AN IDEA SO GOOD IT HAS TO BE MANDATED: National Trend to Mandate Renewable Energy as Major Power Source is Ill-Conceived and Foolish.

“Ever since Al Gore and his gang of climate scammers came on the scene in the 1990s, we have been fed a steady diet of lies and false predictions. We were told that the oceans would rise as the polar caps melted and that cities and states bordering the Pacific and Atlantic would be underwater. We were told that the corpses of polar bears who had drowned would be washing up by the thousands on the coast of Alaska. We were told that the human race was doomed by rising temperatures.

What’s most remarkable about the hoax is that there was a deadline announced. The apocalypse was to take place within a decade. Now, two decades later, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is giving us until 2030 to shape up or we’re all goners.

Even someone as cynical as I am would never have imagined that the con men and women would still be able to pass off this nonsense as gospel after all this time. The old line about whether you’re going to believe me or your lying eyes seems to sum up the situation pretty well.

People want to believe it, because “saving the world” can make anyone feel important. And politicians love it because of ample opportunities for graft, corruption, cronyism, and vote-buying.

FASTER, TOO: Americans Need More Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines.

WHO SAYS THEY AREN’T DOING SOCIALISM RIGHT? Venezuela’s Trade Scheme With Turkey Is Enriching a Mysterious Maduro Crony.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Welcome to the race, Joe: Your party has left you — and millions of voters — behind.

I REALLY THINK SO: Europe turning Japanese? No, it’s much worse.

With the Brexit saga hogging the newsflow, the flaws and contradictions of the euro project have become less topical, yet they will continue to pose serious risks to economic and political stability well after Britain’s relationship with the EU is settled. Economic logic requires the Eurozone to morph into a single state with fiscal transfers from richer to poorer areas. Politics makes that impossible for the foreseeable future. The next significant recession could spark off a chain reaction of rising unemployment, populist rage and street violence that would make the recent “Gilets Jaunes” protests in France look mild.

Talk of the “Japanification” of Europe is doubly misleading because Japan today is not the stagnant and deflationary Japan of 1997 or 2010. The current economic expansion is, at 72 months old, on the cusp of becoming the longest since the war. During that period, employment has soared to unprecedented levels and business investment has risen to the highest share of GDP in a quarter of a century.

Plus: “Japan’s total fertility rate is higher than the rates for several European countries, including, depending on the year and the source, Portugal, Poland, Spain, Greece, Italy and Germany.” And Japan’s fertility rate sucks.

RUNNING’S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE: Biden Risks His and Obama’s Legacy with Third Presidential Run.

I ENJOY REALLY SPICY FOOD, BUT NO: Conquering The Carolina Reaper Requires Self-Deceit, Milk, And A Lot Of Barf.

VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN Is Not Happy With Bernie Sanders…

NOW JOE IS REALLY IN THE RACE: President Trump Already Has a Nickname for Joe Biden.

COLD WAR II: Analyzing The First Images Of Russia’s Huge Doomsday Torpedo Carrying Special Missions Sub.

It’s big. Really big. And carries some threatening weapons. But it’s an extended-hull version of the Oscar II-class subs, which weren’t quiet even by 1980s standards when the first boats were first commissioned.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: THESE Are the Most Telling Failures of Socialism.

PRIORITIES: San Fran. Government Concerned with E-Cigs, Not Poop, Drug Needles.

WELCOME TO DOUG HENNING’S WORLD OF DELUSION: Joy Behar tells Kirsten Gillibrand she doesn’t believe Democrats are on even ground because they won’t ‘play dirty.’

OUCH: Tesla Posts $700 Million First-Quarter Loss as CEO Elon Musk Says It Will Offer Insurance.

Analysts expected that Tesla would lose in the neighborhood of 69 cents per share in the first quarter, but Tesla’s real numbers, released today, were much, much worse than that. Tesla lost $2.90 a share, or $702.1 million in the quarter, according to CNBC, almost as much as they lost in the same quarter last year, mostly because of falling demand. Things still aren’t looking up.

The falling demand, much more than the financial loss, is what will worry Tesla the most. That’s because Tesla always positioned the Model 3 to be the mass-market car that would drive profit at the company. But the $7,500 federal tax credit for Tesla started phasing out on January 1, and while the company still sold 63,000 cars this quarter, that was also below analysts’ expectations.

