COLD CIVIL WAR:
This is insane. One can make a very reasonable argument that some prominent people hoped for a justice to be assassinated in order to change the Dobbs ruling. That’s the dark truth. https://t.co/fTDu4UHRbu
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 19, 2026
MY FORTHCOMING NEW YORK POST COLUMN IS ON THIS TOPIC: Your Local College Is Running Out of Cash.
Though fortunately the University of Tennessee is flush with cash. That’s in no small part because enrollment is booming, with students coming here from all over to experience a normal, non-PC college life.
IS THERE A LEFTIST MOVEMENT THAT ISN’T FULL OF SEXUAL ABUSE? Lefty love boat: Greta Thunberg’s freedom flotilla rocked by sexual misconduct allegations.
ICYMI: JOHN LUCAS ON VIRGINIA’S SPECIAL ELECTION: Scrapping the Work of the Founding Fathers: Crafting a revolution with an end-run around the Constitution.
It’s tomorrow, so if you’re in Virginia do be sure to vote.
ICYMI: SALENA ZITO: Dr. Helen Smith’s newest book His Side is a fresh look at male alienation. “Noted forensic psychologist Dr. Helen Smith’s newest book, His Side: Men Speak Out on Dating, Marriage and Life in America, is a provocative look at the male experience. Smith uses interviews to examine how straight men are forced to navigate shattered norms in a turbulent society. Smith, who has long studied the human experience, takes the conversation outside of clinical data and brings the reader into the living rooms, workplaces, and communities of everyday men. There she uncovers the cultural fraying of the male experience in this country, one that has often been narrowed, stereotyped, and viewed with hostility. She uncovers a deep-seated ‘connective tissue’ that has been unraveled by a culture that often views the male experience through a narrow, and sometimes hostile, lens. . . . Smith’s book is a central guide for both men and women who are eager to understand navigating our modern world. The book offers great insights into men’s needs and a perspective that is clear-eyed and useful for both genders.”
You can read the book here.
ACTUAL SMART DIPLOMACY:
We have achieved a new balance in the Middle East in which Israel, Saudi, and the Gulf states work together under an American umbrella, with Iran isolated and China locked out. It’s an incredible accomplishment 50 years in the waiting. https://t.co/lKG3G4H9aq
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) April 19, 2026
THE NONPROFIT SECTOR IS SHADIER THAN THE FOR-PROFIT SECTOR: Investigation: UPMC jet frequent flier to Florida city where CEO owns condos.
And much less regulated and scrutinized.
ROGER KIMBALL: The Geopolitics of Epic Fury.
I don’t mean to single out the paper that President Trump accurately, if impolitely, calls “the failing New York Times.” About all things Trump, The Wall Street Journal is just as bad. Between February 28, when Operation Epic Fury began, and last week, when President Trump allowed Iran to lift its head out of the water briefly in order to surrender, the WSJ has run countless stories explaining how, despite appearances, Iran was actually winning the conflict. On Saturday, the Journal greeted Iran’s braggadocio about the Strait of Hormuz just as enthusiastically as did the Times. If your version of those papers came with a magic subtext mood reader, you would have been able to hear the excited Molly Bloom-like cries wafting off the page: “Yes! Yes! Yes! Please let it be so! Please let something bad happen to US forces so we can wipe that grin off Trump’s face! Please!”
It’s so obvious.
YEP:
"Feminization equals wokeness."
That single sentence from Helen Andrews at NatCon 5 stopped me cold.
She argues that everything we call wokeness — empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition and hierarchy — is simply the downstream result of… pic.twitter.com/DGWtbm5Xt4
— Camus (@newstart_2024) April 19, 2026
Related:
The voting gap is driven primarily by single women who see their interests as inherently at odds with families and single men. That’s what the data tell us. pic.twitter.com/j7eJ8tKtlM
— Inez Stepman ⚪️🔴⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) April 19, 2026
JOSH BLACKMAN REPEATS HIS CALL: John Roberts is no leader and should resign as Chief Justice. “Why would I tell Roberts–someone I agreed with about 90% of the time–to step down? The answer was a failure of leadership that was visible through publicly available information.”
ALITO NOT RETIRING:
The fact that you who are reading this care as much as you do about prospective SCOTUS vacancies is an indictment of how far afield our Constitutional system has strayed. There was a time when the Republic did not wait with bated breath every summer to learn whether a justice… pic.twitter.com/A3OUe8ZT8B
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) April 18, 2026
She’s right, But this still makes a win in the midterms more important than ever.
OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.
WELL, GOOD: Artemis 2’s heat shield seems to have aced its trial by fire. The matter was not free from doubt.
LIFE DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE EXCITING: Getting Stuck in a ‘Boring’ Conversation Could Have a Surprising Benefit.
ARTICLE III CONTINUES ITS SWAN SONG: “Unserious Leaders Are Unsafe,” Opines a Federal Judge About RFK, Jr. ‘That’s the opening line from yesterday’s Oregon v. Kennedy, by Judge Mustafa Kasubhai (D. Or.) (the only federal judge I’ve seen who includes pronouns.)”
Plus: “My tentative sense is that, whatever one might personally think about Kennedy’s seriousness, judges’ decisions are more credible when those decisions focus solely on the law, rather than deciding which of our leaders are serious.”
It’s theater kids all the way down.
LIFTING WEIGHTS CAN HELP: Osteopenia: Loss of bone mineral density affects millions of people. Here’s what you need to know.
NOW THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: GM Uses AI to Turn Hand Sketches Into Car Designs in Minutes Instead of Months: GM’s car designers are using AI to help them accelerate new car designs and visions.
STANDING UP FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: The DOJ Has Warned Virginia About Its Anti-Gun Jihad.
OOPS: AST Spacemobile BlueBird 7 Satellite Lost. “ASTS admits the satellite is too low and cannot be saved. Based on what the orbit appears to be. 20kg of fuel they can only raise it part of the way. During the New Glenn 3 mission, BlueBird 7 was placed into a lower than planned orbit by the upper stage of the launch vehicle. While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will de-orbited. The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company’s insurance policy.”
THEY HELPED OFFSET THE MORONICITY OF HEALTH POLICIES: Why private gardens mattered so much during the first COVID-19 lockdown.
I SUSPECT THERE MAY BE A THIRD FORCE BEHIND THIS:
It's still astonishing that the establishment (on both sides of the Atlantic) didn't follow "the most basic theory of how to respond to a populist era: Move to the cultural right, especially on immigration."
What were Obama and Hillary thinking? https://t.co/1G5IFZ3Ude
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) April 19, 2026
Of course, that force may simply be deep idiocy.
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