"Even for those of us who have long been critics of the 'hush money' case against Donald Trump and its dubious legal theory, it has been surprising to see that the prosecutors had no more evidence than we previously knew about.

"The assumption was that no rational prosecutor would base a major criminal case almost entirely on the testimony of Michael Cohen, who was recently denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer peddling 'perverse' theories in court.

"The calculus of Alvin Bragg is now obvious. He is counting on the jury convicting Trump regardless of the evidence.

"Which is also why Bragg likely fears that the judge, not the jury, will decide the case. After the government closes its evidence this week, the defense will move for a direct verdict by the judge on the basis that the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction."

Read the entire article here.

"Democrats and Republicans banded together to pass a bill on Tuesday aimed at blocking the Biden administration from banning everyday home appliances that run on natural gas.

"The Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, which passed 212 to 195, is one facet of a sweeping bill targeting the Department of Energy (DOE) introduced by Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz.

"Seven Democrats voted in favor of the bill, which received no Republican dissent."

Read the entire article here.

"The Federal Reserve must not make President Joe Biden's mistake when choosing between inflation and the economy.

"Three years ago, when confronted with this choice, the Biden administration chose economic growth at all costs -- literally, spending trillions to stoke the economy. The result has been (and continues to be) the inflation that won't go away, even as the economy now appears to be slowing rapidly.

"America now finds itself stuck between high inflation and low economic growth. The markets face evidence that inflation is continuing and the economy is slowing. Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that March's overall inflation measure came in too high again at 3.5%, a third consecutive monthly increase. Even excluding the more volatile items of food and energy, the core consumer price index rose 3.8% from a year ago."

Read the entire article here.

"'Hope I die before I get old,' sang The Who's Roger Daltrey about a half century ago, in perhaps the ultimate cultural reflection of antagonism between generations. It seems to never change: Older people think the youth are gullible and confused, and the youth think the old are 'out of touch.' Rarely has this phenomenon been on starker display than now.

"Many older Americans have watched with amazement and horror as pro-Palestine protests gathered steam on college campuses, veering toward what seemed to them as bizarre support for Islamist terrorists and even hatred of America itself. Now some universities -- including Columbia where I was a grad student -- have called in the cops. There is handwringing and angst about where to draw the line on free speech.

"It shouldn't be so hard. Whether the students are right or wrong is immaterial to the question of whether they should be allowed to continue the protests. The reasons to break up some of the protests are clear."

Read the entire article here.

"President Joe Biden has been dogged for months by pro-Palestinian protesters calling him 'Genocide Joe' -- but some of the groups behind the demonstrations receive financial backing from philanthropists pushing hard for his reelection.

"The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker, according to a POLITICO analysis.

"Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change."

Read the entire article here.

"'San Diego is the new epicenter for migrants and illegal immigration,' San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond said again this week as record numbers of illegal border crossers continue to pour into California.

"He made a similar claim two weeks ago when the county was overwhelmed by thousands of illegal border crossers being dropped off on street corners after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center was closed by the Biden administration.

"In one day alone last week, Border Patrol agents apprehended 2,000 illegal border crossers in the CBP San Diego Sector, including 206 Chinese nationals, Desmond said."

Read the entire article here.

"Conservative legal commentators are usually very cautious whether on cable or radio broadcasts or in-print for some obvious reasons detailed below. Legal commentators from the left are -- sharp contract alert -- much more likely to be egregiously, repeatedly and loudly wrong in their 'analysis.' And not just on questions concerning the criminal liability of former President Donald Trump, but again and again, on all sorts of issues from abortion to EPA rule-making to property rights disputes.

"This inherent bias towards caution among the right's legal commentariat generally combined with the partisan assessments dressed up as legal deep-thinking has led to an enormous imbalance among the dueling left-and-right legal analysts, which in turn has led to a particularly pernicious impact on big consumers of blue bubble media, whether broadcast over MSNBC or CNN or from the very online left at any of a dozen sites where the left goes to get its news.

"The audiences fed the almost-always-wrong hot takes from the left's favorite 'legal analysts' are not about to lose their faith in the commentators who led them astray. They are, when disappointed, going to fall for the absurdist conspiracy theories of the likes of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse or even the simply naked partisanship of Senators Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin, who are at this moment the Senate Majority Leader and the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee respectively. Again and again the legal 'analysis' on the left's platforms has been proven to be horribly wrong but the usual suspects keep spewing out stupid and actually astonishing claims with zero consequences."

Read the entire article here.

"As federal Department of Education and congressional investigators gear up to probe the climate of antisemitism at Columbia University and other colleges across the country, they might want to start by looking into the professors and administrators who fund antisemites.

"They're easy to find. Just look up donors to antisemitic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who list their employer as Columbia in a federal database. I found at least seven professors and a vice dean at the school who donated to one or both of the lawmakers.

"These faculty members are hardly alone in New York. Professors and administrators at New York University and the City University of New York gave to Tlaib and Omar in each of the last three election cycles. In total, staff at the three schools gave nearly $70,000 to the 'Squad' representatives, including $28,000 so far this election cycle -- the most ever."

Read the entire article here.

"Whatever 'deal' was brokered between Washington and Tehran to put an end to the 170-plus attacks on U.S. bases and commercial shipping throughout the Middle East since October, it has apparently run its course.

It did not take long to unravel. Two days after Israel launched its retaliatory April 19 strike on Iran, Iranian-backed proxies fired as many as five rockets from the Iraq town of Zummar toward a U.S. base in Rumalyn, Syria. Aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria reportedly destroyed the launcher.

Was this the 'within seconds' response that Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani proclaimed prior to the Israeli strikes on Isfahan? Probably. So far, Tehran's kinetic response has been largely oriented toward the U.S. and not Israel."

Read the entire article here.

"Remember when progressives said the Trump Administration's rollback of net neutrality would break the internet? Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel now concedes this was wrong, yet she plans to reclaim political control over the internet anyway to stop a parade of new and highly doubtful horribles.

"The FCC on Thursday is expected to vote to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. This will let the commission regulate providers like AT&T, including by fixing prices and micro-managing network investment. Why does the FCC need this power?

"She concedes that providers don't block, throttle or charge more to speed up sites. Yet this was the justification for the Obama FCC's Title II power grab. Ms. Rosenworcel's new justification is that 'loopholes' in FCC oversight have left the internet vulnerable to national-security, cyber-security and privacy threats. This is ridiculous, and she knows it. ...

"There's no legal, economic or equity justification for Ms. Rosenworcel's pending power grab. It will slow the spread of 5G access. This diktat is all about asserting political control over more of the private economy -- no matter the consequences."

Read the entire article here (behind paywall).