SPACE: After Clash, House Science Panel OKs NASA Authorization.

The bill supports $20.7 billion in annual spending while backing White House plans to transition the agency’s human exploration focus from low Earth orbit to the Moon and deep space.

After a 26-7 vote, the bill now moves on to the full House, with an amendment backing a $471 million increase in Earth science spending. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the committee chair, pledged to continue discussions with panel members voicing concerns over future support for space-based weather and climate data gathering and climate change research.

The bill also was amended to call for the construction of a second Mobile Launch Platform at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the Space Launch System (SLS) and to assemble a second Interim Cryrogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) for the SLS. Those are both pacing items for the second test flight of the powerful rocket and the first currently slated to include an Orion capsule with astronauts.

As it stands now, the first uncrewed test flight of SLS and Orion, Exploration Mission 1, a three- to four-week voyage around the Moon and back, is planned between late 2019 and early 2020.

But what about Muslim outreach?

DO THIS: Republicans Push for Vote to Make Tax Cuts Permanent.

CHANGE: Saudi Arabia Prepares for First Public Cinema Opening in 35 Years.

At roughly 9 p.m. in Riyadh (11 a.m. PT), around 600 guests will sit down in a refitted ultra modern conference hall in the King Abdullah Financial District to watch Black Panther usher in a new cultural era for the country.

The Marvel superhero blockbuster – already a major cultural landmark – will add another historic string to its bow when it becomes the first film to get an official public screening in the kingdom at the first movie theater to open there for 35 years. Saudi Arabia lifted its decades-long cinema ban in December.

Awwad Alawwad, Saudi’s minister of culture and information who first announced the end to the ban, is set to attend the event, alongside Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment, which won the first licence to operate movie theaters in the kingdom and runs the Riyadh cinema, one of 350 expected to open across the country by 2030.

THR understands from Disney’s regional distributor Italia Film that just 40 seconds of the film has been removed. While they wouldn’t elaborate on which scenes these came from, the censoring is believed to be in line with cuts made to Black Panther across the region.

Crown Prince Bin Salman’s baby steps towards reform are adding up.

TRADE: US Launches Anti-Dumping Probe Into Steel Wheels From China.

NEO-OTTOMANS: Erdoğan seeks to expand Turkey’s influence in the Middle East through diplomacy – and force.

On our third trip to Istanbul, my wife and I visited the 19th century Dolmabahce Palace, once the administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire. As we toured the 285-room palace my wife was struck with not just how well preserved it was, but that it was one of at least five palaces from the Ottoman era in Turkey that are now museums open to the public.

This is telling, because it is not something found across the rest of the Middle East and Arab world, where such palaces are still very much in use as palaces – for example, the nine palaces in Jordan. Turkey is a modern republic created from the heart of the former Ottoman empire, established since the 14th century. Few of the other former regions of the empire across the Middle East and North Africa can boast of such a long political history, with countries such as Jordan not yet even 100 years old.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is well aware of this fact, and does not distinguish between glorious empire and modern republic. “The Republic of Turkey is also a continuation of the Ottomans,” he declared in a recent speech.

Read the whole thing.

SPENGLER: A plea for solidarity with people who don’t order stuff at Starbucks. “The right thing to do in Starbucks is not to order anything, because the coffee is disgusting.”

Analysis: True.

PRETTY PLEASE: Please Stop Predicting the End of Trump’s Presidency. “Unless you can explain exactly how he gets impeached or why he resigns.”

The Professional Left hasn’t done rank-and-file Democrats any favors by keeping them whipped into a “President Hillary could really happen!” frenzy for the last year or so.

DAVID HARSANYI: No, Republican Presidents Aren’t Responsible For Most Of America’s Debt.

Leonhardt, for example, makes a bunch of inconvenient debt that resulted from spending liberals deem “necessary” simply disappear. The stimulus bill championed and signed by President Obama was pegged at $787 billion, but the cost grew to around $2.6 trillion when “automatic stabilizers” — Keynesian spending increases embedded into law — were included. The above graph discounts “automatic stabilizers,” which are both supported by Democrats and a reflection of economic conditions.

While ignoring $1.8 trillion might be politically convenient, the fact is that the day Obama left office, the debt was almost $20 trillion, nearly double what it was when he got there. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the deficit went from just over 52 percent of gross domestic product at the end of fiscal year 2009 to 77 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2016. With all that spending, Obama still oversaw the weakest recovery in American history.

The only other way a person can argue Obama “lowered deficits” is by comparing his first year of historically high deficits — fueled by outlays that he either signed into law, voted for, or supported — to his other years (akthough deficits were again rising by the end of his term). That is deceptive, to say the least.

Many presidents are guilty of growing the debt, but no president in history had ever taken on more than Obama did. And when we stop tipping the scale, and solely compare debt to the percentage of total economic output under all these presidents, we are left with a far different picture than Leonhardt’s selective framing.

Similar trickery was used to minimize American deaths to terrorist attacks, by ignoring the attacks of 9/11/2001.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. John Podesta: Comey Is An ‘Idiot.’

He’s far too kind.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Barbara Bush, RUSSIA, Immigration and Much, Much More.

YESTERDAY: IRS payment site crashes hours before Tax Day filing deadline.

POLITICO SPIN: “Republicans jumped on the glitch” after “years of budget cuts.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: New high school history textbook teaches Trump is mentally ill and his supporters are racists.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuelan farms have begun feeding their workers — so they don’t faint from hunger.

“I have to make the decision between buying gallons of gas for my tractors or having enough food for my guys,” said Arzola, wearing a large-brimmed straw hat in the midday heat.

“They started to come to work so hungry they were almost fainting,” he said.

