MEN WITH CHESTS: Ben Shapiro Takes Aim at Myth of ‘Toxic Masculinity’

TRADE WARS: Trump’s jobs plan could make your beer more expensive.

Tim Weiner, senior commodity risk manager at Molson Coors Brewing Co. and its MillerCoors LLC unit, believes this may very well happen after the commander-in-chief expedited an investigation into the price of all aluminum coming into the US earlier this year.

“If there are duties on aluminum coming to this country, it will obviously get passed on to us and the customer,” he explained at an industry conference in Chicago this week, according to Bloomberg.

“Our prices will go up,” he said.

Roughly 60 percent of the beer that’s produced by MillerCoors — the second-largest brewer behind Anheuser-Busch — is packaged in aluminum cans, Weiner said.

And makers of bottled beers would raise their prices to match, just because they could.

FADING FAST: Pelosi Questions Trump’s Mental Health, Then Shows Senility.

“Senile” might be too strong a word, but it does look at least like Pelosi should take her own advice about getting some sleep.

RETAIL BLUES: List Of Retailers In Danger Of Bankruptcy Hits Record 22.

The list includes:

Boardriders SA – sporting subsidiary of Quiksilver
The Bon-Ton Stores – parent of department store chain
Fairway Group Holdings – food retailer
Tops Holding II – supermarket operator
99 Cents Only Stores – discount retailer
TOMS Shoes – footwear company
David’s Bridal – wedding dresses and formalwear seller
Evergreen AcqCo 1 LP – parent of thrift chain Savers
Charming Charlie – women’s jewelry and accessories
Vince LLC – clothing retailer
Calceus Acquisition – owner of Cole Haan footwear firm
Charlotte Russe – women’s clothing
Neiman Marcus Group – luxury department store
Sears Holdings – owner of Sears and Kmart.
Indra Holdings – holding company owner of Totes Isotoner
Velocity Pooling Vehicle – does business as MAG, Motorsport Aftermarket Group
Chinos Intermediate Holdings – parent of J. Crew Group
Everest Holdings – manages Eddie Bauer brand
Nine West Holdings – clothing, shoes and accessories
Claire’s Stores – accessories and jewelry
True Religion Apparel – men’s and women’s clothing
Gymboree – children’s apparel

I was surprised to see Neiman’s, given that it’s almost as much a place to be seen shopping as it is a place to shop.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Energy Superpower USA: American Oil Exports Double, Reshaping Global Energy Markets.

Hat tip to Rand Simberg, who tweeted, “Breaking the back of OPEC is one of the biggest unreported stories since the end of the Cold War.”

VIDEO: Outrage as Saudi Arabian Soccer Players Refuse to Honor Moment of Silence for London Terror Attacks.

ED MORRISSEY: Senate Inching Closer To ObamaCare-Repeal Compromise?

The pace of the Medicaid-expansion rollback is hardly a minor issue. That accounts for all of the net cost savings that qualified the House version of the AHCA for reconciliation in the Senate (presumably). The CBO’s latest score for the AHCA showed that the rollback under the 2020 deadline would save $665 billion over the next decade, with the overall bill coming in with a cost savings of just $119 billion. Rolling back the end date will have a big impact on whether the overall package results in enough savings to qualify under reconciliation, and there’s not a lot of room for error.

In order to make that work, the Senate may have to keep some tax components in place, which won’t sit well with conservatives. And those aren’t the only components that may remain, according to a less optimistic look from the Washington Post.

Or they could employ the Reid Option and, you know, fulfill their oft-stated promise to actually repeal ObamaCare.

PHILIP KLEIN: Not all leaks are created equal, but what James Comey did was still a leak.

RON RADOSH: Is Trump About to Reverse Obama’s Cuba Policy?

LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE: Police groped 900 Georgia students in intimate areas during warrantless drug search, lawsuit claims.

The human rights group, Southern Center for Human Rights, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the students against the Worth County sheriff over an April 14 incident when 40 officers came into the school with no advance notice, KTLA-TV reported.

According to the lawsuit, the officers put the school on lockdown for four hours, during which they ordered students out of the classrooms and into the hallways. Students were allegedly then forced to stand spread eagle against the lockers while officers conducted intimate searches of male and female students, including touching the breast and genital areas, KTLA reported.

