RAVING AND DROOLING: Will Former Pink Floyd Bassist Roger Waters Be Arrested In Germany For Illegal Nazi Style Costume?

According to the BBC, he might have gone too far this time. You see, wearing a Nazi uniform or displaying Nazi flags and other symbols in Germany can get you tossed into the poky) but at a recent concert in Germany, he wore what seemed to be an SS uniform.

Performing at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena on May 17, Mr. Waters was seen wearing a long black overcoat with a red armband.

He also aimed an imitation machine gun into the audience.

(…)”We are investigating on suspicion of incitement to public hatred because the clothing worn on stage could be used to glorify or justify Nazi rule, thereby disturbing the public peace,” said police spokesman Martin Halweg.
“The clothing resembles the clothing of an SS officer,” he added.

Waters probably won’t be arrested — and he’s no doubt absolutely loving the additional publicity.

JONATHAN TURLEY: “I Don’t Want to Do Any of This:” IRS Whistleblower Defies the Biden Administration and the Media.

The media have worked hard to minimize the blowback after acknowledging the laptop’s authenticity and the growing evidence of millions in influence-peddling.

Part of this effort at “scandal implosion” has been to dismiss any criminal charges as relatively minor tax violations unconnected to the president.

Indeed, when the president recently agreed to a rare sit-down interview, the White House chose MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle.

Before asking about his son Hunter’s scandal, Ruhle emphasized it was “something personal” with “no ties to you.”

Many of us guffawed at the claim given multiple references on the laptop to President Biden, including possibly sharing in the proceeds from influence-peddling with foreign governments.

The problem is [14-year IRS veteran Gary Shapley] suggests some uncomfortable questions on how Biden’s administration may have worked to minimize charges against his son and, according to Shapley, “slow-walked” the investigation.

His interview explains why the Justice Department can indict figures like Rep. George Santos (R-NY) on a variety of fraud and money-laundering charges in a few months while spending years investigating Hunter Biden with no conclusion.

Shapley made clear he had never seen this level of interference in his long service at the IRS and said it was done “at the direction of the Department of Justice.”

And he said the interference began as soon as he “took control of this particular investigation”: “I immediately saw deviations from the normal process. It was way outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past.”

Shapley did not rush forward or leak to the media.

Rather, after watching decision after decision made to benefit Biden, Shapley reached a breaking point in what he called his “red-line meeting” when he and his team were removed from investigating the president’s son.

Read the whole thing.

JON GABRIEL: DeSantis or Trump? The choice is clear if Republicans actually want the White House. “Biden is 80 and shows every year of it. Trump is 76 and can’t draw the crowds he used to. DeSantis is 44 and arguably has achieved more big policy reforms as chief executive than either one of them. As always, the choice is up to right-leaning voters, who remain a tough crowd to read. Does the GOP want to defeat Biden at the polls, or spend another four years pretending that they won while a Democrat lives in the White House?”

OPEN THREAD: Some say that it’s illegal in 17 States, and that it’s recently begun releasing pop records under the pseudonym of Lady Gaga. All we know, is it’s called the Open Thread!

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Guardian: ‘Florida groups’ warn America of danger from ‘dictator’ Ron DeSantis.

—Twitchy, today.

Chaser: From rampaging teens to female assassins: why has East German culture become so cool?

The Grauniad, May 10th.

Finally, the Grauniad discovers a “dictator” it doesn’t like.

OUT ON A LIMB: Study: Lockdowns Produced No Reduction in COVID Deaths.

Related:

Just amazing. The establishment groupthink bypassed the scientific method of using data and instead arrogantly used political absolutism as they decreed medical dogma and censored respected physicians with different opinions (who ended up being correct). The science is now clear. https://t.co/BZsqlpgjCI

— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) May 25, 2023

ROGER KIMBALL: A disastrous DeSantis 2024 ‘launch’ on Twitter Spaces.

