RAND PAUL SAYS DEMOCRATS KNOW THE ‘CONSENSUS IS SWITCHING’ ON FAUCI:

“They still don’t want to be part of it because Fauci’s the leader of the Democrat party now for them,” Paul told Kibbe. “He’s this icon and they don’t want to do anything that tarnishes him. And they see it as a partisan effort.”

Paul continued, “They’re coming quietly to me and saying, ‘well, we probably would work on a bill to maybe regulate gain-of-function research, how taxpayer dollars are spent on this.’”

Kibbe observed, “Arrogance isn’t a strong enough word for this kind of central planning, manipulating human existence itself. I can’t think of a strong enough word to explain how insane that sounds.”

Rand Paul replied, “There’s a healthy dose of arrogance and elitism in all of this, of any kind, sort of central planning. In several of the exchanges with Fauci I would say ‘show some humility, man.’”

At age 82, having crashed the American economy and gotten his party’s president elected, why would he start now?

MATT WALSH: “I’m not sure if most people fully appreciate the significance of this Bud Light stuff. We made an iconic American brand toxic, virtually overnight, because it endorsed gender ideology. This is a pivotal moment. A map to follow going forward.”

Is Smirnoff going the Bud Light route? Trans activist appears to tout Smirnoff relationship, company denies partnership.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Neera Tanden, Biden’s New Adviser, Has A History Of Trashing Political Opponents And Israel.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: No Energy in the Executive Edition.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Hitler Exonerated After Footage Discovered Of Him Moonwalking On Subway.

WATCH: Sen. Kennedy Lights up Biden Energy Official With Question We’d All Like an Answer to on Climate Agenda.

[Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA)] was questioning Biden Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk. He was asking the questions that you should ask about budgeting, spending, and the Biden team’s nonsensical climate agenda.

“If we spend $50 trillion to become carbon neutral in the United States by 2050,” Kennedy asked, “Give me your estimate of how much that is going to reduce world temperatures.” Great question — what are we going to get if the Biden team spends all of that money from us, the American taxpayers, this way? What’s going to be the result?

Turk, of course, couldn’t answer the question. He looks like it never even occurred to him that that should be a question to which he should have an answer. But that’s the problem of the Biden administration, and the Democrats, right there. Because ultimately, that’s not how they think, and I don’t think they care. I think it’s about the money and the control the regulations give them. The “crisis” is secondary. They think the money is never ending—and they never have to justify what they’re doing with it.

Here’s the clip:

“If we spend $50 TRILLION on Global Warming how much will it reduce the world’s temperature?”

Avoids the question. pic.twitter.com/5ZJdA00ktI

— T (@Rifleman4WVU) May 3, 2023

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Confused Old Man Pretending to Be President Announces ‘Major Press Conference’ When There Isn’t One.

HERE WE GO: Report: DeSantis will skip exploratory committee and launch full campaign next month.

WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? White House reportedly ‘worried’ over Hunter Biden going rogue with legal defense plan: ‘Legitimate headache.’

CDC’S ROCHELLE WALENSKY RESIGNS, CITING PANDEMIC TRANSITION:

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, submitted her resignation Friday, saying the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic was a good time to make a transition.

Walensky’s last day will be June 30, CDC officials said, and an interim director wasn’t immediately named. She sent a resignation letter to President Joe Biden and announced the decision at a CDC staff meeting.

Flashback: Howie Carr: All the COVID heroes of yore are now being flattened.

MEDIA HELP TRUMP RERUN 2016 STRATEGY:

During the 2016 presidential primaries, Donald Trump rode a wave of free media worth billions of dollars. This included 10 call-in interviews and an hourlong interview special with MSNBC’s Morning Joe alone. Now, Trump is hoping to replicate the process.

The former president, who is running again in 2024, wants the media to prop him up above the rest of the GOP primary field. Kicking off the 2024 media shenanigans will be a CNN town hall with Trump next week in New Hampshire . The town hall will certainly boost ratings for CNN’s flailing prime-time programming. But Trump will also use the occasion to his own advantage.

Earlier: Trump’s CNN Coup.

REPORT: Sotomayor got millions from publishing company while not recusing from cases.

HOW A MODIFIED LIMITED HANGOUT IS BORN: Hunter Biden laptop letter recruitment email wanted to give Joe Biden a debate ‘talking point.’

A recruitment email sent by Mike Morell, co-author of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, wanted former intelligence officials to become signatories to help give Joe Biden a “talking point” during a crucial presidential debate against Donald Trump.

