PANDEMIC REVEALS WEAKNESSES IN IMPERIAL BEIJING’S COMMUNIST FOUR PLAY: Yes, four, as in the number. Read the entire essay.

PRAGER: Our Dress Rehearsal for a Police State.

BELIEVE ALL WOMEN: Ex-Sanders Campaign Official Demands Biden ‘Withdraw From The Race’ Over Tara Reade Accusation.

DE BLASIO UNDER FIRE FOR SINGLING OUT JEWISH COMMUNITY IN TWEET: 

Reaction: Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt blasted de Blasio for “generalizing against” the more than 1 million Jews in New York City at a time “when so many are scapegoating Jews.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called out the Democratic mayor for targeting religious faith. Lis Smith, who served as de Blasio’s press secretary during his 2013 race for mayor and the beginning of his term, noted, “NYC has been a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution and death for decades and more. How on earth does the mayor of NYC single them out for persecution in the middle of a pandemic?”

Double standard: New York City Councilman Chaim Deutsch, chairman of the New York City Jewish Caucus, accused de Blasio of a “double standard” against one community while ignoring violations in other neighborhoods across the city. “The mayor shouldn’t have singled out the Jewish community, and if he’s going to do it, he should make sure that the city as a whole practices social distancing,” Deutsch told Jewish Insider. “He should call everyone out when they see it. I am not condoning anything that happened, but as mayor of the city of New York he cannot pick and choose one ethnic group, or one particular group, over another.

Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt told JI, “Had the mayor condemned just that, there would’ve been nothing wrong with such a condemnation. But to condemn an entire community is just wrong. It’s also a perfect invitation to antisemites to do their work.”

Poor choice of words: Councilman Kalman Yeger (D-Brooklyn) said he was “very disappointed” with de Blasio’s language because “he has always been a good friend of the community” and “it’s language he would never have used about any other ethnic group in the city.”

QED:

Related: De Blasio is stoking anti-Semitism. He’s not alone. “It was grossly anti-Semitic, casting New York City’s 1 million Jews with the brush of a few hundred. And it was doubly offensive given the mayor’s failure to protect Orthodox Jews last year as they suffered daily physical attacks on the streets of New York City. Unsurprisingly, de Blasio had no opprobrium for the thousands of New Yorkers who, like himself, were tempted by the weekend’s warm weather to enjoy the city’s parks. Couple all that with the fact that Satmar Headquarters is claiming that the mayor’s office initially approved the funeral and coordinated it with the NYPD, and you have a truly shameful debacle.”

WELL, THE MEDIA: The Light the Media Mocked Trump Over Could Be Used to Disinfect Airplanes.

THE WUHAN VIRUS, VIETNAM, and our Garbage Media. “The fact that publications all over the corporate media world wrote essentially the same story within a couple of hours of each other suggests one of two things: (1) That many different oh-so-‘brave’ journalists have been waiting for this moment for days now because it provides a handy opportunity, if nonsensical, to connect the Trump administration to one of the great disasters of American policy and to associate Trump’s policy failures to the last century’s most anti-American moment, or (2) this is actually a Democratic Party talking point emailed around to editors a few days ago. We suspect both are true, at least to some extent. Both purposes are shameful in the current moment.”

Plus: “There was a day when the press did not actively try to make people feel worse during a period of national crisis. If, during the Great Depression, the media had run endless irrelevant stories about policy failure (‘More Americans have died from hunger than died during the Spanish flu pandemic!’), our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents would have viewed the publishers as ignoble and unpatriotic. Does anybody doubt that? So let’s not hear anything more about the nobility of today’s press. They are trying to make you feel worse, which is the last thing you need.”

Message to the press: If you don’t want people to think of you as garbage, stop being garbage.

VERY LITTLE: Justin Amash Is Running for President. What Does This Mean for Trump?

WELL, WAPO: Washington Post Runs a Debunked Conspiracy Story for the Sole Purpose of Trying to Damage President Trump.

“DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION.” In papers, grants and hiring, conservatives face discrimination in philosophy departments, study finds.

AT AMAZON, Bras for Women.

BECAUSE “WOMEN’S GROUPS” AREN’T ABOUT WOMEN, THEY’RE JUST LEFTIST FRONTS: Why Have Women’s Groups Gone Dead Silent on Biden Sex-Assault Accusation?

The purpose of “women’s groups” isn’t to help women. It’s to keep women agitated, suggestible, and submissive to leftist ideology. And leftist ideology is all about getting, retaining, and exercising power.

THINK OF THE WAPO AS PART OF THE DEMOCRATS’ MESSAGING APPARAT AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG: EPA Administrator Claims WaPo Lied About Disinfectant Claim Even After Checking With EPA.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler:

We put that warning (about not ingesting products) on all of our list of disinfectants. Anything we approve, we always have that disclaimer, no matter what the product is.

And we’ve had that disclaimer on our disinfectants list before the coronavirus, but certainly we’ve highlighted it since March 6th.

