SOCK PUPPETS CAN’T DUNK: 76ers To Investigate Bryan Colangelo’s Alleged Use of ‘Burner’ Twitter Accounts.

The 76ers president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo appeared to use five fake Twitter accounts to criticize players like Joel Embiid, disclose sensitive information and share team strategy, reports The Ringer’s Ben Detrick.

The accounts posted from April 2016 to last week and criticized players like Jahlil Okafor and Markelle Fultz, coach Brett Brown and executives such as Sam Hinkie. The tweets disclosed nonpublic medical information about Okafor and gossip about Embiid and Fultz. The accounts always defended Colangelo.

When Detrick reached out to the 76ers about two of the accounts, the 76ers later confirmed Colangelo had been behind one of them. Despite not mentioning the other three Twitter accounts, those three were switched to private after Detrick’s inquiries.

And according to the New York Post, “Internet connects Twitter dots to Bryan Colangelo’s wife.” As sports blog Deadspin adds:

Amazingly, if [Barbara] Bottini did in fact run the accounts, Colangelo’s not even the most prominent sports executive to get anonymously and vigorously defended online by their spouse. Jane Skinner Goodell got caught quibbling with reporters from a burner account while defending the honor of her husband, Roger, last year.

Found via John Podhoretz, who tweets, “So let’s be clear. Roseanne destroyed a $100 million show and that wasn’t the craziest thing on social media yesterday. The craziest thing is the 76ers’ general manager.” (Colangelo is both president of basketball operations and general manager of the Sixers.)

THIS IS CNN:

UPDATE: Twitchy has since updated their post to include these tweets from Ryan:

Woman who works for employer who last week doxxed and threatened to destroy the life of an anonymous person on the Internet for creating an anti-CNN GIF wants us to all lighten up and have a better sense of humor.

SHOW ME THE MONEY: Paul Ryan’s crucial cash surge.

First in Axios: Paul Ryan had another monster fundraising month for House Republicans, with his political entities sending $2.75 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee in April. That’s more than half a million more than the Speaker sent the committee in April 2016 — an election year.

Why this matters: Republicans need a ton of cash and fast to deal with an increasingly unstable political landscape. It’s only a few months past Election Day but the off-year special elections are tougher than many expected, with Democrats seeing each race as an opportunity to channel the entire progressive movement against Trump.

And House Republicans are already sweating 2018. Members are going home every weekend and facing angry progressive protesters. They’re already visualizing the inevitably brutal Democratic attack ads on everything from budget cuts to the unpopular Obamacare replacement bill.

Context: Ryan’s political operation tells us he’s sent nearly $20 million to the NRCC since the start of 2017. Over the same period in 2016 Ryan sent about $13 million to the NRCC. Ryan has also directly helped raise cash for the special election candidates, signing fundraising emails for candidates in Kansas, Georgia and Montana.

Ryan is almost certainly safe as Speaker while he brings in that kind of money.

PRESIDENT PUNCTUAL: Obama budget delayed until April. They should pass a bill suspending presidential golf until the budget is submitted.

Related: Paul Ryan prepares to unveil balanced budget.

“SO WHERE’S THE REST OF THEM?” “The Democrats supposedly think (warning: FDL link) that Paul Ryan’s budget plan is a hideous liability for the Republicans – that is, those Democrats that actually know what the word ‘budget’ even means, which apparently excludes the entire Senate Democratic caucus* – so you would think that this speech by Ryan would and should have been a media circus. Watch the speech: in it Ryan went into how his own Catholic faith informs his fiscal conservatism (Georgetown, remember?), and how his current proposals are not in fact contrary to the Church’s principles when it comes to helping the poor. Given that this is genuinely subversive of the remaining links between American progressives and the Roman Catholic church hierarchy, it seems amazing that progressives weren’t trying their best to, well, at least show up. Or did they?”

Plus: “This is not 2007. We now know what a populist movement looks like; in late April 2010 the Tea Party was putting thousands in the streets in protests on a regular basis. I count… twelve?… in that above picture.”