The revelation comes after Morell, the former Obama CIA acting director, admitted that now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” him to write the October 2020 laptop letter.

The recruitment email from Morell was sent to former intelligence officials and included the laptop letter co-authored by him and former senior CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos as an attachment.

The quoted language from the Morell email, sent on Oct. 18, 2020, was read to the Washington Examiner verbatim and identically by two independent sources who had access to the email.

Morell’s email explained that both he and Polymeropoulos believed Russia was involved in the Hunter Biden laptop stories and that Trump likely planned to attack Biden over the laptop revelations in the upcoming debate.

“We want to give the VP a talking point to use in response,” Morell wrote, the two sources confirmed to the Washington Examiner.

Flash-forward to today: Report: Charges Against Hunter Biden May Be Imminent.

HOW WILL AI IMPACT POP MUSIC? Rick Beato on The AI Effect: A New Era in Music and Its Unintended Consequences (Video).

Flashback to my 2004 Tech Central Station article: The Making of a Pop Star, 2010.

I was off by about 15 years, but a Max Headroom-style totally synthetic pop star will happen.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Joint venture announced to build ‘underwater space station of the ocean.’

ED SHEERAN WINS MARVIN GAYE SONG COPYRIGHT CASE: “A jury in New York has ruled that British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran is not liable for copyright infringement in a case that has been closely watched by the global entertainment industry. The case centered on whether Sheeran ripped off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ and will be seen as a major victory for recording artists.”

BREAKING: Kim Gardner Has Resigned.

Earlier on Thursday, we wrote about St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner seeking a motion to dismiss the an attempt to remove her from office. The process began on February 23 when the Missouri Attorney General’s office filed the quo warranto—which as my colleague Susie Moore explained, stemmed from “serious allegations of malfeasance on the part of her office”—after a request that Gardner resign immediately.

Then in late April, a St. Louis judge lowered the boom on Gardner, writing that her office was a “rudderless ship of chaos”:

[St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Noble]….held that there was sufficient evidence to find that Gardner and Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Desilets had acted with “intentional disregard for the judicial process” and announced that he would be appointing a special prosecutor to pursue a case of “indirect criminal contempt” against them both.

Garner’s filing failed on Thursday, however. But now, she has resigned.

As Tom Cotton wrote in 2021: Recall, Remove and Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES OUT:

To be fair though, it least Schiff is finally admitting he’s one of the bad guys and a terrorist: The destruction of Alderaan was completely justified.

ANHEUSER-BUSCH KNOWS WHAT IT HAS TO DO TO MAKE THE PAIN STOP:

Bud Light fell into the same trap that many other brands fall into, thinking that the leftist perspective is the reigning perspective in our culture and, as such, allowed a woman who had no business being in charge of marketing for Bud Light in the first place to do something that Americans are clearly insulted by.

The CEO can claim “misinformation” about what’s going on and have confidence about the brand’s recovery all day. This isn’t just a reaction to “one can” with “one influencer” on it. This boycott is now a movement, and it doesn’t seem to be losing steam, at least not yet.

A-B is going to bear this scare for a very, very long time but it can begin the healing process by simply apologizing for what it did. It should come out and tell Americans that it’s sorry that it even gave the time of day to such a divisive influencer who represents something that is hurting people everywhere. It needs to come out and vow to never do it again.

What it chooses to do to make that apology seem more concrete is up to it, but no matter how you swing it, it needs to begin with “we’re sorry.”

The issue is that getting this apology will be like trying to pull a tooth from a very awake badger. While A-B’s customer base primarily consists of red-blooded Americans, they are afraid of the leftist machine just like every other corporation is. Apologizing for putting Mulvaney on the can will be a very loud choosing of sides and once they do, they can kiss their ESG score goodbye. This would be financially damaging to them in a very big way as various investment institutions that prioritize ESG obedience will suddenly not be interested in giving them the time of day.

If an Anheuser-Busch spokesman apologizes, the brand will take a brief, but huge hit on social media from the leftist mob — who don’t drink Bud Light, anyway — but the mob will quickly move on to something else to be angry about. In the meantime, as John Ekdahl tweets, “The biggest problem isn’t even the boycott; it’s that they’ve become a cultural punchline. This is now like having an AOL email address or driving a minivan. People avoid it so their buddies don’t rip them. Not sure how you fix that as a brand.”

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

THE HARDEST WORKING WOMAN IN POLITICS! Harris to meet with CEOs about artificial intelligence risks.

