Read it.

A pro-abortion activist group is urging protesters to quit making references to The Handmaid’s Tale, arguing allusions to the book are insensitive to the oppression of minorities.

“You can’t wear people’s real oppression as a costume. Throw the red cloaks away,” REPRO Rising Virginia said Thursday. “Handmaid’s Tale references turn a blind eye to the centuries of oppression people of color, specifically Black, brown, and indigenous women, have faced regarding their reproductive rights.”

So their opposition isn’t because such cosplay is stupid–which it is–but because it’s insufficiently Woke.  So there you have it. It’s a moral imperative for ‘black, brown, and indigenous women’ to be able to kill their babies because that’s their ‘reproductive rights’. (I suppose black drive-by shootings of other black people are a matter of self-defense.)

Margaret Sanger is laughing uncontrollably (wherever she is).

CNN.

And whose fault is that?

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

What goes around comes around.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. — Matthew 7:2.

Sarah Hoyt. Highly recommended.

For some reason, the left really wants to force both sexes to act like the worst examples of the other sex. To a great extent, they’re succeeding.

Read it.

Basic economics says that companies can only set prices at a level where the current supply will meet demand. Moreover, looking at prices in a vacuum is also very misleading because it doesn’t account for changes in the firm’s input or operating costs.

As Milton Friedman once stated, corporations don’t cause inflation; governments create inflation by printing money. There was no better example of this than the massive Government interventions in 2020 and 2021 that sent subsequent rounds of checks to households (creating demand) when an economic shutdown constrained supply due to the pandemic.

Boston Globe.

In the Narrative Media, what they believe is obviously ‘public opinion’, any evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Reuters.

1. And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.
2. Russians don’t have the ‘medical condition trumps all’ delusion. If it’s illegal, you can’t do it, even if you think it will save your life.

Washington Post.

Fareed Zakaria spends too much time breathing his own exhaust. (He’s a Yalie. That’s what he was trained to do.)

Democrats don’t build things. They’re good at destroying things (like Confederate statues). They’re great at spending money (especially YOUR money). They’re outstanding at using YOUR money to buy the votes of simple-minded or venal people who are ready, willing, and able to support the Party of Free Stuff.

The only answer they have to any question is SPEND MONEY. (Not their money, other people’s money.) Their Golden Age was the Depression, in which Franklin Roosevelt took an ordinary regularly occurring economic downturn and stretched it out over a decade (in which he got to be President for twelve years, which would have been sixteen if he hadn’t died). The motto of the Democrats is, and always has been, “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.” That’s the only thing they do well, and they do it well enough to make life miserable for the rest of us.

‘Pronouns’ are the least of our problems.

Politico.

Ruy Teixeira is one of Washington’s most prominent left-leaning think-tank scholars, a fixture at the Center for American Progress since the liberal organization’s founding in 2003. But as of August 1, he’ll have a new professional home: The American Enterprise Institute, the longtime conservative redoubt that over the years has employed the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dinesh D’Souza, and Robert Bork.

Teixeira, whose role in the Beltway scrum often involved arguing against calls to move right on economic issues, insists his own policy views haven’t changed — but says the current cultural milieu of progressive organizations “sends me running screaming from the left.”

He hasn’t, of course–he’s still On The Left. He has just realized that the other people On The Left are a bunch of assholes and (reasonably) doesn’t want to work in that environment.

But of course he refuses to wake up and smell the coffee; and that sort of willing suspension of disbelief is the very definition of the proglodyte.

My question is why the American Enterprise Institute would waste their money paying this guy for his wrong opinions.

This is yet another brick in support of the thesis that most of the people pretending to be conservatives are merely the Me-Too Wing of the political Uniparty, the Washington Generals of the reigning political class. Their job is to put up a good act but inevitably to lose.

And fools give them money. Astonishing.

Politico.

Democrats keep attempting to bribe people who will take your rope and then use it to hang you.

The U.S. government has been paying the ‘Palestinians’ millions for decades, and it hasn’t made a damned bit of different–jihadists keep killing innocent people, and nothing pleases a jihadist more than killing a Jew. (The PLO actually gives families money when one of their offspring suicide-bombs Jews.)