OLD AND BUSTED: Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through “The Secret Life of Plants.”

The New Hotness? Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Vegetables: The WH Briefing When April Ryan Tried to Get a Meeting Between Biden and Stevie Wonder.

TheGrio’s April Ryan to KJP: “I had an in-depth conversation w/Stevie Wonder last night who is —[REPORTERS LAUGH]–AGAIN, IT’S A SERIOUS QUESTION — I had an in-depth conversation w/Stevie Wonder last night, who is…requesting a meeting w/the President. He’s very concerned about the black agenda falling along the wayside and issues like laws of 50 years ago that are now being abolished or gutted, to include issues like the Voting Rights Act, what happened in Arkansas last wk, affirmative action — Supreme Court — as we’ve seen it, ban on books, and he’s also even brought up issues of the Congo and the lack of information from the WH. Is the WH amenable to sitting down with Stevie Wonder who has met with presidents, um throughout history to include Ronald Reagan? He was one of the major impetuses for getting the holiday for Dr Martin Luther King Jr and also he was one of those who worked with President Obama in his efforts to become President. Is this President amenable to meeting with Stevie Wonder who has these concerns?”

* * * * * * * *

Even April Ryan’s colleagues don’t take her seriously anymore. Shouldn’t someone demand a picture of her and Wonder together during their “in-depth discussion?” If it’s good for a pie, it should be good for a music legend, too. Ryan is supposed to be a reporter, not a personal assistant.

Well, she’s been failing as a reporter for years;  perhaps she’ll have better luck as Wonder’s PA.

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Cargo Freeway Expansion Canceled in L.A. Due to ‘Racist’ Roads.

The cancellation means that the 710 will remain congested, leaving trucks idling on the road longer, creating more pollution than they would if they were able to travel consistently at the optimum, efficient speed between 45 and 65 miles per hour.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

* * * * * * * *

The 710 Freeway is the main artery for the nation’s largest port complex, through which nearly a third of the nation’s imported goods move. Big rigs carrying a crush of goods — as varied as electronics, auto parts and shoes — often clog the road. Activists call it the diesel death zone, but Americans with their appetite for click-shopping, have come to rely on the web of warehouses and deliveries that the port is built around.

The “Americans with their appetite for click-shopping” is a nice sneer by the L.A. Times, doing their damndest to put the best spin on the Biden administration’s supply chain woes, in much the same way they dubbed unemployment during the administration led by Biden’s former boss as “funemployment:” “For the ‘funemployed,’ unemployment is welcome!” — after all, it’s a chance to “Keep rockin’”!

Earlier:

● CNN’s April Ryan asks Pete Buttigieg to address the ‘racism’ built into our roadways.
● Washington Post fact-check admits it was wrong for ‘knee jerked’ defense of Buttigieg’s racist bridge comments.

LEFTIST CNN PANELIST BLOWS UP WHEN CONFRONTED OVER PALESTINIAN TERRORISM: “Liberal writer Peter Beinart erupted at fellow CNN panelist Rich Lowry on Monday while attempting to excuse Palestinian violence toward Israelis, saying he didn’t agree but they also didn’t have to be ‘saints’ to have rights.”

Video at top of article — Beinart seemed ready to throttle the cool and collected Lowry by the time he was done ranting.

Elsewhere in the violent world of CNN: NJ Court Issues Summons For April Ryan’s Bodyguard Who Allegedly Assaulted Journalist.

THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT, WE’D SEE THIRD-WORLD STYLES OF MEDIA TREATMENT. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! CNN’s April Ryan after bodyguard ejects local journalist: ‘When I speak, I don’t have news covering my speech.’

Plus: Wait, I’m one of you! “Kratovil expressed his solidarity with Ryan, an outspoken critic of President Trump and his treatment of the press, but told Fox News that ‘her reputation’ now depends on addressing what had happened and is hoping for an apology.”

