INDEED: Pass the SALT (Cap): Red-State Americans Shouldn’t Have to Subsidize Lavish Blue-State Social Programs.

MUST-SEE TV:

This is amazing. Great work @ShutupLyle

pic.twitter.com/OSRQ4ZkaYi

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 21, 2025

LET’S HOPE THE SECOND STAGE AVOIDS ANOTHER EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM:

SpaceX’s Starship is expected to launch its Ninth Test Flight.
Here’s what you need to know:
Launch Window: Tuesday, May 27, Time: TBD
Sonic Booms: Possible in Brownsville, South Padre Island, and Port Isabel
Stay Informed: https://t.co/nnELGs4q0F#SpaceX #StarshipLaunch #BTXRGV pic.twitter.com/In9w9OEG8r

— City of Brownsville (@BTxRGV) May 20, 2025

“BABBLING.”

Trump uses his remarkable abilities once again as he convinces the Democrats to wholeheartedly support white genocide.

Every single time. https://t.co/hGpf9vrYat

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) May 21, 2025

More:

The South African Minister of Agriculture confirmed in the Oval Office today that white farmers are being killed and that it’s a serious problem. Yet, this is what CNN puts out. pic.twitter.com/6M731FOIGs

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 21, 2025

Maybe these folks should try reading the news.

BECAUSE YOU’LL TRAVEL WHEN AND WHERE YOU’RE ALLOWED TO: Why Are Leftists So Obsessed With Train Travel?

WELL, GOOD: World moves away from ‘green gospel of scarcity’ and now embraces ‘energy abundance,’ experts say.

This shift away from the de-growth fervor that was popular for over a decade was the overriding topic at the RealClear Energy Future Forum Monday. Panels of experts in engineering, data centers, mining, oil and gas, and the electricity grid discussed how this change of views has impacted various aspects of the world’s energy picture.

“I think we’ve gone from scarcity to abundance — from the green gospel of scarcity and its Trinitarian ESG god — to the promised land of abundance guided by the values of affordability and reliability,” David DesRosiers, conference co-chair and founder of the RealClear Foundation, said.

Mark Mills, conference co-chair and director of the National Center for Energy Analytics, discussed the role of increasing energy demand as a result of the growth of data centers and artificial intelligence. While many tech companies, such as Microsoft, embraced net-zero goals, Mills explained that the energy demands of data centers forced companies to contend with the reality that although fashionable in some circles, intermittent wind and solar power are not adequate.

“Eventually, reality rears its ugly head, and we recalibrate around what reality permits,” Mills said.

It generally takes concerted government action to create a shortage of things that people want.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING A SPA DAY: ‘Manifesto’ of IVF Clinic Bomber Shows Him to Be an ‘Anti-Life’ Nihilist.

HMM: GOP hard-liners threatening late revolt over megabill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing a last-minute rebellion from conservatives on Republicans’ megabill, with a deal on a key tax deduction with blue-state Republicans and a lack of progress on settling other key provisions frustrating hard-liners.

“I think actually we’re further away from a deal because that SALT cap increase, I think, upset a lot of conservatives,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the House Freedom Caucus chair, said in an interview on Newsmax on Wednesday morning, referring to the state-and-local-tax deduction. “The conservatives are pushing for some balancing spending reductions.”

Johnson signaled Tuesday he wanted to call a vote on the bill as soon as Wednesday evening. A person with direct knowledge of the talks who was granted anonymity to describe them candidly said “there is currently a zero percent chance this thing moves today,” saying leaders “walked away from a deal last night and even rolled back progress made over the weekend.”

In a brief interview Wednesday morning, Johnson said “there is a chance for a vote today” when asked about the comments by Harris and other conservatives. He said he continues to talk with the conservative holdouts.

Johnson and a group of blue-state Republicans reached a critical but tentative deal Tuesday night to boost the cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction to $40,000 in the GOP domestic-policy bill that is at the center of President Donald Trump’s agenda on taxes, energy and the border. Conservatives have strongly opposed further increasing the SALT cap.

Trump — and congressional Republicans — need a win on Capitol Hill more than any single policy item.

OPTIMUS: Musk’s ‘Biggest Product of All Time’ Will Do Your Dishes. “A new humanoid robot demo just dropped — and the most impressive part is how boring it is. Following verbal, natural-language instructions, Tesla’s battery-powered Optimus can take out the trash, sweep up a mess, and even tear a single paper towel off the roll with eerily human precision.”