Will this not make the Biden administration an accomplice in the next ‘Palestinian’ atrocity?

When it happens, you can depend on the Narrative Media to ignore the dots rather than connect them.

New York Times.

First, he killed a plan that would have forced power plants to clean up their climate-warming pollution. Then, he shattered an effort to help consumers pay for electric vehicles. And, finally, he said he could not support government incentives for solar and wind companies or any of the other provisions that the rest of his party and his president say are vital to ensure a livable planet.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Read it.

Violence from Islamic terrorism, tribal conflicts and banditry hit record levels in 2021. The five states with the highest number deaths were; Zamfara (in the northwest near the Niger border) saw 848 deaths while Kaduna (in the north) had 550 and Borno (in the northeast) 481, Benue (central Nigeria) 381 and Niger (in the west) 332. So far in 2022 Benue States has dropped out of the top five, replaced by Plateau state in Central Nigeria.

Until the last few years Borno State was the most violent. Since 2011 over 35,000 have died from Boko Haram and Islamic terrorist violence. This was the majority of the 60,000 deaths suffered nationwide because of Islamic terrorist activity since 2011.

Read it.  And watch the videos.

For reasons that defy rational justification, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to appear in public and (attempt to) answer questions while cameras are rolling. It’s as if she is determined to provide as much content as possible for our “Veep Thoughts” video series.

Kamala is one of a kind. Watching her attempt to form coherent sentences is like watching a normal American playing Plinko on The Price Is Right. Her eloquence makes Joe Biden look like Winston Churchill. Her interviewing skills make Hillary Clinton look like Bill Clinton, and her capacity for deep thought makes Donald Trump look like William F. Buckley.

Read it.

There are two major forces at work within the US economy today that pull in different directions but end up in the same place: These forces are price inflation caused by central bank stimulus along with supply chain instability and recession triggered by rising interest rates. Immense corporate and consumer debt also play a role, but this ties in directly with the interest rate issue.

In other words, we are looking at a classic stagflationary scenario amplified by years of fiat dollar printing by the Federal Reserve. The only element that has been missing is rising unemployment, until now.

The word “recession” is being used liberally lately and there is a good reason for this – It is vague and gives the public little to no idea of what to expect or how bad the economic downturn could get. It is also a convenient distraction from the much more dangerous issue of rising prices. If a “recession” is on the way, won’t this mean prices will fall? Not necessarily, at least not anytime soon.

I guess “Learn to code!” is going to start ringing pretty hollow.

Read it.

In a dangerous game of wack-a-mole, Mexico nearly eliminated rampant gasoline pipeline thefts only to now see cartels and common thieves stealing $1 billion worth of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) each year from state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

Under Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, theft from gasoline and diesel pipelines plummeted 94% after he deployed the National Guard and military surveillance to watch over the supply arteries. The glow of that success has been dulled, however, as criminals have switched to tapping the country’s 1,000 miles of LPG pipelines.

Pemex found more than 2,400 illegal taps last year—up more than 10-fold in just three years. LPG is Mexico’s top source of energy for heating homes and is also used in cooking. The thieves sell directly to homeowners and food merchants, often using trucks disguised to look like legitimate delivery vehicles.

Nobody considers ‘stealing from the government’ to be anything other than clever, and when the government owns the oil company, well….

The Other McCain turns over a rock.

“Survival of the fittest” is so much easier when the unfit, recognizing their own genetic inferiority, decide for themselves that it’s wrong for them to reproduce.

Read it.

Culture-enrichers in Europe (notably Sweden) have shown a predilection for taking sexual advantage of retarded or mentally ill females of all ages. In the case below from Austria, it seems that five Afghan immigrants responded to a “sexual emergency” with a mentally impaired homeless woman

Read it.

The European Union is set to again boost its funding for military arms shipments to Ukraine, expected to be agreed upon by member states at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday.

They are expected to set aside 500 million euros ($500 million) more in military aid to Kiev, Bloomberg reports, at a moment Russian forces continue unleashing constant artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Donbas.

