MAKE ARMS SALES GREAT AGAIN: More Countries May Buy V-22 Osprey as Japan, US Navy Get Aircraft.
The Osprey’s development cost too much and took too long, and was derided by critics as a gold-plated techno-boondoggle. But once the kinks were worked out, nobody could get enough of them — if that seems at all familiar.
NO CARY GRANT? Christian Toto on Five Stars Who Retired Way Too Soon (Like Daniel Day-Lewis).
IN THE MAIL: Sharyl Attkisson’s “The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote.” And remember, clicking through here to Amazon ensures that Prof. Glenn maintains his lush, opulent lifestyle.
MY LATEST PIECE AT THE PJ LIFESTYLE SECTION: Ted Nugent, Bespoke Instruments Steal the 2017 Dallas International Guitar Festival.
HANDS UP, DON’T… DO THAT: ACLU Sues D.C. Police Over ‘Unjustified Manual Rectal Probing’ on Inauguration Day.
Why are blue city police departments such cesspits of… that?
ROGER SIMON: Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Become the New Plague.
Read the whole thing.
RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA! Video: Kellyanne Conway Goofs on Indian-Slurring Alisyn Camarotta of CNN.
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I’M NOT TOTALLY CONVINCED: Yes, We Still Need White House Press Briefings.
CNN SCRUBS TRUMP STORY: On Thursday, CNN published a damning report alleging ties between the President’s associates and a Russian investment fund. Last night, CNN pulled the story altogether with a complete retraction, not a correction. The original story said the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating a “$10-billion Russian investment fund whose chief executive met with a member of President Donald Trump’s transition team four days before Trump’s inauguration.”
“That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted,” CNN said in an editors note posted in place of the story. “Links to the story have been disabled.”
I’ve given many lectures about the difference between “fake news” and “wrong news.” Not everyone agrees with me, but I insist that one of the distinctions is accountability. Fake news sites never correct a falsehood, while news sites that get it wrong (as CNN did here) will correct or retract.
That’s not to downplay “wrong” news. A lie travels around the world before the truth is even out of bed, and often businesses and reputations are at stake, not to mention the notion of an informed electorate. People still think President Bush served a plastic turkey as a photo-op to troops in Baghdad, despite the New York Times correcting that canard albeit a week later.
FOUR-PLANE FORMATION: A fine show-off photo. An F-16 leads a formation that includes an A-10, an F-35 and an F-15 Strike Eagle. The photo was snapped on June 2.
THE NAVY’S AIRCRAFT CARRIER SHORTAGE: The shortage creates a “presence gap” and also hinders training. The video below the article is worth watching.
RELATED: A renaissance for light carriers?
TWO PEOPLE CAN KEEP A SECRET, PROVIDED ONE OF THEM IS DEAD AND NEITHER OF THEM WERE ONLINE: Espionage suspect totally thought messages to Chinese intel were deleted.
On June 22, Kevin Patrick Mallory was brought before a US federal judge for his first hearing on charges that he sold highly classified documents to a Chinese intelligence agent. These documents, which are considered “National Defense Information,” included at least one Top Secret document and three classified as Secret and were found on a phone Mallory had been provided by his Chinese contacts. Mallory, a 60-year-old former Central Intelligence Agency employee living in Leesburg, Virginia, had thought the documents were in messages that had been deleted automatically from the device. Mallory faces life in prison if convicted.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
U.S. AND CHINA DISCUSS KOREAN DENUCLEARIZATION: Denuclearization is diplo-speak for getting rid of North Korean nukes.
China and the United States agreed that efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula should be “complete, verifiable and irreversible”, Chinese state media said on Saturday, reporting the results of high level talks in Washington this week.
“Both sides reaffirm that they will strive for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a consensus document released by the official Xinhua news agency said.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said on Thursday that the United States pressed China to ramp up economic and political pressure on North Korea, during his meeting with top Chinese diplomats and defense chiefs.
China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui met Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during the talks. Yang later met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, where they also discussed North Korea, Xinhua reported.
Yes, it’s talk. But China now publicly supports denuclearization and Washington and Beijing have begun a diplomatic process.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. “Democrats want it both ways and, considering the media’s left-wing views, they usually get it. But it’s impossible for voters to believe their ‘love trumps hate’ slogans when hate is nearly all they offer.”
BECAUSE HANGING WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM? Scammer who made 96 million robocalls should pay $120M fine, FCC says.
FIGHT FOR $15! Kids today: They don’t work summer jobs the way they used to.
Ctrl-F and “minimum wage” brings up zero returns in the AP article — “unexpectedly.”
WHAT A WASTE: California Mosque Suffers Bacon Hate Crime, Perp Gets Stiff Sentence.
Bacon is love.
QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Gaming Site Asks if Guns Are Holding Video Games Back.
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HAS NORTH KOREA ALREADY READ TRUMP’S ART OF THE DEAL?: It’s awkward, but Dennis Rodman may be up for the 2017 MVD award: Most Valuable Diplomat. OK, the award doesn’t exist. But dig: A North Korean taekwondo team has arrived in South Korea and will compete in the World Taekwondo Federation world championships this weekend. This is a very interesting diplomatic signal by the paranoids in Pyongyang. In the Koreas taekwondo is taken very seriously. It could be Kim Jong Un expects his team to win and he will tout team success as a major political triumph, etcetera. But South Korea is paying for the North Korean team’s expenses. The Trump Administration seeks de-nuclearization on the peninsula, not regime change. So stay tuned. Tuned to Instapundit.
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