HE’LL PASS THE SAVINGS ON TO YOU: Elon Musk says Twitter board won’t be paid if he acquires company. “Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s ~$3M/year saved right there.”

LOL: Jen Rubin on “Fake Populists.”

COLLUSION: Judicial Watch: University of Pittsburgh Contacted Director of NIH for Help with Push Back on Criticism of Fetal Organ Experiments.

AIRPORTS, AIRLINES ACROSS US BEGIN TO DROP MASK MANDATES AFTER COURT RULING.

As well as Amtrak, and even the DC Metro. But there are still some blue state science deniers: MTA, NJT Still Require Masks After Judge Voids CDC Mandate; Amtrak Drops Requirement.

UPDATE: Via Twitter, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announces masks no longer required on NJ Transit.

THE PEASANTS ARE GETTING ANGRY: Joel Kotkin: The working classes are a volcano waiting to erupt: Workers across the world are being squeezed from all sides. They won’t put up with it forever. “Whatever the final outcome, the recent French elections have already revealed the comparative irrelevance of many elite concerns, from genderfluidity and racial injustice to the ever-present ‘climate catastrophe’. Instead, most voters in France and elsewhere are more concerned about soaring energy, food and housing costs. Many suspect that the cognitive elites, epitomised by President Emmanuel Macron, lack even the ambition to improve their living conditions. The French elections reflect the essential political conflict of our time. On one side, there is a powerful alliance between the corporate oligarchy and the regulatory clerisy. On the other, there are two beleaguered and angry classes – the small-business owners and artisans, and the vast, largely unorganised service class.”

Flashback: “To understand events around the world today, one must think in terms of the class struggle.”

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

Also: America’s elites are waging class war on workers and small biz. “The gentry class is in firm control of most of the institutions in America, from big corporations, to media organizations, to, most especially, colleges and universities. The Democrats are the gentry class’ party, as the GOP increasingly becomes a diverse coalition of working-class and small-business people. And the gentry class is letting the working class have it.”

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE; MUCH MORE: The White House Has Found a New Way to Hide the Disaster That Is Kamala Harris.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: What the pandemic — and aging — taught me about what’s important. “Focus on what and who matters. Don’t fade; go live.”

SOMETIMES I DO MY (MOSTLY INDIE) PROMO POST ON MONDAYS:  Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

Beware the vignette challenge. It’s seduced more people to a life of crime writing than I can shake a big stick at.

TBH, I HADN’T BEEN AWARE ANYONE THOUGHT NESSIE MIGHT BE A DORK:  No, the Loch Ness Monster isn’t just a whale penis, professor says,

HAD THE “CONSERVATIVES” BEEN HITTING THE SHROOMS?   ‘Magic mushrooms’ for therapy? Vets help sway conservatives

GOOD:  Prof who was disciplined for not using ‘preferred pronouns’ sues and wins $400K settlement from state university.

WE DON’T NEED NO MIND CONTROL:  A Missouri school district’s math assignment is mind-boggling.

Teachers, leave the kids alone!

BECAUSE THEY WERE TOLD SO:  I wonder why people thought they would be completely safe if they took the vaccines.

IT’S A TOTALITARIAN REGIME, THEY MAKE THE NUMBERS UP:  China GDP Numbers Are Hiding Lockdown Doom.

FIGHT LIKE A CORNERED CAT:  Pushback: Threatened with blacklisting, a conservative student fought back so hard she is now in charge.

AND I BET IT WON’T WORK:  USA and Canada’s Plan to Silence Independent Media.

IMAGINE THAT!  Latest Leftist Outrage: Energy Companies Making Money.

They should be working for unicorn farts!

NOW IMAGINE HOW MANY GOT THROUGH:  Border Patrol Apprehended 23 People on the Terror Watchlist in 2021.

OH, IT’S MUCH WORSE THAN THAT: Easter Bunny Tears Biden Away From Press at Easter Egg Roll.

