IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: We’re All Pandas Now.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Amber Ruffin’s Trump Derangement Spikes in ‘View’ Tirade.

It must be comforting to get an invitation to “The View.”

The far-Left showcase spews nonsense on a daily basis. Facts are few and far between. Conspiracy theories run wild. And no one in the Legacy Media will hold you accountable.

It’s the fuel that keeps the long-running show afloat in 2025.

From that perspective, comic Amber Ruffin is a perfect “View” guest.

The former late-night host was slated to anchor last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association gala, but the WHCA pulled her invitation at the last minute.

The official excuse? The evening was meant to be a healing, inclusive affair.

The real answer? The assembled reporters wanted to pretend that missing the story of the decade – President Joe Biden’s dementia-like condition – wasn’t their fault.

It was. Of course.

Having Ruffin torch President Donald Trump while ignoring Democrats would have made the event look even more partisan than it was.

Ruffin complained about the cancellation to “The View’s” hosts, but she placed the blame in the wrong spot. President Trump didn’t cancel her appearance. The WHCA did.

That’s not all she got wrong.

What’s most wrong is that there are enough viewers to justify the impressive salaries of angry, mal-informed “View” hosts and their guests.

THIS IS WHY WASHINGTON KEEPS TRYING TO FORCE HIM OUT: Hegseth Orders ‘Comprehensive Transformation’ of U.S. Army.

ALLIES: US shares Chinese military’s space secrets with Britain.

The US has begun sharing some of its most sensitive intelligence on Chinese and Russian space operations with Britain and other Five Eyes nations in a move described as “momentous”.

Until this month, the activity of Space Delta 9, a unit focused on America’s orbital warfare, was largely deemed “US eyes only”, meant only for Americans with top-secret security clearance.

However, US military chiefs have taken the unprecedented step of allowing UK military leaders to observe their work at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado, in light of mounting concern about China’s militarisation of space.

Developing…

OR MAYBE YOU WILL: You Won’t Believe What Rubio Found In Biden’s State Department Files.

THIS HAS TAKEN ENTIRELY TOO LONG: U.S. Senate Commerce Committee advances Isaacman’s nomination for NASA administrator to full Senate. “On Wednesday, by a vote of 19-9, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee chose to advance the nomination of Jared Isaacman to the full Senate. That vote will come at a later date, which has not yet been scheduled.”

AND YET THEY STILL RESIST CHANGE: Harvard Reluctantly Admits that Woke Politics Have Destroyed the School.

NO-BRAINER, INDEED:

Worse than I thought it would be. If Bob Jones U deserved to lose its tax-exempt status, doing the same to Harvard—and every other school that so baldly fails to uphold its civil-rights obligations—is a no-brainer. https://t.co/3v3gpBzt9W

— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) April 30, 2025

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THE NEW TRENDS KIDS GET INTO THESE DAYS: The Intrepid New York Times Tries to Get to the Bottom of Why People Wear Crosses.

MONEY WELL SPENT? Federal ‘Job Corps’ Spends Up To $764K Per Graduate. Participants Go On To Earn $17K Annually.

A Labor Department program designed to train 16- to 24-year-olds to join the workforce spends more per person annually than Ivy League colleges, but participants wind up making minimum wage on average — raising questions about whether it should continue to exist.

The Job Corps pays teenage runaways, high school dropouts, and twentysomething ex-cons to live in dormitories and receive their GEDs and vocational training. The national cost per graduate was $188,000, with the average graduate staying 13.5 months. Of more than 110 campuses, the 10 least efficient averaged a cost of $385,000 per graduate. Job Corps participants earn $16,695 per year on average after leaving the program, according to new government data.

Nearly $2 billion in federal taxpayer money is spent annually on residential Job Corps campuses, a boon for the for-profit contractors who run them. But the dismal statistics about the program’s efficacy have never been fully public until the Trump administration released a “Transparency Report” last week.

Maybe there’s something that could be done to help those folks, but Washington is much more about helping contractors than anyone who actually needs it.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

With very few exceptions, Republicans in Congress don’t seem interested in doing anything other than being in Congress. As our country teeters on collapse, the most powerful branch in our government is run by do-nothings who are terrified of using their power to save the country,… https://t.co/5n7lopKwwA

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 30, 2025

I noted a few weeks back that Congress is no longer a place for legislating, but for gaining access to sweet insider trades and launching lucrative social media accounts.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Islamic Attacks on Nigerian Christians Escalate.