CDR SALAMANDER: Preparation of the Seabed Battlefield.

“Not subtle,” he writes:

If the PRC wants to pressure Taiwan economically, it needs to be able to threaten its undersea infrastructure as much as that on the surface. To do that, you need to locate it so you can put it in a target set.

If you need to one day defend the approaches to Taiwan, you need detailed knowledge of the seafloor topography in the approaches to Taiwan, as you do for the beaches and roads on Taiwan.

That is what she is doing.

It appears that there are still some China Doves out there, so put this in your growing stack of evidence that—regardless of how much you wish it were not true—the PRC is doing all it can for conflict over Taiwan.

More at the link.

FIRST, THEY’D HAVE TO GIVE UP THEIR CRAZY CAT LADY DEMO: Ya Know, Things Would Be a Lot Better if Dems Would Just Stop Electing Lunatics.

THE EV BUBBLE CONTINUES DEFLATING: Honda Bucks Trend And Rolls Back EV Plans In Favor Of Hybrids. “Earlier this week, Honda said in Japan that it will abandon its goal of having 30% of its vehicles go electric by 2030, citing a ‘slowdown in the expansion of the EV market due to several factors, including changes in environmental regulations.’ As I mentioned above, that so-called slowdown is just a perceived slowdown being made by Honda to serve its purposes.”

I’m not sure what writer Peter Lyon means by that. Honda’s purpose is to manufacture vehicles people want to buy, correct?

MAHA: Kennedy’s Call-Out of WHO’s Shadow Partners.

HOWEVER MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA…: NBC News Is Quietly Rewriting Its Own Reporting on the Gaza War to Vilify Israel.

The most recent example came buried in a news report that casually claimed Israel had unilaterally broken a ceasefire with Hamas — a striking departure from what the same outlet had previously reported.

This is part of NBC’s increasingly disturbing trend: a pattern in which its journalists appear to be reshaping the facts in Gaza — not because new evidence has emerged, but because the old facts no longer serve the narrative.

And these aren’t obscure details NBC somehow missed. These are facts the news outlet had already acknowledged. Now, they’re being walked back — replaced with a storyline that casts Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim, resulting in some of the most distorted coverage of the conflict in recent months.

Among the issues NBC has fumbled most egregiously is the temporary ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, struck in January 2025 and that expired in March — after Hamas refused to move forward with the next stage of the deal, which would have required it to release the remaining Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7.

At the time, NBC got it right. On March 1, its headline declared the “Gaza ceasefire [was] in doubt,” citing the expiration of the deal and the lack of ongoing negotiations. The subheading noted that Israel wanted to extend the truce — though, tellingly, NBC left out that Hamas’ refusal stemmed from the hostage issue.

But within weeks, that reporting had been scrubbed from memory.

…it isn’t enough.

MUST-SEE TV: Rubio Makes Van Hollen Look Like a Fool During Senate Hearing.

NOT GOOD:

Trump’s shipbuilding agenda is sinking.

I returned this week from shipyard tours in California to a flood of calls and DMs from DC and none of the news is good.

Friday marks 45 days since the president signed the Executive Order mandating a full shipbuilding review in 45 days.… pic.twitter.com/UAt84Zz0gx

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) May 20, 2025

Excerpts:

Friday marks 45 days since the president signed the Executive Order mandating a full shipbuilding review in 45 days. So far, only one Cabinet Secretary has shown any urgency, and only in the past few days.

I pray I’m missing something, but sources inside every relevant department say otherwise. There’s no indication @SecDuffy, @KristiNoem, or @SecDef are prioritizing this effort.
…
The acting head of MARAD is a West Point classmate of Mark Esper—yes, the same Esper who helped auction off the Army’s watercraft fleet. Sources claim he’s undermining both Trump’s and Esper’s maritime goals.
…
On the Navy side, there’s no serious effort underway to reorganize the 83,000-person shipbuilding & repair enterprise. The critical SUPSHIP AGM role is still up in the air.

No admirals have been fired. No CNO appointed. The acting CNO is offering nothing but bureaucratic word salad.
…
No one with real, hands-on experience building commercial ships at world-class yards has been hired.

