DEMOCRACY DIES IN ORWELLIAN OBFUSCATION: “Developments in allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior,” the Washington Post claims, as they go out of the way to be obvious Democratic Party operatives with bylines. “‘As an editor, I regard this headline as a hate crime and I will be pressing charges first thing in the morning,’ Washington Examiner executive editor Seth Mandel reacted on Twitter.”

THE ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPITEFUL MIND: Pelosi Slammed Trump’s China Travel Ban as a ‘Scare Tactic.’ Now She Says It Doesn’t Go Far Enough.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Doomsday Prepping for Bodybuilders.

THIS MOOTNESS OPINION IS A DODGE: Opinion analysis: Court sends New York Second Amendment case back to lower courts without ruling on the merits. “Justice Samuel Alito dissented from today’s decision, in a 31-page opinion that was joined in full by Justice Neil Gorsuch and in large part by Justice Clarence Thomas. Alito was sharply critical of the decision to dismiss the case as moot, arguing that his colleagues were allowing ‘our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced.'”

PEPCID: Why Doctors Are Using An Antacid To Treat Hundreds Of Coronavirus Patients.

This was news to me, but a quick check of Amazon shows Pepcid as “currently unavailable,” so I guess it wasn’t news to everyone. I rather doubt that the OTC dose will have the desired effect; it’s like drinking Gin & Tonic in the hopes that the tiny amount of quinine in the tonic will protect you from coronavirus, except without getting to drink a Gin & Tonic.

GOOD: Australia to China: Don’t Push Us on COVID-19, Mate.

Okay, okay, fine. If you want to get all nitpicky, COVID-19 isn’t the Chinese virus. It’s merely the latest Chinese virus. Any number of deadly pandemics have emanated from China for thousands of years, and it will keep on happening as long as the Chinese allow it to happen. But you’re not supposed to say that, because China is full of Chinese people and therefore criticizing them is racist. You’re supposed to ignore facts. You mustn’t tell the truth about why you’re out of a job and worried about getting sick and dying. If you do, your moral, ethical, and intellectual betters will call you names, which they will also do for any other reason.

But not everyone is cowed by China. Not our friends down under, certainly.

And neither should we be. China is weak and vulnerable. That’s why they’re blustering, and it’s why we should tell the truth, and put the boot in.

Jim Treacher certainly does here:

China is pulling a neat trick here:

Unleash deadly plague on the world

Lie about it, destroy evidence, and silence whistleblowers

Threaten to boycott anybody who correctly blames you for hundreds of thousands of deaths and global economic ruin

And why not? Why wouldn’t they keep doing what they’re doing? China’s friends in the “American” press are more than happy to help. They pass along the Chinese government’s lies without any hint of skepticism, and try to shame anyone who doesn’t happily whistle the same tune as we’re marched to the abbatoir. Maybe these “journalists” have been bought off. Maybe they’ve been coerced. Maybe they just hate America. Maybe it’s all three. Whatever the case, they don’t care about their audience. They work for China now.

Hey, journalists: Tired of being called enemies of the people? Maybe stop being enemies of the people.

EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: I’ve worked the coronavirus front line — and I say it’s time to start opening up.

TORPEDO CIRCLES AROUND: “Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez said in December 2017 that any candidate or elected official ‘who has engaged in sexual misconduct’ should ‘step aside.’ Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, now stands accused of sexual assault by his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade.”

UPDATE: Perez has plenty of company: What Biden’s recent endorsers said about Kavanaugh and #MeToo.

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Hey, maybe Olivia Nuzzi can interview Joe, and courageously ask him how he’s bearing up in this “nightmare.”

JOURNALISM PROFESSORS FOR CENSORSHIP: Halt live coverage of Trump’s COVID-19 briefings: Open letter to news outlets from professors of communication, journalism, and media studies.

If the public decides that basically all our institutions are garbage and wants to burn them down, based on the last few years I’m going to find it hard to argue to the contrary.