We release the new list of disinfectants, the new approvals, every Thursday. And we released the list last Thursday, a couple of hours before the President’s press conference. That disclaimer is always on our press release.

And we actually had [sic] Washington Post reporter called and said, “You put this on here because of the President’s press conference, didn’t you?” I said, “No. Actually, our press release went out a couple of hours before the press conference.“

And then they ran a story over the weekend saying that EPA had to backtrack on the President’s statement, which is not the case at all.

But that just shows you how the media has their own, has an incredible bias. They just run with the story and they make facts up. We specifically told them no.

This wasn’t sloppy reporting. This was deliberate disinformation.

FASTER, PLEASE: Pressure Mounts For Biden To Unseal Documents Related To Time In Senate, Tara Reade.

THIS GUY AGAIN: Earlier this month we’ve seen revelation after revelation about what a crock the FBI investigation into collusion was. JustTheNews.com is now reporting that Steele testified in a British court that he believed both then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and then-Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice were aware of his dossier research as it was going on in summer 2016:

“Steele told a British court he believed he had been hired by the Fusion GPS firm owned by Glenn Simpson through the Democratic National Committee-linked law firm Perkins Coie to assist the Clinton campaign during the election, according to a transcript of the testimony […] “I presumed it was the Clinton campaign, and Glenn Simpson had indicated that. But I was not aware of the technicality of it being the DNC that was actually the client of Perkins Coie,” Steele testified.”

Now here’s the conundrum: The DNC, Schiff, and the deep staters in the FBI hired a discredited spy to create a spurious dossier. They leaked that dossier to media, and once it was published, the would-be coup plotters obtained a FISA warrant under less-than-honest circumstances. They swore up and down that Steele was credible. So do they now claim he is not to be believed? And it’s difficult for those of us who knew he was dodgy in the first place ought to be careful about putting too much stock in his words.

As the famous line in cross-examination goes: “were you lying then, or are you lying now?”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Colleges get creative to boost fall enrollment.

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THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Virtual Blackout: Liberal TV Networks Bury Joe Biden Sex Scandal.

SO MUCH FOR #METOO: Kweisi Mfume Wins Maryland Special Congressional Election.

Flashback: The NAACP Paid $100,000 To A Woman Who Accused Him Of Sexual Harassment. “House Democrats say they can’t do anything about the years-old allegation against Kweisi Mfume.”

How convenient. Sorry ladies, you’ve been sacrificed for the good of the Party.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Kentucky Governor Apologizes To Local Tupac Shakur For Coronavirus Unemployment Comment.

The only problem with the governor’s remark is that there really is a Lexington resident named Tupac Shakur, and he really did submit one of 100,000-plus applications for unemployment benefits in his state last week after being laid off from his job as a cook at Alfalfa’s and Lynagh’s restaurant. Shakur, 46, goes by his middle name, Malik, and is not related to the late rap legend of the same name. “I’ve been struggling for like the last month trying to figure out how to pay the bills,” he told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “I’m hurt, I’m really embarrassed and I’m shocked. He needs to apologize. That’s just my name.”

Back during my brief professional acting career, I worked with a Univ. of Georgia theater major named Johnny Carson. And yes, that was his real name.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Alternate headline: Governor Who Can’t Do His Job Blames Unemployed Man.” Beshear got a lot of good press early, but his performance overall hasn’t been especially impressive.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

From Encinitas, California.

NOT THE HERO WE EXPECTED, BUT THE HERO WE NEED:

Buried lede: There are Belgians who don’t eat fries at least twice a week?

#THERESISTANCE: Newport Beach City Leaders Vote To Keep Beaches Open Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic.

Related: Going Back to Work, No Matter What.

We’re re-opening our art gallery in downtown Napa not later than 11 a.m., Monday, May 4th. Appropriate and adequate social-distancing protocol will be in place and observed. City, county, and state officials are being notified, with encouragement to adjust any policies and plans accordingly.

As of next Monday, our gallery’s doors will have been closed, by county and state order, for six weeks and three days. Over that span, the county of Napa, population 137,744 at last count, has recorded two deaths attributable to the COVID-19 virus, both from over three weeks ago, with 60 confirmed cases in the county total, of which 26 have recovered, by the most recent county report.

As of last Monday, according to the Register, there were three COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the county, including the one in intensive care.

We’ve been averaging fewer than two new cases reported daily since the first two were reported on 3/22. There were no new cases reported in the county this past Thursday.

Testing for the virus is now available. Our hospitals — Kaiser, the Queen, Adventist Health — are all fine. As of today, there is no extant emergency in Napa County, no evidence of an imminent crisis, no evidence of an impending situation that wouldn’t be well manageable with available resources. It’s past time to start re-opening the local economy, with care, sensible precautions, continued and increased testing, and attentive monitoring.

Long-time readers will remember the Cordair Art Gallery as frequent advertisers on InstaPundit during the old BlogAds days.