BIDEN EV CONVERSION DEPENDS ON CHINA: Nadia Schadlow was deputy national security adviser during the Trump years and she points to multiple reasons why China has all the cards on EV batteries.

#RESIST:

WHY ANDREW CUOMO HAD TO GO:

What CNN, MSNBC, and their party, the Democrats, won’t discuss is their genuflection last year before Andrew Cuomo’s press conferences. He’s a smart talker, no doubt, and they gobbled it up. Cuomo even won Emmy Awards for his performances, perhaps because Michael Avenatti was indisposed. What these news organizations didn’t do was investigate the medical disaster that was actually happening in New York state nursing homes while they were drooling at Cuomo’s press conferences. CNN went even further. They allowed the governor’s brother, Chris, who has a prime-time show on the network, to act as a political fanboy, turning his program into a nightly advertisement for his brother. Letitia James’s report reveals that Chris later worked as a clandestine political adviser to his brother while still on-air at CNN. At any other network, Chris might want to get his résumé ready. At CNN, who knows?

Here’s something else that should bother all journalists: if 11 people came forward to AG Letitia James to testify about Gov. Cuomo’s harassment, plus at least two more since the report was issued, isn’t it highly likely that journalists in the tight-knit political world of Albany already knew about the problem before it surfaced publicly? Isn’t it likely that they kept silent because the governor was from their favored party and because they feared retaliation if they spoke out? Put differently, when journalists fail to do their job and are already marked down as political partisans, perhaps the two are connected.

Here’s another question we should ponder: would Albany Democrats have pushed Cuomo out of office if his successor would have been a Republican? That was the problem faced by Virginia Democrats after they quickly condemned Gov. Ralph Northam for a blackface photograph, only to find his lieutenant governor, another Democrat, also facing serious #MeToo problems. That meant Northam’s removal could pass the office to a Republican. Upon that unhappy discovery, Democrats began saying that they’d been too hasty in seeking to remove Northam. He was able to wait it out.

Cuomo took Northam’s survival strategy as a model. But the differences were too stark. The evidence against Northam was much weaker and older than the evidence against Cuomo. Equally important, the consequences for his political party would have been much worse. Once Virginia’s black political leaders, all Democrats, decided Northam’s blackface offense was tolerable, under the (current political) circumstances, he could survive. No such luck for Cuomo.

Related: Valerie Jarrett Claims Cuomo Worried Her in 2014. She’s Praised Him For Years On Twitter.

FREDRIC WERTHAM TO THE BATPHONE, PLEASE! Robin comes out as bisexual in new Batman: Urban Legends comic.

YES: Now Chris Cuomo Must Go Too. “Now that Andrew Cuomo has resigned, his brother, Chris, must be next. They are, after all, both guilty of gross ethics violations.”

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Who is the World’s Greatest Bass Player?

I saw Ron Carter at the Iridium Club in (I think!) the fall of 2001. Brilliant show, ending with Miles Davis’ “So What.” Absolutely phenomenal bassist.

A CLASSIC OF MY YOUTH: Lamborghini Countach Returning for Limited Run.

Related (From Ed): Meeting the stars of your youth in person can be terribly disappointing:

WHY TUCKER’S TRIP TO HUNGARY HAS SPARKED OUTRAGE: “There is a lot at stake in the culture war being waged against Hungary. Hungary stands out as one of the few places that actively promotes and upholds the civilisational values of the West. In many respects, its values are antithetical to those of the Western cultural establishment. Yet the sentiments that prevail in Hungary are the very ones that resonate with the outlook of millions of people throughout the Western world. That is why Hungary has become the target of so much animosity from the globalist media.”

I AGREE: Space Station Incident Demands Independent Investigation: A space expert warns NASA’s safety culture may be eroding again.

The problem is on the Russian end, though, which makes it more difficult.

VIRAL VIDEO: Ted Cruz Just Perfectly Explained Why Congress Shouldn’t Regulate Cryptocurrency.

ROGER KIMBALL: The neo-feudalism of Obama’s maskless ball.

There is a lot to be repelled by in the Spectacle of Barack Obama’s exercise in brazen self-indulgence, also a lot to be angry at.

I think it is important, though, to look at it as a learning experience. Pretend you were Aesop. What moral would you draw from this exercise in exhibitionism?