The lawsuit mentions one girl in particular, using only her initials K.A., who was searched by Deputy Brandi Whiddon. The lawsuit goes into disturbing detail about how in-depth Whiddon’s search of K.A. was.

And:

In a telephone interview with WALB, Worthy County Sheriff Jeff Hobby said that the warrantless searches were legal because school administrators were present when it occurred.

It was not clarified whether or not school administrators present had agreed to the searches, however, interim Worth County Superintendent Lawrence Walters denied that the deputies had the approval to conduct the search from school administrators, nor does he condone the actions of the deputies.

“Under no circumstances did we approve touching any students,” Walters told WALB.

According to Walters, Hobby had told him in March that a search of the school was going to be conducted after spring break.

“We did not give permission but they didn’t ask for permission, he just said, the sheriff, that he was going to do it after spring break,” Walters said.

Terrible move by the sheriff’s department if true, but if Walters hadn’t given permission for the search, why did he allow it to go forward?

WINNING: First U.S. Natural Gas Shipped to Poland.

Poland just took a symbolic step forward in wresting itself from Russia’s energy dominance.

On Thursday, the first ever liquified natural gas shipment from the United States arrived in Poland, a landmark of sorts in Europe’s continuing drive to diversify the sources of its energy imports. The gas came from an export terminal in Louisiana that was first out of the gate to exploit the U.S. shale boom to supply the global market.

For Warsaw, the first delivery is fruit of new energy infrastructure that allows it to reduce near total dependence on Russian imports, following closely in step with neighboring Lithuania’s move to open its own floating LNG terminal.

This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would be allowed to happen if we had a President in thrall to the Kremlin.

‘HUNGER’ OUGHT TO BE INDUCEMENT ENOUGH: Georgia Tells Able-Bodied Food Stamp Recipients to Work for ‘Greater Good’

RIP: Glenne Headly, ‘Dick Tracy’ and ‘Lonesome Dove’ Star, Dies at 63.

I’d been a fan since Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, when she went toe-to-toe with bigger stars Michael Caine and Steve Martin — and held her own with ease.

YOU STAY CLASSY, DEMOCRATS! Senator Gillibrand on Democrats: ‘If we’re not helping people, we should go the fuck home.’

EVERY TIME I THINK I’M OUT, THEY PULL ME BACK IN: US Navy Looking At Bringing Retired Carrier USS Kitty Hawk Out Of Mothballs.

Certainly pulling a carrier directly back into service would go a long way to bridging America’s “carrier gap” and would make President’s Trump’s demand for a 12 supercarrier fleet much more obtainable. Currently the Navy has 10 operational supercarriers, and with the USS Gerald Ford’s (CVN-78) entry into service date murky at best, that number may not increase for years to come.

Even just the possibility of Kitty Hawk returning to the fleet is likely music to the ears of those in Mayport, Florida, who have been begging the US Navy to return a supercarrier to the naval station there. The facility was never upgraded to support nuclear propulsion, so after the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) was retired in 2007, it has been without a resident supercarrier, which hurt the local economy and also has strategic implications as well. The Kitty Hawk would be an ideal candidate to call the base home without the need for major infrastructure investments.

Left unsaid? Finding enough combat-ready planes and pilots to fill that flight deck.

IT’S A MYSTERY: Jarrett ‘Not Sure’ Why Obamacare ‘Ever Became a Political Issue’

WES PRUDEN: Mr. Comey’s not very good day.

The Donald was revealed again as a man who talks too much, with a gift for the memorable insult, the demand to have his ego stroked. But didn’t we already know that? What we know now about James Comey, only suspected earlier, is that he’s what the British call “wet,” a wimp under pressure. He offered evidence at last of collusion, but it was only evidence of his eagerness to collude with his own emotions. He was incapable of standing up to Donald Trump, beyond the instinctive deference everyone accords a president.

He’s guided by his feelings, which perhaps explains why he has become a late hero of the present age. He testified that he “felt” “directed” to terminate the investigation into the activities of Mike Flynn. “I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, ‘I hope this.’ I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”

One of the most telling moments of the day was an exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a Democrat, asking the question that Republicans have raised over the weeks of rumor and not much real news. When he “felt” that Mr. Trump was asking him to throttle his investigation, she asked: “Why didn’t you stop, and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong?’ “

“That’s a great question,” Mr. Comey replied. “Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.”