“That would bring the total arms financing to 2.5 billion euros,” Bloomberg writes. “The bloc in recent months has agreed to several rounds of arms financing for Ukraine under the so-called European Peace Facility, which reimburses governments for military deliveries to Ukraine.”

The Economist.

Every president yearns to be historic—but not historic like Joe Biden. At this point in his presidency Mr Biden’s singular achievement is to have the lowest approval rating of any incumbent since the 1950s. Even among Democrats, 67% think the economy is doing poorly, 78% think the country is heading in the wrong direction and 64% want another presidential candidate on the ticket in 2024.

How Yellen plans to deplete Putin’s war funds (Politico)

Russia, Ukraine Reach Breakthrough Over Blocked Grain Exports: UN Chief

Germany To Halt Russian Coal Imports Next Month

Lithuania To Allow Rail Transit Of Russian Goods After EU Reaches Compromise On Kaliningrad

Officials Reveal Haphazard, Chaotic Way Western Arms Are Being Distributed In Ukraine

Stockpile concerns rising in Europe amid efforts to help Ukraine: Dutch DefMin

Russia Hails “Victory Of Our Diplomacy” In Wake Of EU’s Kaliningrad Decision

Jan. 6 hearing conjures chilling picture of future Trump tyranny (CNN) The TDS is strong in this one.

Meet the fans who follow the Jan. 6 hearings as must-see TV (Washington Post)

Harvard Law instructor says Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe should ‘never know peace again’

Trouble for Trump as committee makes case Capitol attack was premeditated (The Guardian) Walls are closing in! etc. etc.

On ‘The View,’ Alyssa Farah Griffin rejects notion she ‘doesn’t deserve a voice’ after serving Trump admin  Trump cooties!

Portland woman charged in US Capitol riot identified through social media

The Jan. 6 committee won’t rule out more hearings this summer

More Evidence That Democrats Hate America

CNN Attacks Hungarian PM Viktor Orban As ‘Authoritarian Nationalist’

January 6 Was Trump’s Project All Along (The Atlantic)

Seething: Pink News Horrified at ‘Straight Pride’ Poster on Glasgow Church

Judge Orders Discovery To Proceed In Social Media Collusion Lawsuit Against Biden Administration

‘Freaks’ and ‘Weirdos’: Morning Joe Repeatedly Smears Republican Candidates

Amy Coney Barrett is having a really crappy summer  Apparently, rabid frothings by writers at lefty sites like Slate and Twitter trolls is enough to demonstrate her worthlessness. (I’d be more impressed if there were any indication that she’s paying attention. Dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.)

Don Lemon: ‘We’re Not Doing Our Jobs’ if Media is Fair to GOP

Greene turns to Ethics Committee over posters defaced by Democratic staffer: Report

Is my airline or hotel greenwashing? Here’s how to tell. (Washington Post) You, too, can be a Karen.

What’s the best way to incentivize supplier sustainability? (Greenbiz)

Energy Crises In Germany and Texas Are Exposing The Folly of Renewable Energy (Newsweek)

Two glacier-collapse avalanches in a week highlight dangers of a warming climate (Anchorage Daily News)

Rising sea levels pose an existential threat to Galveston. Here’s how islanders are grappling with it. (Houston Chronicle)

The End of the Gas Range and Fireplace? Local Governments Ban Natural Gas (Daily Signal)

Claim: Republicans Need to See Evidence of Climate Change Harms

Saskatchewan, Ontario to roll out mini-nuclear reactors

Germany’s Energy Catastrophe

“Breaking Boundaries”David Attenborough Distorts the Science and Shills for “The Globalist Agenda”

Climate Mandates Imposed On Dutch Farmers Will Ruin Their Livelihoods: War Correspondent

Energy Crisis Could Force The UK To Keep Using Coal

Florida university removes some anti-racism statements, worrying faculty (Washington Post)

Arizona Dem: If You Marry a White Guy, You Ain’t Latina  If only it were that easy.

