ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS:  Russia spook power shifts from FSB (former KGB) to GRU (military intelligence); why Putin’s propaganda effort did not work all that well in the “independent” Donetsk and Lugansk “republics”.

IT DESERVES WORSE THAN THAT, HAVING KILLED OVER A HUNDRED MILLION HUMAN BEINGS:  Ron DeSantis Kicks Communism In The Cojones.

WELL! THERE’S MY SHOCKED FACE:  Inflation Rose 8.3% From a Year Ago in April, Remains at 40-Year High.

NO. BUT COMMIES IN PLACES OF POWER MIGHT BE:  Biden’s FDA Chief Asserts “Misinformation” is Leading Cause of Death in Nation.

And not even on purpose. Sorry. Most of the far left is so stunningly incompetent they mess up everything they touch.

“DON’T WEIGH ME” CARDS:  Is it just me or are these cards unusually silly?  I can understand people being sensitive about their weight, but it’s important to alert both doctor and patient of any unexplained weight fluctuations.  (Even if some patients don’t want to be weighed in their doctor’s office, do they really need a card to announce it?  Why not just say so?)  Evidently, these cards are becoming popular enough for major clinics to … uh … “weigh in” against them.

COUNT ‘EM:  SIX KINDS OF PROBLEMS:  Andrew Gillen has counted up the many problems with student loan forgiveness in a report for the Texas Public Policy Foundation.  How many kinds of problems does he find?  He finds “logical and rhetorical problems,” “educational problems,” “economic problems,” “moral problems,” “political problems,” and “legal problems.”  Minding the Campus has kindly excerpted Gillen’s arguments for all six varieties.

OH CANADA!:  Frances Widdowson discusses “Exclusionary Inclusion” as practiced north of the border.

OPEN THREAD: Shut up and fish. The ghillie suits are a nice touch.

NEIGHBORHOOD KAREN HAS OUTBURST: Maskless Broadway Star Yells At Audience Members For Not Wearing A Mask. “Broadway star Patti LuPone went on a profanity-laden rant the other day when a member of the audience at a Broadway event was spotted with their mask not properly affixed to their face…And the audience applauds for this deranged bat. First off, as we all know now, this girl having her nose uncovered is not endangering anyone. The masks don’t work, unless everyone is wearing a N95 or something, which is obviously not the case. Also, and maybe this should be obvious (but in LaLa Land it isn’t)… LuPone IS NOT WEARING A MASK!”

More here: Broadway Star Patti Lupone Unleashes F-bomb Rant On Maskless Patron.

LuPone wasn’t done just yet. She had more tirades where that came from.

“Who do you think you are? That you do not respect the people that are sitting around you!”
The maskless woman fired back, “I pay your salary!”

Oh boy, Patti wasn’t having that.

“Bulls–t! Chris Harper pays my salary!” the mask police officer responded, noting the producer of the musical.

As you would expect, Patti is quite the foul-mouthed mask police officer who hates Trump, appears on The View and seems to like where Biden and his team have America headed.

Naturally, left-leaning People magazine defends LuPone’s outburst, and describes it as simply coming with the territory: “This isn’t the first time LuPone has clapped back at an audience member.”

The magazine is support for the star is certainly “unexpected.” As John Nolte of Breitbart.com wrote in 2015, when the Onion’s otherwise often enjoyable AV Club Website attacked a Michigan restaurateur for symbolically “banning” Hollywood’s Michael Moore and Seth Rogan when the two smeared the late Chris Kyle after Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper proved to be a surprise box office smash:

And how does the AV Club respond to this symbolic but righteous protest? By using no fewer than 7 paragraphs to relentlessly mock the Little Guy and his business.

[Restaurant owner Tommy] Brann has come up with the equally deadly revenge of denying him “decent, better than average, but nothing to rave about” fare delivered through “terrible service” amid “dated and kinda dirty” decor, of the sort that Americans must consume daily to live. Rogen and Moore are hereby condemned to slowly starve to death in the Brann’s parking lot, yearning fruitlessly for Brann’s Classic Onion Straw Loaf, the lights of the sign that illuminates their fatal mistake growing dim in their eyes.

Is anyone else old enough to remember when speaking truth to and defying power was the in-thing?

When the American Left reveals who they are really for and against, it is chilling.

Know your place and shut your mouth, little man.

In his 2014 history of the American left, The Revolt Against the Masses, Fred Siegel wrote, “The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s.‘Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class.’”