Her reputation is as a Democratic Party operative with a chyron, and thugs on hand. She’s never been anything else. And the combination of thuggishness, entitlement, and cluelessness is absolutely typical of the breed. See also Chris “Fredo” Cuomo. I mean, I know CNN’s ratings have tanked, but surely they could hire people who know how to behave in public if they wanted to. But maybe they don’t want to.

UPDATE: Related: Don Lemon Sued for Highly Unusual Dive Bar Interview Technique.

This. Is. CNN.

THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE: Acosta faces down Granny in near death experience. Hey, she might be packing Werther’s Originals, and that’s ASSAULT CANDY.

Do. Not. Mess. With. Granny.

Related (From Ed): CNN’s April Ryan Is Shown to Lie About Trump’s Tampa Rally By a Most Amazing Person — Jim Acosta.

GEORGE NEUMAYR: Trump Is Beating The Media At Its Own Game: The left’s own politics by shorthand is now being turned against it.

Whenever editors say that they refuse to acknowledge “two sides” on such matters as “marriage equality” or Darwinism or climate change, they are paying homage to Lenin’s devious politics by shorthand. They pay homage to it whenever they substitute their opinions of the news for actual reporting of the news. Even the squabbling among journalists recently over whether or not to suspend “conventional reporting” in Trump’s case, or whether front-page stories should declare his misstatements “lies,” is a tacit acknowledgment of that politics. With Lenin, the Christiane Amanpours have no use for the peskiness of precise responses. Just call Trump a “liar,” their attitude goes, and “everyone will understand everything.”

But that demagogic shorthand only works as long as Republican politicians defer to it. For years journalists opined self-servingly under the guise of objectivity and got away it because Republicans were too afraid to shatter that illusion of objectivity. They permitted the media to serve as the arbiter of what qualifies as “mainstream,” “extremist,” “racist,” and so forth, and made sure to stay within the media-determined parameters of any discussion.

Donald Trump has blown up that absurd arrangement and is beating the media at its own game. He labels reporters in the same way that they label him. He upends their dishonest framing of debates by treating them as what they are, liberal partisans. His exchange last week with April Ryan, a correspondent for the American Urban Radio Network, captured that perfectly. She asked him a loaded question not as a neutral reporter but as a water-carrier for the Congressional Black Caucus. So he treated her that way. “I’ll tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting?” the president said to her, after she asked if he would meet with the CBC. “Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?” Of course, they are friends of hers and she was trying to score a partisan point for them. Had Trump not deconstructed that for the audience, her question might have done him damage. Instead, it fell flat and looked unserious.

Reporters are thrown by a president who questions them as aggressively as they question him. And they resent that he refuses to accept as “facts” what is nothing more than their biased interpretation of the facts.

Well, it makes life harder for bylined operatives.

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: Google quits on huge, longtime San Francisco office in premium location.

Google is planning to move out of one of its massive offices on the edge of San Francisco Bay later this year, Google confirmed to SFGATE on Thursday.

As first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Google plans to depart from its 300,000-square-foot office in One Market Plaza’s Spear Tower within the next year. This is the first time in Google has been reported to be entirely leaving a building in San Francisco, even as the tech giant has moved to cut over a million square feet of office space elsewhere in the Bay Area. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

“We’re focused on investing in real estate efficiently to meet the current and future needs of our hybrid workforce,” Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont told SFGATE in an email Thursday. “We remain committed to our long-term presence in San Francisco.” (Lamont gave an identical statement to the Chronicle.)

The Chronicle reported that Google’s lease ends in April 2025, but Lamont told SFGATE the company would move out later this year. He did not immediately respond when SFGATE asked for clarification of the timeline for the company’s departure from Spear Tower.

Fortunately, San Fran’s politicians are laser-focused in ending the doom loop, and they demand the same of their would-be successors: San Francisco Mayoral Debate: Democrat Mayor Breed Asks Challenger to Name Three Drag Queens.

THIS IS THE TERRIBLE REVIEW OF REACHER WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR:

Reacher spends most of his time in the books saving damsels from genuine distress and teaching murderous bad guys they are not the toughest kids on the block. But given the times we live in it was inevitable that this light entertainment would eventually be labeled racist. Today, Vulture published a very belated review of the series which does exactly that.

Wallpaper TV is marked by an easygoing approachability and a low lift for concentration. These are series propelled by vibes that you can groove to as a viewer but whose characterization, narrative, and visual dimensions hew toward simplicity, if not banality. Amusement is tantamount, but these shows don’t ask much of the audience,and they certainly don’t challenge their fans. They’re perfect in the background, half-watched while sweeping the apartment. This is what I was expecting from Reacher: a mildly appealing series that required little of me, spoke to my mother’s televisual interests, and featured a tank of a man who was easy enough on the eyes. But swiftly after starting the series I realized there was something more complex about Reacher, a glaringly white fantasy that can’t help but crack under the weight of its conservative values. This isn’t merely hackneyed wallpaper TV; it’s uncanny fiction that exemplifies just how intensely Hollywood has returned to whiteness after years of feigning interest in diversity broadly and Blackness with a particular extricative zeal.Watching Reacher isn’t easygoing; it’s like watching a frightening manifestation of the free-falling American empire on a loop…

My prior knowledge of this literary franchise was admittedly shallow, mostly informed by my experience of the dim Tom Cruise movies. But this Reacher adaptation is a different beast. And beast is exactly the right word for it — featuring as it does a Dodge Charger who’s achieved human form (actor Alan Ritchson). When Reacher, who refuses to be addressed by his first name, Jack, saunters into the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia, the show portrays his masculinity as exceedingly powerful yet good-natured; something to be obeyed but also preserved and exalted. In the premiere episode, Reacher wordlessly halts a domestic-abuse incident on his way into a diner, where, once inside, he doesn’t get to enjoy his cup of black coffee, or the slice of peach pie marketed as the best in the state, because he’s soon arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. He asserts his innocence at the police station, refusing to cooperate unless someone releases him from the zip ties encircling his wrists. (The handcuffs are too small, of course.) “Get the box cutter,” the routinely disrespected police chief says. “It’s okay. I got it,” Reacher says before popping the zip tie by sheer force. He picks up the fallen plastic. “Do you guys recycle?” A knowing smirk never leaves his face. Reacher knows that if a white man is tall enough, the world will bend to his whims.

I just have one question for this author. What did she think of the Equalizer series of movies? That series is based on the same exact sort of pulp storytelling, i.e. a heavily trained fighter/killer who lives off the grid but who also abides by a personal code stumbles upon a group of bad guys who he decided to bring down because he doesn’t like what they do. The outcome is usually very brutal for the bad guys. Those films all starred Denzel Washington instead of Alan Ritchson and they were successful enough that they made three of them.

We’ll get to the modern-day Equalizer franchise in a moment, but first, Christian Toto adds: Vulture: Reacher a ‘White Power Fantasy.’ Readers roast op-ed attacking Prime Video series, American conservatives.

The writer repeatedly conflates “white power” with conservatism in crude fashion. The two are interchangeable, giving the author wiggle room to explore these observations.

Vulture, the pop culture arm of New York Magazine, stirred up trouble within its readership. Its Facebook page visitors overwhelmingly shredded the “white-power” argument.