‘We, the Undersigned, Condemn Barrage of Racist, Vicious, and Ugly Personal Attacks’ on Clarence Thomas

Hirono under fire for remarks on Constitution: ‘Who the heck would know what our Founding Fathers meant?’  Anybody who was willing to do the research – not Lazy Mazie, for sure.

What Josh Hawley doesn’t get in the discussion about ‘pregnant people’ (Washington Post) It’s not about facts–it’s about the Narrative.

Chicago Mayor Lightfoot in Europe touting city’s ‘thriving economy’ as businesses flee city  BRAAAAAAAINS!

Newsom calls out DeSantis spokesperson who suggests critics of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill are ‘groomers’ (The Hill)

Pennsylvania officials sue county election boards in the latest confrontation over certifying results (CNN)

50 years after ‘American Pie,’ Don McLean fears ‘some kind of civil war’ (The Hill)

Scarborough Claims Cops on 1/6 Would Have Shot Protesters If They Were Black or Muslim

PolitiFact: It’s ‘Mostly False’ To State the Truth About States with No Abortion Limits

Confidence in Public Schools Turns More Partisan

Ruhle Falsely Declares U.S. Doing Better on Inflation Than Most

Sorry Gals, a FLA Public School Says You’re Now ‘People With Vulva’

Elizabeth Warren Wants To Shut Down All of the Country’s Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Head of Crisis Pregnancy Center Rebukes ‘Horrific’ Claims of Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Biden lashes out at reporter asking about dismal approval among Dems: ‘Read the polls, Jack’

Biden Just Said He’s Willing To Go To War With Iran, Mainstream Yawns  Perhaps because they don’t believe him. I certainly don’t.

Obama Scolds His Former Doctor For Questioning Biden’s Cognitive Ability  C’mon, get with the Narrative!

Fed Finds Fed Did Nothing Wrong

Secret Service Deleted Jan. 6 Text Messages After Oversight Officials Requested Them  No, that’s not suspicious at all!

The ‘worst variant’ is here (CNN)

Explainer: What is the COVID BA.5 variant and why is it reinfecting so many people? (Reuters)

San Francisco is ‘veering towards a public health mess’ on monkeypox, lawmaker says (S.F. Gate)

Pritzker Eliminates COVID Vaccine Requirements at Colleges, Eases Testing Rules at Hospitals (NBC Chicago)

Have new COVID variants changed what we know about surface transmission? (S.F. Chronicle)

Draft bill would ban CDC, NIH from funding lab research in China (Science)

Austin Public Health confirms local transmission of monkeypox (CBS Austin)

The Pandemic Fueled a Superbug Surge. Can Medicine Recover?

US regulators clear way for more monkeypox vaccine shipments (Associated Press) You can’t have a PANIC without enough vaccine!

New York COVID-19 Quarantine Rules Unconstitutional And Illegal: Judge

Read it.

The Heritage Foundation filed an ethics complaint Wednesday against Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who last month accused a Second Amendment expert with the Washington-based think tank of lying to Congress about the contents of firearms legislation.

In the complaint filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts accuses Porter of “knowingly and intentionally defaming” Amy Swearer, a legal fellow in Heritage’s Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. (The Daily Signal is the multimedia news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Read it.

Only two weeks after Italy, Denmark becomes the fourth country to sanction Google. As expected, more and more EU member countries are reaching the same conclusion: Google products violate EU law.

Read it.

I would certainly encourage them to do so. (Fortunately, voluntary sterilization is still legal.)

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Teen Vogue gets more insane by the day.

On June 13, Teen Vogue released a piece about casting a witches spell to fight for reproductive justice. No, this is not satire.

The teenage geared site gave a rundown on the history of witches fighting back “against the patriarchy.” I assume the “patriarchy” is the Supreme Court who just confirmed what we already knew — there is no constitutional right to abortion.

Luckily, as pointed out by Teen Vogue, witches can cast their spells to save the day. “In the late 1960s, the movement group Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (also known as W.I.T.C.H.) organized protests to push back against the patriarchy and to fight for women’s rights. They had several spin-off covens throughout the country, composed of radical feminists who wanted to expose capitalism as the true enemy of women’s freedom.”

