AT AMAZON, fresh New Releases, updated hourly.

Plus, today’s new Kindle Daily Deals.

And shop the Digital Deals of the Day.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: To fight climate change, start with Leonardo DiCaprio’s private jet lifestyle: Even though President Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, there’s plenty Congress can do.

RICK MORAN: Democrats Chasing an Illusion in Georgia Special Election.

WEIRD THAT THEY’RE NOT RUSHING TO ATTEND A PLACE WHERE THEY’RE ALL CALLED RAPISTS: Men Increasingly Saying “No Thanks” to College. College, at this rate, is on the way to becoming a finishing school for girls.

BY ALL APPEARANCES, HUMILITY IS NOT THEIR STRONG SUIT: In small town Iowa, a humble model for Democratic politicians.

WEST POINT, Iowa — It takes less than five minutes of visiting with Ron Fedler to understand that family, public service, and community are the true treasures in his life.

“They are what mean the most to me — and, of course, my love and respect for country,” he says, sitting in his living room in this Lee County town, home to 966 people and the state’s largest sweet-corn festival.

In a state where corn is the driving commodity, having the largest festival is a pretty big deal.

It takes not much longer to understand that Ron Fedler should be a true treasure for the Democratic Party. His living room walls are a kaleidoscope of family photos. Large and small frames are filled with children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, all dotting the walls of the modest red-brick home he built himself. To the left of his easy chair is a framed black-and-white print of his parents and 11 of his 12 siblings: “My older brother had already left for Vietnam and missed the family photo.”

Across the room from his overstuffed lazy chair, an 11-by-14 framed color photo of former President John F. Kennedy sits atop a coffee table; it’s a copy of the iconic 1961 official photograph by Fabian Bachrach, showing Kennedy seated at his desk in the White House — frozen in that innocent moment at the start of “Camelot.” A moment of promise — before the Bay of Pigs, before the Cuban missile crisis, before his assassination.

“He is my hero; he will always be my hero,” Fedler says, smiling broadly.

Fedler is not one of those Democrats who fled his party in this last election to vote for President Trump; he thinks the commander-in-chief is off-putting, without promise, erratic. Yet, despite his misgivings, he understands, at least partially, why fellow Lee County Democrats voted for him.

“This goes beyond frustration and anger; it really does,” he explains. “Experts fundamentally misread the voters’ motives who went from happily supporting former President Barack Obama to equally happily supporting Trump on election night. They liked Obama, but many of his policies hurt them and their communities, and they wanted someone who they felt listened to them.”

Trump, he says, filled that void.

What concerns Fedler is that political reporters and his party still don’t recognize that “Trump’s support here is very strong.” In 2012, Lee County cast 9,428 votes for Obama and 6,787 for Republican Mitt Romney. Four years later the numbers nearly reversed, with 8,762 votes going to Trump and 6,195 to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump carried every voting precinct in Lee, a county long dominated by Democratic registration, activism and elected officials and by unions.

Weird that so many people could become racist overnight. I mean, that has to be the explanation, since otherwise it would mean that the Obama years were a disastrous failure.

And as you can see from the photo, this guy is an Evil Old White Male, and as such it’s a miracle the Democrats even allow him to remain in their party.

KEEPING IT WEIRD: Clashes break out as supporters and opponents of Trump descend on Portland.

Police in riot gear made 14 arrests and used pepper spray and flash-bang grenades to break up the crowds. But the violence was far less than city officials had anticipated after a white supremacist was accused of stabbing to death two men who tried to defend a pair of teenagers from his anti-Muslim insults and racist taunts on a city train. A third man was injured during the confrontation May 26.

Trump supporters held signs aloft saying, “Don’t tread on me,” “God, guns and Trump” and “Make America great again,” as they engaged in heated arguments with black-clad protesters holding signs saying, “Black lives matter,” “You have blood on your hands” and “Portland stands against hate.”

The pro-Trump March for Free Speech drew the ire of many Portlanders after images went viral showing the 35-year-old suspect in the killings attending a similar protest in April led by local video blogger Joey Gibson, who also organized Sunday’s demonstration. As Jeremy Joseph Christian was arraigned Tuesday on charges of murder and attempted murder, he shouted a stream of threats: “Free speech or die, Portland. You got no safe place. This is America. Get out if you don’t like free speech.”

