ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Roman Polanski Sues Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to Be Reinstated.

GLENN GREENWALD: Robert Mueller Did Not Merely Reject the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theories. He Obliterated Them.

In sum, Democrats and their supporters had the exact prosecutor they all agreed was the embodiment of competence and integrity in Robert Mueller. He assembled a team of prosecutors and investigators that countless media accounts heralded as the most aggressive and adept in the nation. They had subpoena power, the vast surveillance apparatus of the U.S. government at their disposal, a demonstrated willingness to imprison anyone who lied to them, and unlimited time and resources to dig up everything they could.

The result of all of that was that not a single American – whether with the Trump campaign or otherwise – was charged or indicted on the core question of whether there was any conspiracy or coordination with Russia over the election. No Americans were charged or even accused of being controlled by or working at the behest of the Russian government. None of the key White House aides at the center of the controversy who testified for hours and hours – including Donald Trump, Jr. or Jared Kushner – were charged with any crimes of any kind, not even perjury, obstruction of justice or lying to Congress.

These facts are fatal to the conspiracy theorists who have drowned U.S. discourse for almost three years with a dangerous and distracting fixation on a fictitious espionage thriller involved unhinged claims of sexual and financial blackmail, nefarious infiltration of the U.S. Government by familiar foreign villains, and election cheating that empowered an illegitimate President. They got the exact prosecutor and investigation that they wanted, yet he could not establish that any of this happened and, in many cases, established that it did not.

After this investigation, Trump may be the cleanest president of my lifetime. Except maybe for Jimmy Carter, who was terrible.

CNN: Mueller’s report looks bad for Obama. “The partisan warfare over the Mueller report will rage, but one thing cannot be denied: Former President Barack Obama looks just plain bad. On his watch, the Russians meddled in our democracy while his administration did nothing about it.”

But to be fair, he did mock Mitt Romney for worrying about the Russians.

I LIKE DAVID FRENCH, BUT THIS IS AHISTORICAL BULLSHIT:

I mean, let’s just look at the presidents of my lifetime: JFK: Adulterer, drug user, made his brother (!) Attorney General, shady mafia connections, stole election. LBJ: Adulterer, much cruder than Trump, started Vietnam War. Nixon: Honestly, better than LBJ but the source of the term “Nixonian.” Ford: Nice guy, failed president. Carter: Nice guy, failed president. Reagan: The GOP gold standard, but a multiply-divorced Hollywood actor whose administration was marked by nearly as much scandal-drama as Trump’s. (Just look up Justice Gorsuch’s mother). George HW: Nice guy, but longtime adulterer and failed president. Bill Clinton: I mean, come on. George W. Bush: Personal rectitude in office, though he’s been a bit of a dick since Trump beat his brother. Iraq War thing didn’t turn out too well. Mediocre judicial appointments and little attention to domestic reforms. Gave us TSA. Obama: Far more scandals, and far more abuse of power, than Trump. And does French forget that Trump was running against Hillary?

But at any rate, the American people had a chance to decide if they wanted a man like Trump in the White House, and they decided that they did. And Trump’s now polling better than Obama did at this point in his presidency, and will almost certainly rise in the polls post Mueller report.

I mean, most of our successful presidents weren’t nice guys — FDR makes LBJ and Nixon look like pikers — and most of the nice guys in that office were failures as president. And Trump’s behavior in office is, by comparison with his predecessor, better, if cruder.

And in terms of his actions, well, Trump’s actual performance in office is looking pretty good. The economy is booming, foreign policy is going better than under his creased-pants predecessor, regulations are being slashed, and the courts are being better-stocked than any Republican president in my lifetime, including Reagan, ever managed.

Against that record, schoolmarmish disapproval pales in importance. But you want an America where a better man than Donald Trump can be a successful president? Then you have to make a better America, not least by crushing the power of the existing, awful, ruling class. And guess what: That’s what Trump’s doing. The NeverTrumpers, meanwhile, have chosen to ally themselves with the problem.

As James Taranto says, NeverTrumpism seems to be primarily an aesthetic phenomenon, and to indulge in it you have to think that our existing ruling class is more attractive than Trump. De gustibus non disputandum est, but I don’t feel that way at all.

Related:

Plus:

ANN ALTHOUSE: How will the intensely (overly) emotional reaction to the Mueller report affect the competition for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party?

