AUTO SALES BLOODBATH: Every OEM Misses April Sales Estimates As Inventories Continue To Soar.

After an abysmal March print and growing speculation on wall street that auto sales are looking less like a “plateau” (Ford’s label not ours) and more like a debt-fueled bubble on the verge of an epic collapse, auto investors were looking toward April auto sales for signs of hope. Unfortunately, the “hope” trade failed to materialize as every single, major auto OEM missed their April sales estimates in fairly spectacular fashion.

Meanwhile, inventory days are still trending higher as OEMs continue to push product on to dealer lots even though sale through to end customers has seemingly stalled.

GM, one of the few OEMs to actually disclose dealer inventories in monthly sales releases, reported that April inventories increased to 100 days (935,758 vehicles) from 98 days at the end of March and just 71 days (681,402 vehicles) in April 2016. But please don’t worry because GM would like for you to know that their soaring inventories are normal and “reflect strong sales”…no really.

It remains to be seen if Detroit is on the brink of a run-of-the-mill recession, or if they’ve stuffed the sales channels deep enough to threaten another 2007-08 collapse.

BILL NYE, THE AIRBRUSH GUY? Did Bill Nye Censor Himself Because Of Transgender Ideology?

Nye’s evolution on the subject of biological sex is roughly in line with that of standard progressive gender ideology, which is hardly surprising—Nye has become something of a progressive spokesman. What is shocking, however, is that Nye or someone else appears to have gone back and censored the episode of “Bill Nye the Science Guy” that featured the original chromosome segment.

On Netflix’s collection of episodes of “Bill Nye,” the 23rd episode, entitled “Probability,” is identical to that which originally aired in 1996—except that the segment on sex and chromosomes has been excised completely. The episode offers no explanation whatsoever. The show simply moves from the segment immediately prior the deleted clip to the segment immediately following it.

Here’s a before-and-after artist’s recreation of how the offending scene was likely deleted:

ANDREW MALCOLM: Trump vows major changes to NAFTA. Good luck with that, sir.

The U.S. and Canada have the largest bilateral economic relationship in the world, along with the world’s longest undefended border, 5,524 miles. Imagine the costs of that wall.

They’re tied by vast electrical, financial, intelligence and law enforcement networks. Nearly $2 billion in trade flows across that border every single day. More trade transits the old bridge between Detroit and Windsor each year than flows between the U.S. and Japan.

Americans have $380 billion directly invested in Canada, while Canadians have about $260 billion investments down south. Exports of goods and services to Canada support about 1.7 million U.S. jobs. The U.S. trade deficit there narrowed to $11 billion last year.

Fully 40 percent of U.S. imported oil comes from Canada before the Keystone XL pipeline.

Canada is 10 percent larger than the United States and forms the only geographical buffer with Russia. Its politics are way more liberal than the U.S., but Canada has probably been our staunchest ally. On a per capita basis, in fact, Canadian families sacrificed more lives in Afghanistan than the U.S.

As for Mexico, exports there support around 1.2 million U.S. jobs. The exchange of goods and services last year totaled about $597 billion with Mexico earning a surplus of around $55 billion, compared to the $336 billion U.S. deficit with China in 2015.

Americans have about $92 billion in direct investments in Mexico. Mexicans have about $17 billion in the U.S.

Those numbers are yuge.

THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED, OPEN SEXISM WOULD RUN RAMPANT IN AMERICA. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Wesleyan Feminist Demands Male Students Speak Less in Classrooms.

AT AMAZON, Big Savings on Top-Rated Products.

Plus, Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals – Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used Tools.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT MONOPOLY INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF HOMOPHOBIC SLURS?

But then he went about as brutal as we’ve ever really seen Colbert get, continuing, “Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign-language gorilla that got hit in the head.”

And then Colbert finished it off with the most scathing line of them all: “In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster,” which elicited gasps from the studio audience.

Lobbing jokes at the President of the United States, be they Democrat or Republican, is a time-honored late night monologue tradition. Partisan critiquing of the President’s policies is a relatively new facet of late night monologues (at least those on broadcast TV), but one that has undeniably led to increased ratings and relevance for hosts like Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and others. However, using a derogatory, homophobic slur like “cock holster” to denigrate the rightfully elected leader of our nation seems like a step way, way too far. In a misguided attempt to defend his friend and fellow Tiffany Network employee, Colbert’s blustery bravado regressed from pointed punnery into nasty schoolyard bullying, embarrassing himself, his staff, his network and everyone that watches his show.

You stay classy, CBS.

Related: “If a late night host had said this about Obama, every activist group in the country would be calling for their job — and they’d get it.”

WELL, OKAY THEN: Historian Timothy Snyder: “It’s pretty much inevitable” that Trump will try to stage a coup and overthrow democracy.

So I guess everyone better hurry up and download a copy of my paper on military coups now, before it’s too late!

SPENGLER ON ISRAEL’S 69TH INDEPENDENCE DAY: Remarkable Achievements, Continuing Dangers.

