THAT’S A REAL SHAME WHEN FOLKS BE THROWIN’ AWAY A PERFECTLY GOOD CARRIER LIKE THAT: Refuel the Truman—It’s the Law!

The midlife refueling overhaul for the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) is scheduled for 2024, but once again, the Department of Defense (DoD) wants to eliminate an aircraft carrier because it believes the refueling overhaul funds can be better used elsewhere. President Barack Obama’s administration tried to cancel the refueling midlife overhauls of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and George Washington (CVN-73), only to see Congress insist on both.

In this case, DoD wants to reprogram about $3.5 billion between now and the end of 2028. The Harry S. Truman is scheduled to enter the shipyard in 2024 for a three-year, midlife overhaul that would include new nuclear fuel (to keep her in service to at least 2048). Note that the refueling costs comprise only about 10 percent of the total because the nuclear fuel is already made and paid for with other funds.

Canceling the refueling without Congressional action would violate the law, however. U.S. Code Title 10, Section 8062 states:

The naval combat forces of the Navy shall include not less than 11 operational carriers. . . . An operational carrier includes an aircraft carrier that is temporarily unavailable for worldwide deployment due to routine or scheduled maintenance or repair.

It seems probable DoD told the Navy to say that the service decided to retire the ship—but why would the Navy choose to retire a carrier in violation of the law? The Navy knows the first thing to do should have been to ask Congress—constitutionally charged “to provide and maintain a Navy”—for a waiver before making such a decision.

We’re witnessing here the trickle-down effects of the sequester, which caused a backlog of ship maintenance and not enough repair facilities to take care of the growing backlog. I had hoped Congress to do the sane thing and carve out exemptions to provide for basic military maintenance, but was very quickly disabused of that notion.

NOT ACTUALLY A BABYLON BEE HEADLINE: Scientists horrified that Trump wants to require universities to honor free speech. “This is not a Babylon Bee story. An article today in the science journal Nature actually expressed outrage and concern about President Trump’s executive order last week tying the grants a university gets to its willingness to protect the free speech of all its students and teachers. O the horror! The universities will have to show that they support free speech! What a travesty!”

Leftist ideas can’t withstand debate. Leftists know that, which is why they’re always trying to silence their opponents, generally in the name of some sort of decency or compassion that they themselves spectacularly lack.

BREAKING BREAD: Gay 2020 Dem Pete Buttigieg Wants a ‘Peace Deal’ with Chick-fil-A. “I do not approve of their politics, but I kind of approve of their chicken.”

JOURNALISM: The Press Doesn’t Learn Things, Unless Those Things Are About How Great They Are.

PETER KIRSANOW, MEMBER U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, WRITES TO SAN ANTONIO MAYOR:  Calls decision to exclude Chick-Fil-A from San Antonio airport “bigoted virtue signalling” and implies that Chick-Fil-A may be “the tastiest chicken sandwiches in creation.”

BILL DEBLASIO’S WIFE HAS TOO MUCH MONEY.

The first spouse went before the City Council Tuesday — tripping spectacularly over her own tongue while removing any doubt that her billion-dollar husbandly indulgence, ThriveNYC, amounts to an epic public policy swindle gussied up as a mental health program.

Still, questions linger.

Such as, how did it happen that Thrive burned through more $565 million over four-plus years to no appreciable good effect with nobody noticing?

Certainly not the City Council, a legislative body comprising 50 stuffed cabbages and a speaker who wants to be mayor — a fellow who stood by incuriously as the city’s streets and subways slowly filled with insane people, many of them threatening and dangerous.

The council redeemed itself only slightly Tuesday, asking McCray — too politely for the circumstances — to explain herself, and then settling for a non-answer answer for the ages:

“ThriveNYC was my idea,” she said. “I’m the founder, I provide the strategic support, I hold meetings on behavioral health and I amplify things to the public.”

Well, yes. And then what?

One can only imagine what a mad scramble those meetings are. With a quarter of a billion dollars (!!) to divvy up every year, one easily could get an arm broken when the boodling begins.

Anyway, for details the mayoral missus deferred to one Susan Herman, who “does the day-to-day management and makes the decisions.”

I can tell you what happened to the money. It was stolen. That’s what happened to it.

