KEVIN DOWNEY JR: The Final Battle Is Upon Us.

CHANGE: North Carolina Lawmaker Reportedly Switching Parties, Handing Republicans A Supermajority.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: You Won’t Believe the Most Outrageous Claim in the Trump Indictment. “The Donald Trump indictment is our Late Roman Republic cirque du jour, and until now I’ve recused myself from writing about it. I had to wait for that one tiny detail to emerge, that one giant tell, so absurd that it required the special attention of the man who invented drunkblogging.”

I’M NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS, BUT…: A Repeating Alien Radio Signal Has Been Traced Back To A Potentially Habitable Rocky, Earth-Like Exoplanet. “YZ Ceti b is estimated to have a mass of 0.75 times that of Earth and a radius of 0.97 times that of Earth. It orbits very close to its star, completing one revolution in just 1.97 days. This means that it is likely tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet always faces the star and the other side is always in darkness. The surface temperature of YZ Ceti b is estimated to range from -40°C to 177°C depending on the location and the presence of an atmosphere.”

That’s quite a range.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Chicago School of Law: EXPOSED. “Hans von Spakovsky and I will march through the top ten rankings by U.S. News and World Report and share with you what is taking place inside these law schools. The militancy and uselessness of the curriculum may astound many of you.”

This is the third in a ten-part series.

WHEN YOU’RE AN ANTI-TRUMP D.A. AND YOU’VE LOST DAVID FRUM…: Wrong Indictment, Wrong Time. “Now we know what the Manhattan prosecutors have. It’s not enough.”

Ian Millhiser, et tu?

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Tennessee Republicans Looking to Expel 3 Democrats for Demonstrating on House Floor for Gun Control.

WITH CHICAGO HEADING TOWARDS THE ABYSS, VOTERS SAID, “PUNCH IT!”: Chicago elects far-left progressive Brandon Johnson as new mayor.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Trump ‘POTUS 47 Revenge Tour’ Just Kicked Off Early. “America’s banana republic malaise hit a new low with the indictment of former President Donald Trump for, well, nothing. Yesterday’s photo-op circus may have provided some red meat entertainment for the frothing Democrat hordes but people who aren’t blinded by a toxic combination of ignorance, hate, and daddy issues know it was a sad day for the Republic.”

FALLOUT: How Russia killed its tech industry.

Seven days after the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Belugin packed up his and his family’s belongings, canceled the lease on his apartment in Moscow, withdrew his kids from kindergarten, and started a new life outside of Russia. Not long after that, he resigned from his position as chief commercial officer for search at Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google and the country’s largest technology company. The war meant that everything would change in Russia, both for him and for his company, Belugin said from his new home in Cyprus: “You have to accept the new rules of having no rules at all in Russia.”

Belugin was far from the only tech worker to leave. In the months after the invasion began, Russia saw a mass exodus of IT workers. According to government figures, about 100,000 IT specialists left Russia in 2022, or some 10% of the tech workforce—a number that is likely an underestimate. Alongside those exits, more than 1,000 foreign firms curtailed their operations in the country, driven in part by the broadest sanctions ever to be imposed on a major economy.

It has now been over a year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, with more than 8,300 recorded civilian deaths and counting. The tech workers who left everything behind to flee Russia warn that the country is well on its way to becoming a village: cut off from the global tech industry, research, funding, scientific exchanges, and critical components.

The pity is that Russia has always produced such good engineers but Putin and the Soviets — or have I repeated myself? — treat them so poorly.

PAULA BOLYARD: Are You Ready for the Knock on Your Door? “Trump has an army of lawyers and the money to defend himself, but do you?”

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: The revolution will be accessorized.

Whether it’s a country music drag act, a trans-identified light beer, or a march for willing subjugation and a surrender of natural rights to the State, the memetics of cultural Marxism are performative — phony Maoist struggle sessions delivered in swarms to project strength and to dispirit opponents by displaying the inevitability of the mob and its power. It’s a cultural troll. It’s their way of telling you that they are in charge, and that you are helpless. You will conform. You must. What else is there?

It was in response to this attempted coup against western liberal culture — that is, against the Enlightenment and all it represents historically and foundationally to our country — that I’ve written what I believe to be a clarion call for the individualist; but it, too, was something of a performative: it proclaimed, but it didn’t explain. So I’ll try to flesh it out briefly.

We must reject the premises of the cultural Marxist because cultural Marxism itself cannot live peaceably with federal republicanism or individual autonomy. In fact, it demands the opposite: all things are constrained by the State and its desires. The rule must be universal. Governing individuals is like herding cats; whereas ruling over a collective molded by both State pressures (law, force) and social forces (shame, shunning) is a far more gratifying task, because the molding, if done correctly and well, creates a populace that reflects back the will of the State to itself. The State is now God, and its citizens, made in the State’s image, are its supplicants.

