Lynching Vibe,’ Could Spark a ‘Secession’   Doubtful.

Reporters Rage as Free Speech Heroes Bill Maher, Elon Musk Meet

‘Another Attempt To Manufacture A Scandal’: Friend Of Clarence Thomas Hits Back At New Report Targeting The Justice

How Does Leonard Leo Hide All His Right-Wing Dark Money? Here’s One Way (Common Dreams) Let’s see … nope, no mention of George Soros.

It’s Time The Washington Post Comes Clean On Their Thomas Attacks

Did Trump’s anti-glasses vanity doom his E. Jean Carroll defense  (Washington Post)

Key moments from the video of Trump’s deposition in E. Jean Carroll trial released to the public (CNN)

Eric Adams attacked for subway safety approach after killing of Jordan Neely (N.Y. Post)

Jordan Neely killing: lack of arrest highlights racial disparities in charging (The Guardian)

The Squad stands alone on Jordan Neely’s death

New York protesters demand criminal charges in chokehold killing on subway (Reuters)

After the “Palefaces”

Fake Indian Syndrome (The Other McCain)

‘A sea of misinformation’: FTC to address industry greenwashing complaints (The Guardian)

Study: Climate change is pushing the Sonoran Desert toward a weedier, barren future (Desert Sun)

Biden administration green lights nation’s first congestion pricing plan for New York (Politico)

Thousands of Americans Try To Take Advantage of Biden’s Solar Subsidies. They Can’t Connect to a Power Grid.

Electricity Statism and Misdirection: Introducing Doug Lewin’s “Texas Energy and Power Newsletter” (well-funded propaganda)

New York Gas Stove Ban – Beginning of the End or End of the Beginning?

World’s first thermal energy storage “gigafactory” opens

Ocean-surface temperatures are breaking records

The grid isn’t ready for 300M EVs by 2030

The Conversation: “A Single [Climate] Radical Gets More Media Coverage Than Thousands of Marchers”

Unpacking the Claim that Blinken ‘Lied’ to Congress (FactCheck.org) Narrative damage control.

Biden tells reporters he will hold a ‘major press conference’ – but White House says he was referring to an interview (CNN)

Hunter Biden Fought To Exclude Laptop Info From Child Support Case, Filing Shows

WATCH: Joe Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 41)

Biden Bribery Allegation Could Mean Impeachment, Republican Policy Chair Says

“Russian Disinformation” Memo Was a Biden Campaign Op

Bracing for impact: Biden world preps for Hunter Biden fallout (Politico)

Ruhle Defends Biden on Hunter, Mourns Unpopularity ‘Despite All These Wins’

Former Intel Heads Brennan, Clapper To Testify To House Panel Over Role In Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

Election Fraud Made Clear

Rule Will Mean Asylum Denials for Many Migrants

Small study points to possible cause of myocarditis following mRNA vaccination in young men (NBC News)

What explains rare heart condition among young men after Covid vaccines? A new study offers clues (StatNews)

Study reveals insights into post-vaccine heart inflammation cases (MedicalXPress)

Science Reveals Cause of Rare Heart Trouble in Young Men Who Get COVID Vaccines (U.S. News & World Report)

Randi Weingarten Goes Mega-Karen After Twitter Community Notes Expose Lockdown Lies

Teachers Union Won’t Give Records to House COVID Panel

Disease experts warn White House of potential for omicron-like wave of illness (Washington P0st)

Class-Action Suit Launched Against Australian Government Over COVID Vaccine Injuries

Read it.

On May 2, a Texas House committee passed a bill to create 100% reserve gold and silver-backed transactional currencies. Enactment of this legislation would create an option for people to conduct business in sound money, set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money, and possibly create a viable alternative to a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

“I don’t think there is anything less important than bicycle racing.”  — Scott Adams

The New Neo.

Mark and Mollie Hemingway say no, not unless something is done to “unrig” future elections. And this “rigging” that needs to be undone is not what is conventionally thought of as fraud.

The Spectator.