Free tickets to Disney World: maybe that’s what Ron the aspiring Don should give to the clever staffer who thought of having him announce his candidacy for POTUS on Twitter Spaces.

It was only the official announcement, of course. But having him unfold the bulletin on Twitter Spaces, in an unscripted chat with Elon Musk, was supposed to transform a rote, ho-hum, so-what-I-already-knew-that non-event into a media happening. When I last checked, Tucker Carlson’s “We’re Back” Twitter clip had garnered more than 132 million views (take that, Fox). How did Ron do?

From where I and some friends sat, it was more or less like the Thresher’s final voyage. Or maybe like one of SpaceX’s rapid unscheduled disassemblies. Some words from Elon and co-host David Sacks. Elsewhere on Spaces someone opined that this was the funeral for the “corporate press.” Then came the deep dive. Garbled sounds. Elon said that so many people were on that the servers were melting. Bang. Static. Nothing.

It couldn’t have been too disastrous: Desantis Campaign Says It Raised $8.2 Million in First 24 Hours: “The $8.2 million brought in by Mr. DeSantis far outpaces how Mr. Trump began his 2024 fund-raising in late 2022. Mr. Trump had raised about $9.5 million in the six weeks after he announced his campaign in mid-November.”

ACE OF SPADES: DeSantis Signs Law That Strips Illegal Aliens of Their Drivers Licenses; Leftwing #Resistance Media Shrieks That Minorities Are Terrified of DeSantis.

Oh, and by the way: If you say “other politicians betrayed us.” No, wrong. Not like this. Other politicians offered you lip service with no action backing it up, mere words, mere promises that were immediately detectable as insincere when uttered.

Rudy Giuliani, for example, almost immediately revealed himself as a pawn of the open borders corporate conspiracy when he said he would not build a wall, but instead would create a “virtual wall” of drones and electronic monitoring.

Even the lip service offered by the open borders corporate conspirators has to be extracted from them under duress, because they so hated to even have to offer the Racist Promise of cracking down on illegal immigration.

Name one politician who offered this much actual legislative and executive power action — acts, not words — and then “betrayed” people by then suddenly reversing himself and doing the exact opposite when elevated to a new office.

You can’t. No such examples exist. In all of human history, there are zero examples of this crazy scenario unfolding.

And for good reason — because this is literally an insane thing to do, and people who keep insisting that this is a likely outcome are talking up insane nonsense as a cope.

Screwing over your voting base only makes any sense if there is some larger base with which you can replace the one you’re abandoning. Given all of what DeSantis has done on pronouns, on banning CRT and gender theory in public schools, on ending DEI majors at Florida universities, at busing illegals to blue cities, on cancelling illegal’s drivers licenses — what liberal/moderate base could DeSantis possibly appeal to after he executes his Long Con and “betrays” the right?

What does “betraying” conservatives actually get DeSantis?

DeSantis has burned every bridge with the media and the NeverTrump/neocon contingent. They’re now praising Trump in order to attack DeSantis.

Even Bill Kristol has gotten amnesia about 2016-2020:

Shot:

Chaser:

THE LID: Make Memorial Day Special Again.

TEXAS HOUSE ETHICS PANEL RECOMMENDS IMPEACHMENT FOR AG PAXTON.

MELANIE PHILLIPS: Jew-hatred struts the stage in Berlin.

The unspeakable performance by Roger Waters in Berlin last week crossed a number of new red lines, even for him.

The former Pink Floyd guitarist has long been infamous for his venomous attacks on Israel and antisemitic remarks. Few, though, could ever have imagined that he would be allowed to stage the obscene performance he put on at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz arena.

As described on the German website Bell Tower, Waters displayed the names of people supposedly killed because of their identity. In an odious comparison, Anne Frank, who was indeed murdered because she was a Jew, was displayed as equivalent to Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead while covering clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin.

Dressed in a Waffen SS uniform under fascist-style banners hanging from the roof, Waters pretended to fire on the audience with a dummy rifle. When he exchanged this for a keffiyeh in an unsubtle reference to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, the giant LED screen flashed up: “F*** bombing people in their homes. F*** the occupation. You can’t have occupation and human rights.”

