AFGHANISTAN: It’s Too Late.

Until now, Western forces have been able to keep the government in power by financing the budget and paying salaries and maintaining the Afghan army in the field. But it has become increasingly difficult, with the Taliban advancing in many parts of the country making US and NATO forces look increasingly irrelevant. Opposition politicans have been willing to contradict the Americans, but that may be changing.

In view of the growing brazenness of Taliban attacks, there are now deep fissures in the US National Security Council between those, including Mattis, who want to send thousands more US troops in a last-ditch effort to save the regime from collapse and those, such as adviser Steve Bannon, who want the US to walk away from what is clearly a failing military endeavor and a failed state. But Trump’s decision this week to hand over the troop decision to the military itself suggests that those arguing for a new troop surge will get the upper hand. This is a hopeless strategy.

No matter how many troops Mattis decides to send this summer, it will not rectify the political crisis in Kabul.

Forcing the nation-state model on a place where there is no nation and has only fleetingly been a state is doomed to failure.

GLENN’S USA TODAY COLUMN: We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel.

CALEXIT 2.0: Willing to Negotiate with Trump for California Breakaway.

Stephen Gonzales, the president of the California Freedom Coalition, told the Sacramento Bee the amendment would also open the door for negotiation. It would give the state’s governor the freedom to do a deal with Washington for the independence of California.

Gonzales said this new proposal would be much more appealing to conservative voters than the first Calexit initiative, which he admitted was “secession or nothing.”

“We have taken a different route, which we think will have far more support across the political spectrum,” Gonzales said.

If a statewide survey of voters conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at UC Berkeley is to be believed, Gonzales just might be on to something.

The survey, which was released in March, shows most Californians were already fed up with the job Donald Trump was doing as president. Most also “believe that the changes in laws and policies that his administration is proposing will negatively affect California overall and in many specific policy areas,” a Berkeley IGS statement read. “The largest proportions of voters feel the state will be negatively affected in areas relating to the rights of minorities, the environment, healthcare, international trade and women’s rights.”

Here’s the kicker: Even though most California voters surveyed were disgusted with Donald Trump 90 days into his administration, a majority (53-47 percent) also told Berkeley IGS that negotiation would be better than secession.

It isn’t that Californians have an undying love for the U.S. The voters who were surveyed said compromise would be better than taking a chance on the state losing federal funding.

Having your neighbor’s cake and eating it, too, is the foundation of progressive politics.

SLANTING AN OPINION IN FAVOR OF FREE SPEECH: The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal trademarks can be registered in most cases even if they are considered derogatory. The case involved an Asian rock band who tried to register the name “The Slants.” SJW’s lost their minds, but Justice Alito wrote for a unanimous Court that “It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.” This bodes well for the Washington Redskins.

BUT OF COURSE: James Hodgkinson was a Democrat, but the media want ‘both sides’ to claim him.

When a Republican does it, the Republican is to blame. When a Democrat does it, it’s because of the “climate of hate” created by Republicans.

THE MEDIA HAVE A BAD CASE OF THE TRUMPS, Andrew Ferguson writes:

The meeting did sound truly appalling, utterly icky. But then I started to think … wait a minute. If the story was that every cabinet member was puckering up for Trump in public, why did the CNN reporter illustrate the point with a quote from Priebus, the chief of staff, who’s not a cabinet member? And I thought some more. Most of these cabinet secretaries are pretty self-possessed people, proud of their achievements in life, and cravenly kissing up to a boss, even when he’s president of the United States, doesn’t fit the profile.

And so I did what I, as a proud consumer of the mainstream liberal press, am not supposed to do. I second-guessed the mainstream liberal press. I watched the video of the cabinet meeting, all twenty-damn-five minutes of it, and I discovered that every story I had read or heard or seen that morning about the cabinet meeting was, as a whole, wrong or misleading, and in many particulars, just wrong.

Unexpectedly.

THE ROAD TO HELL: How Did Health Care Get to Be Such a Mess?

Through each legislative battle, physicians and their new allies, insurers, argued that federal health care funding was unnecessary because they were expanding insurance coverage. Indeed, because of the perceived threat of reform, insurers weathered rapidly rising medical costs and unfavorable financial conditions to expand coverage from about a quarter of the population in 1945 to about 80 percent in 1965.

But private interests failed to cover a sufficient number of the elderly. Consequently, Congress stepped in to create Medicare in 1965. The private health care sector had far more capacity to manage a large, complex program than did the government, so Medicare was designed around the insurance company model. Insurers, moreover, were tasked with helping administer the program, acting as intermediaries between the government and service providers.

With Medicare, the demand for health services increased and medical costs became a national crisis. To constrain rising prices, insurers gradually introduced cost containment procedures and incrementally claimed supervisory authority over doctors. Soon they were reviewing their medical work, standardizing treatment blueprints tied to reimbursements and shaping the practice of medicine.

It’s easy to see the challenge of real reform: To actually bring down costs, legislators must roll back regulations to allow market innovation outside the insurance company model.

A service cartel and massive government intrusion — who could have ever seen those leading to a cost explosion?

THE GUARDIAN DISCOVERS “FLYOVER COUNTRY:” It’s almost as if the reporter looked at this assignment as if it were an adventure into the deep jungle. Note the unnamed “observer” who editorializes:

“Observers wonder when “these people” will wake up and realize that Trump does not have their interests at heart. But rural folks have gotten used to a system that does not have their interests at heart.”