I spent 26 years in journalism, and this is just embarrassing. I have never seen a piece miss the mark this badly. There is nothing “white-power” about this character or the series. The character’s best friend is a woman and a person of color. He loves old blues music and hangs out at a black-owned barber shop (in season one). He isn’t hateful or racist in any way, shape or form. This is so far off the mark that the author comes off as both projecting and desperate. – Jeremy D. Bonfiglio

In her twisting of the series, she deftly ignored one of the main characters who appeared prominently in both seasons: Reacher’s former army lieutenant, Neagley (Maria Sten). Neagley is mixed race and fully trusted by Reacher. Her prominent role in season 1 is only enhanced in season 2. Odd how her character is entirely not mentioned in the Vulture review, perhaps because it doesn’t support the false narrative she is trying to push.
– Ryan Littlefield

The genre that Reacher works in, which Rob Long dubbed “The Good Psychopath” in the April issue of Commentary isn’t even sexist these days, let alone racist:

The Equalizer entered American culture as a television character in the eponymous CBS Network series starring Edward Woodward as Robert McCall. In the original television series, which ran from 1985 to 1989, McCall is also a former intelligence agent with a shadowy past who fights for the little guy—in a realistically rendered crime-riddled New York City, so it was no fantasy—but the body count is much, much smaller. The show was rebooted in 2021, this time with Queen Latifah as a gender-adjusted Robyn McCall, and has been a steady performer for CBS for four seasons. Wait, The Equalizer reboot has been on TV for four seasons? I can hear you asking.

So there’s a feature-film version of Robert McCall that’s blood and guts and revenge, and there’s a broadcast television version that’s tamer and less violent, but the key elements are the same: utterly powerless victims, utterly remorseless villains, and a hero who settles the score and emerges without a scratch.

There’s also a streaming version of essentially the same character. Reacher, which can be found on Amazon Prime. It doesn’t have the polish or production values of its feature-film cousin—the dialogue is hilariously awful, the sets are spare and overlit—but it’s got the same basic tick-tock. Reacher, played by the mountainous Alan Ritchson, is, you guessed it, a morally upright and highly skilled warrior with a shadowy paramilitary past who helps the powerless fight bad guys. The bad guys in Reacher are super-duper nuts. The first season featured disembowelings, a crucifixion, a sneering psychopathic rich kid, and a villain who inexplicably carries a crystal-topped walking stick.

Reacher is the number-one title on Prime Video, and it’s available across the globe. The first season was hugely popular with audiences of all descriptions, and the second season became Prime’s top show within six days of its release. In other words, Prime Video discovered what Sony and CBS already knew. People like morally upright heroes with shadowy paramilitary backgrounds who use their warrior skills to help the little guy and kill the bad guys. Or the shorter version: Audiences love a Good Psychopath.

For decades, there have been gnostic film critics who can see racism everywhere, no matter how sensitive Hollywood has been on this issue since at least the early 1960s. With the popularity of streaming offsetting the woes of the big screen, no one should be surprised to see them attacking the wares available inside the Roku box instead these days.

MEDIA CONTORTS ITSELF TO EXPLAIN AWAY TUCKER’S NEW TWITTER SHOW GETTING 114M VIEWS; FOX NEWS SERVES CEASE AND DESIST:

Far from the dismissive tone Mediaite has taken with respect to the Twitter show, Axios says, “The contract battle between Fox and its former top host — who was taken off the air in April, after the network’s historic Dominion settlement — has mighty repercussions for the conservative media ecosystem.”

“With ‘Tucker on Twitter,’ Carlson and his growing production team are working to elevate Elon Musk’s social media site as a news platform,” the outlet stated, adding that his first two episodes “drew a combined 169 million views.”

As it is continuing to pay Carlson, Fox News is arguing that, at least through December 31, 2024, his content must remain exclusive to the cable network, even if it refuses to air it, as per Carlson’s contract.

Carlson, on the other hand, maintains that he has a First Amendment right to post on Twitter, and is accusing Fox of material breaches of his contract.

Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, along with Bryan Freedman, represents Carlson and said Fox is guilty of ignoring “its shareholder obligations.”

“Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations,” Dhillon said in a statement to Axios.

Chadwick Moore, Carlson’s biographer, “was on OAN recently and said that the non-compete portion of his contract did not consider Twitter a competitor. And since Twitter didn’t hire him, he’s not an employee.”

ELIZABETH HOLMES MUST REPORT TO PRISON, PAY $452 MILLION IN RESTITUTION:

An appeals court has rejected convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes’ bid to remain out of prison while she appeals the convictions against her.

