ORLANDO VICTIM’S GRANDMOTHER FLEW TO FLORIDA TO ATTEND HIS FUNERAL: You’ll absolutely believe what happened next.

Jetblue crew member Kelly Davis Karas decided that the woman, though grieving alone, could not leave the plane without knowing the world was with her. Karas passed around a piece of paper for passengers to sign so their words might ease the grandmother’s aching heart.

As Karas pushed the beverage cart down the plane’s aisle, she whispered to passengers about the paper. Halfway down the aisle, another crew member on board said more paper was needed. Instead of signing their names and moving on, passengers were writing paragraphs—long notes of compassion, grief and strength.

“When we gathered them together to present them to her, we didn’t have just a sheet of paper covered in names, which is what I had envisioned. Instead, we had page after page after page after page of long messages offering condolences, peace, love and support. There were even a couple of cash donations, and more than a few tears,” Karas wrote on Facebook.

This “Read the whole thing” comes with a three-hanky warning.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Five Best Foreign Airlines for International Travel.

If you have a favorite, let us know in the comments.

AFTER A YEAR IN ORBIT: Space Travel Has ‘Permanent Effects,’ Astronaut Scott Kelly Says.

“The environment astronauts are exposed to while in space is unlike anything we experience here on earth. Specifically, astronauts are exposed to high levels of radiation and carbon monoxide, and a micro-gravity environment which causes loss of bone and muscle, vision impairment and effects on our immune system to name a just a few,” he wrote in his prepared remarks to the House Science, Space and Technology committee. “These are very real issues that need to be solved before the human race is able to reach destinations beyond the Earth and the Moon.”

“Exposure to the space environment has permanent effects we simply do not fully understand,” he added.

Kelly’s bravery will help us extend our understanding.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED. Here’s How the IRS Treated Me Because I’m a Conservative:

On May 16, 2014, our – ahem — Cincinnati-based agent sent an “Information Request” consisting of seven multi-part objections — with a two-and-a-half week deadline to respond.

I was floored. She ended up granting us several extra days.

The IRS had three types of objections to our application: minor paperwork, a financial inquest, and ideological accusations.

The paperwork, involving a signature and a confusingly worded line on the application, could have been handled quickly by telephone.

The other categories were clearly intended to harass.

One amounted to an audit. An audit not on an existing organization, but on one still applying for status.

If only the left fought ISIS as tooth-and-nail as it fights Americans.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: To Improve Quality of Presidents, Candidates, Maybe We Should Limit White House To Those Who Have Served As Governors. This would also improve the Senate, whose members spend way too much time thinking about the presidency.

MUST NOT MAKE BLUE DRESS JOKES. MUST NOT MAKE BLUE DRESS JOKES. MUST NOT MAKE BLUE DRESS JOKES: Oprah Winfrey “said that ‘regardless of your politics, it’s a seminal moment for women,’” as she endorsed Clinton, her fellow Democrat.

JOHN SCHINDLER: The Coming Constitutional Crisis Over Hillary Clinton’s EmailGate: The nominee insists her mishandling of State Department email is no big deal—but the real drama is just beginning.

JACK DUNPHY: After Orlando, Where Next?

Read the whole thing.

OUCH:

Also:

The answer is, because under this Administration, accusations of “Islamophobia” are career-ending, whereas letting people be killed by the dozens is just an unfortunate bit of government work.

ANTI-ISIS HACKERS URGENTLY WARN: ‘KEEP AN EYE ON EUROPE!’

A memo posted Sunday in the pastebin of BinarySec — a leading #OpISIS fighter composed of Anonymous “hacktivists, activists, security analysts and outlaws” — urgently warns colleagues battling online jihad to “keep an eye on Europe, please!”

“There are a lot of innocent people. Our task is to protect them and find possible attacks! Search in ALL social media for possible threats! Everything is relevant. Miss nothing. Forward the data,” the memo states.

Reminding the hacktivists that “we all have one target: terrorists” and are “together up against the devil,” the alert lists the games and times along with information on the towns of play and their respective stadiums.

It lists possible hashtags that terrorists might be using translated to Arabic: game locations, participating countries, methods of transportation, favored catchwords of online jihadis such as crusader and hashtags for the caliphate localized to European countries.

I hope they have far better luck with their task than the FBI did in Orlando.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Half of Germans Sometimes Feel Like Foreigners in own Country.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Unhappy With Trump And Hillary? The Problem Is What The Presidency Has Become.

AUSTIN BAY ON THE UNFOLDING EMAIL DEBACLE: Vladimir Putin Has Everything He Needs to Blackmail Hillary Clinton: American intelligence officers are asking not ‘if’ but ‘when’ the Kremlin will dip into its arsenal of Clinton collateral.

