JOHNNY CAB CONFESSIONS: Tom Friedman Ditches Cabbies, Embraces Our Robot Overlords.

Friedman has always seen the future — this is a man who once revealed the world to be flat, but not before accurately predicting that McDonald’s would end armed conflict. And he is sounding the alarm bell once again with his newest shift: he’s moved on from cabs to the post-human future. Yes, Friedman has thrown in with the bots and declared himself a “Waymo Democrat,” adopting the name of the driverless cars that he claims are the bellwether technology of a better, more sensibly centrist future.

While respecting Friedman’s dogged adherence to the one successful rhetorical framework he has ever properly known — he will forever be the Man in the Backseat— we should be at least mildly amused and/or alarmed that he has cast his lot with our robot overlords. His answer to the question “How do we get more Americans making stuff again” is to become the country of “advanced manufacturing and AI.”

By this he means that a productive new generation of American manufacturing would see the United States winning the race to replace ourselves with machines that no longer require the use of human beings at all, save for mechanical upkeep or oversight. Why? Because Friedman drove in robo-taxis in China, Phoenix, and San Francisco and is convinced that this represents the automated future of all mankind.

From his point of view, that might be for the best, considering his rather misanthropic view of mankind: Benjamin Kerstein: Thomas Friedman is decadent and depraved.

There is a stunning amount that is wrong about this rant. In fact, there is everything wrong with it. But the key phrase is: “Ours is, for now, still a free country*, and if people aren’t engaging in violent acts, or harassing other students in or out of class, they should be free to say whatever they want, including advocating a Palestinian state of whatever size they want.”

But these people are universally engaging in violence, harassing students, and advocating for a Palestinian state not just of any size but one that replaces Israel entirely while slaughtering and/or expelling its Jewish population. Friedman, with the walls of privilege around him, feels free to ignore all of this, and this is a terrible and unforgivable dereliction. The reason is the human cost of his apologetics.

* Often much to Friedman’s chagrin: “Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.”

CONAN, WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE? David Hogg’s future could include first male host of The View.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DISNEY CELEBRITY TANKING THEIR FRANCHISE: But Will Disney Fire Him? Pedro Pascal Posts Hateful Comment on Instagram About J.K. Rowling.

It’s kind of difficult to turn on a television or go to a movie these days without seeing Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal. If we looked up ‘overexposed’ in the dictionary, we would probably see his face there, too.

In addition to starring in the abysmal sequel Gladiator II, Pascal is (or — spoiler alert — was) also the lead in HBO’s video game-based series The Last of Us. And he is a major part of TWO Disney tentpoles. He plays the Mandaorian in the series and the upcoming movie of the same name, and will be playing Reed Richards in Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps. That movie is already off to a rocky start before it gets even released, with many of its stars promising that it will be ‘updated for modern audiences’ (and we all know what that means).

What Pascal may be lesser known for, but probably should be, is how often he spews hate on social media. He actually eulogized the horrible people who tried to kill Kyle Rittenhouse but wound up on the wrong end of that FAFO game. He has also compared the United States to Nazi Germany long before that became the left’s only argument.

Hypocritically, Disney fired fellow Mandalorian star Gina Carano for being critical of Nazi Germany (and they are about to pay dearly for that), but has never even reprimanded Pascal because, of course, he is on the right ‘team.’

So it will be curious to see the fallout from this banger:

So much losing, you’ll be sick of all the losing:

Related: The TERFs were right all along. Women had to face down cancellation, death threats, arrest and so much more to have their rights vindicated.

And once again, a Disney star is declaring a large portion of his audience racist/sexist/homophobic and/or transphobic. I’m not sure how that sells tickets, but then I’m also not sure why modern Hollywood allows its actors free reign on social media:

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

pic.twitter.com/IiQMZNdTbt

— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) April 25, 2025

WATCHING THE HYDROGEN BOMB: James May And Jay Leno Review “The Future Of Motoring” (Top Gear segment from 2008).

Although, never say never: Is hydrogen the future for cars? Manufacturers haven’t given up on it yet.

THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC CALLED AND SUGGESTED THAT 2025 DIAL IT BACK A NOTCH OR TWENTY:

In 2025, an attorney for a government school district is able to make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court defending exposing children as young as three years old to books about sexuality. Imagine going back in time to any point—even just a few years ago—and explaining that… pic.twitter.com/mMA3ZslRvs

— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) April 23, 2025

Here’s the rest of the text:

Imagine going back in time to any point—even just a few years ago—and explaining that this is considered a serious argument. What I find most remarkable about the exchange is the attorney’s acknowledgment that their intent is to “influence” children. He begins to explain that the goal is to install “civility,” which is the “natural consequence of being exposed to—” before he is cut off. Was he going to say that “civility” results from exposure to sexual content at a very young age? What could “civility” possibly mean here?

MR. SCHOENFELD: Pride Puppy was the book that was used for the pre-kindergarten curriculum. That’s no longer in the curriculum.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: That’s the one where they’re supposed to look for the leather and things—bondage, things like that, right?

MR. SCHOENFELD: It’s not bondage. It’s a woman in a leather—

JUSTICE GORSUCH: Sex worker, right?

MR. SCHOENFELD: No. That’s not correct. No.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: I thought—gosh, I read it.

JUSTICE BARRETT: It’s a drag queen in drag.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: Drag queen in—drag queen?

MR. SCHOENFELD: So, correct. The leather that they’re pointing to is a woman in a leather jacket, and one of the words is drag queen in this—

JUSTICE GORSUCH: And they’re supposed to look for those?

MR. SCHOENFELD: It is an option at the end of the book, correct.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: Yeah. Okay. And you’ve included these in the English language curriculum rather than the human sexuality curriculum to influence students, is that fair? That’s what the district court found. Do you agree with that?

MR. SCHOENFELD: I think, to the extent the district court found that it was to influence, it was to influence them towards civility, the natural consequence of being exposed to—

JUSTICE GORSUCH: Whatever, but to influence them.

MR. SCHOENFELD: In the manner that I just mentioned, yes.

My God. More details (and a Republicans pounce! moment) here: Supreme Court Leans Toward Parents on Opt-Outs for LGBTQ+ Lessons.

The argument tended to keep returning to the books.

Jackson said it was her understanding that the Montgomery County district was explicit that the LGBTQ+ storybooks “were to be used only to supplement the English/language arts curriculum as reading instruction and not to teach about gender or sexuality.”

She said it seemed “infeasible” in elementary school English lessons that “every time this particular kind of book comes out, we have to start letting people leave the classroom.”

Throughout the long argument, none of the justices or the lawyers representing the parents and the Trump administration had mentioned two books that were initially part of the Montgomery County program but were later pulled, My Rainbow and Pride Puppy!

So it was a bit of a surprise when Schoenfeld, the district’s lawyer, brought up Pride Puppy!, a book aimed at 3- and 4-year-olds which has drawn controversy from some quarters for asking readers to search, on pages of an LGBTQ+ pride parade, for images including “underwear,” “leather,” “lip ring,” and “[drag] queen.”

When Gorsuch asked about what kind of lessons were being offered to pre-K students as young as three, Schoenfeld noted Pride Puppy! and that it was no longer part of the curriculum.

Gorsuch pounced.

“That’s the one where they are supposed to look for the leather and things, and bondage—things like that, right?” he said, adding “a sex worker?”

Schoenfeld suggested some of those descriptions were inaccurate and that even Pride Puppy! helped influence students “towards civility.”

A decision in the case is expected by late June or early July.

Earlier:

The left doesn’t have enough kids to win.

That’s why they’re so insistent on controlling your kid’s education.

So maybe…just don’t voluntarily hand over your kids, and we win this whole thing in a generation.

— Nick Freitas (@NickJFreitas) April 21, 2025

UPDATE:

"You don’t have to send your kid to that school."

From the people who spent a decade suing the only baker in Colorado who wouldn't cater a gay wedding. https://t.co/4x3L1MM5IN

— Holden (@Holden114) April 24, 2025

GOOD LUCK, I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW WE’RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU:

Do you all realize how good we have it?

-Trump is cancelling WW3, while trying to reset global trade, and get rid of income tax.

-RFK Jr. is taking chemicals out of our food and combating big pharma.

-Tulsi is releasing files and catching leakers.

