BYRON YORK: The big thing we still don’t know about the Michael Flynn Case. “If someone is going to be charged with lying to the FBI, it will be on the basis of what is in the 302. There’s no recording and no other witnesses in the room. If an interview subject claims not to have said something, the proof otherwise is the 302 and the agents’ word. So the 302 is obviously critical if the Justice Department chooses to charge someone for lying in an FBI interview. Here is the amazing thing: Michael Flynn’s defense has never seen the original 302. Never. Flynn, under enormous pressure from Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI without ever reading what Pientka originally wrote about the interview. Instead, the FBI almost immediately began editing the 302. Pientka’s partner in the interview, Peter Strzok — remembered as the agent dismissed from the Mueller team for his anti-Trump texts with extramarital lover (and senior FBI official) Lisa Page — took the lead. On February 10 — after the FBI’s five working days limit — Strzok did what was apparently a major editing job on it, and he also incorporated edits suggested by Page, who had not been present at the interview.”

UNDER PRESSURE: Harvard ‘anti-homeschooling’ event ‘cancelled’ amid conservative backlash. This is actually a significant moment, as it used to be that only leftist backlash could get Ivy League events canceled.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.

Plus, Best Selling Products – Updated Every Hour.

Also, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Baseball Makes a Pitch to Return. “Looking at an empty baseball stadium will be strange, of course (unless you’re a Miami Marlins fan) but just seeing the players on the field could be a much-needed emotional salve for an aching country.”

MATT MARGOLIS: Barack Obama is Worried About Something, That Is Obvious. “Listening to the call you can hear that Obama sounds shaky, even nervous discussing it. And there’s plenty of reason. In addition to setting up a perjury trap for Flynn, Obama officials also withheld exculpatory evidence and investigated Trump and his associates over alleged Russian collusion even though they had no empirical evidence of that collusion. Declassified documents also showed that Obama was aware of the bogus investigation and efforts to railroad Michael Flynn.”

ON FOX THIS MORNING, Karol Markowicz talks about reopening schools.

FASTER, PLEASE: Apple considering massive shift of iPhone production from China to India.

WELL, YES: Quarantine Fatigue Is Real And Shaming People Won’t Help.

#StayHome had its moment. The United States urgently needed to flatten the curve and buy time to scale up health-care capacity, testing, and contact tracing. But quarantine fatigue is real. I’m not talking about the people who are staging militaristic protests against the supposed coronavirus hoax. I’m talking about those who are experiencing the profound burden of extreme physical and social distancing. In addition to the economic hardship it causes, isolation can severely damage psychological well-being, especially for people who were already depressed or anxious before the crisis started. In a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly half of Americans said that the coronavirus pandemic has harmed their mental health. . . .

But the choice between staying home indefinitely and returning to business as usual now is a false one. Risk is not binary. And an all-or-nothing approach to disease prevention can have unintended consequences. Individuals may fixate on unlikely sources of contagion—the package in the mail, the runner or cyclist on the street—while undervaluing precautions, such as cloth masks, that are imperfect but helpful.

Related:

SOME VIP QUESTIONS FOR YOU, MR. OBAMA: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) addressed the Senate yesterday and, among much else, offered this observation about Barack Obama:

“I’ve heard no comment from Mr. Obama about independent Inspector General findings that Andrew McCabe lied under oath to federal investigators multiple times. Or about how DOJ prosecutors falsely told the court that they had produced all Brady material to Flynn. Or when the federal government surveilled an American citizen connected to the Trump campaign without probable cause and based on intelligence the FBI knew was questionable at best.”

One thing Obama need not worry about: Nobody in the MSM will dare to ask him for a response to Grassley. The speech link above includes one to video of Grassley’s presentation.

ANTIBODY TESTING REVEALS COVID-19 HAS BEEN IN OHIO SINCE JANUARY, HEALTH OFFICIALS SAY.

