QUESTION ASKED: What’s With All the Food Processing Plants Blowing Up Lately?

THE ATLANTIC: Jon Stewart’s new show takes the clown nose off, ‘he’s not even trying to be funny.’

There’s long been a criticism of Jon Stewart during his heyday on the Daily Show he would raise serious topics and usually attempt to skewer the right but then if you pointed out he hadn’t treated the issue very fairly he’d retreat into the role of comedian. Hey guys, I’m just doing jokes. This clown nose on, clown nose off act served him well for many years and helped make him a big star.

A few weeks ago I pointed out that Stewart’s new show seemed less humorous and more dishonest than his old one. And it appears I wasn’t the only person who noticed the change because ratings for the show dropped substantially over just a few months. Then yesterday the Atlantic published a piece titled “What Happened to Jon Stewart?” which does actually try to answer the question of why his show isn’t so funny or compelling as it used to be even for fans. And though the author doesn’t use this language, his conclusion is that Stewart has more or less taken his clown nose off and the results are a show that’s not funny or thought provoking.

Of course, there’s another reason why Stewart isn’t very funny these days:

JON GABRIEL: DeSantis Understands the Best Defense Is a Good Offense.

Some Republican thinkers insist that even this isn’t quite the hill to die on, there is no slippery slope, and we need to demonstrate our acceptance and goodwill to progressives. Why aren’t we focusing on economic issues? Besides, doesn’t Jessica look adorable in her sundress? The Florida GOP enacted the bill they wanted, beat Disney, so let’s move on. Punishing them by ending Reedy Creek is just churlish.

If Gov. DeSantis was satisfied with playing defense, this would be correct. Instead, he has chosen offense.

Defeating Woke, Inc., is the goal, not a single win on a small issue. He showed Disney that pro forma DEI press releases have a cost. When you wrongly call the governor, statehouse, and a majority of Florida voters anti-gay and transphobic, there will be a price to pay. When you promise to work to overturn the people’s will and defeat their representatives, pushback will follow. The horrible punishment? Being treated like any other company.

This message wasn’t only delivered to Disney. MLB can pull an all-star game from Georgia; do that south of the border and maybe you don’t get that new ballpark in Miami. Huge multinational corporations can ridicule red-state residents all they want, but they might want to diversify their stock portfolio first. Disney stock has fallen 30 percent in the past six months. The next would-be woke CEO might decide it’s wiser not to spout off*.

Read the whole thing.

* QED: Exxon bans gay pride, BLM flags from flying over corporate headquarters.

RIP: Former U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, of Utah, dies at age 88.

US SECRETARIES OF STATE, DEFENSE HEAD TO UKRAINE FOR SUNDAY TALKS, ZELENSKY SAYS:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will travel to Kyiv Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, for his first face-to-face meeting with members of President Biden’s cabinet since the Russian invasion began.

“Tomorrow, the American officials are coming to visit us,” Zelensky said in a Saturday press conference.

“We will be expecting, when the security will allow, the President of the United States to come and to talk to us,” Zelensky added.

Or perhaps not — unless they toss the Easter Bunny into Air Force One as well, it’s difficult to picture Biden in his current state doing this:

RASMUSSEN POLL: Most Democrats Still Believe Russia Stole 2016 Election From Hillary.

They’re also Biden’s last redoubt of supporters:  “Those who believe that Russian social media posts threw the election are highest among President Joe Biden’s supporters. ‘President Joe Biden’s strongest supporters are most certain that Russian interference changed the 2016 election, and to fear future interference,’ the analysis said. ‘Among voters who strongly approve of Biden’s job performance as president, 86% believe it’s at least somewhat likely Russian interference changed the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and 75% think it is very likely that Russia will try to interfere in this year’s congressional midterm elections. By contrast, among voters who strongly disapprove of Biden’s performance, only 18% think the 2016 election was changed by Russian interference, and just 20% say Russian interference in this year’s midterms is very likely.’”

WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden business partner at the White House.