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler tried and failed to get a federal permit for Gibson’s rally revoked, saying its participants “peddle a message of hatred and bigotry.” In a message to residents last week, Wheeler urged “everyone participating to reject violence.”

Freedom of speech is a rejection of violence.

IT’S CALLED THE DEEP STATE, NOT THE BRIGHT STATE: NSA Leaker Is A Bernie Supporter Who ‘Resists’ Trump.”

More here. “President Trump has been pushing Justice to go after leakers inside the federal government, which he has identified as ‘the big story’ when it comes to Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Winner’s arrest could signal the federal government is going to aggressively investigate and prosecute individuals who send classified intelligence to news organizations.”

75 YEARS LATER: Why Japan Lost the Battle of Midway.

This article makes a nice five-minute brief to some of the ideas introduced in Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully’s Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, which I can’t recommend highly enough.

WHY ARE DEEP-BLUE CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM? Portland isn’t Portlandia. It’s a capital of white supremacy. “I went to high school outside Portland, and I encountered more overt white supremacy there than anywhere else. Progressive politics and discrimination are not mutually exclusive. Many classmates who would have described themselves as progressive expressed white supremacist ideals, often in violent terms. . . . While Portland is indeed progressive on many political issues, it is still the whitest large city in America — and that’s by design.”

SPENGLER: Counter-terror Lessons from America’s Civil War.

These attacks, in other words, are designed to impress the Muslim public as much as they are intended to horrify the western public. In so many words, the terrorists tell Muslims that western police agencies cannot protect them. If they cooperate with the police they will be found out and punished. The West fears the power of Islam: it evinces such fear by praising Islam as a religion of peace, by squelching dissent in the name of fighting supposed Islamophobia, and by offering concessions and apologies to Muslims. Ordinary Muslims live in fear of the terror networks, which have infiltrated their communities and proven their ability to turn the efforts of western security services against them. They are less likely to inform on prospective terrorists and more likely to aid them by inaction.

The terrorists, in short, are winning the intelligence war, because they have shaped the environment in which intelligence is gathered and traded. But that is how intelligence wars always proceed: spies switch sides and tell their stories because they want to be with the winner. ISIS and al-Qaeda look like winners in the eyes of western Muslim populations after humiliating the security services of the West.

Read the whole thing.

HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: What I Saw at Evergreen State College.

Evergreen education is based on holism. All credits are holistically integrated into one course. For example, as an Evergreen graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (1985-89), I took a 32-credit course my freshman year entitled “Political Ecology” that was two quarters long. While it was largely a nonstop attack on Christianity and capitalism for helping precipitate the ecological crisis of modern times, all of the credits were divided among ecological studies, agricultural studies, Native American studies, geography, evolutionary biology, and creative writing, among other credits. In the spring, I took a course called “Thinking Straight” (16 credits) that consisted of credits in philosophy, English, creative writing, and logic. My favorite course at Evergreen was “The Classical World,” which lasted my entire sophomore year (48 credits). We began with the early Greeks in the fall and ended with early Christianity in the spring, reading through much of St. Augustine’s City of God.

My junior year was given over to “Political Economy” (32 credits) in the fall and winter, followed up by “Race, Class, and Gender” (16 credits) in the spring. Such a year presaged many of the political convulsions now rocking America, with no small thanks to the Obama administration – but all of which is still rooted in the hippie radicalism of the ’60s, not to mention all of the social upheaval in Europe dating back to the 1800s that was largely a very German affair. The content of these particular courses was loaded with a blending of socialism, Marxism, fascism, and postmodernism taught by true believers.

While one of the professors seemed to enjoy his popularity with female students, another was actively involved in fomenting lunatic student protests against the college administration. One particular memory stands out in sharp relief: at lunchtime on one beautiful spring day – while watching the student protest proceed – one wise Native American student said something along these lines, which I have never forgotten: “You know, we can all try to do good things to help bring about a better world by protesting the unfair and evil things we see around us, but the problem with all this is that people like that professor over there will be running things.”

This is precisely the crossroads that Evergreen has arrived at now, only worse, as the more fascist elements of liberalism so-called are now dominating the school.

A year at Evergreen costs about $37,770 for nonresidents.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The goal of women’s studies is to train students to become human viruses that infect and disrupt other fields.

FLASHBACK: Remember When We Used To Hear About The Democrats’ Great Databases?

