TYLER O’NEIL: The True Force Behind the ‘Censorship Industrial Complex.’

Benjamin Weingarten, editor-at-large at RealClearInvestigations, also attributed “the leading edge of all the attacks on Donald Trump as an avatar for tens of millions of dissenting Americans” to the administrative state and the “deep state” within it. (The “deep state” refers to bureaucrats who oppose the agenda of the duly-elected president.) These entrenched bureaucrats “felt most threatened that [Trump] would upend the uniparty foreign policy blob,” he said.

“You also had the tech companies identify that what happened in 2016 could never happen again,” Weingarten said, referring to both the Brexit referendum and Trump’s election victory.

“They kind of used the pretext of Russian mis-, dis-, and malinformation, grafting a Cold War paradigm” to define a new enemy—Americans who disagree with their agenda, he said. “We are the enemy that’s engaging in wrongthink that threatens to undermine their power.”

After 2016, “Big Tech platforms became perceived as—rather than vehicles for free and open discourse—now they needed to be weaponized as assets of this security state, essentially.”

And they were weaponized. But then Elon Musk took one of their weapons away and now he must be made to pay for that.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Everything We Thought We Knew About Elections Is Changing.

IF THE EXPERTS ARE BAFFLED BY THIS, IN WHAT WAY COULD THEY POSSIBLY BE CONSIDERED EXPERTS? Biden DOJ Slow-Walks ‘Slam Dunk’ Case Against Man Who Allegedly Tried To Kill Justice Kavanaugh, Baffling Experts.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Trumphobic Loons’ Panic Knob Goes to 11. “Trumpphobia is a simple sell to the easily controlled, victimhood-hungry, blue-haired truffle hogs who eagerly embrace their own Trumpphobic tiz-woz and desperately search for reasons to believe Trump is the anti — uh — you know, the thing.”

DON’T GET COCKY BUT DO POP SOME CORN: Late-Night Panic: Biden Could Lose to Trump!

Now, with the Biden-Trump rematch heading our way, some of late-night TV’s biggest stars are getting nervous.

Some might say panicky. Why?

The polls suggest the former President might just beat the current President come November. We’re a long way from November, but at the moment the late-night crowd isn’t happy with the state of the race.

Let’s start with Stephen Colbert, who literally joined a Biden fundraiser late last month fearing a second Trump term. The far-Left host is trying to drag President Biden over the finish line one more time.

To do so, he’s demanding Israel stop fighting back against the ghouls who tortured, raped and killed more than a thousand innocent Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. That plays into Biden’s hands, of course. The Democrat is losing his base for supporting Israel six months into the current war.

Remember, Colbert hosts a comedy talk show. He’s not a pundit or an advisor to Team Biden. He just looks and sounds like one, routinely abandoning any pretense of comedy in the process.

His fellow late-night Leftist Seth Meyers is even worse on that front.

Hard to believe — but Christian Toto has the receipts.

OH, THANK GOODNESS: D.C. Is Safe: Buttigieg Can Walk His Dog.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The rich are getting second passports, citing risk of instability.

The wealthy are building these “passport portfolios” — collections of second, and even third or fourth, citizenships — in case they need to flee their home country. Henley & Partners, a law firm that specializes in high-net-worth citizenships, said Americans now outnumber every other nationality when it comes to securing alternative residences or added citizenships.

“The U.S. is still a great country, it’s still an amazing passport,” said Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at Henley & Partners. “But if I’m wealthy, I would like to hedge against levels of volatility and uncertainty. The idea of diversification is well understood by wealthy individuals around what they invest. It makes no sense to have one country of citizenship and residence when I have the ability to actually diversify that aspect of my life as well.”

Recent high-profile examples of second citizenships include billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, who added a citizenship in New Zealand, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who applied for citizenship in Cyprus.

They’re just partying like it’s 1939.

I ALWAYS HAD FAITH IT COULD GET WORSE: When You Thought Fani Willis’ Office Couldn’t Get Any Worse, Here Comes a Sleazy Investigator.

I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB: DeSantis signs law targeting package and retail thieves.

The new law would make it so any package stolen that is valued between $40 and $750 is a third degree felony. It also makes it a second degree felony if the property stolen is taken from more than 20 homes.

Additionally, the legislation establishes a first degree misdemeanor if the property stolen is valued at less than $40.

Rep. Bob Rommel, R-Naples, sponsored the bill, HB 549. Sen. Jay Trumbull, R-Panama City, carried the Senate version.

DeSantis emphasized during a press conference that Florida is a law and order state that proudly punishes crime, particularly retail theft.

As a result, they’ll get less of it to punish.

BIDENFLATION: Now Is When We Sit in the Dark and Eat the Canned Meats.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: David Hogg Group Hit With Allegations Over Spending Practices and Policies. “The conservative sites allege that the group spent ‘only about $263,000 on its stated mission of electing candidates from Generation Z to office combined with donations to other Democrat Party committees and groups—and instead spent more than $1.4 million on disbursements to themselves for payroll and to political consulting firms and legal fees, in addition to travel and entertainment expenses like hotels, flights, and meals.'”

IT’S A FAIR QUESTION: What the Hell Was Tucker Carlson Thinking?

EXCLUSIVE: Transgender ‘MAP’ Activist Connected to Pro-Pedophile Group Influencing Academic Research.