-Hegseth is reinstating… pic.twitter.com/htIGbXyZCs

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) April 23, 2025

CNN HAS ALWAYS HATED THE COMPETITION: Watch: Showdown at CNN As Sneering Campaign to Diminish New Media Voices Crashes and Burns.

JENNINGS: “What the right wing is taking advantage of is finally the American people saying enough is enough. They’re tired of feeling like the mass media screens out one viewpoint versus another in political coverage. They’re tired of media institutions favoring one party over another. They’re tired of narratives over factual stories. If I had any advice for 60 Minutes or anybody else, it would be: just cover the news and try to be fair about it and stop putting your finger on the scale, especially during campaigns.”

[…]

PHILLIP: “Let’s be honest, Scott, a lot of this is driven by the rhetoric on your side of aisle.”

JENNINGS: “You think it’s driven by the rhetoric and not the performance?”

PHILLIP: “Absolutely.”

JENNINGS: “If you’re CBS or any other news outlet, the reason that you have lost trust ought to be obvious to you, and the way to fix it also ought to be obvious to you, and it has nothing to do with Donald Trump and everything to do with the product. Just try to make a better product that appeals to more people. And the way you appeal to more people is by not crapping on half or more than half of the country because of their values and political viewpoints!”

JEFF JARVIS: “What you’d end up with in that press room, is, and these are my words, the freak show that Trump wants. Trump tries to devalue media. Why should we value his freak show there? Let’s leave it to the freaks!”

JENNINGS: “Calling them freaks is something. He called these new media sources the freak show. They’re not freaks. They have audiences. They have audiences, and there’s a reason that they’re thriving – is because people are starved for information that they think they can trust. They’re not freaks. They’re filling a need in this country.”

Twenty years ago, Jarvis actually knew this. Found scrolling the Instapundit archives: Pot calls kettle hot.

Because a blogger does something you say is wrong, [then-NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin], all bloggers are now amoral? By that logic, then, when someone at NPR says something liberal, then all of NPR is liberal. (Hmmm.) And if a reporter lies then all reporters lie?

NPR screwed up but when that’s discovered it’s the bloggers who are amoral?

Few rules? Actually, there are many rules — but they’re not necessarily your rules, they are the rules of the public you serve. They sometimes have different rules and often, sir, you and your network and our profession fail their rules. Who made Dan Rather honest? Journalists or bloggers?

You dismiss bloggers and their rules and thus your audience and the public in one broad slap. You separate yourself from the public you want to serve.

And you do so with attitude: “Once again,” you say without links or citations, “once again” blogs prove to be amoral. Give us your evidence, please.

Civic responsibility? I’d say that blogs are a living expression of civic responsibility — they are the citizens holding the powerful responsible. What could be a better expression?

And: Blogging white male.

In this medium of all media, we must get past throwing our fellow citizens into big, messy buckets: left, right, male, female, white, not…. The lesson of this medium is that we’re individuals and we don’t fit those broad and shallow definitions: Read us and you will hear more diversity from every voice than you have ever heard in any medium that ever came before.

And can we use more diversity? You bet we can. But that’s not a problem. That’s an opportunity.

“Diversity problem?” Kneejerk crock, that.

At the end of his column — after lumping all this in with the Estrich-Kinsley shrill media shriekfest — Levy challenges the blogosphere to find 50 new voices to link to. I’ll turn it around, Steven: Let’s see you and Newsweek find and quote and listen to and link to 50 new voices never heard before in mainstream media every week.

In the mid-2000s, when much of the rest of the DNC-MSM were dismissing those nascent bloggers as Cat Food Eating Pajama Wearing Extreme Bloggers In Boardroom Bathrooms, Jarvis was defending them. Now that they’re attending White House press briefings, and he’d like to keep his access to the CNN green room, they’re “freaks.” (I’m old enough to remember the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, when liberals considered calling someone a “freak” to be something of a backhanded compliment.)

But then, attacking the competition is nothing new for CNN; Ted Turner was comparing Fox to National Socialists in 1996, even before it went on the air, only to be thrilled less than a decade later to visit firsthand a regime that takes its form of a highly nationalistic socialism quite seriously.

LEAD 60 MINUTES PRODUCER QUITS AFTER TURNING SHOW INTO PROPAGANDISTIC FILTH:

The lead producer for CBS’s “60 Minutes” resigned on Tuesday, saying he no longer had sufficient independence to run the program as he wanted.

“Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Bill Owens wrote in a memo to staff obtained by Fox News Digital.

“To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience. So, having defended this show- and what we stand for – from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward.”

In other words, CBS informed Owens that he could no longer produce a weekly propaganda program on the national airwaves. So, he quit.

Owens has overseen the program since 2019. Perhaps no formerly respected news program has done more to undermine its reputation since, particularly over the past nine months.

Nine months? Not six decades? Forget it, he’s rolling.

CNN “REPORTER” GETS A BRUTAL EXPLANATION FOR WHY NEW MEDIA IS REPLACING OLD GUARD AT THE WHITE HOUSE:

Notably, the guy asking this question is the same dude who sat down and yucked it up with Taylor Lorenz a week ago over a left-winger murdering a health insurance CEO.

The lack of self-awareness is stunning. https://t.co/7R70cLa7OH

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 23, 2025

Lack of self-awareness has long been de rigueur at CNN: Radical Chic, the Boy Band Era:

Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record:

THE JOE BIDEN POST-PRESIDENTIAL PHOTOSHOP TOUR ROLLS ON! ‘But You Ain’t Got No Legs!’ Joe Biden Posts Earth Day Photo and We Have Many Questions.

First of all, no. The Biden administration didn’t ‘do both.’ It managed to set the American economy on fire in service of climate change boondoggles like the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’, which didn’t, in point of fact, accomplish anything for the environment. It just lined the pockets of the left’s political patrons at the expense of the American taxpayer.

But we all knew that already. The real question is: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THIS PICTURE?

Is this another Photoshop? It sure looks that way.

Biden’s hapless Photoshop eunuch has proportioned Joe so that he looks the way Bruce Wayne was depicted in the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series cartoons:

Which seems odd, since we now know Batman’s secret identity, and it’s not Joe Biden:

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH RAHM EMANUEL IS A VOICE OF SANITY: ‘Total Bullsh*t!’: Podcaster Comes Completely Unglued When Rahm Emanuel Brushes Aside Trans Issues.

“That is such bullshit! That is total bullshit! That is buying into the right-wing media narrative and I’m so sick of Democrats like you selling out and saying this. You know who talks about trans people more than anybody? MAGA,” Welch said. “MAGA is the most genital-obsessed political party I have ever seen. [Former Vice President] Kamala Harris talked about homeownership. She talked about kitchen table issues. Trump’s over there droning on about Hannibal Lecter. Are you kidding me?”

“This is where the Democrats lose, because we’re playing the game with the rulebook — they’ve ripped the rulebook up and are cramming it down everybody’s throat. And Democrats are upset because [former President] Joe Biden pardoned his son?” she continued. “We gotta fucking fight! They’re the gender-obsessed weirdos, not us. We’re the ones who fight for Social Security. We fight for Medicare. And yeah, we’re not going to bully trans people. We’re not going to fucking do it. If you want to do it, fine.”

Emanuel touted his record as former Chicago mayor, saying in 2016 he “dealt with the bathroom issue.”

“It’s not my most important issue,” he said. “It was dealt with, and I appropriately dealt with [it], dealt with marriage equality, as I said.”

* * * * * * * * *

“I have to live in a state where women rape victims can’t get an abortion because of this bullshit! And so I’m going to fight till the bitter end,” she added. “And I’m not going to let some MAGA moron define what progressive values are. And I think it’s a really dangerous precedent. Mr. Emanuel, I’m sorry, but I just — I have to push back. And I’m not some coastal elite liberal.”

Emanuel replied that she has the option to move to another state.

Heh. Federalism — it’s an idea so crazy, it just might work.

SAVE THE EARTHLINGS FROM EARTH DAY:

Google up “Taihang mountains solar panels” to see multiple images of previously beautiful green hills in China now totally covered in black panels.

The material progress of our species is directly tied to increasing our energy density. Using much less of the Earth to get a whole lot more power from it is how we advance. Humans nearly hunted whales to extinction so we could obtain tiny trickles of oil from them, and we once deforested vast hunks of wilderness just to create fire.

Switching to land-devouring wind and solar energy would be a giant leap backward.