TWITTER MOCKERY OF THE DOWNFALL OF CNN+ IS COMEDY GOLD: “As we noted yesterday, CNN’s new streaming service CNN+ is shutting down after launching barely a month ago. Why CNN thought that people would pay extra for programming no one watches on their TV channel defies logic. Given CNN’s business model of embracing Trump Derangement Syndrome and demonizing all things conservative, lots of people on Twitter are having a good time with this news.”

Including this classic reply from South Dakota’s Kristi Noem:

5G IS A JOKE AND THE IPHONE IS THE WELL-TIMED PUNCHLINE: Apple may have been late to the 5G party but the party was lame anyway. “None of this is to say that 5G isn’t a vague improvement. It’s definitely a vague improvement. Technology plods ever forward, lumbering toward the future like a rough-hewn golem fashioned of so many half-baked dreams. The point is that Apple ‘missed’ absolutely nothing. In fact, it probably gained by not forcing battery-hungry modems on users before they could even make use of them. Even if 5G had turned out to be the game-changing real deal those who eat up carrier marketing materials like monkeys eat up monkey chow believed, there was no cost to not shipping a 5G phone in 2018 or even 2019. Apple’s definitely been behind the curve before (see: DVD-RAM drives and CD burners) and it’ll probably happen again. But it wasn’t 5G.”

BASED: Today’s Photo Mystery. “Yup—that is indeed Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics. This is either an elaborate troll, or perhaps [Mike] Tyson is getting ready to run for office as a Republican somewhere.

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: After 53 Earth Days, Society Still Hasn’t Collapsed.

(Classical reference in headline.)

JONATHAN HAIDT: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.

The Democrats have also been hit hard by structural stupidity, though in a different way. In the Democratic Party, the struggle between the progressive wing and the more moderate factions is open and ongoing, and often the moderates win. The problem is that the left controls the commanding heights of the culture: universities, news organizations, Hollywood, art museums, advertising, much of Silicon Valley, and the teachers’ unions and teaching colleges that shape K–12 education. And in many of those institutions, dissent has been stifled: When everyone was issued a dart gun in the early 2010s, many left-leaning institutions began shooting themselves in the brain. And unfortunately, those were the brains that inform, instruct, and entertain most of the country.

Liberals in the late 20th century shared a belief that the sociologist Christian Smith called the “liberal progress” narrative, in which America used to be horrifically unjust and repressive, but, thanks to the struggles of activists and heroes, has made (and continues to make) progress toward realizing the noble promise of its founding. This story easily supports liberal patriotism, and it was the animating narrative of Barack Obama’s presidency. It is also the view of the “traditional liberals” in the “Hidden Tribes” study (11 percent of the population), who have strong humanitarian values, are older than average, and are largely the people leading America’s cultural and intellectual institutions.

But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders. Confused and fearful, the leaders rarely challenged the activists or their nonliberal narrative in which life at every institution is an eternal battle among identity groups over a zero-sum pie, and the people on top got there by oppressing the people on the bottom. This new narrative is rigidly egalitarian––focused on equality of outcomes, not of rights or opportunities. It is unconcerned with individual rights.

The universal charge against people who disagree with this narrative is not “traitor”; it is “racist,” “transphobe,” “Karen,” or some related scarlet letter marking the perpetrator as one who hates or harms a marginalized group. The punishment that feels right for such crimes is not execution; it is public shaming and social death.

At times, with the full weight of the DNC-MSM behind it: Taylor Lorenz is simply following the new rules of journalism.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Maskless* Edition.

* Offer void in Los Angeles.

REFUSING WHAT WE ARE: THE EVIL OF CHILDREN’S TRANSGENDERISM. It’s difficult for us to acknowledge the enormity of the crime committed against our children because it’s hard for us to acknowledge how deeply we have failed.