HOW DARE YOU ASK THAT OF OUR NEWFOUND BEST BUDDIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST: If All Cultures Are Equally Valid, Can Iran Kill Gay People?

Related: Progressive Silence Over Islamic Extremism Is Homophobic.

More: Iran announces deal worth billions to buy up to 100 Boeing aircraft.

ED MORRISSEY: Here’s Why the Media Can Be Blamed for Trump – and Sanders and Clinton.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME:  A year ago, Gawker outed Condé Nast’s CFO. As the similarly left-leaning Huffington Post noted at the time, “It’s true that Condé Nast, which publishes magazines like Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair, is a powerful company. But the overwhelming opinion of those who registered blistering attacks against Gawker was that David Geithner, the company’s chief financial officer and brother of former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, did nothing to warrant such a gross invasion of his private life.”

Flash-forward to yesterday. Apparently, it’s either no hard feelings, or a very short memory amongst Vanity Fair’s employees:

Given Gawker’s bankruptcy, as someone tweeted in response, “Soon @Gawker staff will be crushing up coffee beans at Starbucks. So it’s good to get some practice in.”

LEONARD ZELIG, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Omar Mateen appeared in 2012 documentary on BP oil spill.

(Classical reference in headline.)

THEY’RE JUST PROHIBITING CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: The Trump Show Hits Dallas, Protest Organizers Ban Mexican Flags.

SHOT:

.@Sen_JoeManchin: Due process is what's killing us right now https://t.co/OTf9LnxHXZ

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 16, 2016

CHASER:

Dems and media are *this* close to saying the US Constitution is killing people. They are testing those waters right now

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) June 16, 2016

Yep. Throwing out the Constitution by any means fair or foul has been the Progressive goal since the beginning.

ASHE SCHOW: A better approach to banning guns from those on the Terror Watch List.

Another terror attack occurred on American soil this past week, and because the perpetrator used guns instead of bombs, the Left has been able to hijack a needed debate about terrorism and turn it into one about gun control.

Well, that’s because (1) their terror policy is a disaster; and (2) they know the press will play along.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. By Rejecting Radical Islam, Obama Substitutes Political Correctness for Reality.

All administrations seem adrift at this point in their second term, because of health issues (Wilson and FDR), crises abroad (Truman and Korea, Ike and Francis Gary Powers, LBJ and Vietnam, Bush winning the Surge), internal crises such as Watergate or Iran-Contra, or in the case of the potential future “First Gentleman,” crises that emanated from his pants.

But this administration has been divorced from reality since its inception, and as Scott Johnson adds at Power Line, “Obama takes the criticism personally. Events have transpired to make him look like a fool (not that he realizes it). He is sarcastic and angry. He is condescending. He wags his finger as he lectures his critics. The straw man is the essential tool of his oratory. He cannot persuade anyone who is not already a true believer, for he is utterly obnoxious.”

All of which are reasons why, as Jonah Goldberg writes, borrowing from a favorite leitmotif of Nietzsche, the “Orlando Shooting Reaction Has the Feel of Eternal Recurrence:”

President Obama, who has spent his presidency yearning for the reality he wants rather than the one he has, once again downplayed any suggestion that this was another battle in the war on Islamic terror he does not want to fight.

“Over the coming days, we’ll uncover why and how this happened,” the president promised, referring to a killer who called 911 to proclaim his allegiance to the Islamic State and shouted “Allahu Akbar!” amidst the mayhem.

Obama conceded that it was an “act of terror,” but as John Podhoretz noted in the New York Post, referring to “terror” without a modifier is like a doctor discussing “cancer” without identifying its specific form or location; it is a way of talking around the problem without addressing it.

Which brings us to the latest utterance of Lonesome Ben Rhodes, Obama’s mouthpiece (or is it the other way around?): “Rhodes: ISIS Fight ‘Will Be More Effective’ Not Calling Them ‘Religious Organization.’”

You wonder how on earth we won World War II lacking such a round-the-clock obsession with hyper-nuanced language.

HMMM: Donald Trump speaks to shrunken Atlanta crowd as poll numbers drop.

That slowdown in support seemed evident on Wednesday when Trump spoke at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, which holds less than half the audience he commanded during his last appearance in Atlanta in February. “This place is packed,” he said, shielding his eyes against stage lights. “We have people outside who couldn’t get in. Does anybody want to give up their seat?”

Apparently Trump could not see the hundreds of empty seats in the theater’s second level. A similarly reduced crowd showed up at a recent campaign stop in Virginia.

Crowd estimates are notoriously unreliable, but empty seats aren’t a good sign.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-DOMINATED INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF FISCAL PROFLIGACY? Illinois on the Fiscal Brink.