Nuclear power, America’s largest source of carbon-free electricity, is a functionally miraculous alternative. To get the energy embedded in 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas or 120 gallons of oil requires a uranium pellet no larger than the end of a small adult’s thumb. A nuclear power plant is almost as gentle on land use as a natural gas powerstation, but is the most reliable source of power we have and one of the safest.

But don’t attend Earth Day to hear this good news because the Earth Day Network hates nuclear power. In 2021 the nonprofit co-signed a letter sent to President Biden that made this request: “Phase out nuclear energy as an inherently dirty, dangerous and costly energy source.”

Last year’s Earth Day theme— “Planet vs Plastics”— also portrayed environmental progress as a problem. The Earth Day Network’s website for the event proclaimed they were “unwavering in our commitment to end plastics for the sake of human and planetary health.”

Trees, turtles, and elephants are just the start of a long list of creatures and resources that were once consumed with reckless abandon but are now conserved because we use plastic instead. Innumerable plastic health and safety devices save and prolong human lives every day. We waste less food, and pay less for it, because low-cost plastic keeps it fresh. Most household consumer products, from toothbrushes to televisions, are made with plastic.

More: Earth Day 2025: Our Power, Our Planet, Our Propaganda.

The leftist opposition to fossil fuels has nothing to do with environmental quality or climate issues or any of the other rationalizations repeated ad nauseam. It is instead a central component of the fundamental anti-human core of left-wing environmentalism, a stance that studiously ignores the relationship between fossil fuel use and human flourishing. In 1990, the late Alexander King, cofounder of the Club of Rome in 1968, argued in the context of the use of DDT to control malaria:

My own doubts came when DDT was introduced for civilian use. In Guyana, within two years it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time, the birth rate had doubled. … My chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it has greatly added to the population problem.

Tens or hundreds of millions of the world’s poor have died from malaria as a direct result of the multination ban on the use of DDT, driven by false assertions about its harmful effects on various bird species, promulgated from the very first Earth Day in 1970. Then there was the observation made in 1971 by Michael McClosky, the former executive director of the Sierra Club, during an Ethiopian famine:

The worst thing we could do is give aid…. the best thing would be to just let nature seek its own balance and to let the people there just starve.

For left-wing environmental ideologues, humans are nothing more than environmentally destructive mouths to feed without moral standing. (The Nazi term was “useless eaters.”) Nor, implicitly, do humans have the intelligence, inventiveness, and ingenuity to solve problems. Au contraire: Simply because of the laws of large numbers, some substantial numbers of people are and will be geniuses.

I return, as I have so many times, to the wisdom of Dogbert: “You can’t save the earth unless you’re willing to make other people sacrifice.” That is the true theme of all Earth Days, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever.

Related: Over 30 items here: Evidence that the climate scam is collapsing.

Earlier: It’s Earth Day. Again. Contain Your Excitement.

TURBIN TURNED IN: Dick Durbin, No. 2 Senate Democrat, Won’t Seek Reelection.

SPECTRE OPENS UP NEW PROBE INTO ERNST STAVRO BLOFELD: World Economic Forum Opens New Probe Into Founder Klaus Schwab.

World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab is under investigation by the organization he created after a new whistleblower letter alleged financial and ethical misconduct by the longtime leader and his wife.

The anonymous letter was sent last week to the Forum’s board and raised concerns about the Forum’s governance and workplace culture, including allegations that the Schwab family mixed their personal affairs with the Forum’s resources without proper oversight, according to the letter and people familiar with the matter.

It included allegations that Klaus Schwab asked junior employees to withdraw thousands of dollars from ATMs on his behalf and used Forum funds to pay for private, in-room massages at hotels. It also alleged that his wife Hilde, a former Forum employee, scheduled “token” Forum-funded meetings in order to justify luxury holiday travel at the organization’s expense.

Related: With Blofeld staring into the piranha pits, new Bond supervillain appointed to lead Spectre:

Former Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has been named interim Chairman, replacing Klaus Schwab at the helm of the World Economic Forum.

Brabeck-Letmathe is known for his stance that water is not a human right but a commodity.