AN IMPORTANT REMINDER FROM KIRA DAVIS: You Didn’t Shoot Ahmaud Arbery.

LOL, BRIAN STELTER: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Brian Stelter hits ‘obsession’ with ‘deep state’ and Michael Flynn.

REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: “An FBI agent’s newly released testimony undercuts top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s denial of a conflict of interest between his Trump-Russia efforts and his wife’s work for Fusion GPS, producer of the discredited Steele dossier.”

MORE MALLS ABOUT TO LOSE THEIR ANCHORS: JC Penny “is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection as soon as next week with plans to permanently close about a quarter of its roughly 850 stores, becoming the latest major U.S. retailer to succumb to fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, according to people familiar with the matter.”

OOPS: Germany’s Bild Newspaper Says ‘Lockdown Was a Huge Mistake.’

#RESIST: Tesla has already started making cars again at its California factory.

IS IT TIME FOR A NEW PANDEMIC APPROACH? Karl Dierenbach, writing for the Independence Institute’s Complete Colorado, makes a compelling case. Here’s a sample:

“But ‘flatten the curve’ morphed into ‘hide until solution;’ the solution being a possible vaccine or effective treatment at some undeterminable point in the future. States that never saw a surge went into lockdown and remain there today.

“New York City, which is well past their peak medical usage, remains on lockdown. Many states that are ostensibly opening up are doing so at an extremely slow pace. Colorado, which is supposedly opening up (but not really), is attempting to keep the coronavirus cases at a level that is so low, herd immunity might not be reached for years.

Dierenbach is an attorney and a former engineer. He’s also quite a good writer, which is rarely found among engineers, especially when they also become lawyers (Just kidding, Glenn!).

KEEP UP THE PRESSURE: State AGs Press Congress to Investigate China’s Coronavirus Response: Some state officials are already pursuing lawsuits against China for outbreak.

IT’S ONLY A MODEL: Our weird behavior during the pandemic is screwing with AI models.

It took less than a week at the end of February for the top 10 Amazon search terms in multiple countries to fill up with products related to covid-19. You can track the spread of the pandemic by what we shopped for: the items peaked first in Italy, followed by Spain, France, Canada, and the US. The UK and Germany lag slightly behind. “It’s an incredible transition in the space of five days,” says Rael Cline, Nozzle’s CEO. The ripple effects have been seen across retail supply chains.

But they have also affected artificial intelligence, causing hiccups for the algorithms that run behind the scenes in inventory management, fraud detection, marketing, and more. Machine-learning models trained on normal human behavior are now finding that normal has changed, and some are breaking as a result.

How bad the situation is depends on whom you talk to. According to Pactera Edge, a global AI consultancy, “automation is in tailspin.” Others say they are keeping a cautious eye on automated systems that are just about holding up, stepping in with a manual correction when needed.

What’s clear is that the pandemic has revealed how intertwined our lives are with AI, exposing a delicate codependence in which changes to our behavior change how AI works, and changes to how AI works change our behavior. This is also a reminder that human involvement in automated systems remains key. “You can never sit and forget when you’re in such extraordinary circumstances,” says Cline.

We don’t know how to model human ingenuity, and humans become even more ingenious during a crisis. So if you were hoping to AI your way out of a crisis, I have some bad news for you.

OFT EVIL WILL SHALL EVIL MAR: Meet the Press Mangles a William Barr Quote to Make Him Look Awful, and It Backfires.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UDPATE: Higher Education: The Coming Disruption.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen, only faster all of a sudden. (Bumped).

NYC’S CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL SURPASSES 20,000: HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

More here: “The New York City Department on Health said over 20,000 have died from the coronavirus as of May 10 at 6pm. These include 14,928 confirmed deaths and 5,129 probable deaths, taking the total to 20,056. Those who were marked as probable deaths did not have a positive coronavirus laboratory test result, but the causes of death on their death certificates are listed as Covid-19 or an equivalent, the city said.”