DID DENNIS RODMAN’S TRIP TO NORTH KOREA SAVE THE WORLD?: I’d say no, but with nuts like Kim Jong Un and bizarre characters like Rodman, I won’t say the possibility is nil. The Worm gave North Korea’s Sports Minister a copy of Trump’s The Art of the Deal.

I love this sentence. This sentence alone rates an Instapundit link.

Sometimes diplomacy needs a cross-dressing, pierced, tattooed weirdo who has five NBA championship rings and a place in the league’s Hall of Fame.

This one’s good, too.

The Worm is the only person in the world who can call both President Donald John Trump and Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un a friend.

According to Rodman, “It’s all about peace.”

So stay tuned.

STEVE SCALISE REALLY NEEDS TO STOP WEARING THOSE SHORT SKIRTS. Scott Pelley of CBS: It’s time to ask whether [Wednesday’s] attack was foreseeable, predictable, self-inflicted:

In February, the president tweeted that the news media were the “enemy of the American people”… Later, at a lunch for reporters, President Trump was asked whether he worried that language would incite violence. His pause indicated it had never crossed his mind. Then he said, “No, that doesn’t worry me.”

As children we’re taught, “Words will never hurt me.” But when you think about it, violence almost always begins with words. In “Twitter world,” we’ve come to believe that our first thought is our best thought.

It’s past time for all of us — presidents, politicians, reporters, citizens, all of us — to pause to think again.

Pelley is serving up warmed-over January 2011-era DNC-MSM new civility leftovers. But does he have any second thoughts about comparing those who don’t toe the leftist line on global warming to Holocaust deniers?

PUSHBACK: By pushing so hard against half of the country, tech companies may have shown an Achilles heel, allowing freedom-centric competitors to get their feet in the door.

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THE HILL: Trump: Scalise ‘took a bullet for all of us.’ “The shooter was identified as 66-year-old James Hodgkinson, a former volunteer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign and a frequent critic of Trump and Republicans. He was shot by law enforcement officials at the scene of the attack and later died of his injuries. The shooting rattled lawmakers on Capitol Hill and sparked widespread calls for unity amid a deepening political divide in the U.S.”

RATS ON THE WESTSIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN: Revenge Of The Super-Lice. “Karen Sokoloff finds a certain satisfaction in picking lice off a person’s scalp, smoothing olive oil into the hair strands and carefully pulling a metal comb through them to catch the stragglers. It’s a good thing she enjoys it: Sokoloff co-founded LiceDoctors, one of a handful of national chains of lice pickers, and business is booming, in part because conventional treatments have become largely ineffective.”

The 21st Century is not turning out as I’d hoped.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Money Savers for Your Summer Vacation.

JOHN PODHORETZ IS ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:

So, The Mummy. The question that bedevils me as I begin this review is how I can get to the end of it. Like Lucy in Peanuts, I am now counting words to see how quickly I can get to 700, which fills my slot here at The Weekly Standard. That was 53 words. I’m 8 percent of the way there. Can I make it?

Find out here — I strongly suspect his review is much more fun than Tom Cruise’s underlying movie — and goes by much faster.

SPENGLER: Lawyers Fight America’s ‘Cold Civil War.’

Read the whole thing.

BAD TIMING: Traumatized Tenants Near London Fire Threatened with Legal Action: ‘No Ball Games’ or ‘Anti-Social Behaviour’

I JUST LIKE THIS HEADLINE: Tennessee residents were ready with guns when fugitives came their way. “I feel like it was a good thing. When you mess around out here in the county, most of us here have carry permits and carry (weapons). . . . And it’s our job to protect our families and our homes. And I’m very proud of the family … because they didn’t just turn around and mind their own business. They did what they had to do to protect everybody else around.”

CIS-PRIVILEGED TRANSPHOBIC BIGOTS! Women-only ‘full nudity’ spa’s ‘no male genitals’ rule ignites transgender debate.

Look, penises are only “male genitals” if they’re attached to someone who identifies as male. If they’re attached to someone who identifies as female, they’re female genitals. I hope these bigots get put out of business. Next they’ll want to keep women with penises out of the women’s bathroom.

Bigoted women who want to be naked but not be with people with penises should just keep their clothes on and stew in their own bigotry at home.

WHEN IT TARGETS REPUBLICANS, IT’S “GUERRILLA STREET ART:” Vandals alter highway sign to read ‘Crooked Hillary.’

ADVERTISING: The Original Most Interesting Man Is Back — In a Tequila ad.

Smart move. Tequila is almost always more interesting than beer — or at least the stories are.

HACKING: Russia Has Developed a Cyber Weapon That Can Disrupt Power Grids, New Research Finds.

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HAVE YOU NO DECENCY? WELL, NO. NJ Democratic Strategist Launches #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.

After a shooter in Alexandria left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in critical condition and wounded four other people, a longtime New Jersey Democratic political strategist responded by introducing the hashtags #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.

“We are in a war with selfish, foolish & narcissistic rich people,” wrote James Devine on Twitter. “Why is it a shock when things turn violent? #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.”

Devine has run for office, consulted for numerous New Jersey campaigns, and worked in the offices of state lawmakers. He’s also a blogger.

In an interview with MyCentralNewJersey.com, Devine said, “If you want to invite a class war, then you have to expect people to fight back at some point.”

Oh, trust me James, you don’t want that to happen.

HEH: Mike Rowe needs to do a “Dirty Jobs” episode about being Trump’s lawyer.

UGLY: Woman Accused Of Telling Her Boyfriend to Commit Suicide Via Text Found Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter.

AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL NEEDS TO BE SQUEAKY CLEAN. MUELLER IS COMPROMISED BY SERIOUS CONFLICTS, AND HIS OFFICE IS FULL OF DEMOCRATS AND LEAKING LIKE CRAZY. Trump allies on the offensive against Mueller. So he’s given them a lot to work with.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Atari Is Returning to the Hardware Business, CEO Says.

Atari’s last console, the Jaguar, came out nearly a quarter century ago, flopped, and was quickly abandoned. But the kid in me who never got an original Atari 2600 is hoping they succeed this time.

FASTER, PLEASE: The 2016 Spacex Mars Colonization plan has been published online.

BRUCE BAWER: The Pride and Dignity of Living Under Two Flags.

FRED BARNES: Is Impeachment Deck Being Stacked Against Trump?

At the very least, the president will be on defense for months to come. He will be under scrutiny or attack by special counsel Robert Mueller, Senate and House committees, mobs of protesters, and the elite media. All the while the sword of impeachment will be hanging over him.

In theory, the appointment of Mueller as special counsel should be reassuring that the probe will be fair, objective, and nonpartisan. In his years as FBI director and as a Justice Department official, Mueller gained a reputation for honesty, integrity, and being a “straight-shooter.”

But already there are troubling signs. For openers, the history of such counsels—formerly known as special prosecutors—is not encouraging. Yet Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reacted to the first bit of pressure—chiefly from Democrats—and appointed Mueller. And this without much evidence of a crime to justify it.

The problem is that special counsels tend to expand their investigations beyond any underlying crime (if there is one) and keep going until they find someone to indict.

This morning Glenn wrote that we “increasingly have a Third World political class,” and this story does nothing but bolster his conclusion.