Sometimes there is a flash of light so bright that you are compelled to look away. Sometimes a crime is so profound that it is difficult even to name it; to grasp the enormity of it. The recent explosion of transgenderism in children, an affliction currently affecting the lives of more than 1-in-50 young adults and children in Gen Z, is one such instance.

Groomers.

It’s the word of the month, which the Right is applying increasingly to our leftist political establishment.

Perhaps the best response to the groomer debate came from Helena Kirschner, a woman who detransitioned (that is, she spent years as “transgender man” before later accepting her birth sex) and has become an influential voice speaking up against transgender ideology:

“There’s a place for precise terminology,” she tweeted. “There’s also a place for memetic terms that convey a difficult to articulate concept in a way many people can intuitively understand. ‘Groomer’ applied to teachers & other adults who manipulate kids into gender confusion accomplishes this.”

And that is exactly right. It’s difficult for us to acknowledge the enormity of the crime that has been committed against our children because it’s hard for us to acknowledge how deeply we have failed. And it’s hard for us to accept that this crime is taking place with the full support of the leadership of one of America’s major political parties and most of the medical establishment. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) banned a group of those skeptical of pediatric transgenderism from even setting up a booth at the latest AAP conference. To acknowledge the depth of the transgender transgression against our children is to stare deep into the void of a society in chaos and moral decay.

Read the whole thing.

Related: New York Times Admits: Experimenting On Trans Kids Has Horrifying, Irreversible Consequences.

JIM TREACHER: CNN+ Gets Subtracted.

I propose using CNN+ as a unit of measure. Instead of saying things like, “I’ll be gone for about a month,” you can say, “I’ll be gone for a CNN+.”

“Wow, why is Becky being so crabby?”
“Oh, it’s just her time of the CNN+.”

It’s vulgar and uncharitable to gloat over the failure of an enemy, but hey, I didn’t make CNN blow $300 million on this debacle. I didn’t spend years lying to CNN’s viewers and ruining their brand. I didn’t poach Chris Wallace from Fox News and hire a bunch of other people to work on a project that nobody with half a brain would’ve ever tried.

All those wealthy, powerful people actually convinced themselves anybody wanted this. What an incredible mass self-delusion. What hubris. I can’t wait for the inevitable Hulu miniseries about this humiliating trainwreck.

If it’s anything like HBO’s 1996 film, The Late Shift (on the battle between Jay Leno, David Letterman, and NBC to replace Johnny Carson), I would definitely watch that.

THE OBLIGATORY “MADISON CAWTHORN LINGERIE PHOTOS SURFACE” POST: “The photos do seem more ‘game on a vacation cruise’ than ‘getting in touch with a softer side of my personality.’ Exit question: Who would have photos of him on a cruise years before he ran for Congress, though? Were they posted on a friend’s Facebook account years ago and discovered by an opponent’s oppo research team? Or are his friends turning on him now too and digging through their archives for stuff to feed to the media?”

UPDATE: When the press says that things “surface,” what it means is that someone dug them up. They use to passive voice to obscure what’s actually going on.

IS THE NEW YORK TIMES A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER? OF COURSE IT IS. Don McNeil: Dean Baquet, Joe Kahn, Racist Slurs, Twitter and Mao: on Passing the Torch at The New York Times.

The Times has done everything short of admitting it erred. It still occasionally uses the very word that got me ousted, a word it was using in the same month in 2019 I uttered it in Peru. It didn’t punish Bret Stephens for his leaked column calling its decision hypocritical. It canceled the student trips program. It hired John McWhorter as a columnist even though he had trashed the decision to oust me and called it “contemptible.”

The Times has not publicly disputed even one of the 20,000 words I published March 1, 2021, describing what really happened in Peru and during the internal investigations.

Why? Because it knows they’re true. And because of corporate cowardice. The company instantly corrects its reporters’ errors, but it takes decades to admit blunders by its owners (such as ignoring the Holocaust.)

