WELL, GOOD: Exercise helps prevent cartilage damage caused by arthritis.

SYSTEM FAIL: The Mueller Report is an unmitigated disaster for the American press and the ‘expert’ class that it promotes.

Lee Smith at Tablet:

The special counsel lasted 674 days, during which millions of people who believed Mueller was going to turn up conclusive evidence of Trump’s devious conspiracies with the Kremlin have become wrapped up in a collective hallucination that has destroyed the remaining credibility of the American press and the D.C. expert class whose authority they promote.

Mueller knew that he wasn’t ever going to find “collusion” or anything like it because all the intercepts were right there on his desk. As it turned out, two of his prosecutors, including Mueller’s so-called “pit bull,” Andrew Weissman, had been briefed on the Steele dossier prior to the 2016 election and were told that it came from the Clintons, and was likely a biased political document.

Weissman left, or was pushed out of, his employment with the special counsel a few weeks ago, after the arrival of a new attorney general, William Barr, who had deep experience in government, including stints at the Justice Department and the CIA. Knowing what we know now, here’s what seems most likely to have just happened: Barr looked at the underlying documents on which Mueller’s investigation was based. First, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s May 17, 2017, memo appointing the former FBI director to take supervision of the FBI’s investigation of Trump. And more importantly, the Aug. 2, 2017, memo from Rosenstein outlining the scope of the investigation.

Among the scope memo’s few unredacted lines are allegations regarding Paul Manafort’s “colluding with Russian government officials … to interfere with the 2016 elections.” The only known source for those allegations is the Steele dossier. What that strongly suggests is that under those redactions are other fabricated allegations that were also drawn from the Clinton-funded smear campaign—a dirty-tricks operation that was led by Fusion GPS founder and conspiracy theorist Glenn Simpson.

And now, after all the Saturday Night Live skits, the obscenity-riddled Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert routines, the half a million news stories and tens of millions of tweets all foretelling the end of Trump, the comedians and the adult authority figures are exposed as hoaxsters, or worse, based on evidence that was always transparently phony.

Read the whole thing.

“ALT-RIGHT” IS THIS DECADE’S “NEOCONSERVATIVE:” “Ben Shapiro, Alt-Right torchbearer? Has the Economist lost its mind?”

Flashback: Economist Publishes Anti-Semitic Cartoon.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Proposed Voting Changes Are About Power, Not Principles.

WELL, GOOD: Study: Smoking not associated with dementia. “Smoking is not linked to developing an increased risk of developing dementia, as many scientists once thought, according to new research published Tuesday in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. These new findings contrast sharply with years of research that pointed to smoking as a factor for the disease.”

I’d expect it to be preventative, by killing you off before dementia could set in.

THEY TOLD ME IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED WE’D SEE OPEN RACISM IN AMERICAN POLITICS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Only black reporters allowed in Georgia mayoral race event.

TRUMP IN DAILY TRACKING POLL: 50% Approval.

A VERY COOL FREE DIVE VIDEO.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! I’m ‘very inclined’ to run for president, says Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO).

MAYBE I’M WRONG BUT I FEEL LIKE SULLY COULD’VE MANAGED IT: Lion Air Pilots Had Less Than a Minute to Avert Fatal Crash.

REPEAT AFTER ME: THERE IS NO CRISIS. U.S. Border Patrol records the most single-day arrests along the Mexican border in over 10 years.

I’M SO OLD, I REMEMBER WHEN CNN STILL PRETENDED TO BE OBJECTIVE:

● Don Lemon tells Cory Booker ‘nice job’ in ‘hot mic’ moment during CNN town hall.

● Don Lemon Says He Texts Jussie Smollett Every Day Following Attack.

Last October, during the Kavanaugh hearings, when the Journolist decided that calling the violent left a mob was not permissible on DNC-MSM airwaves, the Daily Caller noted that “CNN host Don Lemon lost his cool with [right-leaning] network commentator Matt Lewis while discussing the ‘mob behavior’ of liberals versus conservatives Tuesday, telling him to ‘shut up’ while he made his point:”

Lewis tried to respond but Lemon wasn’t having it. “Will you let me finish, Matt, please, before you jump in? I’m making a point. Okay?,” he said. “I’m making a point. I can’t make it if you keep interrupting me.”

“You’re making a point. Are you the moderator or the host or arguing a liberal talking point,” Lewis shot back.

