MISSISSIPPI RISING: Look South for progress in reading achievement.

In 2003, Mississippi was worst in the nation, next to Washington, D.C., for fourth-grade reading on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), Daly writes. Now, Mississippi ranks fifth. “When the Urban Institute adjusted national test results for student demographics, Mississippi ranked first in fourth-grade reading and math, fourth in eighth-grade reading and first in math.

Black students in dirt-poor, low-spending Mississippi outperform black students elsewhere by large margins, Daly writes. “The average black student in Mississippi performed about 1.5 grade levels ahead of the average black student in Wisconsin,” which “spends about 35 percent more per pupil.”

The success of Mississippi and other Southern states “have been dutifully and perfunctorily name-checked in news stories,” Daly writes, but he sees “a reluctance among national voices to extol Deep South examples as worthy of emulation.”

That last bit speaks volumes about our elites putting snobbery over results.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

We have the hardest working President in US history and the laziest Republican Congress in US history.

Something has to give.

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) May 14, 2025

HEH:

I love it here 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/TBzzcHpNdf

— M2 (@Amer1can_Barbie) May 14, 2025

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Trump admin reverses Biden’s gas stove ban, take aim at climate-inspired start-stop car tech.

The Trump administration has slashed regulations concerning standards over the width of shower heads, bans on a swath of gas stoves, as well as other regulations for standards ruling over other household appliances that were imposed by the Department of Energy. This also comes as EPA head Lee Zeldin is taking aim at start-stop technology in cars, or the system that automatically turns off a car when it is stopped at a light to save gas.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Energy Department took sweeping actions on Monday to slash dozens of regulations for household appliances from dishwashers to dryers that were issued under former President Joe Biden. The regulations included restricted sales on certain types of gas stoves, faucets, shower heads, and microwaves.

“It should not be the government’s place to decide what kind of appliances you or your restaurants or your businesses can buy,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright commented about the regulations. “Everybody wants clean air and wants to lower their energy costs and run their factories good as they can. The big hand of government doesn’t actually help that process at all.”

Indeed.

KING KLAUS I: The Unraveling of the King of Davos.

I tried to find a juicy excerpt but this WSJ report is a longer one with juicy details all the way through — so the link goes to a non-paywalled version.

MEXICO: Mayoral Candidate Murdered During Livestream.

LONG PAST TIME: Time to Fix the Navy’s Frigate Problem.

Most recent reports on the construction of the first U.S. Navy Constellation-class frigate are grim and filled with unwelcome news.

The first ship of the class is only 10% complete despite years of construction. The design of the ship has not been completed, and changes continue, no doubt accounting for rising costs and lengthening delays in construction.

Senior leaders at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) continue to blame industry for these problems, industry blames the Navy, and Congress penalizes the program in response.

While U.S. designs like the DDG-51 have been a “gold standard” for survivability, the Navy must strike a balance between ability to resist and sustain damage and rapid construction, perhaps across multiple ship flights, to field warships in needed numbers.

The current outlook for frigates is questionable, and does not look to improve soon. Still, the frigate is essential to the U.S. Navy force structure. The fleet has become increasingly imbalanced with more high-end ships like the DDG-51 used for low-end missions like counter-piracy and show the flag port visits.

Navies always find a need for larger numbers of smaller warships in wartime. It’s time to fix the frigate, and produce it in numbers, even at the expense of the larger DDG, and pair all manned combatant ships with unmanned “sidekicks” that add additional firepower and more options for distributed capacity.

The Navy couldn’t take a proven design like the FREMM without twisting it into something that can’t come in anywhere close to on time or on budget.

THE BIGGEST STORY EVERYBODY MISSED, A THREAD:

🧵 I went looking for the actual text of the EO on prescription drug prices since no one is actually linking that and I have to do everything around here and I found this that was issued on Friday and I missed it.

I cannot stress how important this is.https://t.co/wuOpqoDjjt pic.twitter.com/d4LUmR6YuK

— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) May 12, 2025

A few bullet points:

What does this do? The most important part is that every agency has 365 days to list out all the regulations that have a criminal penalty and then that report has to be made public.

All future regs have to state criminal offenses clearly. Mens rea is back on the menu! The default will be to require mens rea.

This EO is tremendously important and will have direct, and hopefully immediate, affect on more or less everyone in America. And did you hear anything about it? Anything at all?

Read the whole thing.

