LAST YEAR’S CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE THIS YEAR’S HEADLINES: Washington Post: A Chinese lab identified COVID in December 2019 but the government kept it quiet. “Wuhan was finally locked down on Jan. 23. So nearly a full month had passed between the time researchers first alerted people a SARS-like virus had been identified and any real attempt to manage it or warn people about it. And as we all know, by that point it was too late. The virus had already spread to other parts of the world, including the US. You can’t help but wonder how things might have turned out if China had acted swiftly instead of secretly early on.”

AND YET BILL GATES IS TELLING US WHAT TO DO ABOUT OUR HEALTH: Elon Musk likens Bill Gates’ belly to controversial pregnant-man emoji. “Musk, the world’s richest person and chief executive of the American company, posted a follow-up image in response to the Friday post of six hooded figured captioned ‘shadow ban council reviewing Tweet.’ The lowbrow joke could further infuriate woke Twitter staffers angered by Musk’s ongoing bid to buy the firm after saying he’d take a hardline stance supporting free speech.”

Both Bill Gates and the Twitter scaff deserve to be targeted by a lot of lowbrow jokes.

BASED: Today’s Photo Mystery. “Yup—that is indeed Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics. This is either an elaborate troll, or perhaps [Mike] Tyson is getting ready to run for office as a Republican somewhere.

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Routine childhood vaccination rates fell during pandemic.

HMM: “The Ukrainian military claimed on Saturday that it destroyed a Russian command post in the southern region of Kherson, which has been largely under Russian control since the early days of the war. . . . In a separate statement, Oleksiy Arestovych, a former Ukrainian military intelligence officer who is now an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office, said that about 50 senior Russian officers were in the command center at the time of the attack.”

Fog of war and all that, but these Ukrainian claims usually pan out.

JOHN RINGO: Principles Are A Grand Thing. “The PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! crowd has been a Conservative Surrender Chorus for as long as I can remember.”

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: After 53 Earth Days, Society Still Hasn’t Collapsed.

(Classical reference in headline.)

JONATHAN HAIDT: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.

The Democrats have also been hit hard by structural stupidity, though in a different way. In the Democratic Party, the struggle between the progressive wing and the more moderate factions is open and ongoing, and often the moderates win. The problem is that the left controls the commanding heights of the culture: universities, news organizations, Hollywood, art museums, advertising, much of Silicon Valley, and the teachers’ unions and teaching colleges that shape K–12 education. And in many of those institutions, dissent has been stifled: When everyone was issued a dart gun in the early 2010s, many left-leaning institutions began shooting themselves in the brain. And unfortunately, those were the brains that inform, instruct, and entertain most of the country.

Liberals in the late 20th century shared a belief that the sociologist Christian Smith called the “liberal progress” narrative, in which America used to be horrifically unjust and repressive, but, thanks to the struggles of activists and heroes, has made (and continues to make) progress toward realizing the noble promise of its founding. This story easily supports liberal patriotism, and it was the animating narrative of Barack Obama’s presidency. It is also the view of the “traditional liberals” in the “Hidden Tribes” study (11 percent of the population), who have strong humanitarian values, are older than average, and are largely the people leading America’s cultural and intellectual institutions.

But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders. Confused and fearful, the leaders rarely challenged the activists or their nonliberal narrative in which life at every institution is an eternal battle among identity groups over a zero-sum pie, and the people on top got there by oppressing the people on the bottom. This new narrative is rigidly egalitarian––focused on equality of outcomes, not of rights or opportunities. It is unconcerned with individual rights.

The universal charge against people who disagree with this narrative is not “traitor”; it is “racist,” “transphobe,” “Karen,” or some related scarlet letter marking the perpetrator as one who hates or harms a marginalized group. The punishment that feels right for such crimes is not execution; it is public shaming and social death.

At times, with the full weight of the DNC-MSM behind it: Taylor Lorenz is simply following the new rules of journalism.

READER’S FAVORITE: Pain Free (Revised and Updated Second Edition): A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain. #CommissionEarned

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Maskless* Edition.

* Offer void in Los Angeles.

HOW THE OTHER .00001 PERCENT LIVE: Onboard Octopus: Interior of Paul Allen’s legendary 126m superyacht unveiled.

REFUSING WHAT WE ARE: THE EVIL OF CHILDREN’S TRANSGENDERISM. It’s difficult for us to acknowledge the enormity of the crime committed against our children because it’s hard for us to acknowledge how deeply we have failed.

Sometimes there is a flash of light so bright that you are compelled to look away. Sometimes a crime is so profound that it is difficult even to name it; to grasp the enormity of it. The recent explosion of transgenderism in children, an affliction currently affecting the lives of more than 1-in-50 young adults and children in Gen Z, is one such instance.

Groomers.

It’s the word of the month, which the Right is applying increasingly to our leftist political establishment.

