LOCKDOWN HANGOVER: Lack of tanker truck drivers could lead to gas shortages this summer.

Industry group National Tank Truck Carriers said nearly 20% to $25% of tank trucks aren’t being used right now as there are not enough qualified drivers available. The year before the pandemic struck, that number was only at 10%.

The problem reportedly became magnified last year when Americans weren’t driving due to the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns, and gas stations just didn’t need as much gas. This meant truck drivers weren’t getting enough work and many chose to leave the business.

Also adding to the challenges is that the job requires a special certification and a certain amount of training. During the pandemic, many of the truck training programs were also shut down.

This would be a great time for some serious deregulation and tax breaks to get our energy infrastructure working again, but Joe Biden will make sure that we get slow-moving government programs and a lot of “green” nonsense instead.

ASHLI BABBITT UPDATE: Newsweek Exclusive: U.S. Capitol Police to Be Sued for $10 Million for Killing Unarmed Rioter. “Babbitt, a decorated U.S. Air Force Gulf War veteran, was struck in the shoulder while attempting to illegally enter the Speaker’s Lobby, an area near to the House floor, through a smashed window beside a barricaded door. It is unclear whether she heard shouted warnings over the crowd around her before she climbed within view of the lieutenant, who drew his gun and fired. Smartphone video shows Babbitt being struck in the shoulder and falling back onto a patterned marble floor, bleeding.”

Plus: “What it looks like is this guy shot this lady for no legitimate law enforcement purpose. And you know, they ought to be pretty ashamed of that.”

STOLEN TECH. IMAGINE THAT. China’s state rocket company unveils rendering of a Starship look-alike.

There’s a new space race on, and China intends to win. If I were in charge of the CIA, I’d be looking for evidence of a Chinese Orion project, but instead they’re probably spying on Republicans.

Don’t say you weren’t warned. Nearly 20 years ago.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Pelosi Prefers Chinese Communists to American Conservatives.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: What do you call it when Nancy Pelosi pulls House media credentials from an American news outlet, but lets two Communist Chinese propaganda mouthpieces keep theirs?

Answer: We’d call it a tell, but it’s nothing you needed telling.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Compassionate lefty radio host srtreams “F*** The Police” on air, then kills one (allegedly)
• CNN has a sexism problem serious enough to warrant an internal investigation
• Which came first, the needle or the vaccine? (MSNBC says “needle”)

Bonus Sanity: Whoa… minorities can vote?

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

BLUE ON BLUE: Former Obama Administration Scientist Trashes Biden’s Climate ‘Hysteria.’

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Entourage’ Creator Shares Why ‘Righteous PC Culture’ Is a Fraud. “Yes, Tony Soprano can whack a dozen competitors without the woke mob assembling, but an agent treating his staff poorly is now beyond the cultural pale. It’s why Steve Carell has said NBC couldn’t make ‘The Office’ today. His character is too cold and cruel to his subordinates, and that’s suddenly a no-no.”

Message: It isn’t OK to hurt people’s feelings, but it is OK to murder the right people.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY IN THE NEW BIDEN ERA: Everyday products are about to get more expensive, companies warn: Plastic, paper, sugar, grain and other commodities are all getting more expensive as demand outpaces supply.

THAT’S TRUE ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS: Joe Biden Proved He Doesn’t Understand the Purpose of the 2nd Amendment.

HOMELESSNESS: Blighted San Francisco Diagnoses Its ‘Perilous Trifecta’ — and Bungles the Cure.

In the past, the solution to this paradox was compulsion. The state took custody of the “gravely disabled” and treated them in long-term residential institutions. However, with the exposure of civil rights abuses and the release of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the United States gradually dismantled its mental health system, reducing the number of mental health beds per capita by an astonishing 95% between 1955 and 2016. Today, California has fewer beds per capita than the national average, with San Francisco having only 219 adult psychiatric beds available at a given time — drastically insufficient for the number of people in need.

Although Mayor Breed has tentatively moved towards a return to short-term “conservatorships,” a form of involuntary commitment for individuals who present a grave danger to themselves or others, the plan has neither the scope nor the force to significantly reduce the numbers of the perilous trifecta. Because of pressure from disability activists and the ACLU, which have called conservatorships “the greatest deprivation of civil liberties aside from the death penalty,” the plan is limited to individuals who have had eight or more involuntary psychiatric holds in the past year, which, in practice, would mean less than 100 people citywide.