Marooned in London for a day between meetings, I walked for miles in an attempt to find something good to say about the city. This was not a wholly unsuccessful expedition — those Nash terraces have an allure, Regent’s Park has been cutely de-manicured to encourage the wildlife and it was possible to buy a plastic replica of Big Ben almost every fifteen yards, which came in handy. It was the Londoners I found problematic. Smirking rat-faced hipsters and man-bunned bike dweebs, buzz-cut, granite-headed lezzas, the performative callisthenics of middle-class thirty-somethings who believe they will never die, Arabs flogging tat every five paces, lithe, snake-hipped homosexuals having a pleasant lunch of kale with yeast extract at one of a million cafés with the word “plant” somewhere in its name, overconfident, braying gap-year yankees, Afghans driving Uber cars as if they were in the Lashkar Gah Grand Prix, desperate, half-dead, joggers, young white businessmen jabbering to themselves like psychos as they stepped over the sprawled bodies of dozing Romanian beggars. London — all of human life is here. Except the good bits.

Theodore Dalrymple.

Hell, wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, is other people; in which case purgatory must be other people’s taste. Every time I feel my misanthropy flagging, I go down to the local bric-a-brac warehouse, grandly called an antiques center, and remind myself of just how dreadful taste can be. It is not merely the absence of taste that appalls me, it is the positive espousal of all that is cheap, garish, and positively hideous.

Concur.

Scott Johnson at Power Line.

The letter of the Deep State 51 condemning the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reportage as consistent with a Russian information operation or Russian disinformation, as advertised by Natasha Bertrand and Politico, must be the dirtiest American political dirty trick of all time. At any rate, it is up there with the Steele Dossier.

Read it.

If we are going to judge a way of looking at the world solely by its worst adherents, then we should also remember that the only self-declared atheist nations in history have been the communist dictatorships. Lenin said that atheism was fundamental to communism. Stalin and others outlawed and persecuted the Russian Orthodox Church. The Chinese communists have persecuted Christians and other faiths.

So is atheism responsible for the live organ harvesting of China? Is atheism responsible for the 100 million murders by communist regimes? Should we remember that atheist nations starved, beat, whipped, suffocated, tortured and executed millions of people?

I used to be a fairly militant atheist. I’m still an atheist and find it impossible to believe in a benign Creator in a flawed universe. But I’ve grown up enough to see how much good we lost when we abandoned Christianity, and how many grim things have flourished since.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

In an amazing coincidence of scheduling, the annual White House Correspondence Dinner (WHCD) and the Met Gala occurred within 48 hours of each other. One of Trump’s best moves in office was giving the middle finger to the WHCD, and the less said about the Met Gala the better, except for noting that Alexandria Occasional-Cortex didn’t attend this year since she violated House ethics rules last year by accepting free tickets and sporting her very expensive “Tax the rich” dress.

 

The American Mind.

Up until a week ago, the 2024 presidential election campaign was by and large an uninteresting slog. The arrest of President Trump had shown some promise of injecting life into the race, but just a few short weeks later it is all but forgotten. Events that used to carry great significance which would be etched into the public memory for decades—like the investigation, prosecution, or impeachment of a president—have now been reduced to farcical shadow-play, gone in a moment. To generate lasting outrage or even attention, a story needs some element of surprise or departure from normalcy. But the new norm in politics is to destroy all norms. And since mainstream press catastrophizing has been dialed up to 11 since at least 2016, it rings hollower with every passing cycle. To anyone who has been paying attention, not even the most breathless histrionics on the part of professional observers makes a mark.

Yet America’s future really is in peril, facing existential threats both internally and externally. Flashpoints are erupting around the world. Our economy is dependent on the special status of our currency in the global market and the unquestioned military supremacy that backs it. Both the U.S. dollar and the U.S. military are hegemonic institutions in decline. Domestically, we are a population divided and unable to find a middle ground in which to establish any collective commitment to one another. Talk of national divorce or civil war was unthinkable a decade ago—now, it’s commonplace. We spend more on healthcare than any other advanced country, take more pharmaceuticals than any other first-world population, and still are sicker than all the rest. These are the elephants in the room of our current political discourse. Politicians prefer to talk about other things.