Tesla doesn’t have much time to waste in its effort to grow from boutique carmaker to mass producer, as the bigs here and overseas move big into electric over the next two to five years.

YOU MIGHT NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG, BUT THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG IS INTERESTED IN YOU: Banks Accused of Discrimination Against Gun Owners.

During the April 12 “Holding Megabanks Accountable: A Review of Global Systemically Important Banks 10 years after the Financial Crisis” hearing, Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat basically said imposing the institution’s ant-gun policy is a higher priority than wisely managing investors’ money.

In an April 18 Town Hall column, National Shooting Sports Foundation [NSSF] Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel Larry Keane applauded National Center Public Policy Research and Free Enterprise Project attorney Justin Danhof’s questioning of Corbat during the hearing.

It was gratifying to see Corbat and other banking executives “getting asked some hard questions about fiscal sanity of their decision to discriminate against firearms businesses” especially since “their answers aren’t likely to soothe investors,” Keane writes.

During the hearing, Danhof asked Corbat, “Can you tell us—your investors—exactly how much money we stand to lose because of this decision, and explain why you have this right while Warren Buffet has this wrong?”

He’s got some ‘splainin to do.

FINALLY: NYC To Ban Hot Dogs and Processed Meats To Improve Climate. “Mayor Bill de Blasio approved an ambitious $14 billion Green New Deal on Monday, April 22, to combat climate change. The plan will cut purchases of red meat by 50 percent in its city-controlled facilities such as hospitals, schools, and correctional facilities. The new commitment builds off of the Meatless Mondays campaign that was adopted by all NYC schools in 2017.”

BIDEN’S ANNOUNCEMENT UNPACKED: A 21st Century version of Warren G. Harding’s 1920 appeal for a “return to normalcy.”

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day: Revisiting Islam’s Greatest Slaughter of Christians.

OBAMA WAS OBAMA WITHOUT HOPE: Joe Biden is Obama without hope. “Joe Biden’s inevitable 2020 presidential candidacy is a strange, strange thing. Biden has longed to be president all his political life: he first ran in 1988; he ran again 20 years later. Now we’re more than a decade past his last grab for power, and Biden, as he nears 80, thinks his day has come once more.”

I was a college freshman the first time Biden ran for President. I’m about to turn 50.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Seen on Facebook:

NICE: Fukushima agricultural exports bounce back from nuclear disaster to hit record high.

I’d been looking forward to trying the giant mutant tomatoes, but it turns out everything is normal-sized.

BOOM TIMES: Typical Worker’s Pay Nears $200,000 at Oil Refiner.

Oil and gas drillers and refiners had some of the highest-paid median workers in the energy and utility sectors in 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal analysis of annual pay disclosures by hundreds of big U.S. companies.

Houston-based Phillips 66 paid its median worker $196,407, the highest of any company in the sector. Phillips was followed by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. APC +11.60% at $183,445. Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which has roughly 72,600 employees, according to its latest proxy, had the third-highest median worker pay with $171,375.

Phillips 66 and Anadarko both boosted their 2018 median pay by about 15% in 2018 compared with 2017. Exxon raised its median pay about 6%. Oil-and-gas companies typically pay their workers better than many other sectors because they have fewer low-paid retail jobs and must compete in a tight labor market driven in part by the shale-oil boom.

Turns out we can drill our way to lower prices and our way out of wage stagnation.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Joe’s Big Day. “Biden is very popular among the Democrats but he will face resistance from the radical elements in the party who care mostly about skin color, gender and sexual preference. And free stuff. The sad fact is Joe is an old, white guy. He also likes to touch people.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy Wants To Raise Gun Permit Fees by 2,000 Percent.

Democrats believe only the rich and powerful are entitled to defend themselves, but you knew that already.

EVEN MORE BLUE ON BLUE: How the Intercept Is Fueling the Democratic Civil War. “The national security site has found fresh energy as a savvy, progressive attack dog in national politics. But is it undermining its own side?”

CAN’T HARDLY WAIT: Marvel President Says Movies Will Go ‘Inclusive,’ Adding ‘Gay’ and ‘Body Positive’ Heroes.

Disney seems determined to kill another valuable franchise, and I hope their shareholders sit up and take notice.