Comey’s testimony goes a long way towards explaining his erratic behavior throughout 2016.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: ‘Drone Hunting Drone’ Developed By Airspace Systems.

As drones become more and more prevalent in the U.S. and elsewhere, a California company is developing a system it says is a “complete drone security system” that will meet threats ranging from an out-of-control UAV to potential terrorist attacks.

San Leandro-based Airspace Systems has developed what it calls a “drone hunting drone” as part of that system, according to a report appearing in Forbes. The aircraft are designed to detect, track and deter or capture enemy drones. Jaz Banga, one of the founders of the company, said the aircraft do not rely on electronic jamming for deterrence. “We actually physically intercept the drone,” he told Forbes.

The system is designed for security in cities and suburbs considered high-density areas. The drones, which operate autonomously, use a Kevlar module to scoop their targets out of the air, rather than shoot them down, and detonate any explosives that the enemy aircraft might carry. It can also deploy a parachute if a soft landing is needed.

And eliminating a threat via 12-gauge is generally frowned upon in urban areas.

ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY: 437,000 Deportation Cases Backlogged; Delayed for up to 5 Years.

THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG WAR: FDA wants opioid painkiller pulled off market.

If Opana ER sounds familiar, it’s because it was the drug of choice for many addicts at the center of an HIV outbreak in Indiana in 2015.

The drug is about twice as powerful as OxyContin, another often abused opioid. Opana ER, oxymorphone hydrochloride, is used to manage pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment for which alternatives aren’t strong enough, according to the manufacturer’s website. The FDA approved it for this use in 2006.

“My comment is ‘wow,’ ” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of opioid policy research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. “This is pretty exciting. This is big news.”

Though it is a “good sign” for the fight against opioid abuse, he said, “Opana is not the only one that needs to come off the market.”

How long before deadly knockoffs hit the streets?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Mr. Nunes Went to Washington.

I live in rural Fresno County at the juncture of three congressional districts. All three are currently represented by Portuguese-Americans from farming families and from both parties: Nunes (22nd District); my own representative, David Valadao (Republican, 21st District); and Rep. Jim Costa (Democrat, 16th District). All three keep getting re-elected for their accessibility, informality and commitment to the traditional values of their districts.

Nunes became a controversial public figure nationally when he revealed that the surveillance of foreign governments by American intelligence agencies may have resulted in the inappropriate monitoring of members of the Trump transition team — and perhaps some private citizens, too — and the unmasking of their identities.

What followed this disclosure could have mirror-imaged the script of director Frank Capra’s classic film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

It all started when Nunes said he had received unsolicited information of wrongdoing from one or more whistleblowers. Unfortunately for Nunes, he approached complaints of improper surveillance in a Central Valley sort of way (but a most un-Washington manner).

Instead of the usual pattern of leaking the whistleblower’s information to friendly media (and, of course, denying that he was the source of the leaks), Nunes went ballistic — and, heaven forbid, public.

Certain things simply aren’t done in Washington — but do read the whole thing.

MICHAEL VAN DER GALIEN: Britain’s Election Disaster: Tories Lose Majority.

JAM SESSION: The Navy Has a Plan to Make Sure Its Carriers Can Crush Russia and China’s Air Defenses.

OH: French-German TV network shelves documentary that revealed European funding for antisemitic groups.

The French-German broadcaster ARTE has reportedly shelved a documentary on antisemitism because it doesn’t bash Israel enough. ARTE and WDR, the publicly-funded TV networks that commissioned the 90-minute documentary, have decided to confine the film to the archives, calling it “unbalanced”. “You can’t make a film on antisemitism without saying every three minutes that the Palestinians are the victims of Israelis,” the co-producer of the documentary, Joachim Schröder, told The Jerusalem Post.

The documentary makers reject the objections publicised by the broadcasters as eyewash. “It’s not about balance,” Schröder was quoted saying in the German newspaper Bild, “How can a film on Antisemitism be ‘balanced’? ARD with offices in Strasbourg is obviously fearful of calling out the Jew-hatred in France and Germany.” Both ARTE and WDR are financed by German taxpayers.

It’s been memory-holed along with the Khalidi Tape.

JUST WHAT I NEEDED: The post-Comey Day Edition of Liz Sheld’s morning brief.