Flashback: Biden gives Kamala Harris another job: VP will now head an online harassment task force to add to her portfolio that includes the border and voting rights.

Why, it’s as if, “Joe Biden has set Kamala Harris up to fail, a passive-aggressive form of revenge for her shivving him in that first Democratic presidential-primary debate.”

MARK FELTON: The Last Kamikazes — Japanese Attacks After the Surrender (Video.)

IT’S FINE — I’M SURE HIS PRONOUNS ARE SHE/HER: Bearded Florida man wins women’s poker tourney, intense debate follows.

TRUMP’S CNN COUP:

Third, by gifting viewers to the ailing CNN, Trump zings Fox News, which he’s now come to view as an enemy. Trump asks for bottomless loyalty and offers none. Once cozy with Fox, he now sees the network as a DeSantis ally and has accused Rupert Murdoch of “aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA.” Why? Because depositions in Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox revealed that network executives didn’t really believe the 2020 election was stolen. If Trump can no longer get Fox to do his bidding, at least he can make it pay, in viewers, for its betrayal.

Fourth, if the town hall yields CNN a large viewership, it will ensure that the media remain addicted to all things Trump. Donald Trump feeds on attention, and networks know Trump is good for ratings. The media’s “Trump slump” in the wake of his losing the 2020 election was a real phenomenon. He knows that CNN is in turmoil and its ratings are plummeting. This, from Trump’s standpoint, is leverage. They need him. And if they get a significant boost from his town hall, it won’t be lost on other outlets. The Trump-media symbiosis of 2016 did both parties a world of good. He’s looking to rekindle the relationship.

And fifth, Trump’s making a deal with CNN is unexpected, and doing the unexpected is part of his allure. His impulsiveness and inconstancy fascinate. Sometimes this makes him ridiculous, as when he improvised on light and disinfectant to combat Covid. But many who claim to be sick of the man nevertheless retain their capacity to be shocked by him. If a typical presidential candidate agreed to a CNN interview, no one would care. When Trump does it, he brings with him a context that renders it instant news. People are already losing their heads over it.

Including the gals on The View: The View hosts react to CNN hosting ‘racist,’ ‘sexist,’ ‘bigot’ Trump for town hall.

Flashback to 2016: Donald Trump Rode $5 Billion in Free Media to the White House.

ASKING THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why are there no paintings in Star Wars?

In many of the Star Wars films, drawings and illustrations serve as MacGuffins to advance the story. The most famous example of this is the set of plans for the original Death Star. The schematic drawings for the moon-sized weapon appear on screen and fuel the plots of both Rogue One and A New Hope. Meanwhile, maps of secret locations are used to similar effect in Attack of the Clones, The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker.

While these images are utilitarian rather than purely artistic, they demonstrate the ability of the residents of this galaxy to conceive, execute and understand abstracted, two-dimensional representations of real-world, three-dimensional objects.

While I freely admit the possibility that a more eagle-eyed reader will be able to point to a painting that slipped my attention and appeared briefly in one or more of the big-screen Star Wars films, there’s no question that paintings have never been important to the stories. They are not talked about, reflected upon or even alluded to, at least not in the ways that we usually engage with this form of art. Given the presence of many other types of art in Star Wars movies, how can we explain this?

As the author goes on to note, there are plenty of matte paintings created by Industrial Light and Magic to expand the scope of a scene, and there were industrial artist Ralph McQuarrie’s brilliant pre-production paintings, but apparently rather than art on the wall, the Rebels and the denizens of the Empire prefer things purely holographic.

GOODER AND HARDER, SAN FRAN: Retail exodus: Another major chain announces store closure in San Francisco.

The loss of Nordstrom, a neighboring Saks Off 5th store and other global brands like Uniqlo, Gap and H&M hurts not only the city’s sales tax base and labor force, but also the vitality of critical downtown streets where tourists flock, helping shape San Francisco’s global reputation.

The city’s economic malaise was brought on by remote work and the pandemic, but some city officials and Nordstrom’s landlord also blamed an inadequate response to crime as a key reason for the spate of closures in the city’s chief shopping district…

Weeks of grim news have fueled a debate over public safety and how the city can best promote an economic recovery — or at least stop the bleeding of losing store after store, which feeds into fears of an economic “doom loop.”…

Nordstrom is still expanding in California despite the San Francisco closures. The company said last month it would open five new Rack stores…

And the stores that are left will everything behind plexiglass: San Francisco Target puts entire department on lockdown amid shoplifting crisis.