Perhaps the best response to the groomer debate came from Helena Kirschner, a woman who detransitioned (that is, she spent years as “transgender man” before later accepting her birth sex) and has become an influential voice speaking up against transgender ideology:

“There’s a place for precise terminology,” she tweeted. “There’s also a place for memetic terms that convey a difficult to articulate concept in a way many people can intuitively understand. ‘Groomer’ applied to teachers & other adults who manipulate kids into gender confusion accomplishes this.”

And that is exactly right. It’s difficult for us to acknowledge the enormity of the crime that has been committed against our children because it’s hard for us to acknowledge how deeply we have failed. And it’s hard for us to accept that this crime is taking place with the full support of the leadership of one of America’s major political parties and most of the medical establishment. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) banned a group of those skeptical of pediatric transgenderism from even setting up a booth at the latest AAP conference. To acknowledge the depth of the transgender transgression against our children is to stare deep into the void of a society in chaos and moral decay.

Read the whole thing.

Related: New York Times Admits: Experimenting On Trans Kids Has Horrifying, Irreversible Consequences.

I REMEMBER WHEN HIGHER EDUCATION WAS DEFENDED AS FOSTERING FREE THOUGHT: Tulane students form ‘human wall’ to block anti-censorship event.

JIM TREACHER: CNN+ Gets Subtracted.

I propose using CNN+ as a unit of measure. Instead of saying things like, “I’ll be gone for about a month,” you can say, “I’ll be gone for a CNN+.”

“Wow, why is Becky being so crabby?”
“Oh, it’s just her time of the CNN+.”

It’s vulgar and uncharitable to gloat over the failure of an enemy, but hey, I didn’t make CNN blow $300 million on this debacle. I didn’t spend years lying to CNN’s viewers and ruining their brand. I didn’t poach Chris Wallace from Fox News and hire a bunch of other people to work on a project that nobody with half a brain would’ve ever tried.

All those wealthy, powerful people actually convinced themselves anybody wanted this. What an incredible mass self-delusion. What hubris. I can’t wait for the inevitable Hulu miniseries about this humiliating trainwreck.

If it’s anything like HBO’s 1996 film, The Late Shift (on the battle between Jay Leno, David Letterman, and NBC to replace Johnny Carson), I would definitely watch that.

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: Never-Trump Conservatives Keep Proving Their Irrelevancy. “It seems that anti-Trumpism has made Never-Trumpers true pawns of the radical left, making them utterly incapable of producing anything resembling legitimate political analysis. The latest example comes from CNN’s S.E. Cupp, during a recent episode of Unfiltered on CNN.”

Megan Fox: Solving the Groomer School Problem Is Easy. Keep Calm and Sue Everyone! “This is a cult. This is a religion, and it is violating the rights of every student who is not a part of the 🌈 cult. PJ Media reached out to the school for comment and did not hear back in time for publishing. Smart parents have recourse against assaults on reality like this and don’t need laws to make this grooming stop.”

And Of Course: Florida Man Friday: Mike Tyson Says Knock You Out.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: SUNY Prof defends ‘adult-child sex,’ saying ‘I don’t think it’s blanket wrong at any age.’

I remember when Milo Yiannopoulos was un-personed for simply saying that he’d had sex with adults as a teen and didn’t think it had hurt him.

NEXT, THE NAZIS REBRAND AS FRIENDS OF BIG BUSINESS: Communist Party rebrands itself for the ‘future of leftism and communalism.’

WELL, JOHN KERRY: John Kerry called a coward for hiding public records; AG Garland has ‘no comment.’

John Kerry is being called out for his display of “cowardice” for ducking questions about his blatant lack of transparency — while U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had “no comment” on the matter.

The climate czar and featured guest at an MIT symposium on global warming rushed into an elevator surrounded by bodyguards to avoid the Herald’s questions Thursday. He didn’t address why he still refuses to list details of his office staff.

On Earth Day Friday, one energy advocacy group snapped back.

“Alaska’s families are hurting under Joe Biden’s and John Kerry’s energy failures so … Kerry may be able to duck into elevators behind armed bodyguards to avoid questions, but he can’t avoid the truth,” Rick Whitbeck, Alaska State Director of Power The Future, said in a statement sent to the Herald.

“For Kerry to brazenly kill American job opportunities, then duck FOIA demands, shows his cowardice and negligence toward being responsible to the American public,” Whitbeck added.

Alaska has been hit hard by the move away from fossil fuels. Power The Future bills itself as countering too hard a pivot away from oil.

Kerry said at MIT the private sector needs to help solve climate change.

His office is the first of its kind — but who Kerry employs, their titles, pay and other details sought by the Herald in a Freedom of Information Act request won’t be handed over until October of 2024. His FOIA office said that’s an estimate.

That delay, according to Garland’s own memo to Biden administration bosses and a video he posted on the Department of Justice site, is in clear violation of the sprint of the FOIA law. But his office said they would not wade into the matter Friday.

Garland knows his job is to be a fixer and torpedo for the Democrats. Hence, no wading.

As I’ve said before, not only has Garland’s career as AG shown him unfit for the Supreme Court, it’s also shown him unfit to be Attorney General.