WELL, GOOD: Overdose deaths fall for 3rd straight year amid a changing drug supply and funding cuts.

About 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year — about 14% fewer than the previous year, according to preliminary government data.

It was the third straight annual drop, making it the longest decline in decades, according to federal data released Wednesday. The 2025 total is about the same as the tally in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Declines were seen across a number of drug types, including fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Overdose deaths fell in the vast majority of states, although seven saw at least slight increases, including jumps of 10% or more in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, the preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that this represents really a fundamental change in the arc of the overdose crisis,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.

It might be, like the crack epidemic of the ’80s and early ’90s, fentanyl is beginning to run out of victims.

THE REAL LEWIS & CLARK: School children used to learn about the incredibly courageous expedition undertaken beginning in 1804 by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the vast lands acquired by President Thomas Jefferson with the Louisiana Purchase. Today, if they hear about it at all, it’s likely in the false context of the White Man stealing the frontier from the “Indigenous Peoples.”

In fact, as Rod Martin lays it out this morning, the Lewis & Clark Expedition was a crucial event in the establishment of the young American republic as a continental power. Without it, the North American continent likely would today look like Europe, an assemblage of disparate, feuding dominions. Lewis & Clark expanded America and not just geographically.

“Together they left behind an incalculable contribution to science, to exploration, and to the advance of the American Republic. Their expedition was not merely an adventure but an assertion: that America would not be a coastal power clinging to the ocean’s edge, but a continental one, willing to push into the unknown, to master it, and to make it a civilization and a home,” is how Martin puts it. This one ought to be essential reading for every American, beginning in elementary school.

ANOTHER TARGET OF TRUMP’S ANACONDA STRATEGY:

Trump's already irretrievably crippled their 'human wave' migration machine by defunding it.

All those "Catholic charities" aren't getting the US Treasury/USAID money any longer.

Trump's been shutting off their REVENUE STREAMS to the human wave machinery for over 15 months… https://t.co/9lftGMlVlX pic.twitter.com/3BNBG7vR5C

— Brian Cates – Political Columnist & Pundit (@drawandstrike) May 13, 2026

If you wonder why the Pope is attacking Trump, this is why.

EUROPE WILL NEVER FORGIVE THE JEWS FOR THE HOLOCAUST:

I read the most profound thing I think I've ever read about European support for "Palestine," and I don't think I'll be able to unsee it now.

It's that by imagining Palestine to be real and the victim of Jewish colonialism and genocide, they can imagine Jews as the actual Nazis… pic.twitter.com/uwmdWcbRbf

— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) February 14, 2026

Exit quote: “By finding a way to stain the Jews and Israel with those same moral evils they themselves feel the weight of, but for imaginary instead of genuine reasons, Europeans can not only remove but reverse the mark of the evil they inflicted on Jews over their entire history, not remotely least during the Holocaust.”

Earlier: Brendan O’Neill on Holocaust Envy.

THAT’S A TELL:

UNBELIEVABLE. Vice President Vance just did a double take after hearing this wild stat dropped by Dr. Oz:

"You're saying that we kicked off 800 fraudulent healthcare providers off of the Medicare system and not a single one of them called the government and said, 'hey, you made… pic.twitter.com/EaJTz1lNoA

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) May 13, 2026

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Maybe God Is in the Stars.

LOL, BLUESKY: Renowned Left-Wing Crank Turns on Bluesky, the Social Media App for Left-Wing Cranks: Former Vox columnist David Roberts has been described as ‘one of the least likable progressives in the Milky Way galaxy.’

Ya know, you gotta beat out a lot of awful people for that kind of ranking.

THAT’S (D)IFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Here's Joe Biden calling a reporter he didn’t like “a stupid son of a bitch."

Normalized like that? https://t.co/dJK68wFNUP pic.twitter.com/pMSgGjr3Vm

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 13, 2026

Previously: The Biden staffer who locked a reporter in the closet.

WALTER DURANTY SMILES:

Dying on dog rape hill. What a choice. https://t.co/zr8XWCoWGf

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) May 14, 2026

To be fair though, if it wasn’t the dogs, Israel apparently has a whole menagerie of expertly-trained beasts waging war in the Middle East…:

A list of animals Israel has been accused of "weaponizing" against Palestinians over the years

Thread 🧵🧵 pic.twitter.com/vLXXWoufUm

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 13, 2026

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

After having been to the dog room and released, a Hamas fighter kept getting re-arrested trying to stab Jews and sent back to prison. While arresting him for the fourth time or so, IDF said to him: "Admit it, you don't come here for the Jew-killing, do you?"

