THEN SHE DOESN’T KNOW MUCH HISTORY: Tenn. lawmaker shocked Democrats were locked in House chamber.

Johnson said just before a 15-minute recess shortly after 5 p.m. Central, Democrats learned they did not have anyone on the three-person committee for a controversial TennCare Block Grant Bill.

Before the recess was over, Johnson said she and other Democrats decided to go outside to strategize their next move when the session resumed. Their next move met an unexpected obstacle.

“The speaker told the troopers to lock the doors and not let anyone leave,” said Johnson. “We told the speaker you have to let us out. You can’t do this. The speaker said I can do whatever I want, basically saying he was above the law.”

“State law is very clear,” said Rep. Casada later Thursday night. “You have been elected to be in there. If you shirk your responsibilities, several of the actions that can be taken is state troopers can bring you back in there [the House chamber].”

When Tennessee ratified the 14th Amendment, the Democrats (who opposed ratification) absented themselves to prevent a quorum. The speaker, consistent with the rules that allowed the Sergeant at Arms or his deputies to enforce a quorum, hired detectives to go out and bring them back. Then they were locked in until after the vote. Compared to that, this is nothing.

WEIRD HOW THE “HUMAN RIGHTS” COMMUNITY IS COMPARATIVELY QUIET ABOUT THIS, COMPARED TO SAY TRUMP’S BORDER ENFORCEMENT: China putting minority Muslims in ‘concentration camps,’ U.S. says.

FLASHBACK, SPYING EDITION: Top Dem: Obama team compiling ‘information about everything on every individual.’

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., believes that the 2016 Democratic nominee has a good chance to win because President Obama’s campaign team has been compiling a database about the American people containing “information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before.”

Hmm.

Entirely and completely unrelated:

JACK GOLDSMITH: “Sometimes Justice Department independence means standing up to the president. And sometimes it means taking unpopular positions in defense of the presidency. I am pretty confident that the latter is what Barr is up to.”

OPEN THREAD: Party like you’re wildlife in British rivers.

ANYONE WHO THINKS THAT WOMEN DO ALL THE “EMOTIONAL LABOR” has never been married to an actual woman.

CASTER SEMENYA IS INTERSEX, WITH XY CHROMOSOMES:  Why can’t the media state this clearly?

Some are making it sound like Semenya is an ordinary woman from a biological standpoint with a condition that just happens to cause high testosterone levels.  If that were the case, refusing to allow her to compete as a female athlete would seem unfair.  If she happens to be blessed with a characteristic that helps her win, then more power to her.  Michael Jordan and other NBA players are taller than most men I know. That’s not unfair.

But it’s more complicated than that.  It goes to whether she is male or female for the purpose of athletic competitions.  To me at least the issue is more sympathetic to her than in the typical transgender case.  But it’s still difficult.

Semenya is not transgender–at least not in the usual sense.  Her body outwardly appears female.  Nevertheless, according to Robert Johnson at letsrun.com,  she is believed to have internal testes and to lack a womb or ovaries).  She has been viewed as female from birth, identifies as a lesbian female now and probably didn’t have any idea about her XY status until rather late in her life.  But at the chromosomal level she has always been male.

I have no opinion about how to treat such a rare case.  It is interesting that Johnson reports that all three of the medalists in the 2016 women’s 800 are believed to be intersex.  If intersex athletes are extremely rare and yet would dominate women’s world championships, maybe it makes sense to allocate them to the male side of competition.  Or not.  I plan to stay out of this.

What bothers me is that many in the media can’t seem to report it accurately.

PARTY ON: Wildlife in British rivers test positive for cocaine, pharmaceuticals.

OLD WHITE LIBERALS TRY TO DENY YOUNG BROWN VENEZUELANS’ SELF-DETERMINATION: Watch: American liberals occupy Venezuelan embassy, scream at anti-Maduro Venezuelans.

UPDATE: Notice, by the way, that once again Medea Benjamin of Code Pink is engaging in illegal activities with impunity. Who is protecting her? What right-wing personality could take over an embassy and not even be arrested?

EVEN THE BBC IS NOTICING: Christian persecution ‘at near genocide levels.’

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FRIDAY NIGHT FUN FROM FIREFOX: Mozilla is fixing a bug that stopped Firefox extensions from working.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What Makes Rush’s “Limelight” a Great Song?

