THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SHOULD REGISTER AS A FOREIGN AGENT: State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller Advised Chinese Crypto Exchange Under Federal Investigation: New Biden official is worth up to $60 million, disclosures show.

Related: Obama’s Man in China Now Beijing’s Man in Washington.

JOE’S LATEST BUGOUT IS GOING SMOOTHLY: U.S. drones protect bus convoy as hundreds of Americans flee Sudan.

U.S. drones and other military assets protected a weekend bus convoy that moved hundreds of Americans through Sudan to the country’s coast, officials said, as Washington ramps up its effort to get citizens out of the war-torn African country as quickly as possible.

More than 200 Americans boarded buses that traveled more than 500 miles across Sudan. The convoy reached Port Sudan, a coastal city that’s relatively safe in comparison to other areas of the country that have been gripped by fighting between two rival armed factions.

Pentagon officials said that U.S. aerial and naval assets have aided in the push to get Americans out.

“The Department of Defense deployed U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets to support air and land evacuation routes, which Americans are using, and we are moving naval assets within the region to provide any necessary support along the coast,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Saturday in a statement. “Our focus has been and remains to help as many U.S. citizens depart as safely as possible.”

Flashback: Joe Biden Comes Full Circle.

SUMMERS WAS ONE OF THE FEW WASHINGTON TYPES TO CORRECTLY PREDICT BIDENFLATION: The odds of a recession in the next year are 70% and the US has a stagflation problem brewing, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says.

THE NOTION THAT CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS — OR JOURNALISTS — HAVE ANY BUSINESS LECTURING PEOPLE ON ETHICS IS ABSURD: Rather Than Smearing Justices, Democrats Should Be Asking Them For Ethics Lessons.

LAW SCHOOLS FACE AN INFLECTION POINT WITH Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Universities and faculties in particular should take decisive action to prevent [DEI administrators] from subverting the core principles of academic inquiry. At this inflection point, I propose a five-course action plan.

First, every faculty should adopt, or reaffirm, a free speech policy that clearly spells out the university’s commitment to a diversity of viewpoints. That policy also should delineate the consequences for heckling speakers. Students should be given a stern warning at orientation, so they are on clear notice about the rules.

Second, universities should restructure DEI departments. For starters, DEI deans should be tenured members of the faculty, rather than untenured staff. … Moreover, the institution should define the jurisdiction of DEI departments and ensure that student-facing deans remain neutral and do not endorse any particular ideology. …

Third, faculty governance should assert oversight of DEI departments. …

Fourth, DEI staffers should be required to attend training on free speech and academic freedom. …

Fifth—and this one is key—universities should commit themselves to hiring ideologically-diverse professors. It is regrettable that Stanford has one right-of-center public law scholar—Judge McConnell. Yale has zero. Conservative students at Stanford and Yale are jurisprudential orphans. If more conservative scholars are hired, progressive students will invariably learn how to deal with those they disagree with—cross-cultural competency in modern lingo—and may realize that the divide between right and left isn’t as large as they thought. Harvard, which has a handful of conservative faculty members, has unsurprisingly stayed out of the headlines. Other schools should follow the hiring practice started more than a decade ago by Dean Elena Kagan.

Yes.

ACTUALLY, I THINK THIS IS MORE OF A POUNCE: CNN Frets Republicans Are ‘Seizing,’ ‘Up in Arms’ Over Biden ‘Cheat Sheet.’

As Jim Treacher likes to say:

IT’S ALL BULLSHIT: Another Judicial Ethics Story About Justice Thomas Falls Apart. “The never-ending reporting on Supreme Court ethics has backfired. The goal was to demonstrate that certain Supreme Court Justices are behaving unethically. But in turn, each of these stories unraveled. The Justices either followed the rules, or made a good-faith error that was promptly corrected. If the entire media apparatus is unable to unearth actual problems, then we should take comfort: the Justices take their ethical obligations quite seriously.”

Plus: “The latest attacks on Justice Thomas have nothing to do with ethics. Instead, the attacks are about undermining the Supreme Court now that it no longer acts as a super-legislature for implementing the Left’s progressive policies. Other justices have also suffered baseless attacks on their ethics and character. The Left is weaponizing financial disclosures to smear conservative justices. It’s important for defenders of the Court to call this out for what it is. Meanwhile, Justice Thomas and his colleagues can hopefully continue to focus on their work: issuing legal opinions that are faithful to the Constitution.”

That’s because legal opinions that are faithful to the Constitution are the Left’s worst nightmare.

Related:

Here’s pro-abortion @NationalNOW 1998 auction list, item 49, RBG autographed copy of her VMI opinion. As @LindseyGrahamSC said, imagine if Justice Alito donated signed Dobbs opinion to @SBAprolife?? But crickets from the Left on RBG’s conduct. @SenJudiciaryGOP pic.twitter.com/OhFmacJV9c

— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) May 2, 2023

1/ Here’s Justice Ginsburg accepting award in 2010 from the partisan Woman's National Democratic Club. I am unaware of any reporting of this at time. Who was the emcee at this partisan event?? None other than @NPR @NinaTotenberg. Nothing to see here . . . pic.twitter.com/6j8D086PuU

— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) May 2, 2023

NO. Recent Developments Spark Michelle Obama ’24 Rumors.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: Mehdi I’m Amazed. “Smear merchant, plagiarist, careerist, and intellectual weathervane Mehdi Hasan, MSNBC host and best-selling author of Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking — which he may or may not have written, if past practices are any indication — has of late made waves as one of the media’s most aggressive peddlers of leftist agitprop. In the wake of Matt Taibbi’s Congressional testimony concerning ‘The Twitter Files,’ for instance, Hasan accused the independent journalist of committing perjury, an intentional and scurrilous misrepresentation that nevertheless had the effect of prompting Democrat Stacey Plaskett, Congressional delegate from the Virgin Islands, to send Taibbi a letter repeating the perjury charge and suggesting his testimony before a House Committee could be punishable with up to 5 years jail time. This was, of course, an unprecedented attack on journalism — one that Taibbi himself clapped back at.”