In a speech bubble displayed on that screen, a fragment of dialogue channeled Jewish conspiracy theory by suggesting that the world was controlled by a cabal of wealthy individuals who were secretly pulling all the strings.

This diabolical spectacle of Jew-hatred received a standing ovation from the audience. And this happened in Berlin, the very epicenter of the Shoah.

Read the whole thing.

GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING:

Flashback: Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Affable Culture Warrior.

In April 2020, businesses in Georgia were shuttered by government decree as in most of the rest of the country. Mr. Kemp was hearing from desperate entrepreneurs: “ ‘Look man, we’re losing everything we’ve got. We can’t keep doing this.’ And I really felt like there was a lot of people fixin’ to revolt against the government.”

The Trump administration “had that damn graph or matrix or whatever that you had to fit into to be able to do certain things,” Mr. Kemp recalls. “Your cases had to be going down and whatever. Well, we felt like we met the matrix, and so I decided to move forward and open up.” He alerted Vice President Mike Pence, who headed the White House’s coronavirus task force, before publicly announcing his intentions on April 20.

That afternoon Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp, “and he was furious.” Mr. Kemp recounts the conversation as follows:

“Look, the national media’s all over me about letting you do this,” Mr. Trump said. “And they’re saying you don’t meet whatever.”

Mr. Kemp replied: “Well, Mr. President, we sent your team everything, and they knew what we were doing. You’ve been saying the whole pandemic you trust the governors because we’re closest to the people. Just tell them you may not like what I’m doing, but you’re trusting me because I’m the governor of Georgia and leave it at that. I’ll take the heat.”

“Well, see what you can do,” the president said. “Hair salons aren’t essential and bowling alleys, tattoo parlors aren’t essential.”

“With all due respect, those are our people,” Mr. Kemp said. “They’re the people that elected us. They’re the people that are wondering who’s fighting for them. We’re fixin’ to lose them over this, because they’re about to lose everything. They are not going to sit in their basement and lose everything they got over a virus.”

Mr. Trump publicly attacked Mr. Kemp: “He went on the news at 5 o’clock and just absolutely trashed me. . . . Then the local media’s all over me—it was brutal.” The president was still holding daily press briefings on Covid. “After running over me with the bus on Monday, he backed over me on Tuesday,” Mr. Kemp says. “I could either back down and look weak and lose all respect with the legislators and get hammered in the media, or I could just say, ‘You know what? Screw it, we’re holding the line. We’re going to do what’s right.’ ” He chose the latter course. “Then on Wednesday, him and [Anthony] Fauci did it again, but at that point it didn’t really matter. The damage had already been done there, for me anyway.”

The damage healed quickly once businesses began reopening on Friday, April 24. Mr. Kemp quotes a state lawmaker who said in a phone call: “I went and got my hair cut, and the lady that cuts my hair wanted me to tell you—and she started crying when she told me this story—she said, ‘You tell the governor I appreciate him reopening, to allow me to make a choice, because . . . if I’d have stayed closed, I had a 95% chance of losing everything I’ve ever worked for. But if I open, I only had a 5% chance of getting Covid. And so I decided to open, and the governor gave me that choice.’”

At that point, Florida was still shut down. Mr. DeSantis issued his first reopening order on April 29, nine days after Mr. Kemp’s. On April 28, the Florida governor had visited the White House, where, as CNN reported, “he made sure to compliment the President and his handling of the crisis, praise Trump returned in spades.”

Three years later, here’s the thanks Mr. DeSantis gets: This Wednesday Mr. Trump issued a statement excoriating “Ron DeSanctimonious” as “a big Lockdown Governor on the China Virus.” As Mr. Trump now tells the tale, “other Republican Governors did MUCH BETTER than Ron and, because I allowed them this ‘freedom,’ never closed their States. Remember, I left that decision up to the Governors!”