BLUE ON BLUE: Former Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson withdraws as graduation speaker at USC Law after law professors complain about his immigration record.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: French feminist attacks AOC’s ‘bin raccoon’ boyfriend.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was probably expecting some criticism after her new documentary “Knock Down the House” was released on Netflix this month, but she likely did not expect it for the way her boyfriend looks.

A French feminist writer, Marie Le Conte, attacked Riley Roberts’ appearance on Twitter Friday, causing some outrage and a series of jokes.

“Apologies for the blatantly mean tweet but THIS is what AOC’s boyfriend looks like? incredible scenes, truly representing all the ambitious and stunning millenial women shackled to boyfriends who look like bin raccoons out there,” Conte said.

Classy stuff.

NOW HILLARY CLINTON’S LOSS IS BEING BLAMED ON JON STEWART:

Hillary Clinton’s defenders will never stop making excuses for why she lost in 2016: It was Matt Lauer! It was James Comey! It was men being sexist! It was women being sexist! It was voter suppression! It was Citizens United! It was fake news! It was WikiLeaks! It was Facebook! It was the Russians!

Today, a new excuse: It was Jon Stewart!

In the middle of last week, Huma Abedin must have bustled over to Hillary’s place with a lovingly bound copy of the latest in cutting-edge academic research, a report that says Jon Stewart’s retirement is ACKSHULLY the reason Donald Trump won. We’ll all be able to hear more about this in Frau Pantsuit’s next memoir, “7,573 Other Reasons I Lost That Totally Were Not My Fault, You Ungrateful Pissants.”

The latest in cutting-edge political science/flat-earth theory is that after Stewart quit hosting a comedy show for liberals, the advantage swung to Trump because Democrats forgot there was an election or something.

Joliet Jake has nothing on Park Ridge Hillary.

BRAD TEMPLETON: Lawsuit Over Tesla Autopilot Fatality Unlikely To Win But It Uncovers Real Issues.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Huff Post Gives Americans (Grudging) Permission to Enjoy Cinco de Mayo!

“AUSTIN POWERS: THE CLOAKED INVESTIGATOR WHO SHAGGED ME.” The New York Times Goes to Hilarious Lengths to Not Use the Word “Spy.”

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Petition Demands Brie Larson be Replaced With Gay Woman of Color In “Captain Marvel.”

The star of “Captain Marvel,” Brie Larson, is an actress who has waved the social justice flag in the faces of everyone she could, saying all the necessary things and accomplishing all the necessary tasks to make sure it’s understood that she is the warrior’s warrior. A “captain” if you will.

Larson made it clear throughout the promotion of Captain Marvel that she wanted more people of color to review her films, not white men. She made it clear that she doesn’t care what old white men thought of films because some films weren’t for them. She promoted the idea of more gay superheroes and said the social justice takeover of the Marvel Cinematic Universe needs to happen faster.

And it didn’t save her. The monster has now come to eat her too.

Each revolution eventually devours its own.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Surviving a Gunfight: Go Back to Basics. Step one: Have a gun.

I CAN JUST HEAR PALLYWOOD NOW: “Hey, they fought back! No fair!”

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A COOL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BICYCLE MENACE: Admit it, cyclists: We must do better.

The report late last month that a 67-year-old woman walking in a crosswalk across 57th St. suffered a skull fracture and fell into a coma after being hit by a bicyclist who ran a red light is a grim reminder of a truth I’ve resisted: Some cyclists in New York are posing a public safety risk.

Even as the number of cyclists, bike lanes and proposed additional lanes have reached an all-time high, and even though cars overall remain a much greater risk to life and limb, in far too many cases, bikes have not been safely integrated into the flow of cars and pedestrians.

I write as someone who has commuted to work by bike for (really!) more than 50 years. That’s meant innumerable car doors opened right in front of me; getting hit from behind while stopped at a light (sent me to the ER); and all sorts of driver insults. Through it all, I’ve remained hardcore pro-biking.

But there’s no getting around the fact that with the increase in cycling in this dense city — by commuters, Citi Bike renters and delivery cyclists, some of whom zip around on motorized ebikes — so, too, has traffic chaos in the city increased. It takes but a short walk around Midtown to spot cyclists going the wrong way on one-way streets, speeding through red lights, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, sometimes all at the same time.

If only there was another transportation option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCt7T20N07U

(Classical reference in headline.)