Holmes, the founder and CEO of failed blood-testing company Theranos, will have to report to prison, leaving behind her current partner and her two young children, both of whom she had after being charged with fraud. A date has not been set for when Holmes will have to report for prison, the Associated Press reported.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision comes nearly three weeks after Holmes’ legal team successfully delayed her sentence from her original start date of April 27.

According to CNBC (where — of course — in 2015, Jim Cramer likened Holmes to Steve Jobs), “She is expected to begin her sentence of 11 years and three months at a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas.”

Flashback: Reason TV on Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Cult of Silicon Valley:

MICKEY HAS A SAD: Disney Is Set to Eliminate Thousands of Jobs Starting Next Week.

Walt Disney Co. plans to cut thousands of jobs next week, including about 15% of the staff in its entertainment division, according to people familiar with the plans.

The cuts will span TV, film, theme parks and corporate teams, affecting every region where Disney operates, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details aren’t yet public. Some affected workers will be notified as early as April 24.

These include: ESPN Layoffs To Start Next Week.

There’s been speculation, including from Stephen A. Smith, that no one is safe from incoming layoffs.

We disagree. There’s a list of personalities we can confidently say are, in fact, safe.

The list includes the stars: Stephen A. Smith, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Adam Schefter, Mike Greenberg, Scott Van Pelt, and Kirk Herbstreit.

And those with the race card firmly in their back pocket: Mark Jones, Bomani Jones, Mina Kimes, the mentally unstable Stanley Verrett, Kendrick Perkins, Ryan Clark, and Domonique Foxworth.

#Privilege.

Also, reported at the end of last month: ABC News Undergoes Round Of Layoffs And Realignment Of Leadership Team.

ABC News underwent a round of staff reductions on Thursday, as the division is impacted by parent Walt Disney Co.’s companywide cuts.

The phased rollout of the job reductions will impact about 50 people total, a figure that includes eliminated open positions, according to a network source.

Related: Coal miners being taught HTML coding as a second career.

—ABC News, May 7th, 2018.

QUESTION ASKED: How did free speech become a right-wing value?

In early May, I explored the left’s reaction to billionaire Elon Musk potentially buying Twitter and his vow to make it a free speech platform again. Since then, Musk and his vision have repeatedly been portrayed as “right-wing.”

It’s the damndest thing.

Canadian Conservative politician Andrew Scheer picked up on this strange phenomenon back in April, saying that that the corporate media framing free speech as a “right wing value” was just plain weird. As though to drive home the point, Twitch’s Zachary Ryan called Musk a right-winger on Monday. And over the weekend, entrepreneur Samir Tabar had a question for a whiny Robert Reich:

Since when did free speech become a right-wing value? Right around the time that conservatives won the culture war:

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Here is the exact type of person who was most likely to leave San Francisco in the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic stripped San Francisco of a decade’s worth of population gain in a single year — mostly by hollowing out its population-rich downtown and neighborhoods close by.

Now, thanks to detailed data from the U.S. Census Bureau, it’s possible to identify the greatest losses by demographics, too. Last week, the census released data population trends by age, sex, race and ethnicity. And it turns out that young adults, particularly white people in their late twenties, drove S.F.’s historic decline.

COMMIES QUOTING A COMMIE: Chinese State Media Use AOC Quote To Bash America.

Ocasio-Cortez has a long relationship with Chinese state-controlled media, the Washington Free Beacon reported last year. She thanked the newspaper Sing Tao, whose owners are members of a Chinese Communist Party advisory group, for covering a June 2020 roundtable discussion. She also paid the paper that month and in April 2021 to run ads.

Ocasio-Cortez is not the only left-wing American whom China has used in its propaganda. The Chinese state-controlled Global Times in May prominently featured an interview with liberal activist Ryan Deitsch in which he called the United States a “white supremacist country.”

