April 8, 2026

COUNTER-INTUITIVE SHOCKER: Institute for Energy Research (IER) dug deep into the data on the impact of the AI-driven explosion in demand for electricity to power new data centers to see if there is a connection of that phenomena with increases in electricity rates, as claimed by lots of folks on the Left and some on the Right as well. Verdict here and it’s likely not what you expect.

Posted at 4:00 pm by Mark Tapscott

NOVEMBER PREVIEW: The Republicans Announce Their 2026 Senate Targets. “The MSM has been endlessly hyping Democrat chances to win control of the Senate. But the central problem for them is that only two Republican seats – Maine and North Carolina – are in competitive states. The other 20 GOP seats are in states where the Republicans have a big edge, with Donald Trump winning them by double digits. That almost never happens in Senate elections, let alone twice. In the 2025 Virginia elections, the Democrats won a landslide, but they still didn’t carry a single district where Trump won with that margin.”

Posted at 3:50 pm by Stephen Green

WHOSE STUFF IS IT, ANYWAY?

I miss the buttons, too — they were just the thing for reading lying on your side.

Posted at 3:34 pm by Stephen Green

THE WORK IS THERE FOR ANYONE WILLING TO TAKE IT:

Posted at 3:03 pm by Stephen Green

FRAUD ALL THE WAY DOWN: The most connected hospice doctor in California.

A CBS News Investigation found one Los Angeles County hospice physician’s name, Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024, according to the last full year of available data.

There are roughly 1,800 licensed hospices in Los Angeles County. Federal and state data show 742 of them — about 42% — have multiple indicators of fraud, as defined by the state of California.

No doctor in California is connected to more hospices than Dr. Rajiv Bhuva. In 2024, his name appeared on Medicare claims across 126 hospice companies in California — 115 of them in Los Angeles County alone.

Much more at the link.

Posted at 2:48 pm by Stephen Green

HEH:

Now figure out something for Indian hackers.

Posted at 2:32 pm by Stephen Green

CHRISTOPHER RUFO: Gavin Newsom’s $30 Billion Fraud Magnet.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is embroiled in a national fraud scandal. Thus far, much of the coverage has focused on alleged schemes related to unemployment insurance, hospice care, and food stamps. In this exclusive investigation, we shine a light on one of California’s largest initiatives: the In-Home Supportive Services Program, or IHSS, which pays family members and other individuals to provide home-based care for the elderly and disabled—at a cost of nearly $30 billion per year.

On the surface, IHSS presents itself as an instrument of compassion, directing billions to caregivers who help with cooking, personal care, laundry, and other daily needs inside recipients’ homes. But a growing number of experts and critics argue that the program is rife with fraud, losing roughly an estimated $6 billion to $12 billion yearly to scammers. Meantime, the state’s powerful home-care unions collect more than $149 million in membership dues, funneling money into the political network supporting Newsom and California Democrats.

This is the story of a government that has allowed compassion to become a mask for fraud, creating a self-reinforcing system that keeps the Democratic establishment in power.

It sounds bad. No wonder Newsom thinks that simply throwing more money into a bonfire will make it all go away: Gavin Newsom to spend $19M in taxpayer funds on New York PR firm to polish California’s image.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

BRIDGET PHETASY: I Don’t Care If Gen Z Likes Me.

I recently caught a couple of clips from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes—originally published last October. And something odd struck me: the body language. Here was a man who once commanded an audience of five million adults on the biggest show in cable news, sitting across from a 20-something shock-jock, channeling the energy of a guy trying to impress his son’s friends. See how cool I am? See how I’m not afraid to go there?

For example, an hour and a half into the conversation, Carlson paused to justify why he’d agreed to do it at all: “Everyone’s going to be like, you’re a Nazi just like Fuentes. . . . But I don’t think Fuentes is going away. . . he’s bigger than ever.” He also told Fuentes he was “more talented than I am, for sure, as a talker.”

Earlier, when Fuentes explained that he became “radicalized on race” by listening to Fox News host Mark Levin, Tucker responded, “Amazing.” When Fuentes mentioned he admires Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Carlson told him they would circle back. He never did.

Culture commentator Jon Gabriel put it well on X at the time: “Jon Stewart embracing Zohran, Tucker embracing Nick. Two aging hosts desperate to impress the young and scared of being left behind.”

Tucker morphed into Carsenio so slowly, I hardly even noticed:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (MINNEAPOLIS EDITION REDUX):

Posted at 2:02 pm by Stephen Green

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS ENOUGH MISSILES: US Navy seeks 1,200% increase in Tomahawk missile procurement for 2027. “In fiscal 2026, Congress granted the service $257 million for the purchase of 58 Tomahawk missiles. The Navy is now asking lawmakers to subsidize the production of 785 Tomahawk missiles for a little over $3 billion, including roughly $1.5 billion for Tomahawk missile modifications.”

Posted at 1:46 pm by Stephen Green

BACK TO THE FUTURE: The 10-Year-Old Nikon D5 DSLR Really Is the Best Camera for Artemis II.

While much of the discussion surrounding the Artemis II crew’s beautiful photos from their Orion spacecraft has focused on the images themselves, and they are fantastic shots, some of the discussion has surrounded the cameras used to capture the photos. Photographers love chatting gear, after all. While the Nikon D5 DSLR may seem like a puzzling choice as the primary camera on a prestigious space mission in 2026, it’s the best tool for the job.

Although the Artemis II crew successfully campaigned to get Nikon’s current flagship camera, the mirrorless Z9, aboard at the last minute, the crew is using the rigorously tested Nikon D5 DSLR from 2016 as the main camera. Not the Nikon D6, Nikon’s last professional DSLR that was discontinued in 2025, but the 10-year-old D5.

It’s easy to wonder why the Artemis II astronauts, who are part of an Artemis program costing many billions of dollars to operate, are using an old DSLR that, frankly, was not particularly beloved at the time of its release.

It’s all part of a theme with this mission. Unless I’m having a Mandela Effect moment, I seem to recall Ron Howard on the director’s commentary on the DVD of Apollo 13 talking about the irony of making a history movie about a Saturn V-powered moonshotecause of how dated the ’60s-era NASA technology had become by 1995. As Glenn wrote about Artemis a few weeks ago in the New York Post, that retro theme continues on this flight as well:

The Apollo program’s cutting-edge technology, in both the rocket boosters and the spacecraft themselves, advanced the state of the art in astronautics and established the United States as the leader in space exploration, bar none.

Artemis aims to be all these things, but mostly it’s recapturing Apollo’s “very risky” side.

Ironically, that’s not because it uses cutting-edge technology, but because it uses 50-year-old technology.

NASA wasn’t allowed to design the Artemis craft from scratch;  Congress ordered it to use off-the-shelf technology developed for the space shuttle, including the shuttle’s main engines and fuel tanks.

Critics have dubbed the Artemis rocket — the SLS, or Space Launch System — the “Senate Launch System,” since it deliberately preserved existing jobs for existing contractors in important states.

As a jobs program, it’s been a success.

As a moon rocket, much less so.

The Artemis II mission is late because it’s had a series of serious technical problems, including life support system woes and a persistent hydrogen leak that echoed similar difficulties with the uncrewed Artemis I launch in 2022.

You’d think this would have been fixed in the intervening three years, but no.

The astronauts’ issues with Microsoft Outlook, and their numerous unplanned homages to Stanley Kubrick’s “Zero Gravity Toilet” moment in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, all continue to provide a strangely dated technological feel to this mission.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll