IT’S ON: DeSantis Let Slip the Dogs of War Against Trump in Iowa. “DeSantis wasn’t going to get anywhere soft-pedaling his opposition to Trump as many Republican candidates appeared to do in 2016. Fearing Trump’s acid tongue and unerring aim in going for the jugular, Trump’s opponents refused to go toe-to-toe with candidate Trump.”

VANLORDS: The Worst Thing You Can Do for the Homeless Is… [CHECKS NOTES] Create Affordable Housing? “I know it sounds crazy but this is L.A. we’re talking about, where bad ideas go to attain eternal life and where good ideas get curb-stomped while having obscenities shouted at them.”

THIS IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL: SpaceX launches 52 Starlink satellites, lands rocket on ship at sea.

With last night’s flight, Falcon 9 has now doubled the record for consecutive launches — 100 each — held by second-place finishers, Delta II and Soyuz-U.

200 successful launches in a row is nothing to sneeze at. Getting them done in under seven years and at an accelerating pace is incredible.

SO MUCH FOR GRATITUDE: Trump Attacks His Former Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China to realize manned lunar landing by 2030. “According to Lin, the goal also includes mastering the key technologies such as Earth-moon manned roundtrip, lunar surface short-term stay, human-robot joint exploration, accomplishing multiple tasks of landing, roving, sampling, researching and returning, and forming an independent capability of manned lunar exploration.”

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP [VIP]: Anthony Bass Goes to Re-Education Camp. “Toronto Blue Jays star Anthony Bass went to re-education camp after sharing a wrongthink Instagram video, but it’s all right, everything is all right, the struggle is finished. He has won the victory over himself. He loves Big Brother. That’s the big crazy on today’s Insanity Wrap — an entire week’s worth of nuttiness wrapped up in one easy-to-swallow medicated news capsule.”

Plus:

• Whiteness is a cult and white women are the high priestesses.
• A Chicago shooting with a happy ending.
• California doesn’t stand a goat of a chance.

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

Related: A Tale of Two Pitchers and Their Encounters With the Pride Mob.

I’M SO OLD, I REMEMBER WHEN BIDEN WAS GOING TO RESTORE TRUST WITH OUR TRADITIONAL ALLIES: U.A.E. Says It Exited U.S.-Led Naval Force. “The United Arab Emirates said Wednesday that it had pulled out of a U.S.-led multinational security force that works to counter Iran in the Middle East, where the Persian Gulf nation has expressed disappointment with American efforts to deter Tehran.”

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ALSO STORED IN CHINA: Surprise! U.S. TikTok Creators’ Financial Info Is Stored in China.

GREEN NUDE EEL: School official laments electric buses cost ‘5X more’ and are riddled with ‘performance issues.’

Emile Lauzzana, the environmental sustainability director of Michigan’s fourth-largest school district, recently told the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education that the district’s electric bus fleet has had “a lot of downtime and performance issues.”

“It’s been a tough 2 1/2 years with this program,” Lauzzana said.

“We’ve been learning a lot about this technology,” Lauzzana also said. “Electric buses are approximately five times more expensive than regular buses, and the electrical infrastructure, which was originally estimated to be only about $50,000, give or take, for those four buses ended up being more like $200,000.”

Why am I not surprised that the Ann Arbor school district has an environmental sustainability director?

MARXISM, RACISM, STRAIGHT UP: CUNY Commencement Speaker Gives Epic Rant Against Israel and Urges ‘Revolution’ Against ‘Capitalism’ and ‘White Supremacy.’

GALT’S MOTOR: “Scientists generate ‘electricity from thin air.’ Humidity could be a boundless source of energy, they say.”

“The air contains an enormous amount of electricity,” said Jun Yao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the paper’s senior author. “Think of a cloud, which is nothing more than a mass of water droplets. Each of those droplets contains a charge, and when conditions are right, the cloud can produce a lightning bolt – but we don’t know how to reliably capture electricity from lightning.

“What we’ve done is to create a human-built, small-scale cloud that produces electricity for us predictably and continuously so that we can harvest it.”

The heart of the man-made cloud depends on what Yao and his colleagues refer to as an air-powered generator, or the “air-gen” effect for short.

If this pans out, expect to hear the anti-energy crowd to bemoan the depletion of our precious humidity.

HMM: Could Industry and Political Pushback Kill the EPA’s Electric Truck Plans? “Naturally, trucking companies and suppliers would pass on those additional costs to consumers, and the weight limits and long charging times could put even more strain on the supply chain.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Russia Pulled Out of Its Nuclear Transparency Pact With the United States. The Biden Administration Still Shares Sensitive Data.

The data were released just days before Moscow deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a major escalation potentially made in response to the new information about America’s capabilities. Defense hawks on Capitol Hill said they are baffled by the Biden administration’s decision to publish sensitive nuclear data at a time when Russia is not only hiding its own capabilities but also threatening to start an atomic war in Eastern Europe.

“The U.S. is making concessions while our adversaries and enemies proliferate their nuclear arsenals,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Worse, the Biden administration seems to be proud about it. This is bizarre behavior, and a reckless threat to American national security.”

The State Department’s data dump is only the latest foreign policy issue to land the White House in the hot seat. Members of the House China Committee raised concerns earlier this month that the United States is ill-equipped to combat China, and a government watchdog concluded that America’s missile defense system is in tatters.

Cruz says the Biden administration’s commitment to implementing New START is on par with its dedication to implementing the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, even as Tehran “is brazenly violating” the agreement.