BOB MCMANUS: Adams’ racial slur on Texas gov: fresh symptom of an all-talk mayor.

OPEN THREAD: Disport yourselves in the comments.

WHEN YOU BOTCH THE ADRENOCHROME DOSAGE: Are These the Worst 9 Seconds of Joe Biden’s Political Career?

You know, it’s one thing — not a good thing, mind you, but perhaps a less-bad thing — when the American press hid from the world how feeble FDR had become, particularly during the last two or three years of his life. It’s quite another to pretend that a nuclear-armed POTUS is still capable of even friendly give-and-take when the White House Press Corps(e).

Or maybe it was just this weekend, when Biden seemed to forget where he was — just look at that vacant expression — after receiving a jersey and other goodies during an all-too-brief visit with the Air Force Academy Falcons football team.

Actually, the headline should be, “Are These the Worst 9 Seconds of Joe Biden’s Political Career — So Far?”

THE BLOB GOES AFTER ELON: Environmental groups sue FAA over Starship launch license.

GOODER AND HARDER, SAN FRAN: More about the closure of that Whole Foods in San Francisco (plus Nordstrom closes two SF stores).

THE SONG IS OVER: Roger Daltrey is doubtful The Who will ‘ever come back to tour America.’

Nothing at the moment. I don’t know if we’ll ever come back to tour America. There is only one tour we could do, an orchestrated “Quadrophenia” to round out the catalog. But that’s one tall order to sing that piece of music, as I’ll be 80 next year. I never say never, but at the moment it’s very doubtful.

Touring has become very difficult since COVID. We cannot get insured and most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole. To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show. That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.

I saw them in Philadelphia in 1982, and last year in Dallas, so apparently I’ve managed to catch two of their farewell tours. But I’m always up for another one if they change their mind.

SKYNET SMILES. SO DOES HOWARD WOLOWITZ. Columbia Engineers Create Highly Dexterous Human-Like Robot Hand That Can Operate in the Dark.

CHANGE: San Francisco DA decides not to charge Walgreens security guard who shot and killed shoplifter. “Anthony fired only one shot. It’s not clear if Brown actually had a knife at the time of the shooting or merely claimed he did. Still, Anthony asked him to leave and Brown could have done that. Instead, he turned and moved toward Anthony after making a threat to harm him. Brown was escalating the situation and Anthony can’t be expected to stand there and wait to find out if Brown actually has a knife. DA Jenkins basically concluded that Anthony had grounds to be afraid and was acting in self-defense. I’ve seen one unconfirmed report that Anthony, the security guard, is black. In any case the evidence suggests Brown was shot because he threatened to stab Anthony, not because he was black or trans or homeless.”

That the DA is willing to ignore the usual gang of protesters is evidence that something’s changing.

MUCH LIKE PEOPLE: Dogs with dementia sleep less deeply, study shows.

AWESOME? This Is What the Right-Wing Takeover of a Progressive College Looks Like.

IT’S COME TO THIS:

HOLY MOLY.

The president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia may be about to lose his job. Dr. Mark Tykocinski is a 70-year-old immunologist with an spotless academic record.

His crime appears to be liking my tweets.

Academic freedom is dead.https://t.co/nDEu339Txk

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) May 1, 2023

SMOOTH:

"Does President Biden have any reaction to CIA Director William Burns meeting with Jeffrey Epstein in 2014?"

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "I'm just not gonna comment on that from here" pic.twitter.com/dd1pv8WOZP

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 2, 2023

MORE LEFTIST VIOLENCE: Florida Woman charged with felony assault on Rep. Matt Gaetz.

The media and Democratic politicians have ginned up this climate of hate, and must be made to take responsibility for the resulting violence.

SUPREME COURT ISSUES ORDER IN ILLINOIS “ASSAULT WEAPON” CASE:

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett requested a further response from an Illinois locality after gun rights advocates sued over a recently passed ban on certain firearms.

The gun rights advocates are challenging a city ordinance passed last year by Naperville, Illinois, which is similar to an Illinois state law enacted this year barring the sale and possession of certain semi-automatic rifles and magazines. Barrett, who handles appeals stemming from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, asked for Naperville officials to respond by noon on May 8. . . .

Since handing down the Bruen decision last year, the high court so far has not taken up another Second Amendment dispute. However, the Bruen decision made waves across lower courts, leading to 31 successful claims against previously existing gun restrictions across various states with gun control laws.

The Supreme Court in January declined to intervene in an emergency dispute over a law in New York that places restrictions on carrying concealed firearms, with the justices allowing the law to remain in place while the lower court challenges progress.

Stay tuned. More here.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Randi Weingarten Is Lying About Working to Re-Open The Schools, Says…CNN and Lori Lightfoot.

BECAUSE NOW THAT HE’S IN THE SENATE HE’S AN EMBARRASSMENT RATHER THAN A SOB STORY: The Media Seems to Have Lost Interest in John Fetterman. I Wonder Why.