THE ENEMY WITHIN: University of South Florida anti-Israel protester brought firearm to campus, shared Hamas propaganda on Facebook: Police. He doesn’t look much like a student.

SO MUCH FOR ‘STUDENT’ UNREST: Joshua Arnold at The Washington Stand reports more than 1,600 individuals have been arrested thus far at 33 campuses in 23 states in the coordinated and planned Pro-Palestinians campus protests. In at least 11 instances, more of those arrested were non-students than students.

AFTER BLOWING THROUGH OUR SAVINGS AND MAXING OUT THE CREDIT CARDS, THIS WAS BOUND TO COME NEXT: Long-predicted consumer pullback finally hits restaurants like Starbucks, KFC and McDonald’s.

Excuses don’t fully explain the weak quarterly results. Instead, it looks like the competition for a smaller pool of customers has grown fiercer as the diners still looking to buy a burger or cold brew become pickier with their cash.

The cost of eating out at quick-service restaurants has climbed faster than that of eating at home. Prices for limited-service restaurants rose 5% in March compared with the year-ago period, while prices for groceries have been increasing more slowly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Clearly everybody’s fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently, and we’ve got to make sure we’ve got that street-fighting mentality to win, irregardless of the context around us,” McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said on the company’s conference call on Tuesday.

“Irregardless,” really?

Meanwhile, here’s the view from inside the Beltway.

JUST IN: Treasury Secretary Yellen says “people are generally better off despite recent price increases.”

Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/2syUIKbf7I

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) April 30, 2024

The replies are brutal.

Related: Customers Fed Up With Starbucks: ‘You Want HOW MUCH for a Cup of Coffee???’

HAHA: Pro-Hamas Protesters at Harvard get respect they deserve when Harvard students “streak” the protest site.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SURRENDERS TO PRO-PALESTINIAN DEMONSTRATORS, Antisemitism Task Force Members Resign in Protest.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: FINALLY—A Reason to Feel Good About College Kids in America. “Just when we thought that all hope for our future generations was lost. OK, I really didn’t think that, but the campus Brownshirts might have gotten me there.”

WELL, BYE: Google lays off 200 workers, shifts jobs to Mexico and India in latest restructuring.

The job cuts — announced internally on the eve of Google’s blowout first-quarter earnings report — targeted members of Google’s “core” team, which works on the “technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products” as well as the online safety of users and its global IT infrastructure, according to its website.

At least 50 of the roles were based at Google’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Google is expected to hire replacement workers for the roles in Mexico and India, CNBC reported, citing a review of internal documents.

“Announcements of this sort may leave many of you feeling uncertain or frustrated,” Asim Husain, vice president of Google Developer Ecosystem said in an email to staffers last week announcing the cuts, according to CNBC.

Husain said the company’s restructuring plan was “in service of our broader goals.”

So they’re not going to remove the ideological blinders that have ruined their search engine and other services? Sarah Hoyt’s shocked face could not be reached for comment.

FROM HER LIPS TO GOD’S EAR: Meghan McCain: ‘Trump is going to win.’

A RELIGIOUS TEST FOR SPACE EXPLORATION?

An editorial recently published on SpaceNews took the position that my company’s Luna Memorial Spaceflight service should not be permitted on the Moon because the Navajo Nation views the Moon as sacred.

In essence, the author is arguing that lawful space missions should be subject to the religious test of a single culture.

No religious tests. And no religious vetoes on humanity’s future.

HAPPENING NOW: Watch SpaceX’s Crew-8 astronauts move their Dragon at the ISS May 2 to make way for Boeing’s Starliner.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: It’s Long Past Time to Give the Commies the Nazi Treatment.

THE ATLANTIC: Will Biden Have A Gaza Problem in November?

ADHERING TO OUR ENEMIES: US Greenlit Taliban’s Kabul Takeover and Had No Contingency Plan When Hell Broke Loose, Former Envoy Says.

DON SURBER: Intifada hurt Democrats: Democrats are drinking the venom of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

Drinking it? They’re brewing it up in job-lot batches.

HUGO GURDON: Biden atop the greasy pole.

Lord Randolph Churchill might therefore have summed up Biden’s career as “failure, failure, partial success, incipient failure, ultimate victory.”

There, however, the parallel with Disraeli ends. The British statesman was a leader who made things happen and shaped politics. They didn’t just take place while he happened to be there, more or less coincidentally, at the top of what he referred to as the “greasy pole.” Disraeli overhauled his party and created modern conservatism. He was a populist who built a middle-class movement, patriotic sometimes jingoistic in character, that had little in common with the landed-gentry Tory party from which it grew.

Biden, by contrast, is neither leading nor reshaping his party. It is changing, for sure, but is doing so not because he is directing it but because he has little influence over what is happening to it. He is prepared to let others decide where it goes, as long as he is allowed to stay at the top of the greasy pole.

During his presidency, the Democratic Left has become a radical battering ram smashing down successive sets of protective doors behind which the norms, traditions, and decencies of our rule-of-law, liberal democratic culture lie vulnerable.

Biden isn’t going anywhere and none of the damage matters, not even his increasing senescence, so long as the Big Guy gets his 10%.

AN AGE LIMIT ON SOCIAL MEDIA? Legislation with bipartisan support is moving through Congress to bar youngsters under the age of 13 from using social media sites like Facebook and TikTok. Check out my Epoch Times story this morning that makes clear the Senate conservatives are deeply divided on this proposal.

THE QUALITY OF THE STUDENTS IS THE WORST INDICTMENT OF THESE SCHOOLS:  Tone-deaf UCLA anti-Israel protesters claim ‘life-threatening assault’ while comparing campus clash to war in Gaza.

LIMITED TIME DEAL: Wall Charger, Surge Protector, QINLIANF 5 Outlet Extender. #CommissionEarned

IS ANYONE SURPRISED? Biden Censorship Official Can’t Answer Basic Questions About the First Amendment.

MARK JUDGE: ‘Remember Us’: How to Fight Media Bombholing.

BAM! Clarence Thomas Questions Jack Smith’s Appointment As Trump Prosecutor.

HAMAS OPENS A SECOND FRONT: Pro-Palestinian Protests Disrupt Law School Finals And Commencement Ceremonies.

Of course, it’s mostly affecting their allies in universities and blue cities.

DO NOT MESS WITH THE FUZZY YEET COWS:  Idaho man arrested in Yellowstone hospital for [checks notes] kicking a bison.

The very definition of FAFO.

HEH – CAN THEY SLAP A SURTAX ON COLUMBIA FOR MAINTAINING A NUISANCE?  Taxpayers shouldn’t pay for NYPD to ‘babysit unruly’ Columbia students, pols fume as cops asked to stay on guard.

THIS OUGHT TO BUY SOME KEGS FOR THEM:  More than $124K raised for UNC frat brothers who protected American flag from anti-Israeli mob.