The Old Totalitarianism was established with guns and death camps. The New Totalitarianism is more subtle but no less controlling and pernicious.

And do read the whole thing.

FUNDRAISING IN THE TIME OF BANANA REPLICIFICATION: The Trump Campaign Is Already Selling ‘Mugshot’ Merch.

I HAVE A FRESH BATCH OF UNEXPECTEDLIES READY FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: LA County jails are overcrowded. ‘Let’s just cut them loose.’

THEN IT’S SAFE TO ASSUME THAT THEY AREN’T: Massachusetts School Official’s Job Offer Rescinded Because He Called Two Women ‘Ladies.’

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX Moves Up Starship Launch Date, New Clues Suggest.

If Musk succeeds with Starship, its launches (and recoveries) will be even more frequent that the 100-launch goal he set for Falcon 9 this year.

BREAKING: Former President Donald Trump Arraigned in Historic Bonfire of American Civil Norms.

DAVID SOLWAY: Assault and Battery: Beware Those EVs. “There can be little doubt in any serious person’s mind that Green technology is an unmitigated disaster. It is no longer an issue of Big Oil, which the Leftwaffe is strafing and bombing daily, but of the multi-billion-dollar industry of Big Green, or the Climate-Industrial Complex. The game has changed.”

NICK ARAMA: Those ’34 Charges’ Against Trump May Not Be What They Seem.

I want to re-up my comments from Saturday when I said this “charge stacking” is likely what would happen. Prosecutors can try to charge as many things as they can, even if those charges only pertain to one incident. So let’s assume for the moment in this alleged “falsification of business records” charge, that Trump had to file a form that had signatures or initials on the same form multiple times. Each signature/initial could be counted as a potential charge, even if it’s all on the same form and just one incident. So if you had a 34-page form with signatures or initials on each page, you could potentially make 34 charges out of it. We’ll know when we see the real indictment to see precisely what they are talking about. It’s also a bit of flooding of the jury, all they would have to agree to is one to convict. This increases that possibility.

But I think this is mostly about making Trump look bad to the public and the potential jury pool. It’s about having people go “34 charges!!!” and say how awful Trump is, when it all may apply just to the one matter. It’s trying to make the turkey of a case look like it’s something more than it is by buffaloing people with the number. I think it’s more evidence of the bias in this matter, as this shows Bragg trying to throw everything and anything against the wall to try to make something stick when what he truly has is a legally pathetic case.

The mainstream media is certainly playing along, shouting “34 charges” but barely whispering what they are.

DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH: Could Trump Prosecutor Alvin Bragg Go to Prison? It’s Possible.

WELL, THE DROUGHT’S OVER FOR NOW: California’s snowpack is among the deepest ever. Now get ready for the perilous ‘big melt.’

I got caught during a roadtrip in a big melt after New Year’s 1996-97. A five-plus hour drive from Arcata to Reno ended up taking two-and-a-half days, thanks to a detour as far south as Fresno (from Redding) to avoid the floods.

THAT’S ON THEM: Chicago Voters Go to the Polls Today With Little Confidence That Anything Will Change.

Timeless excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”

“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”

“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

Chicago is past the point where even the right lizard wins very often.

HEH: Nancy Pelosi struggles to recover after accidentally referring to Hillary Clinton as ‘president.’

SILICON VALLEY BANK WAS A ONE-OFF, THEY TOLD ME. THE BANKING SYSTEM IS FINE, THEY SAID: Biggest U.S. Banks See Huge Deposit Withdrawals.

SPACE: Virgin Orbit Files For Bankruptcy, Looks For Buyer.

In an April 3 filing, Virgin Orbit said it decided to begin Chapter 11 proceedings “in order to effectuate a sale.”

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, said that after failing to secure additional financing, “we ultimately must do what is best for the business.”

“We believe that the cutting-edge launch technology that this team has created will have wide appeal to buyers as we continue in the process to sell the company. At this stage, we believe that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward to identify and finalize an efficient and value-maximizing sale,” Hart said in a statement.

To help fund the process and protect its operations, Virgin Orbit has received a commitment from billionaire founder Richard Branson’s Virgin Investments Limited for $31.6 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, Virgin Orbit said. Once approved by the bankruptcy court, the DIP financing should provide Virgin Orbit with the necessary liquidity to continue operating as it tries to find a buyer.

Sad, but the writing has been on the wall for a while now.