HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? OPEC Has Few Escape Routes From Another Bear Market in Oil.

Oil’s back in a bear market and investors remain unmoved by last month’s agreement to prolong supply cuts, leaving OPEC and its allies with few remaining tools to boost prices.

As Saudi Arabia, Russia and their allies reduce output, supply that’s beyond their control keeps rising. Libya and Nigeria — members exempt from the curbs — and U.S. shale producers are resurgent, undermining efforts to tame a global glut. Prices are back below where they were when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries first struck its historic deal last year.

Cutting even deeper — an idea rejected just a month ago — still looks unlikely. For now at least, the Saudi pledge to do “whatever it takes” to stabilize prices looks like not much at all.

Thanks to fracking, OPEC producers can control pricing or they can maintain market share, but they can no longer do both — and even the pricing is getting iffy.

TO QUOTE JUDGE KOZINSKI: “ROBOTS AGAIN”. VOA News has an interesting video report about a World Bank study saying that “automation could put 70 percent of India’s jobs at risk.”

I, for one, welcome our new new robot overlords.

CLAIM: U.S. will take weapons from Kurds after Islamic State defeat.

The United States has told Turkey it will take back weapons supplied to the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria after the defeat of Islamic State, Ankara said on Thursday, seeking to address Turkish concerns about arming Kurds on its border.

Turkish defense ministry sources said U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also promised his Turkish counterpart to provide a monthly list of weapons handed to the YPG, saying the first inventory had already been sent to Ankara.

Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK, which has been waging an insurgency in the country’s southeast since the mid-1980s. It has said supplies to the YPG have in the past ended up in PKK hands, and described any weapon given to the force as a threat to its security.

What’s the Kurdish for “molon labe?”

SHOT: Left-Wing Politics Will Be the Demise of the Dems.

CHASER: Democrats don’t have a policy problem. They have a marketing problem.

One has been tried and found wanting. The other is still wanted by the Progressive Left, but is just trying voters’ patience and donors’ pocketbooks.

THE PLOT AGAINST NANCY, COMEY’S NYT FIELD TRIP, AND MORE: All in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

QUESTION ASKED: Who Does The FBI Work For?

Ben Domenech:

There’s no reason to beat around the bush here: what the FBI is claiming is mind-boggling when they claim the shooter had no target in mind. Consider the number of accidents of circumstance you would have to believe were going on here to not have the shooter doing what seems obvious from every piece of evidence we have: researching and planning for an attack on Republicans of some kind, particularly looking for an opportunity when security will be low and vulnerability will be high. This was an attack, not an “anger management” problem.

Step back, though, and think on the institutional conclusions here. Considering how ludicrous the FBI’s conclusions are as it relates to an attack on the third ranking member of the House of Representatives, you might reconsider whether to trust the FBI’s conclusions in other areas, as well.

I’d wager many people came to that conclusion almost exactly one year ago.

NO. Should I sue Donald Trump for blocking me on Twitter?

21ST CENTRUY WARFARE: China launches record-breaking UAV swarm.

The 11 June news report states that the swarm comprised 119 UAVs, breaking CETC’s previous record swarm of 67 UAVs. Xinhua did not mention when or where the event took place.

The size of the mini UAV swarm is greater than that trialled by the US Air Force in October 2016 when three Boeing F/A-18 Hornets deployed a swarm of 103 Perdix micro UAVs, which the US Department of Defense noted was one of the world’s largest micro UAV swarms to date.

CETC published a video in 2016 of its fixed-wing UAV swarm prototype, which shows the UAVs in a co-ordinated launch from the ground. The corporation said that the UAVs were flying ad hoc networks, sensing and avoiding collision, and demonstrating autonomous group control.

The 2016 video also indicates that the development is aimed at enhancing capabilities in the fields of collaborative intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), target acquisition, distributed wide area surveillance, and saturation attack.

My guess is that the intention is for future UAV swarms to be used to gather and feed realtime intelligence to China’s “carrier killer” ballistic missiles.

HEY, STUDENT, LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE: Evergreen State College Student: ‘F*** Free Speech’

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE AND THE MILE MARKERS ON THE WAY TO TRUMP’S SECOND TERM: Feminist Professor: ‘Trumpism’ Is About ‘Discourses of Masculinized Dominance.’

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: ‘Blood money’? A week after Scalise shooting, Elizabeth Warren dials up the violent rhetoric.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T WORKING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: Six Pregnant Texas Women Test Positive for Zika.

CURIOUSLY, HE WAS A DEMOCRAT, AS WELL: Johnny Depp On Trump: ‘When Was The Last Time An Actor Assassinated A President?’ (Video.)

(Classical allusion in headline.)

CHINESE SPIES: They’re not just in your computer, they’re in Virginia.

AT AMAZON, hot deals in Camera and Photo.

Plus, summer deals in Patio Furniture and Accessories.

NEXT THING, JOHN PODESTA WILL BE GIVING LECTURES ON CYBER SECURITY: “BILL COSBY SPEAKING TOUR WILL ADDRESS HOW TO AVOID SEXUAL ASSAULT ACCUSATIONS”

“We are now planning town halls…. We’re going to talk to young people, because this is bigger than Bill Cosby. This issue can affect any young person, especially young athletes of today. And they need to know what they’re facing when they’re hanging out and partying, when they’re doing certan things that they should be doing. And it also affects married men.”

Well, I’m all for being vigilant against phony rape charges, but there must be a better spokesperson.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Mr. President, Meet Avner Shapiro, Saboteur From the DOJ Swamp.

LEAKED AUDIO: Republican Senate Intern Calls British ‘F*gg*ts,’ Paul Ryan ‘a C*ck,’ and Talks of a ‘Superior Race’

RATS ON THE WEST SIDE, BED BUGS AT BUZZFEED: METAPHOR ALERT: BuzzFeed’s NYC office is infested with bed bugs.

If only there was a proven way to quickly eradicate bed bugs…

FLYING THE FRIENDLY SKIES: Toddler Forced to Wet Herself After Airline Refuses Access to Bathroom.

WHEN VICTIM GROUPS CLASH: The Daily Signal reports on an i̶l̶l̶e̶g̶a̶l̶ ̶a̶l̶i̶e̶n̶ undocumented resident who thought it might be fun to kill a 17-year-old Muslim girl:

Authorities said a man they identified as Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, attacked and abducted Nabra Hassanen after getting into an argument with a group of about 15 young Muslims on their way to a nearby mosque in Sterling, Virginia. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed to The Daily Caller and other news outlets that Torres is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was living in Sterling.

The kicker? Nabra lived with her family in Reston, in Fairfax County, a “sanctuary” county. I’m betting her grieving family is asking the same questions that Kate Steinle‘s family is asking. Here’s wishing them all peace.

FIGHT FOR $15! McDonald’s hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks.

Found via Adam Baldwin, who tweets, “way to go, [minimum wage] activists!”

BOOM! Pelosi Reacts to Calls From House Dems to Stand Aside: ‘How Long I Stay is Not Up to Them’

HMM:

Roy has been one of ObamaCare’s sharpest and best-informed critics, so I can’t wait to read the fleshed-out version just as soon as he publishes it.