Doubtless there are several learning experiences to be had. But I thought that Rep. Jim Jordan perfectly articulated an important lesson in a tweet.  Now we know, he wrote, that

‘#COVID19 spreads at:

-Church
-School
-Trump rallies
-Motorcycle rallies

It doesn’t spread at:

-“Peaceful” protests
-The southern border
-Democrat wedding receptions
-San Francisco hair salons
-Governor Newsom’s dinner
-President Obama’s birthday party’

Really, I hadn’t know that before and I am grateful for the enlightenment.

But of course. As Jim Treacher noted on last week: Democrats Don’t Need Masks Because They’re Better Than You. “The virus knows. It knows what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and it only punishes people who don’t read The Atlantic or listen to NPR. If you can recite a MyPillow ad from memory, you need to wear a mask when you’re told to wear a mask. But if you can pick Lin-Manuel Miranda out of a lineup, you don’t have anything to worry about. That’s how COVID-19 works. That’s just the settled science.”

QED: Oh look! Rashida Tlaib spotted partying indoors without a mask, dancing and hugging people, after slamming Rand Paul.

FASTER, PLEASE: Microwave sensing technology paves way towards personalized antibiotic therapy.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Texas Judge Blocks Arrest of Fleebagger Democrats Wanting to Return Home.

LYING TO PEOPLE AND CONTROLLING THEM WILL DO THAT: “The COVID-19 pandemic has taxed national healthcare systems, stunted local economies and overburdened global supply chains, but according to a new study, the crisis has also destabilized the relationship between citizens and state. According to a new survey, published Monday in the journal Psychological Science, the pandemic’s psychological toll, including frustrations with shifting public health policies, has motivated citizens to engage in protest or political violence.”

MICHAEL WALSH: The Rage Orchestrating the Transformation of America. “In my 2015 best-selling book on the subject, ‘The Devil’s Pleasure Palace,’ I wrote this: ‘Rage is the salient characteristic of Satan, and of the satanic in men.’ And what do we see all around us today? Rage against the Man, against the System, against Whiteness, against newly defined ‘bigotry,’ against the existing order, against religion, against Western civilization, against history itself. Rage is curdling the blood of half our citizens, driving them mad with ersatz resentment, misplaced empathy, and frustration that their views of what ought to be and reality are irreconcilable.”

JIM GERAGHTY: The Media Didn’t Make Andrew Cuomo a Monster, They Just Enabled His Narcissism.

Related: “It’s been a long road to justice for Janice Dean, who lost both of her in-laws to COVID last spring. They were living in assisted-living facilities and were victims of Cuomo’s infamous policy of returning infected patients to their nursing homes in order to preserve hospital capacity.”

GO, JUDGE HO!:  “Judge Defends Equal Justice Against Tide of Critical Race Theory, Disparate Impact.”

(For a primer on just how ghastly disparate impact liability is and how it got started in the law, try my article here.)

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF TAUTOLOGIES: Study: Laws that limit opioid prescription duration help cut length of use.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: U Of Wisconsin-Madison’s Racist Rock Gets Removed. “Just when you think cancel culture is hitting rock bottom, it gets even more imbecilic. The learned academics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say rocks can be racist. No, we’re not talking about a racist tossing a rock at someone. We’re talking about a boulder just sitting there.”

…AND HE’S GONE: Cuomo Resigns over Sexual Harassment Allegations.

DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Video shows bear cub wandering around Ralphs grocery store in the San Fernando Valley.

WELL, THEY’RE NOT WRONG: 59% BELIEVE INCREASED GOVERNMENT SPENDING LEADS TO INFLATION.

SAY IT AIN’T SO, SPUDS! The Beer Industry And The Illusion Of Choice. “And as beer lovers around the world toast to the seemingly endless variety of their favorite drink, Statista’s Felix Richter zooms out to show how much of the world’s beer production is actually controlled by just a few brewing conglomerates. Over the past two decades, companies such as Anheuser Busch InBev, Heineken or Carlsberg have consolidated hundreds of beer brands under their roofs, creating an illusion of choice for consumers around the world.”

ALSO DUMB AS A ROCK, BUT I REPEAT MYSELF: No, AOC, they don’t dislike you because you’re a woman — it’s because you’re a socialist.