PANIC AT THE DISCO: Politico, HuffPo: Schumer’s maximalist abortion bill “doomed” … and not woke enough.

Related: Report: White House “panicked” at lack of tools to keep abortion legal.

But here’s the really bad news: “Democrats want to start generating enough heat on abortion to boost their fundraising numbers. As Allahpundit pointed out yesterday, the early returns looked worrisome as an expected spike in donations didn’t materialize at ActBlue. The news was a little better at the DLCC, but still small potatoes.”

See, the Dems and the media — but I repeat myself — have been telling Democrats that nothing that happens in those red states matters. And their hardcore supporters know that blue states, where they live, will always have legal abortion. So the urgency isn’t there.

Plus:

Not a lot of urgency. And it’s going to be hard for Democrats to fundraise on the economy, or on national security.

HMM: FDA restricts J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine due to blood clot risk.

NOT ORION-STYLE NUCLEAR PROPULSION, SADLY, BUT STILL PROGRESS: DARPA moving forward with development of nuclear powered spacecraft.

YOU ARE DESCENDED FROM STUPENDOUS BADASSES: Humans Were Actually Apex Predators For 2 Million Years, Evidence Shows.

I THINK WE’VE BEEN PROVIDING A LOT OF INTELLIGENCE, AND THE RUSSIANS’ VAUNTED CAPABILITIES IN MASKIROVKA AND DECEPTION HAVE NOT PANNED OUT: U.S. provided intelligence that helped Ukraine sink Russian warship.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE HANGOVER PREVENTIVE IS DRINKING LESS THE NIGHT BEFORE: Activated charcoal benefits explained: Does it actually prevent hangovers?

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage bans Ron DeSantis to promote ‘its message of inclusivity.’

DON’T GET COCKY: No, abortion won’t rescue Dems in November.

HMM: Revisiting Mitch Daniels’ “Truce” on Social Issues.

There’s a myth in Indianapolis Republican circles that goes something like this: back in the good old days, the Indiana GOP was made up of high minded, moderate statesmen from metro Indianapolis like Richard Lugar and Bill Hudnut. Then a bunch of troglodytes from rural Indiana like Mike Pence took over and wrecked the party and the state with extreme social conservative policies that are bad for business.

Reality is very different. Since Republicans retook power in the state in 2005, Indiana has largely been run by Republicans from metro Indianapolis who have operated according to a philosophy Mitch Daniels called “the truce,” or the avoidance of social issues in favor of fiscal and economic development matters.

In terms of actual legislation enacted, Indiana is actually one of the least socially conservative red states. But the economic results have been underwhelming to poor for the state and its people. The Indianapolis GOP elites and their truce both effectively disenfranchised and impoverished the state’s Republican voters, while the left, which never agreed to any part of a truce, made significant advances on its own social policy agenda in the state.

From the standpoint of the average Republican voter, the truce was a thus a double failure. There’s no reason to believe abandoning cultural issues in favor of economics will work anywhere.

I suppose it’s possible that the two are less separable than many people thought.

RIP: Norman Lloyd, Star of Saboteur and St. Elsewhere, Dies at 106. The actor, also an esteemed producer and director, worked with Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin and Jean Renoir and had a long collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock during an amazing career in show business.

LOWDER WITH CROWDER: Bill Burr Says Johnny Depp’s ‘f***ing Destroying’ Amber Heard For Lying, Actor Is Owed Public Apologies.

The ACLU isn’t earning their keep these days: ACLU helped draft article at heart of Depp v Heard case for $3.5m donation, court hears.

PRESIDENT BIDEN DOESN’T EVEN REMEMBER VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN AT THIS POINT: President Biden, Allow Us to Introduce You to Vice President Biden.

SAD BUT TRUE:

GRAY LADY NOW IN TWO-MINUTE HATE MODE:

● New York Times Public Enemy #1: Tucker Carlson.

—Debra Saunders, Tuesday.

● NYT: Say, why didn’t Elon Musk end apartheid as a teenager? Update: “The opposite of the thesis.”

—Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, today.

The Times is also breaking out the airbrush:

Related: Confessions Of A Conspiracy Theorist. In its effort to discredit Tucker Carlson, the New York Times has managed to find conspiracy theories everywhere.

AGREED: There Is NO WAY They Squeezed Kim Kardashian’s Junk in the Trunk into Marilyn Monroe’s Dress.

BIDEN: MAGA is more extreme than Antifa, KKK.

Being something of a barfly, Cockburn is used to overhearing tall tales, braggadocious orations, and outlandish accusations, also known as “fightin’ words.” So imagine his astonishment in learning that what he heard over his breakfast stout this afternoon was not the consequence of some riled-up Hill staffer who’d had a few too many, but was really and truly uttered by the (presumably sober) president of the United States.

“This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history,” President Biden said. “Recent history,” he clarified.

“Recent” is a relative term. Perhaps the explosive hate crimes of the Ku Klux Klan that reached their height in the 1920s are not “recent” enough for Biden. Likewise the ideology of “extreme” Democrats of the same period who didn’t think women should have the right to vote, and who, over the decades, “defended slavery, started the Civil War, opposed Reconstruction, imposed segregation, perpetrated lynchings, and fought against the Civil Rights Acts of the 1950s and 1960s.”

Segregation, you say?

But since Obama brought it up, it’s worth noting that the only person in modern American politics to have repeatedly praised Wallace and other segregationists is Joe Biden. It was Biden who bragged that in 1973 Wallace considered him “one of the outstanding young politicians of America.” It was Biden who wrote in 1975 that the “Democratic Party could stand a liberal George Wallace.” It was Biden who in 1981 told a black witness in the Senate that “sometimes even George Wallace is right.” It was Biden who, while campaigning for the presidency in Alabama in 1987, claimed that he’d been the recipient of an award from Wallace in 1973 (it probably wasn’t true; but what a thing to brag about!), and then boasted that Delaware was “on the South’s side in the Civil War.”

“Biden was also buddies with J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and a segregationist and anti-Semite who would later become a mentor to the Clintons.”

As well as another fellow Democrat, Robert Byrd: Herschel Walker says ‘Democrats do not like America’ and slams media for not grilling Joe Biden over his friendship with former KKK member-turned senator Robert Byrd.

And as recently as last year: Biden To Hold Event With Ralph Northam, Two Years After Saying He ‘Lost All Moral Authority’ And Should Resign.

Related: Biden Says I’m An Extremist—Who Knew?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Building a Live-Ammo-Firing Han Solo Blaster.

MOSTLY PEACEFUL VANDALS: Catholic Church In Boulder Vandalized With Abortion-Rights Graffiti.

LIVE AT 4PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, VodkaPundit, Special Guest.

READER FAVORITE: Dual Dash Cam with Built-in GPS. #CommissionEarned

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Dave Chappelle Attacked on Stage – What Happens Next? “Shocking assault on GOAT comic isn’t an isolated incident in the culture wars”

ARE WE LOOKING INTO ALL THE POSSIBLE CAUSES? We still don’t know what’s behind the global hepatitis outbreak in kids.

YOUR TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE: Liberal Women Threaten Sex Strikes to Save Roe, to No One’s Dismay.

OLD RENO AND MORE: My colleague Michael Higdon on Migratory Divorce.

UPDATE: Link was bad before, fixed now. Sorry!

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN ON PROSECUTING THE DOBBS LEAKER: If you are a prosecutor or former prosecutor every wrong looks like a federal criminal offense.