IT’S PAST TIME: It’s time to have ‘the talk’ about Grandpa Joe as he launches re-election bid.

The president is at that advanced age when families start having hard conversations about taking away grandpa’s car keys, or whether Aunt Julie should really be using the stove unattended. Well, it’s time for America to have that talk.

There is little doubt that for a half hour or so, Old Scranton Joe can be propped up in front of a flag reading an announcement off of his IMAX-sized teleprompter. Whether he will know what he is saying is another matter, but he’ll get through it, likely with the promise of ice cream to follow.

As with every speech Biden gives, we will experience the feelings, familiar from eyeing family members who are elderly, of concern as his eyes toggle between a dim light of recognition and a visage pleading, “Where am I?”

But as the Octogenarian-in-Chief is so often wont to say, this is not a joke.

Reminder: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

UM: Trump: DeSantis owes it to me to drop out.

So this argument isn’t as much of a stretch as some might think — at least in terms of Trump’s boost for DeSantis in 2018’s primary. That endorsement arguably may have made it tougher for DeSantis in the 2018 general election, a blue wave that saw voters punish Trump backers across the country. DeSantis barely held on against Andrew Gillum, and in fact his win was seen as a major upset in an otherwise bleak night for the GOP. Nevertheless, Trump did intervene with the re-endorsement for the primary, and it clearly had a positive impact for DeSantis in the summer of 2018.

That, of course, was five years ago, and DeSantis certainly returned the favor in 2020 by offering Trump his full-throated support in the presidential election. DeSantis helped deliver Florida for Trump in 2020 too. As Sopo also points out, DeSantis offered plenty of political support for Trump during Russiagate. In other words, DeSantis spent a few years being the good party soldier for Trump. At this point, most reasonable voters will likely conclude that Trump got fair value for his 2018 support of DeSantis.

Besides, isn’t this “betrayal” argument better aimed at Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, whom Trump appointed to his ticket and administration?

Yes, but he’s not afraid of them. Trump needs to be attacking Democrats. Showing he can still do that effectively is how he wins the primary, not by attacking Republicans not-so-effectively.

Plus: “Even apart from that, this sounds pretty whiny for a first-look official campaign ad.” Yes.

AND A SORRY-ASS JOB IT DID WITH IT, TOO: Government’s National Security Arm Took Charge During the Covid Response.

Now why might this be the responsibility of the national security folks? Maybe because we thought it was a biowar attack?

THAT’S JUST NUTS: Fake Female Swimmer Lia Thomas Says Those Who Think He Shouldn’t Compete Against Women Just Hate Women.

WHY THE SILENCE ON BIDEN’S IMMIGRANT CHILD LABOR SCANDAL? The Daily Gouge points to Jim Geraghty’s analysis of the New York Times’ expose and explains the ensuing silence:

“This should have been, and should be, an epic year-defining scandal. Americans have intense disagreements about illegal immigration and what should be done in the situations of unaccompanied minors who cross the border. But no one with a lick of sense, an ounce of compassion, or an iota of respect for the law would contend that exploiting those poor kids in dangerous workplaces is the right answer.

“Any way you slice it, this outcome is just about the worst — much worse than a system that catches migrant teenagers and puts them on flights or other transportation, returning them to family members in their home countries. In fact, the Times found some evidence that the Biden administration punished lower-ranking government officials who noticed and attempted to call out the problem …

“… this is one of those stories that doesn’t provide any easy angle to blame Republicans. This widespread exploitation of teenagers is the result of the policies and decision-making of a Democratic administration. And I think news stories that don’t offer a ‘blame Republicans’ angle bore a lot of people who need the dopamine rush of knowing that all problems in this world can be traced back to Donald Trump, or Ron DeSantis, or Kevin McCarthy, or Mitch McConnell.”

The Daily Gouge has more to say on this issue and more, so keep scrolling.

EVEN THE TALIBAN SOMETIMES DOES A BETTER JOB THAN JOE BIDEN DOES OF DEALING WITH AMERICA’S ENEMIES: Mastermind of Kabul airport massacre killed by Taliban.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Steven Spielberg Slams Woke Edits to Hollywood Classics, Including His Own.

THANKS, JOE: Americans rush to escape before Sudan plunges into civil war.

Then there’s this from Brett Bruen: What a bloody disgrace! Biden maroons 16,000 Americans in the Sudan warzone… then blithely demands four more years. I was an Obama diplomat who rescued US citizens abroad – and this is shameful.

ANTI-SCIENCE MOBS: Masked protesters ‘rush’ the stage at book festival to disrupt archaeologist interview.

HAS SOROS PICKED HER REPLACEMENT? Chicago’s Thug-hugging State’s Attorney Kim Foxx Not Seeking Re-election.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “I never thought I would be in the middle of a violent physical battle on the streets of Pittsburgh, a practical war zone breaking out in my hometown. But it happened on Tuesday night. Michael Knowles and Brad Polumbo were in Pennsylvania to debate transgender rights and the role of government in those rights. The protest itself, though, was an illustration that free speech and intellectual inquiry in America are being replaced with acts of intimidation and violence.”

Not by accident.

How China’s Huawei spooked Germany into launching a probe.

The latest freak-out over Chinese telecommunications equipment in Germany, which led to the announcement of a probe in March, has its origins in a little-known piece of Huawei technology that is supposed to control power consumption, POLITICO can reveal.

While much of the fear around Huawei in the West has focused on espionage and the risk of data leaking to Beijing, Germany’s latest investigation — and the intelligence that triggered it — point to another risk: the potential of sabotage through critical components that could collapse telecoms networks.
…
The revelations suggest security officials feared such a component could be used to disrupt telecoms operations or — in a worst case scenario — be exploited to bring down a network.