He has long pushed for strict control over… pic.twitter.com/liplTZnlc9

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) April 22, 2025

Nestle, eh? If that business’s name rings a bell in the context of woke corporatism, it’s what launched Jonah Goldberg to write Liberal Fascism in 2008, which focused several chapters on a century’s worth of corporatism, the intertwining of government and corporations, much beloved by the namesake publisher of Bloomberg (and in an even more radical form by Bernie Sanders), which the post-Weimar government of Germany dubbed the Gleichschaltung. As Jonah told Kathryn Jean Lopez in 2009, at the apogee of the left’s Hopenchange Obamamania:

You know, when I first started pondering the book, I thought it might be all about economics. About ten years ago I went on a junket to Switzerland and attended a talk with the CEO of Nestlé. Listening to him, it became very clear to me that he had little to no interest in free markets or capitalism properly understood. He saw his corporation as a “partner” with governments, NGOs, the U.N., and other massive multinationals. The profit motive was good for efficiency and rewarding talent, but beyond that, he wanted order and predictability and as much planning as he could get. I think that mindset informs the entire class of transnational progressives, the shock troops of what H. G. Wells hoped would lead to his liberal-fascist “world brain.”

If you look at how most liberals think about economics, they want big corporations and big government working in tandem with labor, universities (think industrial policy), and progressive organizations to come up with “inclusive” policies set at the national or international level. That’s not necessarily socialism — it’s corporatism. When you listen to how Obama is making economic policy with “everyone at the table,” he’s describing corporatism, the economic philosophy of fascism. Government is the senior partner, but all of the other institutions are on board — so long as they agree with the government’s agenda. The people left out of this coordinated effort — the Nazis called it the Gleichschaltung — are the small businessmen, the entrepreneurs, the ideological, social, or economic mavericks who don’t want to play along. When you listen to Obama demonize Chrysler’s bondholders simply because they want their contracts enforced and the rule of law sustained, you get a sense of what I’m talking about.

I don’t think Obama wants a brutal tyranny any more than Hillary Clinton does (which is to say I don’t think he wants anything of the sort). But I do think they honestly believe that progress is best served if everyone falls in line with a national agenda, a unifying purpose, a “village” mentality expanded to include all of society. That sentiment drips from almost every liberal exhortation about everything from global warming to national service. But to point it out earns you the label of crank. As I said a minute ago about that “We’re All Fascists Now” chapter, I think people fail to understand that tyrannies — including soft, Huxleyan tyrannies — aren’t born from criminal conspiracies by evil men; they’re born by progressive groupthink.

I’m sure with a former Nestle CEO running the World Economic Forum, the chocolate ration should be doubleplusgood! Or the insect ration, at the very least.

UPDATE: Environmentalists make good movie villains because they want to make your real life worse.

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Top Producer of 60 Minutes Quits, Saying He Lost Independence.

CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program because he had lost his journalistic independence.

In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens — only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history — told his staff in a memo that “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.

“60 Minutes” has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

Don Hewitt, Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, John Dickerson, Katie Couric and Scott Pelley ponder Owens’ reasons for leaving and smile: CBS’s Scott Pelley Loses A Fight Rigged In His Favor.

MICHAEL WALSH: Fight with Soldiers, Not Lawyers.

When a group of German saboteurs were caught in New York and Florida in June 1942, planning to blow up hydroelectric plants and other loci of American industrial power but ratted out by two of their fellows in Operation Pastorius, President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew exactly what he was not going to do. “I want one thing clearly understood, Francis,” he told his Attorney General, Francis Biddle. “I won’t hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus. Understand?” Biddle understood: this was war. There would be no civilian “due process.” They would get what was coming to them.

* * * * * * * *

Now we’re fighting saboteurs and infiltrators from our own hemisphere, here on our home turf, “Maryland men.” After Pearl Harbor, FDR went before Congress to declare, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.”

Now, instead of the chair, our enemies get the best lawyers your money can buy, and laugh in your face.

Read the whole thing.

APOLITICAL PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG ASKS: Did Joe Biden Photoshop Himself Into an Easter Family Photo?

And the answer is a very likely…No! Joe Biden did not Photoshop himself into an Easter family photo — because Joe Biden’s brain is made of tapioca, and wouldn’t have a clue how to manipulate the program. But somebody in his immediate orbit likely did:

IT’S EARTH DAY. AGAIN. CONTAIN YOUR EXCITEMENT:

Even the left finds the day more than a little glum just now though that’s because the world hasn’t ended yet. Remember—end-of-the-world doomsday scenarios make environmentalists happy, so when the end of the world fails to arrive on schedule, they get the sads.