It is during such times that unconventional presidential candidates have caught wind in their sails. Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980, Patrick Buchanan, Ross Perot, and Bill Clinton in 1992, Ron Paul and Barack Obama in 2008, and Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in 2016. And now, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Read it.

Last December, Michael Shellenberger reported in a #TwitterFiles thread that the Aspen Institute hosted a “Hack-and-Dump Working Group” exercise in the summer of 2020 titled, “Burisma Leak,” which predicted with uncanny accuracy an upcoming derogatory story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden’s lost laptop.

The documents Shellenberger published showed how at least five media figures, including David Sanger and David McCraw of the New York Times, Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post, then-Daily Beast and future Rolling Stone editor Noah Schactman, and Rick Baker of CNN worked alongside Twitter and Facebook’s chief moderation officers, Yoel Roth and Nathaniel Gleicher, to plan a response to a hypothetical damaging exposé about Joe Biden’s son.

The “Burisma Leak” exercise predicted many elements of the real response to the New York Post’s coming Hunter Biden story, including complaints from influential Democratic congressman Adam Schiff about its “source and veracity,” and public statements from “former senior intelligence officials” falsely raising the specter of a “Russian operation.”

Read it.

There was something deeply demoralizing about the recent Mayoral election in Chicago, once among America’s greatest cities. The good news is that the catastrophic reign of a deeply corrupt and crazed mayor, who piled egregiously racist policies on top of one of the worst COVID responses in the country, came to an end. The bad news is that a guy who is arguably worse took her place.

As Allysia Finley put it in the Wall Street Journal, “Brandon Johnson’s victory in last week’s Chicago mayoral race is a reminder that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse.”

The city itself is facing bankruptcy but that economic reality is changing nothing about city policies. Crime is out of control. Poverty and despair are on the rise. And the residents who can leave are fleeing. Businesses are closing up shop and 175,000 people have left the city in the last two years, leaving the place at the mercy of people who only vote for more handouts and union controls.

Read it.

Daniel Henninger, writing in the Wall Street Journal on April 26, properly describes Joe Biden as “the perfect Democratic president.”

According to Henninger, Biden’s “non-compos” condition should give the “left wing of his party free rein” during his second presidential term, which is exactly what his party wants. A cognitively impaired, not particularly principled figurehead fits the needs of his handlers; and Biden obviously has no interest in doing anything to upset them. He will dutifully get behind his party’s latest woke project and ritualistically attack its Republican opponents as white nationalists, sexists, and homophobes.

Equally significant, Biden is the perfect front figure for an administrative state in which the chief executive provides little more than an ornament: “A beside-the-point president is the best thing that has ever happened to the progressive centralization project. That is why Washington’s Democrats would embrace a Kamala Harris succession.”

Read it. And watch the video.

A cellphone video (above) captured the moment when a stolen Kia slammed into the rear of a school bus parked outside a middle school in Milwaukee earlier this week.

Local media outlet WISN said two teenage girls had been arrested in connection with Monday’s stolen Kia. Both girls were passengers and injured while police said the driver was still on the loose.

Before the Kia plowed into the school bus, a 15-year-old passenger was hanging out of the car window. Police said that person was knocked unconscious. It is not yet clear what charges the two teenagers will be facing.

Washington Free Beacon.

There are few things liberals love more than raising taxes. They are particularly fond of regressive taxes that fall primarily on the poor. Tax hikes on alcohol and other “sin” products are designed to control people’s behavior and force them to behave more like elite liberals who shop at Whole Foods and inject themselves with diabetes medicine to lose weight. Cigarettes, soda, gasoline, and so on.

The people living ultra-low-carbon lifestyles (BBC)

Yet Another Problem With Recycling: It Spews Microplastics (WIRED)

EV Deflation Arrives: Ford Slashes Prices On Its Mustang Mach-E, Following Tesla’s Strategy

FLASHBACK: Media Said Gas Stove Bans Were a Right-Wing Conspiracy

Unhumanity Part V: Big Brother is Green