The Anointed, such as Biden-supporting LuPone, understand that it’s for their own good, of course.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: My Baby Needs Formula, And I’m Getting Scared She Won’t Have It.

According to analysis from Datasembly, 40 percent of top-selling baby formula products were out of stock at retailers across the United States as of April 24. That’s up from 11 percent in November of 2021. Six states — Tennessee, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota — hit shortages of more than 50 percent. Why is this happening?

Aside from one manufacturing plant being shut downsince mid-February, the only other answer seems to be infamous supply chain issues. The Biden administration and other officials have been largely silent about the formula shortage. Finally, on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki addressed the issue, claiming it is a “priority for the FDA.”

But she did not explain why it is happening, why producing enough formula to feed the nation’s babies isn’t a top priority, or provide any sort of timeline for when parents can expect shelves to be fully restocked with their infants’ sustenance. The only thing she did do is possibly scare moms and dads further by saying, “I don’t believe there’s a national stockpile of baby formula.”

Gee, you’d think a devoted family man like Pete Buttigieg would be laser-focused on the supply chain aspect of the shortage.

Related: Lengthy Twitter thread from Helena Bottemiller Evich of the Politico on “the infant formula shortage situation, which feels like a slow-moving train wreck. First, retail stock has been rocky for months. It was already bad over the holidays, then a big recall + plant shutdown in Feb. made it worse… ‘If this doesn’t get fixed soon, I don’t know how my son will survive,’ said Phoebe Carter, whose 5-year old son John — a nature-lover and ‘paleontologist in training’ — has a severe form of Eosinophilic Esophagitis, a rare digestive and immune system disease. ‘If, God forbid, a family member of President Joe Biden or Jeff Bezos or someone influential had one of these diseases, this crisis wouldn’t have made it to Day Two,’ Carter said.”

Finally, the New York Times spots Republicans seizing(!) on the issue: A Baby Formula Shortage Leaves Desperate Parents Searching for Food.

Republicans have seized on the widening anxiety among parents to blame President Biden, arguing that the administration has not done enough to ramp up production. On Tuesday, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, asserting that federal officials have been too slow to respond.

The F.D.A., which is leading the federal response, said officials were working with Abbott Nutrition, the company involved in the recall, to restart production at its plant in Sturgis, Mich. The agency said it had been meeting regularly with various infant formula manufacturers to increase production capacity and urging retailers to consider placing sales limits on infant formula products.

As Jim Treacher likes to say:

UPDATE: Biden’s Incoming Press Secretary Laughs When Asked Who is Handling Baby Formula Crisis.

MORE: How the Federal Government is Making the Baby Formula Shortage Way Worse. “Free trade isn’t just good for consumers and a boon for economic growth. Having free trade leads to diversified supply lines, which breed resilience. Meanwhile, relying on just crony, protected domestic producers or one single foreign supplier breeds a dangerous reliance. ‘America’s demand for baby formula has outpaced domestic supply. It’s exactly the type of situation where imports would help alleviate the domestic supply crunch and make American markets more resilient,’ Reason’s Eric Boehm explained. ‘Unfortunately, American trade policy is doing exactly the opposite right now.’”

(Updated and bumped.)

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: US appeals court rules California’s ban on sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional.

ZE’S GOTTA HAVE IT! Democrats’ National Abortion Bill Replaces Word ‘Woman’ With ‘Person.’

Democrats’ latest abortion bill does not include the words “woman,” “women,” or “female.” Instead, the bill uses the word “person” to refer to those who bear and give birth to children.

Unlike during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings in March, there seemed to be a surfeit of biologists last week. Why have they all suddenly gone into hiding once again?

STAY COOL: 10ft Patio Umbrella. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)

UNEXPECTEDLY: Senate Democrats Fail to Advance Sweeping Abortion Bill.

The procedural vote to invoke cloture and advance the Women’s Health Protection Act failed in a 49-to-51 vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer chose to hold the vote despite the near certainty that Democrats would fail to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to break a Republican filibuster and advance the measure.

The largely symbolic vote came after a leaked majority draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization revealed that the Supreme Court could be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, returning the question of abortion to the states.

“A vote on this legislation is not an abstract exercise. This is as urgent and real as it gets. We’ll vote to protect a women’s right to choose,” Schumer said last week, according to The Hill.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) similarly told NPR on Tuesday that it’s “really important to have this vote to show where everyone stands.”

