ALL THEY HAVE IS GASLIGHTING:  The Invisible Sculpture Sale is Symbolic of the Systematic Shams Elites Expect Us to Swallow.

I BLAME TONY SOPRANO: Black bear found lying dead in Staten Island parking lot. “There ‘is no known population of black bears on Staten Island,’ the department added.”

David Baron, call your office.

UPDATE: A friend writes: “It did not kill itself. What did it know about Hillary Clinton??”

MAYBE FUNDING CHINESE VIRAL RESEARCH WAS ALWAYS A TERRIBLE IDEA:

READER BOOK PLUG: So I finished Stephen Hunter’s Basil’s War: A WWII Spy Thriller, and found it quite entertaining. As he said in an email, it’s lighter than his Bob Lee Swagger novels, but that was fun. And you have to admire a man who, however cynical he appears, gives up a night with Vivien Leigh for patriotic reasons.

UPDATE (FROM THE COMMENTS:) “Stephen Hunter is one of a handful of authors whose books I consider to be ‘must reads’ sight unseen. Having said that, this book is completely different from anything Hunter has written before. It’s as George MacDonald Frasier wrote a James Bond novel. Great fun and one of the most entertaining books I have read in years.”

MCCABE IS A HACK, AND THE “DOMESTIC TERRORISM” TALK IS A WAY TO TAR POLITICAL OPPONENTS AS TERRORISTS: Dana Loesch Drops Facts on Andrew McCabe After His Disgraceful Comments About Congressional Baseball Shooting.

It’s also fair to refer to Andrew McCabe as a serial and disgraced liar, because, you know, he is.

Related:

Plus:

OPEN THREAD: I’ve got the world calling me tonight on the phone.

BUILD BACK BETTER: Unemployed Households Can Earn $25/Hour on Welfare in 21 States, New Study Finds.

SPACE: Seraphim Capital unveils world’s first listed space technology fund.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Progressive Wash state politician threatened to blow up school bus, called children ‘cowards’ as they fled.

QUESTION ASKED: Who Let Capitol Protesters Into the Building on January 6?

THIS SEEMS CORRECT: Think Twice Before Giving the COVID Vax to Healthy Kids — Based on the data to date, there’s no compelling case for it right now.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden Gets Lost Reading the Notes Written for Him by Someone Else, Babbles Incoherently to Stall for Time.

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Retail Sales Tank As Prices Continue To Skyrocket Due To Inflation.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Survey says New Jersey is the best state to live in, proving definitively that you should never trust surveys.

WITH COVID FADING ON ITS OWN, WHAT’S THE POINT? Over 500 U.S. Colleges Will Require Students And/Or Faculty/Staff To Be Vaccinated For The Fall Semester.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: NY Mayoral Candidate Maya Wiley Hosted Event With Anti-Semite Dropped From Women’s March.

SHOCK VIDEO: Shoplifter brazenly robs San Francisco Walgreens in front of security guard. “The GOP could spend a decade brainstorming and never come up with a better campaign ad. ‘Defund the police’ indeed.”

CHANGE: More Sanctuary States of the Right: Conservative states seeking to protect gun rights are copying the tactics used by liberal immigration sanctuaries. “The right can continue to complain about the things that the left is successful at, or they can look at it, learn from it, and replicate it.”

HEH: Jon Stewart Tells the Truth About the Wuhan Virus and There’s Nothing a Horrified Stephen Colbert Can Do to Stop Him.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: People Who Ruined World’s Economies Gather To Discuss How To Fix World’s Economies.

GERARD BAKER: Jeffrey Toobin, the ‘1619 Project’ and the Journalistic Reign of Error: As long as you further the narrative, no bad behavior or corruption of the truth will go unrewarded.

Even if Jeffrey Toobin is in fact the indispensable legal mind CNN evidently believes he is, his reinstatement last week must surely fill some of his colleagues with misgivings. “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” the great Aretha Franklin once asked. It’s a valid question that may take new form in the minds of participants in future video calls with the easily distracted Mr. Toobin.

But his restoration to a more salubrious on-camera role is a helpful reminder of the rules that now govern news. The medium is no longer the message: The new reality is that the mission is the message. As long as your work furthers the mission, no failure in behavior, no error in reporting or editing, no corruption of the truth or the evidence will go unrewarded.

All data and facts, all judgment about stories and the people who produce them, are subordinate to the mission. In one of the more ironic developments of this age of progressive hegemony, this is called “moral clarity.”

As CNN was being restored to its full complement of progressive missionaries, the same message in service of the same mission was more powerfully conveyed by the authorities who every year emerge from the temples of Columbia University to bestow on another crop of journalists the mantle of Joseph Pulitzer.

The steady conversion of these “prestigious” awards into Hero of the Soviet Union-like ribbons for full-time advocacy of approved causes was nearly complete this year, with almost all the prizes in journalism and literature going to works that fit within the approved range of writing.

Indeed.

LOCKDOWN CONSEQUENCES: 1.2 Million Children World-Wide Could Die From Disrupted Healthcare Amid Pandemic Lockdowns, Analysis Finds.

Related: The rich and powerful thrived as the rest of us suffered in the year of lockdowns.

SKYNET SMILES: Mayflower AI sea drone readies maiden transatlantic voyage. “Over its roughly three-week trip from England to the United States, the Mayflower will be guided by an artificial intelligence-powered ‘captain’ and make the journey without humans on board.”

PETTY THIEVES, REJOICE: Chicago cops no longer permitted to chase suspects on foot for some offenses. “The new policy, which goes into effect on June 11, prohibits foot chases in connection to minor traffic offenses or for criminal offenses less than a Class A misdemeanor.”

JIM TREACHER: Jon Stewart Goes MAGA — Or at least MAGA-adjacent. “Ladies and gentlemen: The keynote speaker of CPAC 2022.”