Finally, after a promising bipartisan start, several top maritime leaders are breaking ranks publicly voicing concern about last-minute changes made to the bill and there are rumors that Mark Kelly’s strong anti-Trump rhetoric could sink the effort.
…
Silver lining? Trump & JD are, by all accounts, more interested in shipbuilding lately, not less.

Trump has an awful lot on his plate, but he needs to reiterate what he expects and demand results — or else.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: ‘NORM!’ — Farewell to Television Legend George Wendt. “George Wendt did something much more than become famous from ‘Cheers’ — he turned his character into an icon. His entrance into the bar to the shouts of ‘NORM!’ became the most anticipated moment of each episode. Thanks to streaming and YouTube, those moments will live on.”

YES, THEY SHOULD: Shouldn’t the IRS Look at Why the Tax-Exempt Brady Gun Control Org (Allegedly) Offered a Former NRA President Millions to Stop Promoting Gun Rights?

The allegation says the offer was made in 2018. According to language in the lawsuit, Hammer immediately reported the offer to then-Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

“This is not the kind of offer a tax exempt organization should be making under any circumstances,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “First and foremost, nobody’s First Amendment rights should ever be for sale, and secondly, the nature of this allegation almost appears as though the gun control group was offering Mrs. Hammer a bribe to walk away from an issue to which she had dedicated most of her adult life.”

Hammer’s legal action involves an apparent contract dispute between her and the NRA.

“We have absolutely no interest in, nor are we taking any position on, Mrs. Hammer’s lawsuit,” Gottlieb stated. “Our sole interest is in this apparent attempt by a wealthy gun prohibition lobbying organization to essentially silence one of the nation’s most respected and effective voices in support of Second Amendment rights.

I don’t know if this actually happened, but I do know that lefties will silence the opposition whenever possible.

ICYMI: Resuming Control of Gaza Is a Terrible Idea. But What the Hell Else Can Israel Do?

GOOD: Hegseth announces accountability review of Afghanistan withdrawal.

Thirteen service members and about 170 Afghans were killed in an Aug. 26, 2021 suicide bomb attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate. An investigation into the incident later found that a Marine general wanted to close the gate on Aug. 25, but an Army general decided to keep it open until Aug. 27 to allow British troops more time to finish their evacuation effort.

“Over the last three months, the Department has been engaged in a review of this catastrophic event in our military’s history,” Hegseth wrote in Tuesday’s memo. “I have concluded that we need to conduct a comprehensive review to ensure that accountability for this event is met and that the complete picture is provided to the American people.”

Chief Pentagon Spokesman and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell will lead the review, which will look into previous investigations to “analyze the decision making that led to one of America’s darkest and deadliest international moments,” the memo says.

“This team will ensure ACCOUNTABILITY to the American people and the warfighters of our great Nation,” the memo says.

Maybe they should start by looking into who in the White House actually called the shots.

LEFTIES LOVE EUTHANASIA: Canada Might Begin Euthanizing Kids Without Parental Consent.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space Force official: Commercial satellites can do a lot more than we thought.

Now, the military is starting to use a commercial model for missions that, at least today, lack any meaningful commercial market. In these cases, the Space Force and the NRO must go out and pay a company to build an entire fleet of satellites that will exclusively serve the government. But rather than dictating stringent requirements and micromanaging every phase of the program, as the Space Force and NRO have typically done, they’re going with a more hands-off approach.

This change in procurement strategy is yielding results, officials said last week in a hearing convened by the House Armed Services Committee. Numerous companies are now manufacturing satellite buses, the basic chassis that hosts instruments, sensors, and payloads tailored for a range of missions. Most of them come from SpaceX, which mass-produces satellites for its Starlink broadband network. But there are others, and the market is richer than many US officials thought.

“We’re finding that commercial buses are not only available, but they’re also capable of doing a lot of what our missions require, and they’re available at a much lower cost than going off and developing a brand-new bus,” Scolese said.

It’s amazing what private enterprise can accomplish when Uncle Sam stays out of the way, but only to Uncle Sam.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Another Blue City Luxury High-Rise Goes Belly-Up.

HIT’EM WHERE IT HURTS: Harvard loses another $60 million in grants over antisemitism.

IF YOU LOOK AROUND THE WEST WING AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THE SUCKER IS…

Been reading Original Sin the past few days and the funniest part so far is this bit about Andrew Bates: pic.twitter.com/N4BF0B0KXH

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) May 20, 2025

…then you’re the sucker.