ROBERT SPENCER: Trump Shocks the World — Again. “In many ways, Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa is as momentous, and could be more momentous, than his first-term overtures to Kim Jong Un. The two meetings come from the same wellsprings: Trump is attempting to break longstanding logjams and end the status quo that the foreign policy establishment, both inside the U.S. and elsewhere, had come to take for granted.”

“WEAK” IS THE WORD:

Prior to his day in court, George Santos was expelled from Congress for lying.

Something all politicians do, but both Democrats and Republicans supported tossing him.

Republicans have body cam footage of a House Democrat assaulting a federal agent and they’re unwilling to pull…

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 14, 2025

SAY ANYTHING: Wait, What? New Jersey ‘Scientists’ Say ‘Gun Violence’ is a Side Effect of Poor Dental Health.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: New Beard, Same Buttigieg. “The beard jokes write themselves, but I’m not here to take cheap shots at Buttigieg; I’m here to take high-class, data-rich cheap shots.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

Just before the Starship flight next week, I will give a company talk explaining the Mars game plan in Starbase, Texas, that will also be live-streamed on 𝕏 https://t.co/cxztHrK285

— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 13, 2025

I’d just add that the New Space Race would only be half as exciting without SpaceX’s unprecedented transparency for a launch company.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: 9 Times Jake Tapper Dismissed Biden’s Decline, Claimed He’s ‘Sharp Mentally.’

Coming soon: The Zero Times Jake Tapper Admitted to Helping the White House Cover Up Biden’s Decline and Won Back Some Public Trust.

OR MAYBE THEY JUST DON’T WANT THEIR LAND AND LIVELIHOODS CONFISCATED: South Africa’s President Says Whites Who Go to America are ‘Cowards.’

HE’S RUNNING:

🚨 LA Times: Governor Newsom calls for walking back free healthcare for illegal aliens in California as costs for coverage have exceeded billions more than what was initially projected & the state faces likely challenging economic times ahead.https://t.co/iQKzI8KWah

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 14, 2025

Yesterday: Gavin Newsom calls on California cities to ban homeless encampments.

WE START SAVING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, THAT MUCH IS CERTAIN: If Congress actually cancels the SLS rocket, what happens next?

The most likely answer is that NASA turns to an old but successful playbook: COTS. This stands for Commercial Orbital Transportation System and was created by NASA two decades ago to develop cargo transport systems (eventually this became SpaceX’s Dragon and Northrop’s Cygnus spacecraft) for the International Space Station. Since then, NASA has adopted this same model for crew services as well as other commercial programs.

Under the COTS model, NASA provides funding and guidance to private companies to develop their own spacecraft, rockets, and services, and then buys those at a “market” rate.

The idea of a Lunar COTS program is not new. NASA employees explored the concept in a research paper a decade ago, finding that “a future (Lunar) COTS program has the great potential of enabling development of cost-effective, commercial capabilities and establishing a thriving cislunar economy which will lead the way to an economical and sustainable approach for future human missions to Mars.”

Sources indicate NASA would go to industry and seek an “end-to-end” solution for lunar missions. That is, an integrated plan to launch astronauts from Earth, land them on the Moon, and return them to Earth. One of the bidders would certainly be SpaceX, with its Starship vehicle already having been validated during the Artemis III mission. Crews could launch from Earth either in Dragon or Starship. Blue Origin is the other obvious bidder. The company might partner with Lockheed Martin to commercialize the Orion spacecraft or use the crew vehicle it is developing internally.

Other companies could also participate. The point is that NASA would seek to buy astronaut transportation to the Moon, just as it already is doing with cargo and science experiments through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

This is the way.

I also hope that Congress uses the savings from SLS to restore some of NASA’s science funding, particularly the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

IT WAS A CRISIS BY DESIGN: Expert Highlights Illegal Alien Gang’s Threat to Rural Americans.

SURPRISING TO WHOM?

According to our analysis, America is splitting into two different economies and markets: one conservative, the other liberal. Not only that, the MAGA economy is doing surprisingly well https://t.co/lz1sxymSCt

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 14, 2025

You’d think that a magazine called The Economist would understand something about economics — but only if you hadn’t read The Economist in the last 15 years or so.

THE TRADE WAR: Trump tariffs have little impact on prices so far, defying grim forecasts.