CHRIS WALLACE VS AL GORE, QATAR VS THE MIDDLE EAST, AND SUSAN RICE VS REALITY: Liz Sheld’s morning brief has you covered.

ANOTHER CALL FOR RUTH BADER GINSBURG TO RECUSE HERSELF FROM THE TRUMP TRAVEL BAN CASE:

If campaign comments are evidence of bias in a way that invalidates the actions of a decision-maker (as the 4th Circuit claimed), then the same logic the 4th Circuit used to deny Trump’s travel ban must require Ginsburg’s recusal in the Supreme Court’s review of that travel ban.

The standard for recusal does not require a judge admit their bias. It only requires a review whether the public might “reasonably question” the “impartiality” of the judge in the matter. Liberals argued Justice Scalia merely hunting with a Vice President compelled his recusal. As Justice Scalia recognized, recusal is appropriate whenever a Justice has “said or done something” that impacts the perception of impartiality on a pending case. As Justice Scalia implicitly recognized, recusal may be necessary when the Court’s judgment would have “any bearing upon the reputation and integrity” of a party before the court if that individual Justice has voiced a prior opinion on that individual through friendship or hostility.

She crossed more than one line with her comments last year. If she fails to recuse, she’ll be handing Trump a big stick with which he can beat the Court.

See also this post from Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson: How can Ginsburg participate in Travel Order case after her *campaign* statements about Trump?

JOEL KOTKIN: The Coming Democratic Civil War:

Even before the election of Donald Trump, and more so afterwards, the dysfunction of the GOP has been glaringly obvious. Yet, despite the miserable favorability ratings for both Trump and the Republicans, those of the Democrats, notes Gallup, also have been dropping, and are nearly identical to that of the Republicans.

This is a particularly poor showing for the Dems given that the press is 100% on their side and 100% anti-Trump and anti-GOP. Plus:

The two most remarkable campaigns of 2016 — those of Trump and Bernie Sanders — were driven by different faces of populist resentment. Yet, increasingly, the Democrats’ populist pretensions conflict with their alliance with ascendant “sovereigns of cyberspace,” whose power and wealth have waxed to almost absurd heights. Other parts of their upscale coalition include the media, academia and the upper bureaucracy.

This affluent base can embrace the progressives’ social agenda — meeting the demands of feminists, gays and minority activists. But they are less enthusiastic about the social democratic income redistribution proposed by Bernie Sanders, who is now, by some measurements, the nation’s most popular political figure. This new putative ruling class, notes author Michael Lind, sees its rise, and the decline of the rest, not as a reflection of social inequity, but rather their meritocratic virtue. Only racism, homophobia or misogyny — in other words, the sins of the “deplorables” — matter.

The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, the world’s third-richest man, reflects this socially liberal, but oligopolistic, worldview. Last spring, Bezos worked assiduously to undermine Sanders’ campaign, then promoted Clinton, and now has become a leading voice in the anti-Trump “resistance.” The gentry wing of the party, which dominates fundraising and media, as the opposition to Sanders reveals, likes its money. The tech community is famously adept at avoiding taxes.

How long can this odd pairing of socialism and oligopoly persist? There are growing sentiments on the left to begin confiscating some of the massive wealth of the tech firms. Bank of America’s Michael Harnett recently warned that continued growth of stock market wealth in a handful of tech stocks “could ultimately lead to populist calls for redistribution of the increasingly concentrated wealth of Silicon Valley.”

Well, at some point, as a President that Silicon Valley boosted once observed, you’ve made enough money. It’s also less and less clear to ordinary Americans that the things that make Silicon Valley rich are also making America better.

PATRICK POOLE: Major Confrontation Between Saudi, Egypt, UAE Against Qatar Over Terror Support.

APPARENTLY, THESE ARE THE ONLY NUCLEAR WEAPONS WORTH WORRYING ABOUT: “I find it disquieting to realize that the United States possesses about 6,800 warheads, ready to be deployed at any time via submarine, aircraft, and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).”

Oh, there’s a little reference to (unnamed) “great powers,” but for any specific naming there’s the above, and then: “I know that the great cities we have spent a dozen generations building are so precarious that Donald Trump could eliminate one within an hour.” One could be forgiven for reading the entire piece and coming away with the idea that only American nuclear weapons are problematic.