If God forbid there’s a Third World War, it seems more and more likely to begin with a digital Pearl Harbor — except the attack would come at “everything, everywhere, all at once,” to coin a phrase.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Was That a Biden 2024 Campaign Launch or a Drunk Hostage Video? “While I dread the prospect of having Sir Sniffsalot stinking up the Oval Office past Jan. 20, 2025, I’m also overwhelmed by morbid curiosity to see how his handlers pull this campaign off.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: The Virtues of Self-Employment. “Huge news these days in the media world, with Tucker Carlson, the most popular figure in the history of cable news, I believe, out at Fox, and Don Lemon–a marginal personality whom I have never seen in action–fired by CNN. But that is not all: Disney has also fired Nate Silver from the 538 franchise that Silver founded years ago. . . . My point is that people in the media world either have value, or they don’t. The big organizations, whether conglomerates like Disney/ABC, TV networks like Fox News or CNN, or newspapers like the New York Times, have nothing like the power that they once did. They exist because people like to read, or hear from, a finite number of reporters and commentators. Like Tucker Carlson and Nate Silver. And if the conglomerates lose those people, they have little to offer.”

ANDREW LOWENTHAL: An Insider’s Guide to ‘Anti-Disinformation.’

Twitter emails show consistent collaboration between military and intelligence officials and elite “progressives” from NGOs and academia. “They/them” signatures mingle with .mil, @westpoint, @fbi and others. How did the FBI and the Pentagon, once the avowed enemies of progressives for their attacks on the Black Panthers and the peace movement, their war-mongering and gross over-funding, begin to fuse and collude? They join together in election tabletop exercises and share hors d’oeuvres at conferences put on by oligarch philanthropists. That cultural and political shift was once a heavy lift, but now it is as simple as cc’ing each other.

Worse still, representatives of the military-industrial complex are lauded in the digital rights field. In 2022, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken featured prominently at RightsCon, the digital rights field’s biggest conference (an event EngageMedia co-organised in 2015 in the Philippines — Blinken did not appear then). Blinken oversees the Global Engagement Center (GEC), one of the most important US Government anti-disinformation initiatives (see #TwitterFiles 17), and is now alleged to have initiated his own disinformation campaign related to the Hunter Biden laptop – that of the “Russian information operation” letter signed by 50 former US intelligence officials.

Once adversaries are brought together via a strong through-line tracing from counter-terrorism, to countering violent extremism, to Minority Report-style policing of everyday speech and political difference.

Read the whole thing.

WHO SAW THIS COMING, BESIDES EVERYONE? Fox News ‘Is Dead,’ and Tucker Carlson Is Already Living Large With a Job Offer.

Related: Fox Nation subscribers already following Tucker out the door.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT “GENERIC REPUBLICAN” WON’T APPEAR ON THE BALLOT: Lamest Campaign Launch Ever: Biden Loses to Generic Republican 41%–47%.

WASTED, STOLEN, WHATEVER: Biden Administration Stonewalls Probe Into Hundreds of Millions in Potentially Wasted Foreign Aid.

DEAL OF THE DAY: JAY-PARK Flashlights High Lumens Rechargeable. #CommissionEarned

YOU’LL OWN NOTHING AND YOU’LL DO AS YOU’RE TOLD: Biden administration is quietly planning for a future where you don’t own money. “Under the various CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency] proposals floated by the Biden administration and Federal Reserve, a U.S. CBDC would be programmable, traceable and designed to promote various left-wing social goals, such as improving ‘financial inclusion’ and ‘equity.’ It would also be designed to help with ‘transitioning to a net-zero emissions economy and improving environmental justice.'”

It would be the biggest money and power grab in world history by a wide margin.

FLASHBACK: The Potemkin Village of Georgetown.

DEADBEAT DAD: Hunter Biden Ordered to Appear in Court in Paternity Case.

THE IVY EXILE: Critiquing Race Theory.

I was familiar with critical race theory long before it resurged as a culture war flashpoint. At Brown, I’d written some papers for Professor Glenn Loury tracing the development of Black Studies and associated fields, including the contributions of Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado et al. They’d done some good work, among the first sustained efforts to systematize ongoing impacts of historic injustice.

But by the mid-2010s their once-searing insights had become frozen in time like it was forever the 1980s—that even with the federal bureaucracy and Fortune 500 on board they remained scrappy underdogs against all odds. Even as America grew vastly more diverse, old black and white categories blurring and dissolving, the systematized version insisted that little had changed.

At least the campus wars of the ’80s and early ’90s around political correctness had offered critical race theorists spirited pushback in the public square, encouraging them to hone and diversify their ideas. With critique verboten in the age of Black Lives Matter, they’ve become increasingly insulated, cranking out the same faded dogma even as ill-conceived schemes like cashless bail and defunding police take disproportionate toll on minority communities.

Whatever the latest disaster, it’s always somebody else’s fault, and further proof that ever more DEI officials and administrators are needed to fix things.

A surefire solution: More money and power for us!

FIGHT THE POWER: “Today, two students represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued their Michigan school district for viewpoint discrimination after they were forbidden from wearing apparel critical of President Joe Biden.”

OPEN THREAD: Almost hump day.

UPDATE: From the comments:

Tucker Carlson’s speech over the weekend was powerful. Too powerful apparently. pic.twitter.com/sxncP26Tda

— Te𝕏asLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) April 24, 2023