Prices climbed at an unexpectedly slow pace last month, offering a boost to President Donald Trump, whose aggressive trade policies have sparked fears of a resurgence in inflation.

The Labor Department on Tuesday reported that prices rose at an annual rate of 2.3 percent, the smallest increase since early 2021. While price growth in so-called core sectors of the economy — which exclude volatile food and energy costs — remained elevated at 2.8 percent, April’s Consumer Price Index contained only scant evidence that Trump’s tariffs have meaningfully driven up the cost of living.

Kudos to Politico for framing the story this way.

Now then — what will they do with all those experts who provided the grim forecasts?

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: ‘The Issue Is Never the Issue’: How the Commies Dupe Their Dopes Into Protests and Violence.

THE NEW DARK AGE: Colorado’s forced march to energy uncertainty.

“Energy isn’t a luxury,” Colorado Springs Utilities CEO Travas Deal recently told my Power Gab co-host Jake Fogleman and me. His concern? The direction of Colorado’s energy policy—away from affordable, reliable baseload power and toward costly, intermittent wind and solar.

He’s right. Reliable power is not optional. It’s a matter of life and death. We saw that in Texas during 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, where 246 people died amid rolling blackouts that nearly triggered a catastrophic grid collapse.

We’re seeing blackouts in Colorado, too. At the same time, the cost of power in Colorado is skyrocketing. Residential rates have increased over 85% since 2003, higher than inflation.

Yet Democrat Governor Jared Polis is doubling down on this dangerous trajectory to enshrine his unrealistic campaign promise of a grid powered by 100% “renewables” into state law. A draft bill circulated at the Capitol earlier this year mandates a 95% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 and 100% by 2040. This far exceeds the ambitious targets codified in 2019: 80% carbon emissions reduction by 2030.

The only way to meet this emission goal is to shut down the remaining coal and natural gas baseload, blanket the state with industrial wind turbines, utility-scale solar installations, and industrial batteries, force Coloradans into electric vehicles, require heat pumps, and drain Coloradans’ bank accounts.

That last part is key.

Previously: ‘F’ Is for Democrat: Colorado’s Collapse Under One-Party Rule.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: If Dems Want to Act Like Children They Should Be Put in Jailed Timeouts. “Honestly, these people are all lucky that Trump isn’t the vindictive destroyer of political enemies that they keep making him out to be. His administration is responding within the bounds of the law. If he wanted to become extra-judicial like his enemies are, he’s in a position to really make things difficult for them.”

IT REALLY IS THIS SIMPLE:

"Our sources lied to us." Okay, but most voters didn't have "sources." They had eyes. And they were told brazen lies by people who also had eyes.

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 13, 2025

Related:

Cranky old news editor from the '50s to cub reporter: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

Seasoned DC pro, circa 2025: "They lied to me but I didn't check it out until the election was over and I could cash in on a book deal." https://t.co/jiu4xKg4H6

— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) May 13, 2025

Finally: Watching Jake Tapper cash in on his own professional malfeasance is probably the most Beltway thing ever.

For now, anyway.

THIS ONE FLEW UNDER EVERYBODY’S RADAR YESTERDAY: Trump Giving the New Syrian Boss Rope to Hang Himself With…or Not.

This is a gobsmacking move.

An ‘Only Trump could do this’ move.

As always, ever so interesting how it all came together, with Al-Sharaa seeking out the US, not vice versa. And the Syrian representative spun a dream of a Trump Tower in Damascus one day.

…Speaking at an investment forum on Tuesday, Trump said that he planned to lift sanctions on Syria after holding talks with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “to give them a chance at greatness”.

…Sharaa, who is keen to normalise relations with the US, has reportedly offered Trump a number of sweeteners including the Trump tower in Damascus, a demilitarised zone by the Golan Heights that would strengthen Israel’s claim to the territory it has occupied since 1967, diplomatic recognition of Israel, and a profit-sharing deal on resources similar to the Ukraine minerals deal.

The idea to offer Trump a piece of real estate with his name on it in the heart of Damascus was thought up by a US Republican senator, who passed on the idea to Sharaa’s team.

I can’t imagine who the senator was, but I’ll bet his last name might have something to do with a cracker often used for sweet pie crusts…just sayin’. What a hoot.

Trump will talk to anyone who sincerely wants to talk to him. It’s like his magic power.

If it works – and it’s all on the Syrians – it’s going to plug several gaping holes using available assets.

Read the whole thing.