Well, gosh, when the political establishment keeps calling half the country stupid or “deplorable” it’s little wonder they’ll vote for any alternative. And it’s a safe bet if a writer referred to “these people” in the context of discussing LGBT or race issues, there’d be hell to pay. Lesson to be learned: this is why there is an Electoral College, though these days the Democrats would prefer that elections were held only in DC, NYC and Malibu. Read it here.

WAIT, I THOUGHT DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS: The Man Who Secretly Taped Planned Parenthood Could Be Going To Prison — Alongside His Criminal Lawyers.

Upton Sinclair and Don Hewitt could not be reached for comment.

THANKS, OBAMA! Texas woman freed from life sentence by President Obama is back in prison.

NBC’S FAKE NEWS SHOW: “When is the Nightly News the Nitely News? When ratings are lousy.”

You might be forgiven for thinking NBC has but one flagship evening newscast, the NBC Nightly News, honchoed by Lester Holt. But the network has another show, one that looks for all intents and purposes just like its Nightly News, but titled instead the NBC Nitely News. What—has the network left it to the interns to enter the show’s name in the Chyron machine?

No, it seems that the misspelling is reserved solely for filing logs with ratings tabulator Nielsen. The Nightly News is in a battle with ABC’s World News Tonight (hmmm, or is that World News Tonite?). On some nites when its news program gets low ratings, NBC has been labeling its show for the Nielsen folks as the Nitely News. On nights when a sufficient number of viewers show up, the program is reported as the Nightly News. By weeding out the bad nites, NBC overcounts, for its ratings scorecard, the percentage of nights with winning performances.

You can’t take Brian Williams out of the Nitely, err, Nightly News, but that alone won’t change NBC’s urge to cook the books.

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GLENN’S USA TODAY COLUMN: We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel.

PACIFIC MAY MEAN PEACEFUL, BUT PACIFIC OCEAN MEANS U.S. NAVY: I believe that’s the message this photo sends. Peace through power. Opinions may differ.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: After Scalise Shooting, GOP Congressman Seeks to Override D.C. Gun Laws.

MSNBC HOST JOY REID SUGGESTS REP. STEVE SCALISE DESERVED TO BE SHOT DUE TO CONSERVATIVE RECORD.

And in case you missed it Friday night, Scott Pelley of CBS: It’s time to ask whether [Wednesday’s] attack was foreseeable, predictable, self-inflicted.

As Glenn would say, that in mind when any of the DNC-MSM starts in on the “have you no shame, sir” sanctimony.

NEWS LET’S HOPE YOU CAN’T USE: Scientists study the diets of human sacrifices.

During the final two centuries of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) in China, thousands of people were sacrificed at the state capital Yinxu. Some were dispatched with great fanfare, buried with rich grave goods, while others appear to have been sacrificed with extreme prejudice and mutilated after death. Now, a new study sheds some light on these victims. Simon Frasier University bioarchaeologist Christina Cheung and her colleagues reconstructed these ancient peoples’ lives by discovering what they ate and when, based on chemical signatures left in their bones.

Human sacrifice was a common ritual among the peoples of almost every ancient civilization, from China and Europe, to Mesopotamia and the Americas. Though archaeologists have analyzed the graves of these sacrifices, they have many questions about the victims’ lives. Were they revered and celebrated before death, or outcasts? Were they prisoners from far away, or were they the sons and daughters of their executioners?

Interesting read.

HMM: Are Russia And The Saudis Planning A Natural Gas Cartel?

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: If You Think Campus Free Speech Is No Big Deal, Watch This Shocking Vice News Report From Evergreen State College.

SARAH HOYT: How We’re Losing the War to Save The Islamic World: Part III How to Stop Terrorists and Allow Islam to Westernize.

This is the final part of Sarah’s impressive series. So in case you missed them, here are parts One and Two.

GIVING TERRORISTS A HEADS-UP: A proposed law would force the NYPD to publicize the details of its surveillance technology.

What could go wrong?

ROSS DOUTHAT: Notes on a Political Shooting.

John F. Kennedy was hated passionately by many Republicans in Dallas, but Lee Harvey Oswald’s beliefs were Marxist, not right-wing. Nationalist movements, not partisanship, inspired Sirhan Sirhan and the Puerto Ricans who almost killed Harry Truman. George Wallace was shot by a man trying to make “a statement of my manhood for the world to see.” One of Gerald Ford’s two would-be assassins was a member of the Manson cult, the other a sympathizer with the Symbionese Liberation Army. John Hinckley famously shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.

And most recently — if a little less famously, because the media spent a long time assuming that he was Tea Party-inspired — Jared Lee Loughner shot Gabby Giffords because he was a lunatic obsessed with (among other things) the government’s control of grammar, and she had failed to answer his town hall question: “What is government if words have no meaning?”

So Hodgkinson’s seeming normalcy, his angry but relatively mainstream Democratic views, might be a warning sign for the future of our politics.

Indeed.

ILLINOIS MELTDOWN (CONTINUED): Official Warns Illinois Finances in ‘Massive Crisis Mode.’

The Illinois official responsible for paying the state’s bills is warning that new court orders mean her office must pay out more each month than Illinois receives in revenue.

Comptroller Susana Mendoza must prioritize what gets paid as Illinois nears its third year without a state budget.

A mix of state law, court orders and pressure from credit rating agencies requires some items be paid first. Those include debt and pension payments, state worker paychecks and some school funding.

Mendoza says a recent court order regarding money owed for Medicaid bills means mandated payments will eat up 100 percent of Illinois’ monthly revenue.

It gets ugly when the other people’s money runs out.