MICHAEL ANTON: America Needs a SetUpGate Truth Commission. “Which is to say: the most powerful individuals, institutions and interests in America conspired to set up a presidential candidate, and later president-elect, and later still President. Their goal? To defeat him in 2016; should he be elected, to prevent his taking office; and should he take office, to have him removed. And yet it’s precisely these people who accused (and, in many cases, still accuse) Mr. Trump of ‘stealing’ and ‘rigging’ an election, of ‘subverting our democracy.”’This is projection on an unimaginable scale.”

SHARYL ATTKISSON: 78 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List.

CHANGE: The End of the New Deal Era—and the Coming Realignment. As I keep saying, the Trump era is about the renegotiation of institutional arrangements that seemed stable for decades.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Obamas’ Chicago Fixer Tina Tchen’s Role in Smollett Case. I love that she’s going straight from that to fixing things for the SPLC.

I DON’T WANT MY EMAILS TO BE “MORE DYNAMIC.” Google Makes Emails More Dynamic With AMP For Email.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Keith Olbermann Wants to Ruin a Guy’s Life for Killing a Turkey.

Flashback: Olbermann: Violence and threats have no place in democracy.

More: “Finally, the punchline of this story is that Olbermann himself once starred in a commercial selling turkey sandwiches for Boston Market. So apparently trophy hunting a turkey is cause for making someone’s life hell but getting paid to tell people to eat turkey sandwiches is just fine.”

WHY ARE LEFTIST INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL ABUSE? There’s a #MeToo Scandal Brewing in the Reproductive Rights World. Remember, we have to believe all women.

OOPS: USA Today Polls Readers, Probably Unhappy With Results.

OPEN THREAD: Try to find something to talk about in this uneventful week.

MAYBE THEY DON’T THINK ALL IMMIGRANTS ARE THE SAME: Poland Bashes Immigrants, but Quietly Takes Christian Ones.

CHICAGO ACTIVISTS OUT TO RE-ELECT TRUMP: On the West Side, the street shows no fear of Chicago police.

It was always going to be a bad summer. But something happened the other day on the West Side that makes me think that old archetype of a sergeant may be right this time.

Authorities confirmed that two police officers — TAC cops, not rookies — were making a drug arrest shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday.

A mob appeared, threatening the officers, surrounding them, threatening to reach for their own weapons to shoot them dead, and the cops let the suspect go.

What is learned here? The street is officially no longer afraid of the Chicago police.

If the cops had fired their weapons, news media would have been all over them, metaphorically skinning them alive. Politicians would have demanded their heads. Democratic presidential candidates, and the two campaigning for mayor, would have held repeated news conferences.

But this? Nothing.

I don’t see politicians convening blue ribbon panels of experts. I don’t see media bringing all the light they can bring to this. Tribune reporter William Lee crafted a compelling story, but one story isn’t enough.

The cops know they’re alone. That’s not a good prescription for what may come.

I’ve never heard of that before, of cops so intimidated during an arrest that they’d back off. And I wonder what message that sends, to cops, to the street, and what will come of it.

Riots and attacks on the police. MAGA-mentum. Trump2020. Thanks, wokesters.

JAZZ SHAW: Yes, we need to talk about this Jussie Smollett debacle. “Their complaints are justified because this situation stinks on ice and there are a lot of Chicago Way players involved.”

I think we need a federal investigation. The people have a right to know.

TRUMP IS HAVING A GOOD WEEK: Judge tosses lawsuit against Trump travel ban, says families can’t demand visas for relatives.

SOME PEOPLE FIND IT COMFORTING: The unbearable heaviness of clutter.

AT AMAZON, spring savings in Car Care.

Plus, deals in Patio, Lawn, and Garden.

CONCISELY PUT:

ENDORSED: Tennessee’s 3 largest counties want a paper trail for votes: Cybersecurity experts have long complained that the nation’s antiquated elections infrastructure is vulnerable to tampering – especially paperless equipment. I’ve been writing about this since 2002.

More here.

SHOCK AND AOC: NY Dem Rep. Tom Suozzi: “We need” Green New Deal even though ideas in it are “fantasy land.” “So we’re clear:  He is saying they don’t really believe in the Green New Deal; they just want to shock people with it.”

I’m so old, I can remember when “Progressives” were against the concept of Future Shock:  

COMING SOON FROM MARK LEVIN: Unfreedom of the Press.