Like The New Republic, which [asked] this week [in 2022]:

Remember When Earth Day Used to Be Cool?

A person could be forgiven for being cynical about Earth Day in 2022. Even ExxonMobil celebrates the holiday. . . ExxonMobil doing Earth Day is a lot like arms and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin co-opting International Women’s Day—a holiday which began as a protest of capitalism and war. . .

Many contemporary defenders of the planet despise Earth Day. In fact, at this point the hatred is an annual ritual, observed with headlines like “I’m an Environmental Scientist and I Hate Earth Day,” “I’m an Environmental Journalist and I Hate Earth Day,” and “I’m an Environmentalist and I Hate Earth Day.”

The author’s answer? More “mass protest.” Cue Greta Thunberg.

Well, that was the old Greta Thunberg. The current version is too busy hating Jews to worry about the environment:

Speaking of mixing anti-progress and anti-semitism: Coachella 2025: How the festival’s sustainability efforts inspire Earth Day activism.

Also at Coachella this year:

ExxonMobil “celebrating” “Earth Day” is a classic example of big business learning in the 1990s “that it’s pretty easy being green,” as Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason wrote in 2006:

Ask Bob Langert about the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and he starts to chuckle. “When we meet the regulators, it’s kind of nice,” says the senior director for social responsibility at the McDonald’s Corporation. “We just got an award from the EPA. When we see the regulators, we always hope it’s because they’re giving us an award.”

* * * * * * * *

The idea of the rich corporate villain gleefully dirtying Mother Earth is powerful and appealing. Children of the 1980s encountered this supervillain in comics, movies, public awareness videos, and science textbooks. Times were good for mandatory recycling, for mandatory emissions reductions, for anything mandatory aimed at restraining corporate polluters.

But in the late ’90s, something peculiar started happening. The men in suits were still middle-aged, round, and white. They were still just as concerned with profit and golf. Very few of them sported tie-dyed attire, aside from the occasional whimsical Jerry Garcia tie. But the men in suits started caring. Or at least acting like they cared. Which, if you ask a spotted owl, is the same thing.

So environmental activists across the nation bought their own ties and started dealing with corporations as almost-equal partners in planet saving. Businesses in turn learned that it’s pretty easy being green.

All the way up to Obama’s crony corporatism and beyond, which helped birth Tesla, which are currently being burned and vandalized by the same side of the aisle that demanded we switch to electric cars in the first place. But apparently not those electric cars. Best to look for something more “ethically sourced,” as the kids on the left like to say:

Related: Earth Day predictions of 1970. The reason you shouldn’t believe Earth Day predictions of [2024].

54 years on, to paraphrase the late Kathy Shaidle on Trump as Hitler, I’m already on (at least) my fourth apocalypse:

Flashbacks:

• “Earth Day” Turns 50. Half a century later, a look back at the forecasters who got the future wrong—and one who got it right.
• “Earth Day” Founder And Notorious “Unicorn Killer” Ira Einhorn Has Died In Prison At Age 79.
• On the eve of 2011’s “Earth Day,” NBC stumbled into this headline and subhead to describe Einhorn: Earth Day co-founder killed, composted girlfriend. Ira Einhorn preached against Vietnam War and violence, but had dark side.

Meanwhile, live look at how they’re celebrating Earthy Day in North Korea:

Exit quote, found via Jim Treacher: “Everybody wants to save the earth; no one wants to help mom do the dishes.” — P.J. O’Rourke.

UPDATE: Like I said, former environmentalists declare Mission Accomplished on Earth Day:

The Tesla store in Manhattan, which has been violently protested in recent months by leftists, was targeted for political vandalism on April 22. Leftists and Democrats have been furious that the federal government is making cuts to overspending. pic.twitter.com/3ewRW4vteU

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) April 22, 2025

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Dalai Lama Quietly Cancels Scheduled Meeting With JD Vance https://t.co/c5kO0r9fFm pic.twitter.com/eRLa9aDKEU

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 21, 2025

OCEANIA HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH EASTASIA: Can Democrats Pivot to the Center?