Ah yes, capitalism is the enemy. I must have missed that.

Read it.

Waiting for them to start. Waiting ….

Read it.

Not that they wouldn’t do that anyway.

Nearly $2tn of damage inflicted on other countries by US emissions (The Guardian)

Can we fix our ocean noise problem?

Energy & Environment — Are the feds closing the door on climate action?  (The Hill)

Humans need to value nature as well as profits to survive, UN report finds (The Guardian)

More than 200 congressional staffers urge Pelosi and Schumer to act on climate or risk dooming younger generations (CNN)

Wind, Solar And Pipelines All Fail Germany

Tapping into the million-year energy source below our feet

Smart thermostat swarms are straining the US grid

Climate Change Idiots Halt Tour de France, Claim Earth Will Be Exterminated

Trump Planned a March to the Capitol, Committee Says (N.Y. Times) For which there is not a shred of evidence.

Jan. 6 committee shows White House aide described Trump west wing as ‘unhinged’ (CNBC)

Jan. 6 panel reveals new details of Trump’s fringe-driven push to hold power (Politico)

Takeaways from the January 6 hearing day 7 (CNN)

Berkeley professor to Hawley: ‘Your line of questioning is transphobic’ (The Hill)

CNN, MSNBC fail to cover on air CBP finding ‘no evidence’ Border Patrol agents whipped Haitian migrants

Half of Republicans wouldn’t vote for Trump in primary, poll finds (Axios)

AOC calls on Senate to say whether Supreme Court justices lied under oath (Axios)

Why Democrats will drag out January 6 committee hearings for ‘as long as they possibly can’: Domenech

Jan. 6 committee notifies DOJ that Trump tried tampering with one of its witnesses, Cheney says (CNBC)

Trump hid plan for Capitol march on day he marked as ‘wild’, panel says (Washington Post)

Backlash continues as Dave Chappelle receives two Emmy nominations for controversial Netflix special (USA Today)

Dramatic moments from deprogrammed right-wingers indict the whole GOP (Washington Post) No show trial is complete without public confessions from repentant heretics and sinners. Beria’s ghost is nodding enthusiastically.

Trump hosts controversial Saudi-funded golf tournament as he mulls 2024 bid (NBC News) Controversial!

Proof: Trump Planned the Mob’s March to the Capitol (The Bulwark)

Let the Litigation Flow!

Mitt Romney Is Inventing Policies for a Fantasy G.O.P. (New York Times)

California Governor Signs Bill Allowing Victims to Sue Gun-Makers

SCOTUS judges ‘doxxed’ after overturning Roe v Wade

They “Should Never Know Peace Again”: Harvard Instructor Calls For People To “Accost” Justices In Public

NY Times Basks in Glow of Radical Rep. Raskin’s ‘Expertise on Right-Wing Extremism’

‘Burn Down’ SCOTUS: 67 Leftist Posts Threaten, Call for Violence on Platforms Post-Roe

‘Centaurus’: virologists express concern at new Covid subvariant (The Guardian)

Doctor Urges Public to Wear Face Masks as BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron Subvariants Spread (NBC Chicago)

The first case of monkeypox virus has reached Delaware. Here’s what you need to know (Delaware Online)

The BA.5 variant doesn’t care about your big back-to-office plan (S.F. Chronicle)

14 monkeypox cases reported in Dallas County, including local transmission (WFAA)

How Are COVID Symptoms Shifting With New Variants? Here’s What Chicago’s Top Doc Says (NBC Chicago)

As Sixth Covid Wave Hits, Many New Yorkers Shrug It Off (N.Y. Times)

Beijing Scraps China’s First COVID Vaccine Mandate In Just 48 Hours After Furious Social Response

We’re “Losing The Fight Against Monkeypox” …Apparently

Emails Confirm Why CDC Changed Definitions Of Vaccine, Vaccinated

Fauci Admits Vaccines Don’t Protect “Overly Well” Against COVID Infection

Read it.