There’s a video going around of him going on and on about Afghanistan to grade schoolers

UGLY AND DISHONEST IS A NO WAY TO GO THROUGH LIFE:  Psaki Won’t Apologize for Lying About Border Patrol Agents ‘Whipping’ Haitian Migrants.

VLAD IS NOW THREATENING TO NUKE COUNTRIES BECAUSE IT’S DAY ENDING IN Y:  Monday Morning Quick Brief.

WE’VE NOTICED:  The Vile Nature Of The CRT Movement.

From the post:

It’s one thing to claim that there are racists amongst us. I don’t think anyone would disagree, really.

However, that’s not what DiAngelo argues. She argues that if you’re white, you’re racist no matter what you do. You cannot not be racist. You’re just doomed to be a racist your entire life.

Frankly, though, I think this is also the dumbest thing she could have done.

After all, if all white people are irredeemably racist no matter what they do, then what’s their incentive to improve? If I’m never going to be anything but a racist, why would I ever try to work toward equality?

It’s just stupid.

JERRY BOWYER: Chaos or Control? Musk is not our man, but his foray into Twitter could make a difference.

Current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal soon afterward announced that Musk would join the company’s board. Such a move would limit Musk’s ability to take over Twitter since the company caps the number of shares board members can hold.

Then, suddenly, Agrawal announced (on Twitter) that Musk would not join the board after all. Agrawal also took a few not-too-subtle shots at Musk, suggesting that the board would have had to vet Musk with a background check and insist he act in the best interest of shareholders if he became a board member. Musk is one of the most visible people on earth, and there’s nothing that a standard-issue board background check is likely to unearth that an army of hostile press have not. And as to the duty to act in the best interest of shareholders, it’s hard to square Agrawal’s comment with Twitter’s decision to join other large companies in signing the Business Roundtable’s statement endorsing “stakeholder” as opposed to shareholder capitalism. It’s also ironic to chide Musk over potentially not putting shareholders first. Musk’s skin in the game as a shareholder is roughly 140 times the size of Agrawal’s. Moreover, Agrawal is significantly underinvested in the company he leads. . . .

Volatility has been a constant with Musk in general and in this public battle. He has repeatedly tweeted and deleted a series of provocative comments, including a call to turn Twitter headquarters into a homeless shelter. This is on-brand for Musk, who has a long history of public mischief-making. He seems unable to bridle his tongue and is at times a case study in unstable leadership.

But sometimes providence uses chaos to undermine systems of control. Twitter has metamorphosed from what was claimed to be a free-speech platform to a self-appointed ministry of truth for the nostrums of the ruling class. Debates about COVID risk, vaccine effectiveness, the effectiveness of various treatments, and whether boys can force us to call them girls or vice versa are suppressed through outright bans or death by pseudo-fact-check, and always with a thumb on the scale pulling to the left.

Musk’s personal views seem to lean libertarian, techno-utopian, with respect but not commitment to Christianity. He is not the leader we’re looking for. But that is not to say that his moves against Twitter will not prove useful. These days, any serious challenge to the leftist direction of social media empires might be good news.

Fight the power.

WELCOME PUPPET SHOW, SPINAL TAP, AND KAMALA HARRIS: The White House Sending Kamala Harris to Small Towns in Red States Is a Genius Political Move. “Everyone, the public, the Biden White House, the Democrat party, and even the Beltway media, realize that Kamala Harris is way out of her depth and is a political liability. Most observers believe that 2022 and 2024 will be challenging years for the Democrats, and the last thing they need is Harris to start cackling while discussing abortion or genocide, or some other serious subject. The clincher is that the Biden team can’t put her on ice without creating a massive issue for themselves, so they have to find something for her to do. That something is to send her out on the road to places where she can’t screw anything up because the Democrats know they aren’t going to win those areas anyway.”

OPEN THREAD: The writing’s on the wall. It won’t go away.