It’s the latter. Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

HANS BADER:  “Harsh penalties deter crime, contrary to what this ‘expert’ says.”

Quoth Bader:  “[John] Pfaff poses the question, ‘How many studies show that severe sanctions are an effective way to deter crime?’  He answers his own question, ‘None.’  But there are many such studies.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Ex-Michelle Obama Aide On Smollett: Yep. I Did It.

Since we already had the text messages via an FOIA request, this part of the Jussie Smollett mystery probably shouldn’t be considered a bombshell. Tina Tchen, who used to be Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, admitted yesterday that she had intervened in the investigation by putting the state’s prosecutor in touch with some unnamed member of Smollett’s family. What remains unclear is whether or not Tchen did this of her own volition or whether someone in the Obama family prompted her to do it.

Some things don’t require any prompting; underlings simply understand what is desired.

“HUMAN CONTACT IS BECOMING A LUXURY GOOD:” The touchscreen revolution tilts the playing field to the elites. Well, the $15/hour minimum wage plays a role here, too . . . .

In Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, the elite send handwritten letters and read printed newspapers; screens are for the proles.

PUBLIC COMMENT ON IMMIGRATION DETENTION FACILITIES: A few years ago, the Commission on Civil Rights issued a report whose purpose was to expose (in the words of the then-Chairman) “egregious human rights and constitutional violations” that he believed were occurring in detention facilities.  Curiously, the draft of the report was mostly finished by the time the Commissioners got around to actually visiting any of those facilities. To the surprise of my colleagues, the facilities we saw were pretty nice (especially the privately run facility for women and their minor children). Since the report barely mentioned what we really saw, I wrote a detailed dissent that (in contrast to the rest of the report) I believe will be useful to anyone who wants an accurate assessment of what those immigration detention facilities are like.

The Commission now wants to reexamine the issue.  On Friday, April 12, 2019 from 10:00 to 12:30 a.m., the Commission is hosting a public comment session. According to the Commission’s announcement, it seeks comment “on the condition of immigration detention centers and status of treatment of immigrants, including children.” It further states, “The Commission seeks to hear from members of the public, including policy advocates, legal experts, affected persons, and other individuals who wish to speak on the issue.” Here is the link to the announcement.

Note that the Commission also welcomes submission of written material. The email and snail mail addresses for the submission of written material are available at the link above. The deadline for submission is May 13, 2019. If you believe you have something useful to say, especially if you have some first-hand knowledge, I hope you’ll consider submitting something. If you know someone who might want to comment (again, especially if that someone might have first-hand knowledge), please pass this information on to him or her.

I know there is lots of expertise and experience out there.  If this is an area you know something about (or you know someone who does), don’t let that knowledge go to waste.

OH: Amazon Still Gives Southern Poverty Law Center Veto Power Over Charity Program.

MSNBC’S CHRIS HAYES DEMANDS: Don’t ‘Crack Jokes’ About Green New Deal!

Remember, as the Ayatollah  Khomeini famously warned, “There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.”

Whoops, sorry, wrong totalitarian religion there, but it’s an easy mistake to make these days — “When politics becomes a religion, nonbelievers must be punished,” David Gelernter writes.

But how is Chris coming along with getting such carbon-intense activities as the NFL and NASCAR removed from the NBC roster?

WELL, GOOD: Trump Announces FBI and DOJ Will Investigate Jussie Smollett Hate Hoax.

THEY TOLD ME THE MUELLER PROBE WOULD SEND CORRUPT OFFICIALS TO JAIL. AND MAYBE THEY WERE RIGHT! Charges near for Dem lawyer Greg Craig in case linked to Mueller probe.

WOW: All 9 Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee demand Democrat Chairman Adam Schiff resign: “we have no faith in your ability to discharge your duties in a manner consistent with your constitutional responsibility and urge your immediate resignation.”

“OBSESSED” IS AN STRONG ACCUSATION FROM THE PARTY PUSHING FOURTH-TERM ABORTION: Dems Slam Pompeo as ‘Abortion-Obsessed’ Over Popular Move to Stop Overseas Abortion Funding.

TODAY: ‘People are dying’: Ocasio-Cortez defends Green New Deal from ‘elitist’ knock.

YESTERDAY: Ocasio-Cortez Takes Credit For Not Getting Any Votes In Favor Of Her Green New Deal.

Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?