— Alex S. (@Alex_94706) May 12, 2026

LIGHTNING DEAL: Welding Machine Handheld. #CommissionEarned

YES: House Judiciary Chairman urges DOJ to permanently dismiss all Trump cases after bombshell report.

“It’s probably time that this all just ended,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday night after Just the News reported new documents it obtained revealed the FBI at the end of the Biden presidency secretly took the rare step of preserving evidence from a dismissed January 6 prosecution until 2030, raising alarm the bureau could revive its prosecution after Trump leaves office.

The agents in the controversial Arctic Frost case also wrote a new memo insisting they believed Trump violated laws, creating a fresh roadmap for prosecution after Trump’s presidential immunity from prosecution ends in 2029.

Jordan, who played a crucial role in debunking Russia collusion allegations against Trump and chronicling FBI abuses in the targeting of conservative figures since 2016, reacted to the report by saying Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche should declare “this thing is done, over with. A-B see you later.”

He said DOJ asking the courts to discard all prior prosecutions with prejudice — meaning they couldn’t be re-filed — was “the right approach.”

More at the link.

JEEZ. THAT GUY. Chris Van Hollen and his decorative margarita glass have a ‘I did not inhale’ moment.

OWN GOAL:

>Supreme Court hands you a win of the century
>Your voting base is begging you to take the free shot and pick up two guaranteed Congressional seats
>You decide to intentionally fumble the football on the goal line because you are afraid of negative PR from people who already… https://t.co/7Sk2QuZGAm

— Christian Heiens 🏛 (@ChristianHeiens) May 13, 2026

Tweet concludes, “You decide to intentionally fumble the football on the goal line because you are afraid of negative PR from people who already hate you It’s outrageous that Republicans in South Carolina and Louisiana intentionally want our own side to lose because they think winning is a violation of principle. We don’t have time for this bullsh*t any longer.”

CAN’T STOP THE SIGNAL… I HOPE: Biden Will Fight the Release of 70 Hours of Audio Tapes With His Ghostwriter From 2017.

FROM MARY CATELLI:  Enchantments And Dragons.

#CommissionEarned

A wizard must produce justice enough to satisfy a dragon.

A young man tries to rob a tiger’s lair.

An enchantress tries to keep a court safe while they ignore the perils of misusing her magic.

A lady finds that court intrigues can spread even to the countryside.

And more tales.

Includes “Over the Sea To Me,” “Dragonfire and Time”, “The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn”, “The White Menagerie”, “The Dragon’s Cottage,” “Jewel of the Tiger,” and “The Sword Breaks.”

JEEZ:

Georgia politics make North Carolina politics look good. The judge in this case is Stacey Abrams' sister. https://t.co/e4q8nFc51p

— Margo (@MargoinWNC) May 13, 2026

MORE DIABOLICAL ISRAELI PROPAGANDA, TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED:  Hamas forced sex between family members as part of Oct. 7 torture campaign, probe finds: ‘You hear the screams’.

THEY’RE TRYING THEIR HARDEST:  Will Trump’s leftie foes turn Iran victory into defeat?

IRAQUI KURDS ABSCONDED WITH THE WEAPONS? DIDN’T WE ALREADY KNOW THAT?  Here’s Why the Iranian People Never Rose Up, and Its Not the Reason You Think.

I’M PRETTY SURE WE KNOW:  What Is Wrong With These People? Protesters Try to Crash Kash Patel’s Private Funeral Trip.

DID THEY NUKE IT BECAUSE IT WAS WRONG OR BECAUSE IT COULDN’T BE DONE BEFORE THE ELECTION CLOCK RAN OUT?  Virginia Dems Reject Insane Idea to Nuke State Supreme Court to Push Gerrymandered Map.

EXCEPT OF COURSE SCIENCE HAS BECOME A JOKE:  When a paper drops saying every testicle sampled had microplastics in it, that should have bene a clue that the process, not the tissue, was contaminated.

X-cancel.

IT’S TIME TO STOP THE LIES:  Everything MPU posts about data centers is complete garbage. They have zero respect for their audience. Literally no one here is losing power. This tweet is a complete lie.

X-cancel.

AND NOW THEY’RE DESPERATE:  STOOO-pid: The Ds’ VA redistricting gamble is the botch of botches, upturning the Ds’ gloating and making them highly visible national losers

I’D LOVE TO DISAGREE WITH HIM, BUT I CAN’T:  Barely Qualified to Convert O2.