On the plus side: No mean tweets.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Will Dems Cancel NYC Mayor Adams for Not Being a Raging Commie? “The mere mention of Thomas Jefferson’s name is one of the bigger triggers for the delicate sensibilities of woke leftists who are intent on removing the Founding Fathers from history. Speaking ill of socialism and communism must have really left a mark on the poor dears.”

HARDBALL: McCarthy’s future on the line as he whips debt ceiling deal.

Basic political wisdom dictates that McCarthy needs a majority of House Republicans to support the bill in order to maintain his political power, and McCarthy has repeatedly said that he will meet that standard. He knows he’ll need Democratic help to pass the measure, but the more GOP members that vote with him, the better for the Speaker.

“If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the Speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on Newsmax on Tuesday – referring to a move to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.

As of Tuesday evening, more than two dozen members of the slim, four-seat GOP majority said they will vote against the bill, meaning McCarthy will need to rely on Democratic members supporting the Biden-blessed deal to pass the bill.

If more Democrats than Republicans vote for the bill, McCarthy could be in hot water.

It would also be a measure of the conservative quality of the bill, something that usually gets lost in these horse race type reports.

Related: ‘Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants’: GOP Rep. Nancy Mace joins growing list of at least TWENTY-SIX defectors voting ‘NO’ on Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling ‘debacle.’

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Delivers a Fiery, Patriotic Memorial Day Speech Denouncing Left-Wing Ideologies.

BLUE CITY BLUES: ‘Beyond the financial, it’s personal’: Portland business owner frustrated with crime.

“We have a small U-Haul operation we are likely to shut down now because we just can’t keep them operational because of the vandalism and theft,” said Angelechio. “On Monday I saw a gentleman who was siphoning gas from one of the U-Hauls. I assume he drilled a hole into it so it is now nonoperational.”

The man took off, leaving a hose and bucket behind.

“We’re getting no help and that’s where I think the frustration boils over,” said Angelechio. “You can’t get a police response. If you try, you’ll wait on hold for hours only to be told to just fill something out online and hope. That hope is dead. What do we do? Where do we turn?”

His message to the city: the cost is much more than the money going towards repairs.

“Beyond the financial it’s personal,” said Angelechio. “I’m working 50, 55 hours a week just trying to make it and here are these individuals that have nothing to lose I assume and are willing to take everything from you. We have charged and available tasers for the safety of our employees. We have to protect our employees and our business and we are getting no help. It’s not just us. I represent one of thousands of businesses in this area. If they don’t turn the tide, there won’t be any small business left.”

That would be “Mission Accomplished” for Portland’s progressives.

THE QUESTION IS WHY THEY FEEL STYMIED BY HAVING TO MAKE AN ADULT EVENT JUST FOR ADULTS: Florida Furries Stymied by Child Protection Law, Make Convention 18+.

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Scientists discover two underwater cities built by octopuses.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Wealth Taxes Result in Rich People Fleeing, Turns Out.

If your net wealth is approximately $135,000 or more and you live in Norway, you’ve long been subject to a 0.85 percent wealth tax. That rate has, as of this year, been hiked to 1.1 percent by the center-left government, and even more gobs of cash will be taken from rich people worth roughly $1.8 million, who will be taxed at a rate of 1.3 percent.

Unfortunately for the Norwegian lefties—and their American counterparts who argue for similar taxes to be instituted here—this wealth tax hasn’t really generated the revenue they’d expected. It has instead resulted in rich people boarding their superyachts and leaving those fjords behind forevermore.

Per the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, 30 of the country’s multimillionaires and billionaires left the country last year in advance of the wealth tax hike. “This was more than the total number of super-rich people who left the country during the previous 13 years, it added,” noted The Guardian. “Even more super-rich individuals are expected to leave this year because of the increase in wealth tax in November, costing the government tens of millions in lost tax receipts.”

“Bad luck.”

YOU DON’T SAY: Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out lab leak. “In a possible sign that the Chinese government may have taken the lab leak theory more seriously than its official statements suggest, Prof Gao also tells the BBC some kind of formal investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was carried out.”

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: U.S. Government Now Confiscating Private Legal Fund Donations to Jan. 6 Defendants.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSQUENCES: Game Over For Turkey As Net Reserves Turn Negative, Morgan Stanley Sees Lira Collapsing. “While the endgame here is clear to all, few are willing to say it out loud for fear of retaliation by the Erdogan regime.”

LINCOLN BROWN: Stores, Stores Everywhere, and Not a Place to Shop. “Either more stores are betting on their ESG scores over consumer traffic or people are just getting more attuned to the prevalence of the new normal not only in society but also in retail. Shoppers can add Kohl’s to the list of entities where they would never be caught dead, right behind Bud Light, the Dodgers, and Target.”

CHINA: China’s Fading Recovery Reveals Deeper Economic Struggles.

China’s era of rapid growth is over. Its recovery from zero-Covid is stalling. And now the country is facing deep, structural problems in its economy.

The outlook was better just a few months ago, after Beijing lifted its draconian Covid-19 controls, setting off a flurry of spending as people ate out and splurged on travel.

But as the sugar high of the reopening wears off, underlying problems in China’s economy that have been building for years are reasserting themselves.

The property boom and government overinvestment that fueled growth for more than a decade have ended. Enormous debts are crippling households and local governments. Some families, worried about the future, are hoarding cash.

Plus: “Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s crackdowns on private enterprise have discouraged risk-taking.”

So much for innovating their way out…