In a country where hunger has become so commonplace that Venezuelans have lost an average of 11 kilos, or about 24 pounds, the idea of farmers reducing their production sounds counter-intuitive and even inhumane.

But with Venezuela in a steep economic crisis — and no end in sight — farmers and farmworkers have found themselves making that difficult calculation as the cost of running a farm has jumped. Back in November, Arzola had to pay 80,000 bolivares — at that time, about 75 cents — for a liter of oil. Last month, the price shot to a staggering 1.6 million bolivares, or about $7. That means Arzola cannot afford to expand his business. If he does, he would not be able to feed his own workers.

If the workers are too weak to keep up the pace, Arzola’s farm would yield much less. In addition, the hungry workers, in order to survive, would look for work at a different farm that would feed them.

Socialism is about protecting the little guy from fat cats.

BLUE STATE BLUES: Trump’s tax cut not for everyone: 1 million Californians will owe $12 billion more next year.

They’re the Californians who will lose a collective $12 billion because the new law caps a deduction they have been able to take for paying their state and local taxes, according to a new analysis by the Franchise Tax Board.

Very wealthy Californians earning more than $1 million a year will pay the lion’s share of that money, with 43,000 of them paying a combined $9 billion.

But some middle-class Californians will pay more, too.

About 751,000 households with incomes under $250,000 probably will owe more tax. All together, they’ll owe an extra $1.1 billion.

They need to take their complaints to Sacramento, because the rest of us are done with subsidizing Californians’ tax-and-spend lifestyle.

THAT NEW CAR SMELLS: Tesla idling Model 3 shows Musk unable to make fixes.

The hiatus is another setback for the first model Musk has tried to mass-manufacture. In addition to trying to bring electric vehicles to the mainstream, the chief executive officer had sought to build a competitive advantage over established automakers by installing more robots to quickly produce vehicles. Last week, he acknowledged “excessive” automation at Tesla was a mistake.

“Traditional automakers adjust bottlenecks on the fly during a launch,” Dave Sullivan, an analyst at AutoPacific Inc., said in an email. “This is totally out of the ordinary.”

“Shutting down for days on end during ramp is far from normal,” Kristin Dziczek, director of the industry, labor and economics group at the Center for Automotive Research, wrote in an email.

Eventually, the 400,000-plus people who put $1,000 deposits down on the Model 3 are going to want to take delivery of their cars — or of refund checks.

MEGAN FOX: Starbucks to CLOSE DOWN for Racial Training after Viral Video.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: When Was the Last Time a Boycott Worked? “Every time somebody on Fox News so much as farts, Media Matters is ready with a list of advertisers.”

YOU HAD ONE JOB: IRS payment site crashes hours before Tax Day filing deadline.

IMPARTIALITY: Judge Overseeing Cohen Case Officiated George Soros’ Wedding in 2013.

DOCTOR SKYNET WILL SEE YOU NOW: Google AI Microscope Can Already Detect Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer.

PAUL WALDMAN: Americans don’t pay enough taxes.

Perhaps Mr. Waldman is unaware that the United States Treasury is more than happy to deposit any checks he writes to them over and above what he legally owes.

If he’d like to make a patriotic gift to reduce the publicly held debt, he can write a check to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and send it to this address:

Attn Dept G
Bureau of the Fiscal Service
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

Or if Mr. Waldman would like to make a contribution to support current spending, he can do so with a check made out to United States Treasury and sent here:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Funds Management Branch
P.O. Box 1328
Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328

After writing today that freedom “makes life more cruel and difficult” for most people, I’m sure he’ll get right on that.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: How Woke Comedy Is Killing Laughter in Pop Culture.

Well, so long as you’re only counting “laughing with” and not “laughing at.”

CHANGE: Bipartisan Bill Aims to Protect Hemp Farmers from Federal Pot Crackdown. “Kentucky and Oregon senators join together for bill to de-list hemp as a controlled substance and define it as an agricultural commodity.”

Now that President Trump has pulled the rug out from under Attorney General Jeff Sessions on his marijuana crackdown, it’s time for Congress to get serious about reform, too. The current legal limbo is good for no one, and I’d like to see a return to federalist principles in at least one area — so that maybe more will follow.

IMPRESSIVE. MOST IMPRESSIVE. Air Force B-52s shatter Vietnam-era records during two-year ISIS deployment.

According to an April 12 release from U.S. Air Forces Central Command, the 23rd Bomb Squadron from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota last June launched its 400th consecutive B-52 mission without a delay due to maintenance problems.

This broke a B-52 streak that stood since December 1972, when the Air Force carried out 11 days of massive bombing in North Vietnam.

The 69th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, which arrived in September 2017, then launched 834 straight B-52 missions without any maintenance cancellations.

The ground crews keeping these ancient airframes flying don’t get nearly the respect they deserve.

HMM: Mystery death of Russian journalist who wrote about deaths in Syria.

Maxim Borodin was found severely injured by neighbours in Yekaterinburg on Thursday.

He died at a hospital on Sunday.

Local officials said no suicide note was found and the cause of the fall remains unclear.

However a friend revealed that Borodin had said his flat had been surrounded by security the day before.

Vyacheslav Bashkov said Borodin had contacted him at five o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, April 11, saying there was ‘someone with a weapon on his balcony and people in camouflage and masks on the staircase landing’.

More:

In March, Borodin wrote about bodies believed to be those of mercenaries being delivered to a regional village.

Thousands of mercenaries reportedly have been deployed to Syria by a shadowy contracting company believed to be bankrolled by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Flashback: Families ask Kremlin to admit Russian mercenaries killed in Syria.

And: They were never there: Russia’s silence for families of troops killed in Ukraine.