In a post at the Liberal Patriot, the disaffected Democratic strategist Ruy Texeira notes that it is “magical thinking” to believe that voters will suddenly forget about Democrats’ cultural radicalism and inept governance if the party focuses on class war. Much of Trump’s populist appeal, he observes, comes from working-class resentment of progressive cultural politics—“soak the rich” messaging will do nothing to address it.

But a pivot to the left would have at least one advantage: delaying any reckoning with the party leadership that brought the Democrats to this point. Reading Rhodes’s fulminations against the “rigged” system of the “oligarchic global elite,” it’s easy to forget that these are the words of the man whose identification with Obama was so total that George Packer judged the phrase “mind meld” insufficient to describe it.

It was, after all, the Obama administration that oversaw the rise of the new identity politics and its nationwide implementation through the coercive power of the federal bureaucracy. It was the outgoing Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton campaign that cooked up Russiagate and tried to use the resulting hysteria to consolidate the national security establishment against Trump. It was the Obama and (contrary to myth) Biden administrations that oversaw the tilt in American foreign policy away from Israel and Saudi Arabia and toward Iran, paving the way for the Gaza war that, ironically, ended up inflaming the Left against Biden and serving as an electoral millstone around his neck. And it was the Biden administration that pushed an economic agenda that pundits described as “economic populism” and “social democracy” and inspired regular comparisons of Biden with FDR. That agenda yielded the inflation that voters last November cited as a key reason for giving Democrats the shove.

In the Italian novel The Leopard, set during the nineteenth-century movement for national unification, a young Sicilian nobleman urges his uncle, a powerful conservative landowner allied with the Bourbons, to flip his allegiance to Garibaldi’s nationalists to avoid being caught on the losing side. As the young man explains, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” Democratic leadership seems to be thinking similarly. What advocates of the pivot to the left are suggesting, in effect, is a rehash of what they have pushed as party leaders over the past decade and a half—albeit with fresh young faces and “radical” new antiestablishment branding to “meet our moment.” Given the institutional strength of the party, they may succeed. But as Donald Trump proved in 2016, a party exhausted of ideas, with a leadership class sporting a record of failures, makes a prime target for a hostile takeover.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Look at the date pic.twitter.com/THTPyqZqoU

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 22, 2025

DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST NEERA TANDEN GETS CAUGHT IN A BLATANT FABRICATION AGAINST GOP LAWMAKER: ‘Apologize for Lying.’

[Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY)] immediately called Tanden out for fabricating a vote he never took part in.

“Actually, not,” he said after being falsely accused. “But nice try.”

“You voted against the reconciliation bill that had actual child care in it. You did. And the child tax credit,” Tanden insisted without backing off an inch.”

She added, “You voted against it back, way back in 2022.”

“I wasn’t elected until ’22. So, I didn’t come to Congress until ’23. But thank you,” countered Lawler. “So, you apologize for lying?”

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Tanden was not, in fact, going to apologize.

“I‘m not lying,” she said after very clearly lying.

Lawler notes that since coming to Congress, he has “supported the child tax credit” and “co-sponsored legislation to that effect.”

Tanden responds by fully admitting that her entire false narrative was shellacked in epic fashion. Just kidding, she reduces his efforts, which go back to her original argument, with a dismissive, “Okay, great. I think that’s wonderful.”

I lied. You proved it. The proof counters my entire argument, so I’ll just pretend, hey, everything is cool.

* * * * * * * *

Tanden has a rich history of lying, which makes it confounding why CNN would use her as a guest on its programs in the first place.

To be fair, it’s not that confounding:

Much more on Tanden here: Biden’s OMB Pick, Neera Tanden, Is a Conspiracy Theorist Who Pushed False and Disputed Election Information on Twitter.

FAUXCAHONTAS SPEAK WITH FORKED TONGUE: ‘Sharp and on his feet:’ Elizabeth Warren can’t stand by last year’s defense of Biden’s mental health.

her whole body briefly rebelled against her. kind of amazing.

— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) April 22, 2025

FELIZ “DÍA DE LA TIERRA” DESDE MÉXICO! Mexico Sends Tons of Sewage to San Diego, and Lee Zeldin Is Doing Something About It on Earth Day.