The writing was on the wall when I left San Francisco in the mid-’90s, and politically the city has moved far left from even where it was back then.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: How Hard Is It to Get a Concealed Handgun License in Portland? Let Me Count the Ways. “I had no real sense of urgency, and I’ve gone this long without my concealed handgun license, so I didn’t sweat the wait too much. It did make me wonder, though, what if you’re in a higher-crime neighborhood watching the crime rate skyrocket throughout Portland, as response times increase in direct proportion to how much city council has defunded the police? What if you’re in an abusive relationship, need a restraining order, and know that the police can’t protect you? What if you are worried about exploding gang violence? Any number of scenarios could give a Portland resident pause to consider carrying a handgun.”

BLACK MEN ON THE SCENE VS. WHITE WOMEN IN D.C. ON THE LEGITIMACY OF RIOTING:

Note the omnipresent Valley Girl diction among the riot-justifiers.

GOODER AND HARDER: Thanks to lefty leaders, New York celebrates all the worst vices.

John Lindsay, the clueless rich-boy-turned-mayor of this little burg in the crumbling late ’60s, famously, if unintentionally, coined the phrase “Fun City” back in the “Midnight Cowboy” era (1966-1973), over which he presided so oafishly, it’s as if Bill de Blasio took his sad mayoralty as a playbook.

Now the era of fear, filth and fiscal fallacy is back, but Fun City is a tired nickname. The proper sobriquet for NYC is now Sin City. As in: the Seven Deadlies. De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo have decided to go along with every-born-in-the-’90s bolshie and forge a collection of policies out of the idea that “New York was better before it got so sanitized.”

Yeah, safety sucks, New York is much cooler when walking after dark means gripping your keys tightly in your hand in case you have to fend off an attacker, amirite, ladies? Consider the sins New York is now welcoming:

Read the whole thing.

SPACE RACE II: China is set to launch first module of massive space station. “After the core module reaches space, China plans at least 10 more launches of other major modules, as well as crewed and cargo missions, to complete the station’s assembly by the end of 2022. At that time the CSS will join the International Space Station (ISS) as the only fully operational space stations in orbit.”

THINGS CAN GET REALLY BAD, REALLY FAST, WAY FASTER THAN REGULAR PEOPLE WILL NOTICE: “The cumulative effect of all this is that right before an impending crisis, life will look very normal and people will not be panicking. 37 days before the UK government threw the entire country into lockdown and barred people from going outside for anything other than a short list of permitted activities, people who stocked up their pantries were curiosity items.”

IT’S ONLY “CONTROVERSIAL” TO WOKESTERS WHO PREFER INDOCTRINATION OVER EDUCATION: Controversial Idaho Bill That Bans ‘Indoctrination’ of Students Passes Senate.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Yale sociology prof says Christian homeschooling is ‘vector of white Christian nationalism’.

Come back when your school isn’t named after a slave trader, putz.

GOOD. DO TO THEM WHAT THEY DID TO NORTEL: Huawei’s revenue falls for second quarter in a row as sanctions bite.

TO BE FAIR, I DON’T THINK JOE DID A LOT OF THE READING IN LAW SCHOOL:

PRETTY MUCH:

UPDATE (FROM THE COMMENTS):

I think it’s partially – and even mainly – that, but there is another factor at play here: that our current media is incompetent and borderline illiterate.

As Glenn points out over and over, our current journalist class doesn’t know anything. I doubt most of them could find Kiev on a map or read any page of the Federal Register with comprehension. They know absolutely no history, so they don’t know when they are being deceived. They have no practical knowledge, so they don’t know when the government’s statutory or regulatory plans are moronic or harmful.

They chase symbolic stories or “What is your response to yesterday’s statement by X?” stories because that’s all they can do at their level of knowledge. Even if they wanted to pivot to substantive coverage, they couldn’t – because they wouldn’t even know how to begin. It would be like asking a team of four year old children to run a railroad.

Fair point.

#RESIST: Oregon Town Declares Emergency to Fight Gov. Brown’s Lockdowns.

PEOPLE ARE WEALTH PRODUCERS: Tiana Lowe: Our Population Deceleration is a Debt Crisis.

SCIENCE! Fauci still not ready to say it’s okay for kids to be outside without masks.

Related: CDC Now Recommends Wearing A Seat Belt Even When You’re Outside The Car.

Only one of these stories is satire, amazingly.

TIM SCOTT: Sen. Scott responds: “America is not a racist country.”

CHANGE: Bubba Gump Shrimp seafood restaurants will start accepting Bitcoin payments.