SHOCKER: Disney LIED About Star Wars. “It’s really easy to show a profit when you include revenues but conveniently leave out major expenses.”

UPDATE (From Ed): One easy way for Disney to generate some quick revenue on its investment? Release the original versions of the first three films! But as James Joyner wrote on Sunday in “The Real Star Wars Films,” “I’m honestly shocked Disney hasn’t already done that, given that there are surely millions of folks who would shell out to own the originals.”

CAMPUS PROTESTERS PRETEND TO SPEAK FOR STUDENTS, BUT THEY DON’T: Poll: 81% of College Students Want Protesters Held Accountable. “A majority also said they oppose the protest tactics: 67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable and 58% say it’s not acceptable to refuse a university’s order to disperse. Another 90% said blocking pro-Israel students from parts of campus is unacceptable.”

Plus: “And that’s after more than six months of radical campus actions. The pro-Hamas fringe isn’t even convincing their most sympathetic and proximal cohort, let alone anyone else.”

BLUE CITY BLUES: Given The Chance, Austin Voters Escape Austin. “Three areas voted to disannex from Austin after saying they’re paying for services they don’t receive.”

HOCHUL APOLOGIZES FOR DROPPING THE MASK: Gov. Hochul says she ‘misspoke’ when she said some ‘Black kids’ don’t know the word ‘computer.’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul apologized this week after saying there are Black kids in the Bronx who don’t know what the word “computer” means.

Hochul made the remarks during an address at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, California.

“Now what we have is the money to build a phenomenal super computer that is gonna be accessible to the researchers in New York, college students, will attract more federal grants, and this is how we lay down the mark,” Hochul said. “No state has done this. In fact, I talk to a lot of other people who say, ‘I wish my governor had thought of that first.’ I say, ‘No no, this is New York. We like to be first,’ with all due respect to you from other states.”

“It’s sort of our attitude,” Hochul continued. “We will be the best, we will be the first, and I want others to follow, because right now we have young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is. They don’t know. They don’t know these things.”

President Joe “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids” Biden could not be reached for comment.

THIS EXPLAINS THE COLAVITA TRUCKS IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE: Olive oil could help reduce risk of dying from dementia, Harvard study says.

CORN, POPPED: I Dare You. “Donald Trump is now daring the judge in his Manhattan trial to throw him in jail for violating his gag order.”

AN IDEA SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: How to solve social chaos: Treat people as persons, not things.

PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE, HOW DOES IT WORK?

Actually even that is not enough to acquit. Trump has to have not known about the $130,000 hush money payment at the time he was reimbursing Cohen for it! https://t.co/b3UZH03Xvo

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) May 6, 2024

This is just embarrassing for an attorney but par for an MSNBC legal analyst.

SURE, BUT THEN IT WOULDN’T PRODUCE GRAFT IN CALIFORNIA: Money California wastes on the homeless could buy a first-class life in Missouri.

In some places, one unit of supportive housing for people who are homeless costs a cool million dollars. And, every month after it is built taxpayers fork over $17,000 for security, maintenance, social workers to help them get government assistance, utilities, cleaning and such.

To put that in perspective for people in normal America, you could buy each Californian suffering from homelessness two first-class tickets to Kansas City International Airport, get them a limo ride to their new home, which would be a new three-bedroom ranch, fully furnished (natch) with a new Tesla in the garage, and still save hundreds of thousands of dollars. Every month, you could give them a salary for picking up cans and other debris along the highways that would be greater than half of what working Missourians make and still save $10,000 off that monthly bill.

If money and houses could solve homelessness, this is what California would do — and Missouri would be a winner, as all those formerly homeless people paid property and income taxes thanks to the taxpayers of the palm-festooned paradise on the Pacific.

Well, if California wanted to solve homelessness. But homelessness is too lucrative a problem to solve.

READER FAVORITE: VIKING Garden Hose Nozzle, High Pressure Hose Nozzle with 8 Spray Patterns. #CommissionEarned

TRUMP’S TAX CUTS MAY DECIDE 2024 ELECTION: Remember President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the massive reduction in federal levies negotiated between him and the then-Republican Congress? The across-the-board tax cuts included in that law expire next year, but the political reverberations could be a major factor in the outcome of this November’s election.

Check out the Tax Foundation’s analysis of the state-by-state amount that individual levies will increase for all taxpayers if the TCJA is not renewed. When everybody in, for example, Texas realizes their federal taxes are going up by on average $2,919 if something isn’t done, they aren’t going to be happy. Same for a key swing state like Michigan where the hike will be more than $2,000 per taxpayer on average.

Expect Trump and his allies to be talking about this a lot in the days ahead.

LOW-G FITNESS: Astronauts could run round ‘Wall of Death’ to keep fit on moon, say scientists. “Using a rented Wall of Death – a giant wooden cylinder used by motorcycle stunt performers in their gravity-defying fairground act – a 36m-high telescopic crane, and some bungee cords, researchers showed it was possible for a human to run fast enough in lunar gravity not only to remain on the wall, but to generate sufficient lateral force to combat bone and muscle wasting.”

It looks like fun, too.

VICTORIA TAFT: Trump Isn’t the Only One Silenced at His Trial. “The man who might be the most important witness to Donald Trump’s defense in Manhattan has been effectively silenced, much like the defendant himself. Now why would that be?”

TRAVELING TO RUSSIA IS INVITING YOURSELF TO BECOME A HOSTAGE: US soldier was arrested in Russia last week, officials say. “There are a number of Americans being held in Russia, including two who have been declared as wrongfully detained by the US State Department – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan.”

GOOD: UNC faculty, students, alumni support school’s crackdown on anti-Israel activists.

DON’T BE A SOFT TARGET: A Foiled Church Shooting Demonstrates the Need for Churches to Have Security Teams.

HIGHER EDUCATION SPEAKERS, LIKE SPEAKERS AT COLLEGES IN GENERAL, ARE JUST A MONEY LAUNDRY FOR THE LEFT: Democrats outnumber Republicans as commencement speakers – again.

WOEING: FAA Opens New Boeing Inquiry Over 787 Inspections.

Federal air-safety regulators have opened a new investigation into Boeing after the jet maker recently disclosed that its employees may have skipped some inspections on 787 Dreamliners and falsified records, the latest quality issue at the manufacturer.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane maker notified the agency in April that it may not have completed required inspections related to the electrical safeguards of bonding and grounding where wings join the fuselage on certain aircraft.

The FAA said it was investigating “whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.” The agency has been scrutinizing Boeing’s production since the Jan. 5 midair blowout of a door plug on a 737 MAX jet flown by Alaska Airlines.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether any 787 Dreamliners currently flying passengers around the world would need to be pulled out of service for inspections. The agency said Boeing was reinspecting all 787s in production and must formulate a plan to address the in-service Dreamliner fleet.

Then there’s this from March: Video of Boeing engineers goes viral – “I wouldn’t fly on one of these planes.”

And: Boeing, Boeing, GONE: Another Whistleblower Has ‘Died Suddenly.’

SHOP AMAZON Pet Day. #CommissionEarned