CUT YOUR RISK OF PROSTATE CANCER with three espressos a day.

TURNABOUT: Dems blast DOE study as biased toward coal, nuclear.

As biased, say, as threatening to bankrupt the coal industry — and then delivering on the threat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqHL404zhcU

AFTER 15 YEARS OF WAR: Taliban Controls or Contests 40 Percent of Afghan Districts.

MIKE STOPA: Amnesty Is Dead.

APPLE INVESTIGATING wireless charging via wi-fi routers.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! From Czechia with Love.

Russian intelligence, supported by its propaganda machine, is going to great lengths to claim that Trump is tied to Moscow. Russian propaganda outlets such as Sputnik released stories about Page’s visit to Moscow and views on American foreign policy. Moreover, while Russian maneuvers with Page are being exposed, Putin is unrelenting in his efforts to paint Trump as a Kremlin asset.

Sputnik released another story alleging a Trump-Putin connection, this time a purported state visit in April with President Trump by Czech President Milos Zeman, known to the U.S. intelligence community as Putin’s mouthpiece. Czech analysts call him Putin’s Trojan Horse. The White House has never confirmed any visit by Zeman, but Russian propaganda outlets began reporting on a “substantive agenda” of the meeting as soon as Zeman announced it. Raising questions about whether the visit was in the bilateral interests of the Czech Republic and the United States or Vladimir Putin’s sole interest.

A recent filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) by lobbying firm SPG may help answer the question. The firm identified itself to the U.S. Department of Justice as an agent of the Czech Republic to facilitate the state visit of President Zeman.

Shockingly, the Czech Republic denies the existence of any such agreement with SPG.

“Shockingly” — heh.

If there were substance to the Trump-Putin narrative, then the Kremlin wouldn’t have to work so hard to create the appearance of substance. And that goes double for the Kremlin’s willing tools.

HERETICAL WORDS: “Men matter too.”

FAKE NEWS: Death-row inmate did not eat Bible for last meal.

He wouldn’t have needed the roughage anyway.

NOW OUT FROM SARAH HOYT: Darkship Revenge.

FIGHTING WHOOPING COUGH BY VACCINATING PREGNANT WOMEN.

“IF YOU CAN’T BEAT IT, EAT IT.” Maryland’s Grossest Invasive Fish Has a New Predator: High-End Chefs.

When hundreds of mostly juvenile snakeheads turned up in a pond in Crofton, Md., in 2002, the progeny of discarded pets dumped by one owner, the government poisoned the pond. Two years later, when an angler caught a snakehead in a lake 25 miles west, Maryland drained the lake.

But soon snakeheads were spotted in the Potomac River, which divides Maryland and Virginia as it flows to the Chesapeake Bay. Poisoning and draining weren’t an option. Since then, Maryland has adopted a different tack: If you want to beat it, eat it.

The state sponsored snakehead-fishing tournaments and now sells $15 commercial licenses aimed at those who snag the hard-to-catch fish with a bow and arrow. The Potomac’s commercial harvest, sold to restaurants and wholesalers, has risen from almost zero in 2011 to 4,320 pounds in 2016.

“What better way to try to wipe something out than to get humans involved with it and create demand?” said Chad Wells, corporate chef for the group that owns Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia.

Indeed. But serving up invasive species is nothing new to Instapundit readers.

HERE WE GO AGAIN? GOP on verge of losing health care vote.

MAYBE THEY JUST DON’T LIKE IT AS MUCH? “Women, blacks and Latinos are far more likely to quit jobs in tech than white or Asian men, according to a new report by the Kapor Center for Social Impact.”

NOT REALLY: Trump on the Line in Special Election You Might Not Know About.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Connecticut income tax revenue collapses; Malloy says taxing the rich doesn’t work.

WESLEY PRUDEN: A pity party for the unloved press.

There was a broken heart for every wine glass and beer bottle at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night, where the White House Correspondents Association dined at their slimmed-down annual imitation of Hollywood glitz, grandeur and glamour.

The reporters, editors, pundits and wise men and women, sitting stiffly in their rented tuxedos, with the ladies in expensively gowned splendor, all felt unloved, reviled and disrespected, suspected by millions to be peddlers of fake news. The correspondents even put out a red carpet at the door where the limousines arrive, but it still felt a Scotch-and-water or two short of an Oscars night.

The president, who made a point of being three hours and a hundred miles away in Pennsylvania, was the most derided man not in the room. The evening’s not-so-great entertainer, hired to make everybody laugh, complained that the president was campaigning in Pennsylvania “because he can’t take a joke.” Celebrities stayed away, too. Several comedians whose names wouldn’t have escaped anyone turned down the gig. The streets in the fashionable nearby Kalorama neighborhood, usually clogged with the limousines of the rich and famous en route to hot-ticket “after parties,” were deserted this year. Nobody was up to staying up.

The schadenfreude is strong with this one.

DAVID FRENCH: The only people who can’t recognize that our nation has a “smug liberal” problem are smug liberals.