• Thanks to a Treasury Department “interpretation,” Americans can still own stock in companies that were placed on a blacklist by the Trump administration because of their direct ties to the Chinese military.
• Thanks to the Biden administration, the “China Initiative” at the Department of Justice to crack down on Chinese attempts to acquire or steal American technology has been discontinued.
• Thanks to the Biden administration’s “green energy” enthusiasm, tariffs on solar panels made by Asian countries who are assembling or repackaging solar panels made in China were removed.
• The Biden administration has also signaled its intention to remove or lift other tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese products. It has also been friendlier toward Chinese companies such as Huawei and ByteDance (owner of TikTok) in recent weeks.
• And all of this has been done with zero concessions from the Chinese government on any of the outstanding diplomatic, military, strategic, health or trade issues that so concern most Americans.
• Because the Biden family has been so deeply involved and so vehemently denied their involvement with Chinese business, the next question is as inescapable as the first: Does the flow of money to the Biden family from China influence the foreign policy of the United States?

Read it.

Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan, best known for her 2019 testimony in favor of impeaching then-President Donald Trump, quietly left the Justice Department this month as a conservative group ratcheted up attacks on an “unethical” arrangement in which she continued to earn nearly $1 million a year from Stanford while working for the government.

Karlan joined the department on Feb. 8, 2021, shortly after President Biden’s inauguration, and served about 17 months as principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights before she departed on July 1 with little fanfare.

Karlan’s role was slated to last until at least Aug. 22 and possibly run into September, meaning she stepped down about two months earlier than planned. She left one business day before the department delivered documents to the American Accountability Foundation pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, bringing more attention to her unusual pay provisions.

Sometimes it is good to be of the Crust.

Read it.

Just how bad are America’s cities doing under the watch of their Democrat leaders? Even ultra-woke Starbucks is pulling up stakes in Democrat-run cities where drug use, homelessness, and crime have made staying in business untenable.

Read it.

We at the Washington Free Beacon love the fact-checkers. When they’re “fact-checking” us, we know we must be doing something right.

The righteousness of our reporting has pushed this genre of faux journalism to its very limits: rules bent, reasoning contorted, and the endless invention of new ways to accuse us of hurting Democrats purveying misinformation.

The latest from the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler is a master class in the left’s crusade to conflate objective truth with Democratic spin. The ostensible target of his fisking: a tweet from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) based, as he notes, on a Free Beacon report about the Biden administration’s sale of a million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.

Yes, the Biden administration did this, Kessler concedes. Them’s the facts. But three Pinocchios for Grassley and for us, he says, for turning “simple facts” into “something nefarious.” You know, like the fact that China was also supposed to be releasing oil from its reserves in order to ease global fuel prices, according to the White House, but is instead boosting its own reserves by hoarding barrels from our stockpile.

Read it.

For the last 12 months I’ve been using an adapted version of what seems to be the “standard” advice for cleaning camera lenses. My lenses still seem as good as new (I can’t see any abrasion at all, nor any problems at night), which suggests this is a decent approach. Caveat emptor: I have not conducted a scientific test, so some of what comes next might be placebo, or the results of good fortune, or possibly even dangerous to your health. With that in mind, here’s how I now clean my glasses (note: I don’t use affiliate links, so you don’t have to worry that I’m trying to make money off you).

Ben Shapiro.

This week, a professor went viral during congressional testimony regarding the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade. During her testimony, professor Khiara Bridges of Berkeley Law School refused to acknowledge any value at all in unborn children, instead stating, “I think that the person with the capacity for pregnancy has value and they should have the ability to control what happens.” This prompted Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to ask, “You’ve referred to people with a capacity for pregnancy. Would that be women?” Bridges immediately responded, “Many cis women have the capacity for pregnancy. Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as nonbinary people who are capable of pregnancy.” Hawley asked incredulously, “Your view, the core of this right is about what?” To which Bridges shot back, “I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence.” She then blamed Hawley for the high suicidal ideation rate of those who identify as transgender, and lectured him, “We have a good time in my class. You should join.”

Read it.

More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress who have urged President Joe Biden to forgive student loans reported up to around $1.5 million in educational debt, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of financial disclosures.