China’s efforts to shame the United States may be an attempt to distract from the Communist regime’s contemptible human rights record. China is carrying out a genocide against its ethnic Uyghur minority.

You can count on American leftists to help them with that.

HMM: Russian explosions point to Ukraine’s embrace of the British special forces model.

Storage tanks at a major oil depot in the Russian city of Bryansk exploded early on Monday. Was Ukraine responsible?

Before you answer, consider first that this is only the latest disaster to afflict Russian critical infrastructure near the Ukrainian border. Another oil depot on Belgorod was targeted by a Ukrainian helicopter strike in early April. Prior to that, Russian railway lines near the border were sabotaged. A Russian missile research center and a chemical plant also recently suffered explosions.

These incidents all appear to fit well with Ukraine’s military strategy.

Bryansk, 62 miles from the Ukrainian border, is beyond the range of most drone systems in Ukraine’s possession. Unconfirmed video from the Bryansk incident indicates the sound of a missile in the terminal attack phase. Considering this noise and Bryansk’s relative distance from Ukraine, short-range ballistic missiles may have been responsible. Regardless, the explosion will disrupt energy replenishment efforts for Russian military forces in Ukraine.

The explosion also dilutes Putin’s credibility in claiming that his war on Ukraine is not a war, but rather a limited “special military operation.” When stuff keeps blowing up in Russian cities, it’s hard to convince the residents of said cities that Russia isn’t at war.

If Ukraine is hitting back in ways that A) Slow the Russian offensive and B) Hit Putin right in the prestige, then good.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Children should keep masking up, CDC director says, even as some experts question the need.

Earlier this week, Children’s Hospital Colorado said it was declaring an emergency over the mental health of children. “Our kids have run out of resilience. Their tank is empty,” the hospital’s chief physician said.

In response to a query from Yahoo News about how [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle] Walensky had come to her conclusion about child-related coronavirus risks, a CDC spokesman sent the agency’s guidance on school-based transmission. That guidance links to several studies that show most children do not become infected with the coronavirus. For example, one study cited by the CDC found that “more than 90 percent” of childhood coronavirus cases in China in early 2020 were “asymptomatic, mild, or moderate.” Another, conducted in April 2020, found that of 149,082 coronavirus cases in the United States for which information on age was available, only 1.7 percent were children. “Three deaths were reported among the pediatric cases,” that study found.

“This document definitely does not support Dr. Walensky’s statement she made in Congress,” says Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford epidemiologist, who reviewed the guidance forwarded by the CDC at the request of Yahoo News. “I remain mystified by her statement.”

The above Yahoo article was written by Alexander Nazaryan. When the head of the CDC has lost this guy…

…It might be time to rethink the plot.

STUMBLING ALONG: U.S. Consumer Confidence Crashes ‘Unexpectedly.’

Ok, let’s see a show of hands — who actually finds this perfectly obvious news to be “unexpected”?

No one here? Good.

So just how biased and corrupt is even the financial media now?

It’s this biased and corrupt.

Consumer sentiment in the U.S. has unexpectedly decreased in the month of May, according to preliminary data released by the University of Michigan on Friday.

The report showed the consumer sentiment index dropped to 82.8 in May from 88.3 in April. The decrease surprised economists, who had expected the index to rise to 90.4.

It didn’t take an economist to predict that keeping several large states’ economies closed, the federal government printing money faster than a counterfeiter rolling down the autobahn in a Lamborghini, and Biden deliberately strangling domestic energy producers in the name of his Green New Deal scheme, would bring about inflation.

I’m not an economist. I anticipated it. I bet every reader here did too.

What does it take to see this gigantic freight train barreling down the tracks straight at you? Eyes and common sense.

The lack of the latter inside the head of President Trunalimunumaprzure led America’s Newspaper of Record to report: Biden Worried Gas Shortages May Hurt Carter’s Chances Against Reagan.

RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Pelosi used shuttered San Francisco hair salon for blow-out, owner calls it ‘slap in the face.’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited a San Francisco hair salon on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out, despite local ordinances keeping salons closed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News had learned.

In security footage obtained by Fox News, and timestamped Monday at 3:08 p.m. Pacific Time, the California powerhouse is seen walking through eSalon in San Francisco with wet hair, and without a mask over her mouth or nose.

The stylist doing her hair can be seen following her wearing a black face mask.

Salons in San Francisco had been closed since March and were only notified they could reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor hairstyling services only.

As Bryan Preston wrote in April: Here’s One Thing Officials Can Do to Make Lockdown Life Better: Stop Being Hypocritical Tyrants.

It’s very hard on free people who are used to being able to do what they want when they want, who had a job one day and thanks to a government decree they don’t have a job the next day. They didn’t ask for any of this, nor did they cause it. When we see Chicago’s mayor ban haircuts, and then get one herself because she’s privileged and you’re not and she imposes a curfew on others for no evident reason, and when we see a Texas county judge apparently violate his own stay at home order, it sends the entirely wrong signal in a republic where the people are supposed to be the government.

It also hints at something a whole lot darker that our dear leaders had better not let fester. And the best thing they can do to prevent that is to stop acting like petty little tyrants.

And then the “mostly peaceful protestors” arrived shortly thereafter, to illustrate just how uber-woke Covid itself is, and how rioting for the right cause creates an immunity to the pathogen otherwise not found in local shops and salons.

UPDATE: For sheer chutzpah, it’s tough to top this: “Nancy Pelosi’s office has confirmed the speaker got her hair cut indoors in a San Francisco salon, but released a statement claiming she didn’t know she’d done anything wrong.”

(Updated and bumped.)

CYBERCRIME: Emails of top NRCC officials stolen in major 2018 hack. “Republican leaders were not informed until POLITICO contacted committee officials about the incident.”

The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated and the FBI was alerted to the attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident.

However, senior House Republicans — including Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — were not informed of the hack until POLITICO contacted the NRCC on Monday with questions about the episode. Rank-and-file House Republicans were not told, either.

Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who served as NRCC chairman this past election cycle, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Committee officials said they decided to withhold the information because they were intent on conducting their own investigation, and feared that revealing the hack would compromise efforts to find the culprit.

Plus: “Party officials would not say when the hack began or who was behind it, although they privately believe it was a foreign agent due to the nature of the attack.”

ANYBODY ELSE GET THE FEELING HILLARY IS IN POLITICAL HOSPICE CARE? Judicial Watch attorneys told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today that they would like to depose eight present and former Department of State employees concerning Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address and home brew server.

They also said it “may be necessary” to depose Clinton “based on information learned during discovery,” but kindly assured the court they would first ask permission. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan will decide after April 15 who among the eight will be deposed. Don’t be surprised if it’s all eight, including:

• Stephen D. Mull, executive secretary of the State Department from June, 2009, to October, 2012. Mull proposed Clinton use a State Department BlackBerry for email. Her identity would have been protected but the messages would have been subject to the FOIA.
• Lewis A. Lukens, executive director of the department’s executive secretariat from 2008 to 2011. Lukens suggested to Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy and Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, have a government computer to read messages sent to her clintonmail.com address.
• Patrick F. Kennedy preceded Clinton at the department, having served since 2007. He became Clinton’s primary adviser on technology and information services issues.
• Donald R. Reid, senior coordinator for security infrastructure in the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, a position he has held since 2003. Judicial Watch believes Reid participated in discussions in 2009 about Clinton’s use of the Blackberry and other communications devices to conduct official government business.
• Cheryl Mills, chief of staff throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
• Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff for the entirety of Clinton’s tenure. Abedin also had an email account on the Clinton server and accompanied Clinton whenever she was seen in public.
• Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s IT guru from her unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign and the individual who kept the private server located at her New York residence operational while she was at the department.
• The eighth individual would be somebody designated by the department to provide information on the process by which FOIA requests are processed in the agency.