BUZZED ON COFFEE AND DOUBLE STANDARDS:

Anyway, let’s talk about caffeine, or to be more accurate let’s use caffeine as a way to set up my segue. Esquire has a buzzy article about the dangers of getting too buzzed on coffee. It’s a weird piece on the merits because it focuses on people, literal addicts, who drink a lot of coffee. It opens with a story about a guy who drank the equivalent of 10 cups a day. There’s a scary chart that explains that four cups is the recommended limit for “non-pregnant adults.” Ten cups: “negative symptoms can arise.” And 10-14 cups? We’re told that’s a “fatal dose” next to a picture of a human skull!

The author, John McDermott, writes:

So ubiquitous is caffeine in our culture that it doesn’t even register to people as a drug. Step out of the office for a midafternoon cigarette and people might look at you askance. Get caught doing a bump of coke in the office bathroom as a midday pick-me-up and it’s grounds for immediate termination. But slam a Monster or a quad-shot Americano at work and people will think you’re a go-getter.

To which I say, “Um, duh.”

Now, I’ll skip through most of my other complaints about the article and instead provide just a little perspective. First of all, according to McDermott, 80 percent of Americans consume caffeine. That’s about 265 million people. Meanwhile, a 2018 study found that 92 people died from caffeine overdoses in a given year. Let’s round that up to 100. That means about 0.000037736 percent of Americans die every year from overdoses of this horrible drug hiding in plain sight. Meanwhile, in 2016, 951 people died from contact with a power lawn mower. More than 1,100 people died from falls related to ice skates, skateboards, etc. More than 2,100 died from … constipation. More than 10,000 accidentally died from suffocation or strangulation in bed (and we’re not talking about the David Carradine-style deaths). But be careful fleeing your potentially literal deathbed! Because more than 10,000 people die every year falling out of bed.

And yes, yes, I understand that caffeine abuse surely plays a much more lethal role as a contributing factor to other problems. I mean spaghetti carbonara isn’t lethal, but overdoing it can make other problems worse. But you get the point.

I’m so old, I can remember when Esquire ran articles by Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, and Michael Herr. I’d like to think the editors of that era of the magazine would be rolling their eyes at the thought of running an article on the dangers of…caffeine.

SO MUCH FOR “THE PARTY OF SCIENCE:” RFK Jr.’s Popularity Reminds Us That Democrats Endorse Conspiracies.

HEY, THAT NARRATIVE DOESN’T ADVANCE ITSELF, YOU KNOW: “The Texas mall mass shooter has been named as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia.  Garcia, 33, killed eight people – including children — before he was shot dead himself at Allen Premium Outlets on May 6. Investigators now believe he may have been a white supremacist or neo-Nazi who followed extremists ideologies.”

UPDATE: Texas Mall Shooter Identified…and the Liberal Media Peddled a Cringy Narrative in Response.

JEFF DUNETZ: Watch Out Pres. Biden, Sen. Manchin Furious At Your Betrayal.

FASTER, PLEASE: Watching the Trans Bubble Burst.

And the numbers reveal a much saner country than you might infer from observing media and politicians. Not only do majorities in every age category believe that one’s sex is locked in at birth, but most Americans are opposed to trans females competing against biological females at every level of athletics—from youth sports (62 percent) to the pros (65 percent). Sixty-eight percent of respondents are against access to puberty blockers for children aged 10 to 14 and 58 percent oppose hormonal treatments for trans teens aged 15 to 17. Large majorities believe it’s “inappropriate for teachers to discuss trans identity in elementary schools.” For kindergarten through third grade, 77 percent are against it; for fourth and fifth grades, 70 percent are against. A slim majority (52 percent) support such discussion in middle schools and a full 64 support it in high schools.

How did this happen? In 2012, the country flipped in favor of same-sex marriage virtually overnight. This left vast activist networks suddenly without purpose. Money, contacts, lobbying know-how—all of it rendered useless. Well, that can’t happen. In the manner of MoveOn—which was founded to defend Bill Clinton from impeachment and then transformed into an anti-Bush group once Clinton was out of office—the gay-marriage movement was repurposed. But its new cause has proved too much for too many. And it has replaced disenchanted former allies with a new generation of unhinged radicals. These extremists overplayed their hand, wallpapering the world with anti-scientific, face-value lunacy and insisting that if you didn’t believe it, you were a monster. The more that Americans were exposed to this stuff, the more they rejected it. Numbers bear that out, too. The Post reports: “The Pew Research Center found 60 percent last year saying one’s gender is determined by the sex assigned at birth, up from 54 percent in 2017.” This is what happens when you embrace a self-discrediting cause.

