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No doubt California’s extreme weather makes for dramatic television, and for climate eschatologists it stirs up another round of end-times unease. California cliffs tumbling onto highways and sinkholes appearing out of nowhere have been all over the news. Lowland and flood plains are underwater up and down the state. Dry creeks have been raging torrents. One Guardian headline goes, “California’s rainstorm hell ‘among the most deadly disasters in our history.’” California governor Gavin Newsom tweets, “California is proof that the climate crisis is real and we have to take it seriously.” Both the media and Governor Newsom should get a grip. There is no evidence that climate change is to blame for these heavy rains. California has long suffered from extreme weather.

I have a question for New Zealand’s outgoing prime minister Jacinda Ardern: can you take President Biden with you? Ardern announced this week that she would be resigning from her post, ten months before her term ends in October. She acknowledged in her resignation address that her five and a half years have been filled with difficult challenges. Since Ardern’s election in 2017, New Zealand has dealt with terrorist attacks, natural disasters and of course the Covid-19 pandemic. But Ardern stressed the fact that she is not leaving because of the difficulties of the job. Rather, she is departing because... well, to put it simply: she can’t cut it anymore.

As President Biden plans to launch his reelection campaign, he is whistling past a graveyard of recently discarded Democratic Party icons, who have either left the scene willingly or are being gracelessly kicked out. Nancy Pelosi. Steny Hoyer. Pat Leahy. Jim Clyburn. Anthony Fauci. Dianne Feinstein. Their combined age is 500 — and until a few months ago, they were running the country. Now they’re shadows of their former selves, headed to the greener pastures of retirement, book deals or the backbenches of the House of Representatives. Over the past few months, the Democratic Party’s leadership has transitioned from the Silent Generation to a mixture of baby boomers and Gen Xers.

A great deal of the conversation about abortion in America is based on lies about who occupies the more extreme position. For the media and their Democratic allies, the idea is that any limitation on abortion, at any point in a pregnancy, for any reason, is tantamount to fascistic Handmaid's Tale-style misogyny. Of course, there is no basis for this whatsoever. For decades, a plurality of Americans have consistently supported limits on abortion that grow more popular the further along the unborn baby is to birth. Overwhelming opposition to taxpayer funding for abortion here and overseas has been just as consistent, as has been opposition to ending abortion exceptions for rape, incest, and health threats to the life of the mother.

As President Biden’s team tried to put out fires regarding the Curious Case of the Corvette and the FAA fiasco, one Democrat must have been grateful for the White House’s sudden maelstrom of bad news. When it rains it pours — and Joe’s torrent of bad headlines overshadowed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s latest scandal that is brewing in the Windy City. On Thursday, news broke that the mayor’s campaign had sent an email attempting to recruit Chicago Public School students to “help” with the incumbent’s reelection effort. The students would earn class credit in exchange for their contributions.

Cockburn came across this interesting little tidbit while he was stirring his first apéritif of the early afternoon: a Vox preview of Christopher Whipple’s forthcoming book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House, reports that President Biden is distrustful of his Secret Service team and believes the agency fabricated a story about Biden’s German Shepherd, Major, biting an agent. Major Biden and fellow White House German Shepherd, Champ, were removed to Delaware for a while following the alleged incident. Vox reports how in the book, “Whipple details how Biden was showing a friend around the White House and pointed to the spot where Major allegedly bit a member of Biden’s security team. ‘Look, the Secret Service are never up here.

President Biden said Tuesday he was “surprised” to learn that in November his lawyers had found classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank. No doubt he was equally shocked when more classified docs turned up in his Delaware home. Yet the tone of the mainstream media seems to be that boys will be boys. Since Biden is being so cooperative with authorities after being caught red-handed, maybe this has nothing in common with Donald Trump's cache of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Or Hillary's cache on her private e-mail server. Could there be a double-standard? Biden had some/several/a bunch of classified documents while Trump had hundreds so that's different.

And then there was Kevin. In the wake of a forecasted red wave that never materialized, now-Speaker Kevin McCarthy plotted with friends and foes alike to secure the magical 218 votes necessary to take the helm of a rowdy, openly feuding House Republican caucus. After fifteen rounds of voting, Republicans eventually united behind him. Key players in the machinations spoke with The Spectator about the breakdown in the negotiations that had started in earnest after November’s elections. “Whirlwind.” “Shitshow.” “Weird.” At times, last week’s history-making votes felt more like a slog through purgatory than a victory lap over the long-awaited firing of Nancy Pelosi.