When I started in 1976, The Times was run by a former Marine who cared more about the mission — journalism — than about policing the personalities of his troops. Now it’s run by his grandson, a Brown graduate who believes in safe spaces and race-based capitalization. It once dealt calmly with criticism. Now it panics — even over a tabloid piece based on anonymous quotes from very naive teenagers. It hunts for someone to flog into the street, or uses threats to extract apologies it can issue with a groveling press release. (See below.)

To my mind, that shift began during the Jayson Blair/Judy Miller/Rick Bragg fiascos. The company became addicted to self-mortification. A weekly public editor column meant someone had to be hung out to dry every week, guilty or not.

The company has also hired more and more young elitists who sneer at average Americans. And who get their way by running to the teacher and weeping “I feel unsafe!” I found that tactic baffling when it was used against James Bennet in 2020. Who chooses journalism with an expectation of safety? It’s an incredibly exciting life; it’s not always a safe one — you may be sent to cover wars. I loved it.

Read the whole thing to learn how the sausage is made, but note McNeil’s line that “The company has also hired more and more young elitists who sneer at average Americans.” You’ll be shocked to discover that there are also older elitists who sneer at average Americans” as well at the Times. Including this former employee: Donald McNeil described Americans as ‘selfish pigs’ in email to Fauci. The then-New York Times science writer compared us unfavorably to the average Chinese who ‘behaved incredibly heroically.’

(Classical reference in headline.)

DEMOCRACY DIES IN DOXXING — and the WaPo is so proud of its attack on Libs of TikTok (and hoping you’ll pay no attention to the collateral damage they’ve also done) that they’re promoting the article on Twitter:

But note what’s missing from the article: Dear Taylor Lorenz, Brian Stelter, and the Rest of the Press—why not show the videos? “I find it very interesting that Taylor Lorenz can write that entire piece, make sure everyone knows the LibsofTikTok account owner is an Ortodox Jew, and never once bother to actually show or link to the actual videos. The Washington Post will show videos of Chinese protestors, but not the videos of the people on TikTok we’re all talking about.”

Meanwhile: WaPo Releases Statement Filled With Lies in Aftermath of Taylor Lorenz’s ‘Libs of TikTok’ Doxxing.

Fortunately for the owner of the Libs of TickTok account, she’s getting the last laugh on the WaPo: “I don’t think anything better sums up the commitment to incompetence of modern ‘journalism’ than the Washington Post trying to bring down a Twitter account by hypocritically doxxing the owner, then seeing that account add 300,000 followers in 2+ days Just a complete masterpiece. Their follower count as it stands now is 939,700. I anticipate they’ll hit over a million this weekend.”

GOT WOKE…Disney Shares Are Cratering While They War With DeSantis; It Has Lost 31.5% Over the Year.

DeSantis signs bill stripping Disney of its special corporate self-government status, sending its stock price tumbling.

Disney stock fell 2.79% on Friday, according to Google Finance. Company stock has fallen 31.25% in the past 6 months and trades for $118.27 per share as of press time.Disney stock prices dropped 5% on Wednesday, dropped further on Thursday, and have dropped 2.79% more so far today.

Granted, stock prices overall have fallen 500 nearly 1000 points today thanks to the America Is Back, Baby NeverTrump-endorsed fake president in the White House, but still: Not a good performance for Disney. Not what its shareholders are looking for.

And note this:

As Ace of Spades asks, “Has corporate America started to get the message that it is no longer a cost-free move to always side with the exotic flora of the extreme left? And that maybe just staying out of politics and making business the business of business is the better path?”

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden’s Earth Day Remarks Show Just How Much He Is Deteriorating.

“At the, at the, the, uh…. big meeting we had in Europe.” He can’t even remember the name of the meeting he went to a couple of months ago. You know, the thing.

Then there are the “economic cubs” in the West.

I think he was trying to say “economic hubs” there but slurred his words, so it ran together. But, it’s always quite the adventure trying to interpret Joe Biden. One has to feel sorry for his sign language interpreter, when he has one working — that must be quite the challenge.

But guess what Biden promised? He’s going to make sure they “completely… start the process” to make sure that “every vehicle” in the military is “climate-friendly.”

This may be one of his dumbest comments yet. Does he even know what a military is supposed to be about? That you should be concentrated on ensuring that it can kill people and break things — as necessary to protect America. Is he going to ensure that we only have to go to war in places where they have charging stations for our electric tanks? Will the tank clean up the area after it takes out a building? You see how ridiculous it all is. The fact that seems to be a priority for him is madness. But he’s going to spend “billions” to get it done.

Related: Biden made a 5,000-mile Earth Day round trip in AF1 to announce ‘climate friendly’ US military (and more WTF moments). “Finally, the president who took an Earth Day flight on Air Force One from DC to Seattle and back wants us to know that he’s not driving his Corvette very much for environmental reasons: ‘I have a ’68 Corvette that does nothing but pollute the air, but I don’t drive very much.’ You can’t make this stuff up.”

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 asks this week:

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.

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.

Related: Earth Day predictions of 1970. The reason you shouldn’t believe Earth Day predictions of [2022].

52 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.

DEMOCRAT-LINKED ORGANIZATION TIED TO FUNDING OFFER FOR NORTH CAROLINA ABSENTEE BALLOT PORTAL:

In 2020, N.C. State Board of Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell made a successful push for the state to establish an online absentee ballot portal during COVID-19, however, emails show such a portal was already in the works long before the pandemic began.

Emails obtained by North State Journal show discussions between the N.C. State Board of Elections (NCSBE) and Democracy Live about adding an online absentee ballot portal happening as early as June of 2019; almost nine months prior to the emergence of COVID-19 in the state.

Democracy Live’s system utilizes “OmniBallot,” an online ballot replication system. The online absentee ballot portal powered by Democracy Live was first publicly named by the NCSBE in September of 2020.

According to a 2020 security analysis of OmniBallot conducted by Michael Specter of MIT and J. Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan, “OmniBallot uses a simplistic approach to Internet voting that is vulnerable to vote manipulation by malware on the voter’s device and by insiders or other attackers who can compromise Democracy Live, Amazon, Google, or CloudFlare.”

Related: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY EXPECTED TO SHUT DOWN CNN+:

Warner Bros. Discovery is shutting down CNN+, two people familiar with the matter tell Variety. Discovery will address CNN staffers later today.

CNN itself reports: CNN+ will shut down at the end of April.

And so, as he flies the Blue Lady of the Skies into the sunset, we say “Aloha!” Five O’clock CNN+, and return to our duties. Let me remind you, the Weblog is open twenty-four hours a day for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Exit quote:

UPDATE:

(Updated and bumped.)

GOODER AND HARDER: LA County to order return of masks on public transit, ride share and LAX despite federal rules.

“In response to Mizelle’s ruling on Monday, public transportation agencies across Los Angeles County announced that masks would become optional, including aboard Metrolink commuter trains and on Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and rail lines. Los Angeles International Airport and Hollywood Burbank Airport also announced that masks were optional.

[Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer] said the county’s renewed order, which will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday, will reinstate mask orders in all of those settings. The rule will not apply to people aboard airplanes, which are beyond the county’s jurisdiction.

She said she feels “really, really sorry” that the new county order will likely create confusion among residents feeling a sense of “whiplash” due to rapidly changing rules. But she noted that the CDC never changed its recommendations regarding mask-wearing on public transit, and said the Florida court ruling was made by “a federal judge with little experience in public health” who questioned the CDC’s authority.

Flashback: Woman Dictating LA County Shutdowns Isn’t a Medical Doctor, Paid More than $500K.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia takes the opposite tack: Philadelphia will end indoor mask mandate again, days after it was reinstated.

EVER GET THE FEELING YOU’VE BEEN CHEATED? Disappointing photos show what Coachella is like in real life.

Hey at least back in the day, outdoor concerts in California weren’t boring: 53 Years Before the Astroworld Concert Disaster, There Was Altamont,