BREAKING: Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy to leave posts in White House.

I GUESS WE’LL KNOW FOR SURE SOMETIME TODAY OR TOMORROW: Pakistan Warns It Has ‘Credible Intelligence’ India Will Attack Within 36 Hours. “Gunfire has already been exchanged between the nuclear-armed rivals over the last several days, with neither side reporting any casualties or major incidents.”

CATHERINE SALGADO: Economic News Good, Bad, and Optimistic.

SLUSH FUNDS: Environmental ideologues enjoying the Colorado taxpayer dime.

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) describes itself as “…an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all.”

Anyone that is familiar with their work would not dispute their claim to working towards a zero-carbon future, but as someone who’s looked into what they are doing in Colorado, I can tell you that the “market-driven” and “nonpartisan” claims are a real stretch to say the least.

I say that because RMI sure seems to have a cozy relationship with Governor Polis, and the things they are all working on are decidedly more government mandate than free market. In fact, of the approximately $718,000 tax dollars the state has paid RMI, the vast majority ($706K) has flowed to them just since Polis was elected. Further, the money has mostly funneled through the Colorado Energy Office (CEO), a division within the governor’s office.

A CORA request to see the contracts with RMI since Polis took office returned 15 files, and reading through them provides an intriguing look at how Gov. Polis is putting this supposedly free market, nonpartisan group to work.

Much more at the link.

I’d just add that Polis sure seems to enjoy those public-private “partnerships” an awful lot for a so-called libertarian Democrat.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Tim Walz Still Believes MSM’s ¿Quién Es Más Macho? Shtick About Him. “Part of creating the Kamala Harris fiction out of whole cloth involved turning her running mate Tim Walz into a believable human being. They pitched him as some sort of testosterone-laden man’s man who disenfranchised males would flock to. It was a story so patently absurd that only one person in America bought it — Tim Walz.”

MAN, DID I EVER VOTE FOR THIS: EPA canceling nearly 800 environmental justice grants.

In a filing that was entered last week but first reported by The Washington Post Tuesday, a high-ranking EPA employee states that the agency has already told 377 grantees that their awards were canceled.

The agency plans to send cancellation notifications to an additional 404 — meaning a total of 781 grants are being canceled, said the filing, a declaration from Daniel Coogan, the EPA’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for Infrastructure and Extramural Resources.

The grants are primarily related to programs that deal with environmental justice — that is, dealing with pollution in communities that face disproportionate impacts and have limited resources. This includes low-income and minority communities.

The Trump administration has targeted environmental justice programs — firing 280 staffers and reassigning another 175 who worked on the issue, saying it’s part of a broader effort against diversity initiatives.

It’s all just slush funds and payouts for progressive groups.

ICYMI: Europe Just Proved Trump Right About NATO.

DECOUPLING: China exports drop amid tariff fight with U.S.

The country’s official purchasing managers’ index for the manufacturing sector, which gauges Chinese factory activity, was at 49 points this month, down from 50.5 last month. A reading of 50 points or higher means factory activity is expanding, while a reading below 50 means it is contracting. This month’s reading was the weakest since December 2023.

New export orders dropped sharply to 44.7 points this month, which is the lowest reading since December 2022, indicating that trade is slowing between China and the U.S. as American importers cancel or delay orders amid tariffs.

President Trump has placed 145% tariffs on Chinese imports. China then placed more than 100% tariffs on U.S. imports and has targeted U.S. companies that operate in China while also restricting exports of minerals used in batteries and other high-tech applications.

In a social media post on Tuesday, the Chinese government said it will “never kneel down” before the U.S.

Tuesday was a long time ago: China caves on 125% tariff for major US export after White House predicts Beijing can’t keep up.

UGH: Your Nest Thermostat May Be About to Become a Decoration. “Google announced that it was becoming a pain in the posterior to update the outdated hardware on some Nest Learning Thermostats, specifically the 2011 first generation, the 2012 second generation, and the European version of the 2014 second generation. Updates on those devices will grind to a screeching halt on October 25.”

The thermostats will still work but without any smart or cloud functionality.

THE TIES THAT BIND: Ukraine says it hopes to sign U.S. minerals deal within 24 hours.

UGH: New York Just Took a Big Step Toward State-Sponsored Suicide.

WELL, GOOD: IBM Rolls Back DEI, Commits To Political Neutrality. “IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to keep ad revenue away from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a hot mic discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have ‘got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point’ in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who sued IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What Is Going on With the Virginia GOP?!