Of course, Trump is far from the only former official distancing himself from the debacle of 2020: Anthony Fauci Says Don’t Blame Him for COVID Lockdowns and School Closures.

DON’T GET COCKY: Yikes! Biden Is at 60 Percent Against Kennedy and Williamson in the New CNN Poll. “Kennedy was at 21 percent in the Emerson poll in late April, but that poll had Biden at 70 percent. That’s in the neighborhood of Pat Buchanan’s finish against George H.W. Bush in 1992.”

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! CNN Sets Mike Pence for Third Republican Primary Town Hall, With Dana Bash as Moderator.

WATCH: ‘Bike Karen’ Race-Hoaxers Flee Like Hunted Rats to Avoid Lawsuit.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Pathetic Excuse For A Subaru Owner Only Has 48 Stickers On Back Of Car.

PORTLAND, OR — Multiple independent reports have confirmed that Portland resident Allie Peck has become the laughingstock of her drum circle this week after she pulled up in a Subaru with an embarrassingly low 48 stickers on the back.

“You’re missing some of the basics – you don’t even have ‘#RESIST’ or ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ or ‘Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History’ – this is Subaru 101, man!” Allie’s friend, hacky-sack instructor Dan “Free Solo” Kirk, cackled at Allie’s weak showing. Eyewitnesses say the interchange caused one of the dirtier hippies to tumble off a nearby slackline, creating a chain reaction that knocked off several Rastafarian hats and overturned a bong.

There isn’t even a Dukakis-Bentsen bumper sticker, for Gaia’s sake!

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Ex-Hunter College prof — sporting ‘FTP’ tattoo — turns herself in after threatening NY Post reporter with machete.

TRUMP ACCUSES DESANTIS OF PLAGIARISM: There’s Just One Problem…:

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Adolf Hitler Announces Run For President.

Political analysts have been left dumbfounded, struggling to comprehend how literally Hitler was back and in the flesh running for office in America. Despite the confusion and lack of support, the Hitler campaign vowed to press on, stopping at nothing to restore the Third Reich.

At publishing time, Adolf Hitler closed his announcement speech by promising that as President the first things he’d do are: exterminate all undesirables, grow an iconic mustache, and invade Disney.

I don’t see how we expand socialism even more nationally in 2024, but invade Disney? After seeing the last Star Wars sequel and clips from the new Indiana Jones movie, where do I sign up?!

OLD AND BUSTED: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

The New Hotness? These two Democrat senators want to create a federal agency that regulates what you can say on the internet. What could possibly go wrong?

THE RETURN OF THE WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM? Commanders’ trademark application is denied.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! CNN To Hold Nikki Haley Town Hall In Key Early Primary State.

IT’S COME TO THIS: NAACP Warns Blacks Not to Travel to Florida — Which Ranks #2 for Black-Owned Businesses.

RON DESANTIS BUSTS MEDIA STRANGLEHOLD, ANNOUNCES PRESIDENTIAL BID: ‘I Am Running to Lead Our Great American Comeback.’

GAVIN NEWSOM CONSIDERING OPRAH WINFREY TO REPLACE DIANNE FEINSTEIN IN SENATE: REPORT.

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is being floated as a potential replacement for ailing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) should the 89-year-old lawmaker step down before the end of her term, according to a report.

Feinstein, who returned to the Senate earlier this month, has already said she will not run for re-election in 2024, but the Associated Press reports that several names including Winfrey’s are being discussed as potential replacements in case Feinstein retires.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom would be tasked with choosing Feinstein’s successor should she retire before the 2024 election.

Some Democrats have pushed for Feinstein to retire due to diminished mental acuity.

Newsom has previously vowed to appoint a black woman should Feinstein’s seat open up.

Winfrey, a Democrat and billionaire talk show host, would fit the bill.

Would she stop in for a cup of coffee like Mr. Obama did in 2005, before running in 2024 against DeSantis or Trump?