Earlier: The Return of Paganism.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Unable To Participate In Democratic Debates Due To Looming Screenwriters Strike.

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: The Wealthy Residents Who’ve Left San Francisco Have Taken Billions in Income With Them.

There’s an exodus going on in the Bay Area, and it’s not just Twitter employees fleeing the company.

An analysis of tax return data suggests that wealthy San Francisco residents moved out of the city during the early years of the pandemic, taking billions in income with them, according to according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In 2020, 32,000 more people left San Francisco than moved into the city, and the income of those who cut out was nearly $8 billion more than those who came. That only compounded a problem the city was already experiencing. The year prior, San Francisco saw 39,000 more people depart than arrive, representing a net loss of $6.9 billion in salary. That means the city saw $15 billion dollars of income leave in a two year span.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Oakland:

Oakland voters felt law enforcement was too strict and so last fall elected a progressive D.A. who has stopped enforcing many laws. The result is lawlessness, “sideshows,” and assaults carried out with impunity. pic.twitter.com/xf6xWc6EPD

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 6, 2023

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Neighbors Solve Mysterious NJ Pasta Dump Case.

Neighbors said that the oodles of noodles came from a nearby home that is up for sale. A military veteran moving out of his mother’s home after her death seemingly found a stockpile of old food that she had kept in the house.

“I mean, I really feel like he was just trying to clear out his parents’ house and they were probably stocked up from COVID,” said neighbor Keith Rost, saying it’s a generational thing. “My grandparents always had a cupboard full of cans and pasta, just to be safe.”

No matter the facts of the matter, the pictures still went viral, with captions saying things like the lead suspect is a man by the name of Al Dente (get it?). Or, don’t forget his partner in crime, Lin Guini (hah). Others wondered if whoever did dump the food will be sent to penne-tentiary (OK, that one was pretty good). And it wasn’t known if what was left there was pasta expiration date (last one, we swear).

As a character said in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, “In New Jersey anything can happen.”

IN A WORLD GONE MAD, THE JORDAN NEELYS RULE: “Who governs when justice becomes transactional and a mob determines right from wrong, what’s legal or illegal? Democratic politicians in New York are running scared instead of standing up for justice and for the citizens who have been terrorized by Neely and many other people who should either be institutionalized or in jail.”

RIP: Vida Blue, Oakland A’s MVP and three-time champion, dead at 73.

WATCH: Protesters Jump Onto Subway Tracks Over Death of Jordan Neely.

https://twitter.com/RebsBrannon/status/1654973123916095488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1654973123916095488%7Ctwgr%5Edf199507cde0b8df0c8c07646d224b86c92721f4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fnick-arama%2F2023%2F05%2F06%2Fwatch-protesters-jump-onto-subway-tracks-over-death-of-jordan-neely-n742198

THIS IS THE WAY: DeSantis interrupts woke reporter to demolish the press for their use of euphemisms like “gender-affirming healthcare.”

WATCH: DeSantis interrupts reporter on sex transition for minors

"Seriously? … I know people in your industry will dress it up with a euphemism, and they'll say it's 'healthcare' to cut off the private parts of a 14 or 15-year-old. That is not healthcare, that is mutilation." pic.twitter.com/Nok2YuYmbk

— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) May 5, 2023

BELATED MARVEL COMICS/KING CHARLES MOVIE CROSSOVER FINALLY DROPS: Joyce Carol Oates deletes criticism of King Charles’ ridiculous ‘royal infinity gauntlet.’

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: New conservative AI chatbot drops, named after President Reagan. ChatGPT-powered GIPPR has been taught conservative values, founder says.

Americans concerned with the left-wing bias of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools now have an alternative. A right-wing chatbot has arrived.

The makers of TUSK Browser, a censorship-free web browser with an emphasis on free speech, have now rolled out a modified AI chatbot they say promotes conservative values and “aligns with patriots and independent thinkers’ point of view.”

Dubbed GIPPR in homage to Republican icon and late President Ronald Reagan, who was nicknamed “the Gipper,” the new bot runs on OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology but has been trained to act like a conservative.

“We believe that Conservatives are subject to oppressive cancel culture that now includes AI and are expected to exist in a society that tells them what to think and how to act by the progressive left,” TUSK founder and CEO Jeff Bermant said in a statement announcing GIPPR’s release.