And now we know: “The most important thing about this vote is that we’ve got 49 Democrats on record supporting abortion up until birth. Remember that this November,” Kevin Downey, Jr. writes at the PJM mothership. The exception is Joe Manchin, who “came out against the measure ahead of the vote on Tuesday, saying the Women’s Health Protection Act is ‘not Roe v. Wade codification, it’s an expansion’ of abortion.”

BREAKING: Dems Vote to Codify Roe v. Wade Into Law, Get Clown-Slapped Instead.

BY THE BIGGEST FOOLS ON THE PLANET: “The Biggest Global Power Grab We Have Seen in Our Lifetimes.” The Biden administration proposes to let the WHO dictate health-care policy in America and everywhere else.

JEFFREY CARTER: Unexpectedly — Expect The Financial Press to Protect Biden Like They Did Obama.

Today, the market is trading lower but not significantly lower……yet. The Wall Street Journal is spinning the number. “Inflation Edged Down…” is their headline. The rest of it is, “To 8.3%”.

Are you getting an 8.5% raise this year to cover it? Walk in, ask your boss for an 8.5% raise today and see what they say. You know, to beat inflation. Better yet, raise prices by that to your customers and see what they do.

This is the first decline in 8 months. Inflation was running at 8.5%. Believe me, the average American outside the Beltway isn’t going to be crowing about seeing inflation temper by .2%. It’s like moving a gallon of gas down from $5.50/gallon to $5.48/gallon. Just so you know, inflation is still at a 40-year high.

* * * * * * * *

Inflation isn’t about Russia, Ukraine, or anything like that. It’s about the government spending period and the lack of supply. Biden totally destroyed the supply curve in the oil industry. Yes, he did that.

Meanwhile, Americans are getting poorer by the day.

Expect the financial press to do all they can to protect Biden by spinning numbers and the news. They always did it for the Golden Boy Obama. Virtually every miss of a financial growth number was led by the word “Unexpectedly” followed by a spun description of it.

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and their obfuscations “unexpectedly” all make perfect sense.

Evergreen:

GREENS’ GIFT TO AMERICA: A Summer of Blackouts? Thanks to hasty closures of fossil-fuel and nuclear plants, coupled with shortfalls in renewable-energy production, Americans will face increasing power outages.

BREAKING: Trump Can Avoid Contempt of Court With a Fine and Other Stipulations, Judge Rules.

YES, IT’S STILL THE ECONOMY, STUPID: President Galantamine tried his best to remember James Carville‘s infamous (and successful) 1992 Clinton talking point. But the poor man kept getting confused about whether inflation was a good thing (“It’s our strength” he babbled) before his handlers and a supplicant press corp glossed it over.

I’ve noted elsewhere that for all the sippy cups banging on the highchairs of America’s elite, Roe is simply not the high-salience issue that will re-elect Biden. Not when business news sites (even those run by Biden-friendly corporations) point out that as of right now:

“As of March, close to two-thirds, or 64%, of the U.S. population was living paycheck to paycheck, just shy of the high of 65% in 2020, according to a LendingClub report. “The number of people living paycheck to paycheck today is reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic and it has become the dominant lifestyle across income brackets,” said Anuj Nayar, LendingClub’s financial health officer.”

Yet, Democrats are still struggling to understand the importance of bread-on-the-table issues and keep whistling past that graveyard. One outfit, interviewing Democratic officials nervous about “electability,” said that:

“On Monday night, several left-leaning congressional candidates joined an emergency organizing call with activists reeling from a draft Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.”

When real America can’t pay its grocery bills, put gas in the car, or buy eyeglasses for their kids, all the screeching — and I do mean screeching — by Elizabeth Warren will not overcome Carville’s time-tested truth.

THE SWAMP LOOKS AFTER ITS OWN: ED Cancels $6.8 billion of Public Servants’ Student Debt, Launches Appeal Process for Denials. “The Education Department announced Wednesday that recent changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program had improved the accessibility of the program. The department has canceled $6.8 billion in student debt owed by federal employees and public servants through the improvements.”

It’s good to be the nomenklatura.

I SWEAR THIS IS SAFE FOR WORK: Madonna Scanned Her Whole Body for Charity, Including Her… You Know. “Feeling merciful — and as a columnist for a family-friendly website — I’ll keep the details trimmed down to this bare essential: Madonna is selling naughty NFTs of herself giving birth to not-babies in the name of art.”

STAY COOL: Dickies Men’s Relaxed-Fit Multi-Pocket Shorts. #CommissionEarned

BUT WHO STILL LISTENS? The Elites Have Spoken.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: The Taylor Lorenz ‘Lizard Person’ Scandal, Explained.

Now it all makes sense!