CHANGE: Illinois County Board Passes Ballot Measure For New State.

Related: Splitsylvania: State Secession and What to Do About It.

FROM IDIOTS: Massive Notre Dame Cathedral donations draw high-profile backlash.

DO YOU HAVE YOUR Ka-Bar Tactical Spork yet?

FEMALE PRIVILEGE: Woman accused of harassing man with 159,000 texts: ‘I can’t believe that I’m actually in jail over some text messages.’

UNLIKE THE DEMOCRATS’ LEADING CANDIDATES, THIS STUFF NEVER GETS OLD:

OPEN THREAD: Make it memorable.

JOURNALISM: “Maggie Haberman is one of the Times reporters who cover President Trump and the White House; like many others, she has been driven around the bend by hatred. This is one of the dumbest tweets of all time.”

UPDATE:

OBVIOUSLY, THIS MUST BE BECAUSE HIGHER EDUCATION IS IRREDEEMABLY RACIST: In more than a dozen academic fields—largely STEM related—not a single black student earned a doctoral degree in 2017.

SPACE: Rocket Report: A new Delta 2, Blue Origin inks with NASA, a fiery Falcon Heavy.

AT AMAZON, save in Arts, Crafts, and Sewing.

Plus, spring savings in Car Care.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “Democrats lost an election they rigged, and now Democrats have lost an investigation they rigged.”

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Grenell: Buttigieg’s “pushing a hate hoax” like Jussie Smollett.

Grenell wondered where all the calls for tolerance from the gay community have gone. Grenell, himself in a same-sex marriage, laments that their goals used to be tolerance. That doesn’t mean enforcing sameness on everyone, Grenell argues, noting that he disagrees with people he admires but doesn’t expect them to conform to his point of view. “We were the ones saying everyone should be able to accept and love each other,” Grenell recalls. “Now, suddenly, there’s a whole community of people who are demanding that we all think alike. I think it’s outrageous.”

Grenell’s correct that tolerance has gone from its original meaning to an Orwellian term on the Left for enforcing groupthink and silencing any dissent.

Yes, he is.

Related (From Ed): The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler writes, “we conclude there is little evidence that Pence supported conversion therapy, especially given the discussion concerning the Ryan White bill at the time. Media citations on this issue should be more careful in how they reference it.”

As Stephen Miller tweets, “I mean what was the rush here? Why not just wait a few years and let a narrative take hold before checking something like this?”

HMM: The brain chemical oxytocin appears to make people feel full and reduce overeating. Can it help stop the obesity epidemic?

YOU GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK: Bacteria use viruses to differentiate themselves from their competitors. It’s interesting to see that as human microbiomes become more important, we’re discovering that bacteria have microbiomes of their own. “Smaller bugs to bite ’em,” indeed.

CHURCHILL’S THIN GREY LINE: A book review of Bernard Edwards’ Churchill’s Thin Grey Line: British Merchant Ships at War 1939–1945.

An excerpt from the review:

In this work, rather than giving us the “Big Picture”, Edwards tells the story of merchant mariners at was by through the experiences of nearly twenty ships, many of which failed to survive attacks by torpedo, shell and bomb. He uses these stories to throw light on the evolution of ship and convoy defense as well as the development of the tactics by enemy submarines, surface raiders, and air craft, while recounting some desperate fights under often terrible conditions. In the process of do so, Edwards also offers us brief glimpses at many heroic mariners, and even some enemy personnel.

Reviewer Dr. A. A. Nofi notes that Edwards is a retired merchant marine captain.

YOUR KID IS NEXT: Hans Bader breaks down why the criminal charges against an Ohio high school senior for ranking the appearances of female classmates on Twitter are unconstitutional. (The actual tweets, as per usual, have been memory-holed, but a few are listed here.) The level of totalitarianism in public high schools is bad enough already without the police piling on. But after the Internet hate machine gets done with this kid – or yours – will anyone, including the legal system, care?

CNN STOMPS THE COMPETITION! No, not in the ratings department of course. But CNN has progressed from threatening their viewers to also threatening the animal world: Watch: CNN reporter stomps Florida lizard during live report.

What will PETA say?

OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME? Watch: California Shoplifter Sticks Chainsaw Down His Pants.