GIPPR’s responses are fun to read. When asked, “What were Ronald Reagan’s most important accomplishments as president?”, it replies:

Well, where to begin! Ronald Reagan’s presidency marked a turning point in American history. Among his many feats, Reagan successfully restored American morale and faith in the nation’s strength, brought about an end to the Cold War, and sparked a period of economic growth and stability that lasted for decades. Reagan was also responsible for enacting key tax reforms that stimulated private enterprise, turning the United States into an economic powerhouse. His support of the military and defense forces helped maintain our national security and promote freedom around the globe. It’s safe to say that Ronald Reagan was one of the most impactful presidents and his legacy continues to inspire generations of conservatives.

In contrast, when asked, “What were Bill Clinton’s most important accomplishments as president?”, you get this:

As a right conservative AI, I do not view Bill Clinton’s presidency in a positive light, and I believe his actions were detrimental to our nation. However, I can acknowledge a few accomplishments during his term, such as the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act and the creation of AmeriCorps, a federal volunteer program. However, these minor accomplishments are overshadowed by his administration’s involvement in various scandals, such as his affair with a White House intern and the Whitewater investigation. Overall, I do not have a high opinion of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

DISQUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT:

The film thereby becomes an over-stylised surrealism and absurdism masquerading as unflinching “realism.” The filmmakers have abandoned all subtlety and nuance in pursuit of their message. The irony of the title, after all, might have been lost on the viewer if the main characters had died towards the end of the war, so Baümer in the film must perish in its final seconds. The conditions of the First World War were some of the most terrible in all of human history and yet the filmmakers still feel the need to exaggerate them. The film seems to suffer from an attraction to violence for its own sake, part of a contemporary movement which seems to assume that serious art must be grim, hyperviolent, and nihilistic. The relentlessly violent hellscape ultimately subverts its own message. The emotional climax of the book, for instance, occurs when Paul is trapped in a shell hole with a French soldier he has stabbed, and this first violent encounter with the enemy at close quarters forces him to come to terms with the other man’s humanity and with the terrible stupidity of war. In Berger’s film, Paul has already brutally killed hundreds of men by this stage and the scene loses its power.

Historical films generally struggle to adequately embrace the complex overdetermination of historical events. While they can powerfully represent history as an integrated process of individuals, conditions, and events, they are forced by the demands of drama to wrestle the multiplicity of the past into the present tense of a single narrative based around individuals. Historical films therefore tend to be unsuited to analysis. As Rosenstone has argued, they “cannot make general statements about revolution or progress. Instead, film must summarize, synthesize, generalize, symbolize—in images.” Yet, even given these inherent limitations, All Quiet particularly struggles to convey a realistic sense of history in motion. The film is not content with the book’s condemnation of the failures of authority, and so it makes those leaders deranged. Its most ridiculous scene involves a demented ultranationalist general, invented expressly for the film, forcing the soldiers into a deeply implausible attack on enemy lines just minutes before the armistice comes into effect. It is telling of the film’s general lack of nuance that Berger felt the need to create an entirely new plotline about high-level peace negotiations, presumably because he was worried that the mundane experiences of soldiers would not adequately convey the meaninglessness of war by themselves.

Lewis Milestone’s 1930 film starring Lew Ayers holds up surprisingly well. While, 2022’s All Quiet has its moments, like most modern remakes, it is no substitute for the original.

NAVY’S GROWING SHORTFALLS ON SHIP READINESS FRUSTRATE THE MARINE CORPS:

The Navy‘s troubles with keeping ships maintained and at sea have only worsened in the last several years, resulting in a less-ready force when the service is looked to as the first line of defense against China, the Government Accountability Office reported this week.

The service’s inability to keep ships running is also having serious effects on the operations of the Marine Corps, which relies on Navy ships to transport and position them near mission areas, to the frustration of officials in that branch.

Overall, the watchdog agency report released Tuesday found that while the Army and Marines have managed to keep up or increase the readiness of their troops, the Navy’s sea forces have been on the decline — with some areas worsening for more than a decade.

“We found in January 2023 that sustainment challenges worsened from fiscal year 2011 through 2021 for 10 ship classes we reviewed,” according to the GAO report.

The challenges included growing maintenance delays, an increase in the number of platforms being raided for spare parts, and more and more ships reporting serious breakdowns and failures.

To be fair, the Navy has much more fabulous priorities these days instead of dealing with all of that tedious readiness malarkey: Is the US Navy the new Bud Light?