The 13 Democratic members, who are an average of 46 years old, reported the debts in 2021 and 2020. Individual debts range from as little as $15,000 to as much as $300,000.

The lawmakers have all supported at least some degree of federal student loan cancellation, a policy the Biden administration is reportedly considering. This includes New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who owes up to $50,000 worth and has repeatedly tweeted about the issue, and also Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who owes up to $100,000 and has called cancelling student debt “a racial justice issue.”

ZMan says the quiet part out loud.

A recent Gallup survey reports that confidence in institutions has fallen to an all time low among Americans. The only institutions trusted by a majority of people are small business, the military and the police. The last two are dropping quickly, which makes sense given the behavior of these institutions. A military full of drag queens and a police force siding with barbarians does not inspire confidence. Faith in small business simply reflects the fact that people continue to trust good people.

The normal reaction from the usual suspects is to blame their favorite bogeymen for the collapse in social trust. They will not use the term “social trust” as that risks entering a forbidden zone, but that is the topic. Trust in institutions is a proxy for social trust, how much people trust the people they do not know in their community. A big driver of the collapse in social trust is a generation of open borders. When your neighborhood is full of strange aliens, it is hard to trust anything or anyone.

As is often the case, the flood of aliens into your neighborhood is a symptom of a much bigger problem that lies at the heart of it. The people in charge simply cannot stop lying, which reflects on the institutions they control. The obvious example is the news media, which is approaching single digits in the Gallup poll. The fact that anyone trusts the media is an argument against universal suffrage. Many people, at least ten percent based on the survey, are too stupid to vote.

Read it.

After 2003 in Iraq, American military advisors, and reservists who were cops and detectives in civilian life, brought some practical experience on how to make CI concepts work in a warzone. The role of U.S. police, on reserve duty, is worth several book length treatments. Some day. But these probably won’t be written any time soon, because of security considerations. The bottom line is that police rely heavily on “confidential informants” (CIs), and most large departments have budgets for paying them and procedures for handling them. The FBI also has a lot of practical experience with CIs, and they sometimes contributed practical experience to the troops, and the CIA.

Steve Sailer looks at Matt Continetti’s new book.

William F. Buckley, founder of National Review, is the central figure in The Right, showing up on 107 pages according to the index. I didn’t see too much in the book that’s new about that legendary personality, so here’s a story about WFB that I heard only recently (and only from one source, but a reasonably reliable one): WFB, who had won 13 percent of the vote in an entertaining Conservative Party run for mayor of New York City in 1965, intensely wanted to run for president in 1968. If Jack Kennedy could be president at age 43, why not him? He was surprised and frustrated to find that his own inner circle didn’t take him seriously as presidential timber.

Buckley’s popularity shared at least one common characteristic with Trump’s: He was entertaining.

… when a friend asked press baron Rupert Murdoch why he funded The Weekly Standard, which was edited by Continetti’s father-in-law William Kristol (15 references in the index), even though Murdoch doesn’t seem to care that much about Israel one way or another, the wily Australian magnate replied that when you are a foreigner trying to make it in the America media business, you don’t need all the Jews in New York on your side, but you do need some of them.

Read it.

Some California truckers who move containers in and out of the marine terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach say they plan to participate in a work stoppage Wednesday to protest a controversial state law, AB5, that seeks to limit the use of independent contractors and largely classify them as employee drivers.

On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the California Trucking Association’s challenge to AB5, returning the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

One owner-operator who plans to participate in the port protest says he doesn’t want to become an employee driver, preferring to remain an independent contractor.

Read it.

Using a self-serve checkout counter could get you framed for stealing, warned one lawyer on social media.

Attorney and influencer Carrie Jernigan, who often shares legal advice to her 1.2 million followers on TikTok, has alleged that stores are using security footage at the register to accuse innocent customers of theft.

“As a criminal defense attorney, I advise most people to steer clear of self-checkout,” Jernigan says in a video that’s racked up over 2 million views.

Read it.

Who could possibly be fooled into thinking that David French is in any way, shape, or form ‘conservative’?