BOMBSHELL: Notes Reveal FBI Tried to Catch Mike Flynn in a Lie to ‘Get Him Fired’ as Trump Adviser.

Our so-called elites look smaller every day.

AN OPEN LETTER TO GAVIN NEWSOM FROM ECONOMISTS AND POLITICAL SCIENTISTS IN CALIFORNIA, CALLING FOR HIM TO SUSPEND AB5, the anti-gig-work law. The signatories include Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith (Chapman U.), John Taylor (Stanford U.), Lee Ohanian (UCLA), David Teece (U.C. Berkeley) and others. Gist: “By prohibiting the use of independent contractor drivers, health care professionals, and workers in other critical areas, AB-5 is doing substantial, and avoidable, harm to the very people who now have the fewest resources and the worst alternatives available to them.”

OPEN THREAD: Well you should know by now that it’s just a spasm.

SPACE: SpaceX Starship prototype successfully passes pressure test after three failures.

ALEX POURNELLE WRITES:

New plan.

Take the Ethanol Standard out (DIE! DIE! DIE!) and have a two year subsidy for excess crops. Have the Feds subsidize all of it. All. It goes to US AID, so it doesn’t become another USDA horror show. And it goes out.

And then feed the world. Then the farm bill can die. (It makes me nauseous to extend it one minute, but millions are going to be food insecure and the American farmer is the most productive grower in the world.)

If anything can shut up the “why America sucks” crowd and feed the world, it sure as hell isn’t having another celebrity sing-along. It’s this.

I doubt anything can shut them up, but it’s still a good plan. He adds:

It’s almost too late for this season but there are three-crop areas that need to do this. And it can tilt FOR NOW to more durable crops. And there needs to be a “seven lean year” warehouse system in place because there will be a LOT of corn and beans to store. More than the current grain terminals can handle. Unlike PPP it needs to be targeted to multi year storable crops. This calendar is probably not at risk. Next year is, especially Africa and frankly maybe Europe with the coming EU implosion.

Like I said, a good idea.

UPDATE: Alex adds:

PPP, I mean the disincentives I’m working part of the Payroll Pork Program.

And then Uncle Sugar needs to ride out the tail, so we don’t swamp our self-sufficient countries that will otherwise be wiped out by American largesse.

It would be very bad if we kill African entrepreneurs/farmers while trying to feed the world.

I didn’t say it was easy. It’s a balance which the US isn’t great at. But it will also keep 330 million Americans from starving, so bonus there.

And having ten million tons of US grain sent to China isn’t the worst PR message to the Chinese that we aren’t their enemies.

Like I said, it’s a good idea.

MOON MINING RESOURCE: USGS releases first complete geologic map of the Moon.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “Newspeople, with faces full of Botox, worried about Lysol-drinking.”

DAVID HARSANYI: A Rant against the Media.

Why is the first inclination of Donald Trump’s supporters to lash out at the press when he says something ridiculous? Part of it is political expediency, of course. Most of it, though, is completely understandable.

Even when Trump badly mangles science, journalists, who spend vast amounts of their time chasing gotchas, offer a misleading and histrionic rendering of his comments. Trump doesn’t want Americans to inject themselves with disinfectants or ingest bleach and die. Journalists know this.

The media are a collection of well-funded outlets that set the agenda, narrative, tone, and focus of coverage while conspiring with a major political party. Reporters don’t openly collude with Democrats (well, most of the time they don’t), they merely share the same objectives and set of values. This wasn’t a problem created by Trump’s emergence. It’s problem that’s been festering for decades.

And it was on full display during Trump’s latest press confeerence: ‘Media is broken’: Journo Olivia Nuzzi asks Trump ‘possibly the most ridiculous question asked so far’ at today’s WH COVID19 presser (video).

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Nuzzi’s fellow media flacks are congratulating her on her bravery. But of course, real bravery would be asking Joe Biden about Tara Reade. No journalist has been brave enough to do that, and despite Nuzzi’s previous #MeToo posturing, I very much doubt she’ll break that pattern.

WHEN KARENS ATTACK: Teacher reportedly wishes teens in park die ‘long, painful death’ from coronavirus.

UPDATE: Related:

ANDREW MCCARTHY: Explosive Revelations in the Flynn Case: New documents suggest that Flynn ‘was set up by corrupt agents’ who threatened Flynn’s son and made a secret deal with Flynn’s attorneys. If true, those corrupt agents should get the death penalty. But we’ll be lucky if they lose their jobs.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg laments ‘what a nightmare’ it’s become for Joe Biden in light of developments in Tara Reade case.

THE MAIN RULE OF JOURNALISM IS THAT TRUMP IS NEVER ALLOWED TO BE RIGHT. An Experimental Ultraviolet Light Treatment for Covid-19 Takes Political Heat: Trump’s musings prompt social-media censorship of information about an experimental treatment.

I ran an obscure pharmaceutical company until a few days ago. Then we got famous. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Aytu BioScience made a commitment to find ways to help. One of those ways came through our newly formed relationship with a prominent Los Angeles hospital.

On April 20 we put out a press release titled “Aytu BioScience Signs Exclusive Global License with Cedars-Sinai for Potential Coronavirus Treatment.” The treatment is called Healight, and it was developed by research physicians at the hospital’s Medically Associated Science and Technology Program. The technology, which has been in development since 2016, uses ultraviolet light as an antimicrobial and is a promising potential treatment for Covid-19.

Aytu and Cedars-Sinai have engaged with the Food and Drug Administration to pursue a rapid path to human use through an Emergency Use Authorization. But hardly anyone noticed—until Thursday, when President Trump mused, “. . . supposing you brought the light inside the body . . .”

My team and I knew the president’s comments could trigger a backlash against the idea of UV light as a treatment, which might hinder our ability to get the word out. We decided to create a YouTube account, upload a video animation we had created, and tweet it out. It received some 50,000 views in 24 hours.

Then YouTube took it down. So did Vimeo. Twitter suspended our account. The narrative changed from whether UV light can be used to treat Covid-19 to “Aytu is being censored.”

These days, politics seems to dictate that if one party says, “The sky is blue,” the other party is obligated to reply, “No, it’s not, and you’re a terrible human being for thinking that.” That leaves no room for science, in which the data speak for themselves, regardless of ideology, and only when they’re ready. Unfortunately, the visceral excitement of political conflict draws far more clicks and better ratings than the methodical world of science.

Technologies like Healight, which if borne out through clinical studies may represent a viable way to kill coronaviruses, aren’t provided the clear-headed consideration they deserve but are instead flushed into the political mosh-pit of “us vs. them.”

Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo are under enormous pressure from political activists. They also need to ensure that information on their platforms is safe and accurate. That’s exactly why Aytu decided to post videos and tweet about Healight.

We at Aytu BioScience are confident that treatments for Covid-19 will be found. We hope we can help. But above all we hope science will ultimately speak louder than politics.

Hope indeed. I’d just be happy if social media companies weren’t complete tools of politicized lefty “activists.”

HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGAM COMING ALONG? Asteroid classed as ‘potentially hazardous object’ set to pass Earth on Wednesday.

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MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Disengaging China: The Dangerous Inefficiency of Economic Efficiency.

This one is just for our VIP members, and I hope you’ll use that VODKAPUNDIT discount code if you’ve been thinking of becoming a supporter.

THE 1619 PROJECT EXPOSED: A Special Edition of the American Mind Podcast. Narrated by PJTV alumnus James Poulos, “The podcast features Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams, Chairman Tom Klingenstein and scholars Lucas Morel and Chris Flannery, as well as the likes of Newt Gingrich, Allen Guelzo, Heather Mac Donald, Wilfred McClay, and Peter Wood.”