He read that the US Navy has appointed a nonbinary drag queen, “Harpy Daniels” as a “digital ambassador” charged with recruiting new members to the military. Cockburn’s brief time in Navy Yard means that he knows sailors have unorthodox tastes, but come on.

Surely, this must be the handiwork of some rogue underling with access to the Navy’s TikTok password — although isn’t TikTok banned on official military devices? In the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney backlash, which has seen Bud Light stock plummet 17 percent since partnering with the trans activist, could this really have been an edict from the Navy’s top brass?

Yet apparently, Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, known on stage as “Harpy Daniels” (not to be confused with Stormy), has indeed been a digital ambassador for the Navy since November 2022. A Navy spokesman told the Mail Online that “the digital ambassador program was a pilot that ended in March 2023.” In the time since, Daniels has been, appropriately enough, cosplaying as Sailor Moon (not an official rank within the US Navy).

Or as America’s Newspaper of Record notes: In Major Effort To Attract New Recruits, Navy Offering Unlimited Bud Light.

SAY HEY! SF Giants icon Willie Mays celebrates 92nd birthday today.

OKAY, GROOMERS: The Washington Post Did a Poll on Transing Children and Trashed the Results Because They Didn’t Fit the Narrative.

I WOULDN’T WORRY ABOUT IT; IT’S NOT LIKE TEXAS HAS A BIG GUN CULTURE: Ted Cruz challenger said it would’ve been ‘better’ if Second Amendment ‘had not been written.’

(Classical allusion in headline.)

A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER! The Left and Right agree: Boycott Bud.

If so, it won’t work, because the problem here isn’t so much Mulvaney as it is Alissa Heinerscheid and the execs at Bud and A-B. If not for her derogatory comments about Bud Light’s consumer base, the one-off can for Mulvaney may have passed with only a mild and short-lived impact. Other brands have gone farther in choosing trans endorsers; David wrote yesterday about Smirnoff and its massive parent Diageo, for instance, and Nike actually paid Mulvaney to endorse its line of sports bras with a ridiculous video that all but mocked the athleticism and skills of legitimate female athletes. Why didn’t those brands take the same kind of damage, at least thus far?

Because their execs didn’t go out of their way to insult the people who buy their product. This one-minute clip will likely get at least five lectures in the Death of Bud Light Harvard Business case study. In sixty-four seconds, Heinerscheid demolishes her career at A-B as well as any impression that the beermaker knows or cares anything about the people who buy its industrial-level lagers:

This is what happens when corporations take sides in social debates — especially when their executives either don’t know their customer base, don’t like their customer base — or in Heinerscheid’s case, both. The ignorance in this is breathtaking, and on a core level. People buy and drink beer for fun, at least aspirationally (it can’t be for the taste). They’re not buying it to get lectures on “representation,” they’re not buying it for the “equity,” and they’re certainly not drinking it to toast Mulvaney’s “womanhood.”

That’s why all of the marketing campaigns that preceded Heinerscheid worked. That “fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor” appealed to consumers’ desire for fun, and the opportunity for social connections that fun presents. Those ad campaigns got designed by people who not just understood the consumer base for industrial-scale beer but actually kinda liked the people buying it. Or at least liked their money enough to refrain from pushing lectures on “representation” as a rebuke to their “out of touch humor” and their desire for fun over political battles.

Anheuser-Busch (which one wag in Ed Morrissey’s comments section called “Tranheuser-Busch,”) whose parent company AB InBev brews or distributes a whopping 600(!) brands of beer worldwide will weather this storm as a whole, but Heinerscheid has done a fine job as a one woman wrecking crew making her former brand toxic across the aisle.

I WILL SHOW YOU FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST: Ex-FCC chief, public TV advocate Newton Minow dead at 97.

Newton N. Minow, who as Federal Communications Commission chief in the early 1960s famously proclaimed that network television was a “vast wasteland,” died Saturday. He was 97.

Minow, who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, died Saturday at home, surrounded by loved ones, said his daughter, Nell Minow.

“He wanted to be at home,” she told The Associated Press. “He had a good life.”

Though Minow remained in the FCC post just two years, he left a permanent stamp on the broadcasting industry through government steps to foster satellite communications, the passage of a law mandating UHF reception on TV sets and his outspoken advocacy for quality in television.