A trans-identified male who identifies as a “minor-attracted person” and has been running a “MAP” merchandise shop online is also working with a prominent pro-pedophilia group that has consulted academics. Katie Cruz, a pseudonym used by a man who calls himself Cali Miller, has been “working behind the scenes” with activist group B4U-ACT, which campaigns to have pedophilia recognized as a sexual orientation, and which has contributed to academic research at some of North America’s top universities.

The term ‘MAP’ is an acronym which stands for ‘Minor-Attracted Person,’ and is used in online pro-pedophile communities as a way to reduce stigma against individuals who seek to sexually abuse children. It was coined by the co-founder of B4U-ACT, convicted child rapist Michael Melsheimer. Melsheimer explicitly stated that the purpose of the organization was to normalize pedophilia where the National Association of Man-Boy Love (NAMBLA) had failed to do so.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Can the GOP Finally Figure Out GOTV? “Elections are about more than issues though. They’re about how well individual campaigns and national parties execute the fundamentals. I will freely admit that I’ve had my frustrations over the years with how the Grand Old Party goes about that. The party was particularly awful under Ronna Romney McDaniel’s extended reign of ineptitude.”

SHOT: California McDonald’s franchisee mulls reducing hours, lifting prices to offset $20 minimum wage.

Scott Rodrick said he’s had to rethink his business strategy in the wake of the new law, which went into effect April 1 and has spurred some of his fast-food rivals to raise menu prices.

“There is more than extraordinary labor costs stressing restaurant P&Ls right now,” Rodrick, whose 18 McDonald’s are located in northern California, told Business Insider.

“The same grocery inflation that consumers at home worry about is also worrying restaurants just as a basket of groceries.”

“So what I’m really dealing with, outside of the historical pace of things, is this double-barrel shotgun of backdoor food costs and now labor going off and leaving a brutal mark on my unit profitability,” he added.

Rodrick had already lifted his prices between 5% and 7% between January and March in anticipation of the California law going into effect

“The appetite that my customers have for price increases is not unlimited,” he said.

Chaser: California fast food franchisee slams new minimum wage, invests in Nevada over six-figure loss. “I’ve already started to invest in the neighboring state of Nevada, where there just isn’t so much regulation, there isn’t so many different types of people telling you how to run your business.”

Hangover: Small business optimism hits 11-year low as inflation fears won’t go away.

ISN’T EVERYTHING? Even the Moon Is Racist Now?

SKYNET SMILES: Elon Musk says AI will be smarter than any human around the end of next year.

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted the imminent rise in AI superintelligence during a live interview streamed on the social media platform X. “My guess is we’ll have AI smarter than any one human probably around the end of next year,” Musk said in his conversation with hedge fund manager Nicolai Tangen.

Just prior to that, Tangen had asked Musk, “What’s your take on where we are in the AI race just now?” Musk told Tangen that AI “is the fastest advancing technology I’ve seen of any kind, and I’ve seen a lot of technology.” He described computers dedicated to AI increasing in capability by “a factor of 10 every year, if not every six to nine months.”

Musk made the prediction with an asterisk, saying that shortages of AI chips and high AI power demands could limit AI’s capability until those issues are resolved. “Last year, it was chip-constrained,” Musk told Tangen. “People could not get enough Nvidia chips. This year, it’s transitioning to a voltage transformer supply. In a year or two, it’s just electricity supply.”

Why do I get the feeling governments will make sure AIs get all the power they need while forcing us to get used to brownouts?

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: The New, Improved RNC Is Zeroing In on the Right Priorities.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE INEVITABLE IS THAT IT ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAPPEN: Amateur performers embrace VR porn on Apple Vision Pro.

A LOVELY TRIBUTE FROM CHRIS QUEEN: Mountain Men: Oliver Anthony and My Dad.

WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT: Here’s How Biden’s EV Agenda Will Take From The Poor And Give To The Rich. “EVs benefit from direct subsidies, such as the IRA’s $7,500 consumer tax credit, but they also will increasingly benefit from a hidden cross-subsidy whereby manufacturers drop their prices and offset those losses by boosting prices of ICE vehicles, experts explained to the DCNF.”

IT SEEMS TO BE EVERYWHERE BUT THIS CASE IS EXTREME: The Rage of the Entitled White Woman. “Marcotte is so wrong on so many levels that her identification of male troubles as a product of the unrequited sexual tension of MAGA males is par for the course.”

CLEANIN’ UP THE TOWN: Dolton trustees hire former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as special investigator.

Dolton trustees have hired former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as a special investigator, to be paid $400 an hour and tasked with probing spending habits of Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard.

Henyard is likely to veto the action as illegal, and a letter from an attorney for the village threatened trustees with a lawsuit if they proceeded to hire Lightfoot.

The former mayor and former assistant U.S. attorney starts work Tuesday, probing what the trustees said is “excessive and unauthorized use of village funds” by Henyard that has resulted in Dolton having a deficit of more than $5 million.

There was loud clapping and cheering from an audience of approximately 200 residents after Lightfoot’s hiring was approved by four trustees who are at odds with Henyard and have repeatedly clashed with the mayor. Henyard and two other trustees did not attend Monday’s meeting.

Trustees also want Lightfoot to investigate a May 2023 trip to Las Vegas by Henyard, two village trustees and some village employees.

Henyard is not-so-affectionately known as the “worst mayor in America,” despite some fierce competition.

KILL YOUR TELEVISION: It’s Official: Your Roku Box Is the Work of the Devil.

CORN, POPPED: Democratic tensions over Israel threaten to boil over at Chicago convention. “I do think at the convention, for sure, I would be really surprised if there weren’t significant protests on this issue, and unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a lot that Biden can do between now and then to change that.”