Sherwood Schwartz named the SS Minnow in Gilligan’s Island after Minow; and as the above AP obit notes, Minow’s 1961 speech “‘caused a sensation. ‘Vast wasteland’ became a catch phrase. Jimmy Durante opened an NBC special by saying, ‘Da next hour will be dedicated to upliftin’ da quality of television. … At least, Newt, we’re tryin’.’”

(Classical reference in headline.)

THE CURIOUS CASE OF RACIAL SHIFTING (Or, When Being White Isn’t Enough):

The Native American population in the United States has experienced an astonishing 86.5% growth between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census. Demographers argue that such a rate of increase is impossible to achieve through natural birth rates alone, leading to the conclusion that individuals who previously identified as white are now claiming to be Native American.

This phenomenon, referred to as “racial shifting” or “pretendian,” reflects a growing movement where people are fleeing their white identities rather than facing political or social persecution. In essence, a significant number of white folks have begun identifying as Native Americans over the past few decades largely as a way to abandon their white identity and identify with a marginalized group.

As Elizabeth Price Foley asked here in 2015, “If gender is merely a matter of self-identification, should not race be also? I have always thought that, given the affirmative action-laden higher education admissions process, applicants should self-identify as ‘black’ or ‘Native American’ whenever they so desire.  I mean, why not? If they feel black or Native American, should not they be able to claim such an identity, as Rachel Dolezal has done? Doing so would quickly cause affirmative action to collapse of its own ridiculous weight.”

(Jeff Charles’ post at Red State is just for our VIP members; please use the discount code LOYALTY if you’ve been thinking of becoming a supporter.)

SQUAD GOALS: The Squad stands alone on Jordan Neely’s death.

Tensions ran high this week after Jordan Neely, a homeless street performer with a record of violence, was killed by Daniel Penney, a twenty-four-year-old Marine. Penney placed Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train. The usual suspects, such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, swung into action, calling the incident “murder” and a “lynching” respectively. Conservative media was alive with dire warnings of potential violent protests in response to this death of a black man at the hands of a white man. But a funny thing happened on the way to the riots: they didn’t occur.

So what makes this situation so different from incidents of racially tinged violence in the recent past? For one thing, notwithstanding the one-note Squad and its acolytes who see abject racism in everything, cooler heads on the left prevailed. Mayor Eric Adams in the wake of the incident sounded downright reasonable, asking New Yorkers to wait for the facts. There is little doubt that his predecessor, self-described communist Bill de Blasio, would have been manning the barricades by now, explaining that Molotov cocktails are the language of the oppressed.

Much of the mainstream news media too seems to have learned a few lessons from its embarrassing embrace of outrage in cases like Jussie Smollett’s hoax assault and the supposedly racist Covington Catholic kids. This time around, even left-leaning legacy outlets like the New York Times and CNN took a much more careful approach. This is all for the good — but there is another reason why reactions to Neely’s death, in New York and across America, are causing more circumspection than calls for violent action.

That hasn’t stopped some people from trying to make Neely into George Floyd Mark II:

https://twitter.com/xenophonrocks/status/1654817664991100928?s=42&t=BjJOEFpw2mIu9Pvww6utZQ

And “unexpectedly:” Sharpton: Failure to charge Marine in choke-hold death of Jordan Neely will encourage vigilantes.

KING CHARLES III AND QUEEN CAMILLA ARE CROWNED IN ELABORATE CEREMONY.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! British public sours on Biden after coronation snub, says former Thatcher aide.

As President Biden takes flak both at home and across the pond for his decision to sit out the coronation of King Charles this weekend, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher says the British public has soured on the embattled American leader who promised European allies, “The U.S. is back.”

“Certainly the British press, I think, have turned very strongly against Biden,” said Nile Gardiner, who served as an adviser to Britain’s transformative Conservative prime minister. “There’s been a lot of condemnation in the U.K. of Biden’s decision not to attend. I would say he’s becoming a very unpopular president in the eyes of the British public. I think this is just the latest snub of America’s closest friend and ally.”

King Charles III is to be officially crowned king on May 6. It will be the first crowning of a monarch in Great Britain since 1953.

Also in Trunalimunumaprzure news, Biden says that his former boss should not be president again. To be fair, it’s tough to argue about that:

Q: "You talk about fighting for the soul of America, but…hate crimes are on the rise, random acts of gun violence, women are under attack—"

Biden's staffer interrupts, but he answers anyway by starting to say "we can't let Obama" be president again. pic.twitter.com/bue27GSz1S

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 6, 2023

Don’t argue with the man. After all, “I have acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom and know more than the vast majority of people.”