SECOND-GEN TILTROTOR: We Got a Closer Look at the Flying V-280 Valor.

Bell is keen to show off the V-280’s fixed engine nacelles. This is a departure from the V-22 which has tilting nacelles where the engines and rotors pivot together when switching between cruise and hover mode.

The downside to the V-22’s design — when in hover mode — is that the intensely hot exhaust jets from the nacelles direct downward toward the ground. This limits disembarking troops’ room to maneuver (on the Osprey, they exit down a rear ramp), can spark an occasional grass fire, and can contribute to brownout conditions which have caused crashes.

Not so on the V-280. The Valor’s rotors adjust into vertical and forward positions for vertical and cruise flight, but the wingtip engine nacelles don’t move, keeping the hot engine exhaust directed high up and rearwards. Lower disk loading — the weight the rotors must lift — further helps reduce downwash.

It’s an engineering feat, and adds a lot of space for disembarking troops for whom every second — and inch — matters when setting up a perimeter or returning fire at an enemy after exiting from the aircraft’s six-foot-wide side doors. Similarly, fast-roping from the V-280 should be a smoother ride given the direction of the exhaust.

And with a cruising speed of 280 knots, the venerable UH-60 helicopter it’s replacing in some roles will get left in the dust.

FIRST-WORLD BRAGGADOCIO: Jada Pinkett Smith is 46 but says her vagina is ‘like a 16-year-old.’

BREAKING: Trump to Take Executive Action on Family Separation TODAY.

REPORT: Trump To Issue EO Suspending Family Separation By DHS?

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Michigan woman who lied about being raped on college campus sentenced to jail.

WINNING? Germany’s Largest Auto Makers Back Abolition of EU-U.S. Car Import Tariffs. “The U.S. ambassador to Germany is expected to relay the industry offer in meetings with Trump administration.”

Their proposal, people familiar with the situation say, is simple: Abandon all import tariffs for cars between the European Union and the U.S.

That would mean scrapping the EU’s 10% tax on auto imports from the U.S. and other countries and the 2.5% duty on auto imports in the U.S. As a prerequisite, the Europeans want Mr. Trump’s threat of imposing a 25% border tax on European auto imports off the table.

Over the past few weeks, Mr. Grenell has held closed-door meetings with the chiefs of all major German automotive companies, including bilateral meetings with the CEOs of Daimler AG , BMW AG and Volkswagen AG , which operate plants in the U.S. Overall, Germany’s auto makers and suppliers provide 116,500 jobs in the U.S., according to the Association of German Automotive Manufacturers.

During these talks, which the ambassador initiated, the managers said they would back the scrapping of all import tariffs on trans-Atlantic trade in automotive products as the keystone of a broader deal covering industrial goods. The German government is on board and Mr. Grenell promised to support the idea, according to U.S. and German officials.

Excellent.

A SMALL VICTORY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: Assault weapons ban dies in Delaware Senate after months of fighting.

PETER FONDA MAKES HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Fonda Flips Out: ‘Rip Barron Trump From His Mother’s Arms!’

Update: Melania Calls Secret Service After Actor Peter Fonda Calls For Barron Trump To Be Kidnapped.

WEIRD, FROM FOLLOWING THE NEWS AND TWITTER YOU’D THINK NOBODY LIKED HIM: Quinnipiac, like Gallup, has Trump’s approval equaling its all-time high.

ANDREW MCCARTHY: Clinton Emails: What the IG Report Refuses to Admit.

In explaining themselves to the IG, Obama Justice Department and FBI officials contended that the make-or-break issue in the case was whether they could prove mens rea — criminal state of mind. In this instance, that involved former secretary of state Clinton’s knowledge and intent regarding the unauthorized transmission and retention of classified information. Investigators say it dawned on them at a very early stage that they could not. Hence, they urge, their decisions to allow the election calendar to impose a time limit on the investigation, to limit the amount of evidence they considered, to be less than aggressive in obtaining evidence, and to draft an exoneration of Clinton months before interviewing her (and other key witnesses), were entirely reasonable.

Yet their analysis left out the best intent evidence, namely, Clinton’s willful setting up of a private, non-secure server system for all official business.

For his part (as I discussed in Friday’s column), IG Horowitz took the position that it was not his job to question the correctness of the investigators’ legal conclusions and exercise of prosecutorial discretion. He blithely accepted the investigators’ crimped construction of knowledge-and-intent proof, making it a foregone conclusion that he would find their decision-making defensible — much as their adoption of this crimped standard, uncalled for by the applicable law, made it a foregone conclusion that Clinton would not be charged.

DOJ concluded what they wanted to conclude because they wouldn’t look for what they didn’t want to find.

GALLUP: Everyone except Democrats is feeling unusually optimistic about the country’s direction right now.

I wonder why that is…

CHANGE: Rand Paul–Endorsed ‘Association Health Plans’ Go Into Effect: The Congressional Budget Office believes the plans can lead to 400,000 currently uninsured getting medical coverage.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: How much are social justice warriors costing their colleges?

“‘We practice hard-line, leftist indoctrination’ seems to have failed as a marketing strategy.’”

Heh, indeed. Read the whole thing.™

COME LET US REASON TOGETHER: Hope springs eternal (for me, anyway) that people on all sides of issues can talk and debate without hyperventilating. A new initiative supporting rational look at Carbon Taxes, Americans For Carbon Dividends has a remarkably broad base of leadership, including Republicans Trent Lott, Mark McKinnon, Karen Hughes. Of course, The New York Times has a snarky take on it, and couldn’t help but throw in gratuitous insults about those who are skeptical of the extent, degree, timing of Global Warming theories. Even if you believe it’s a hoax or scam (and there’s a little bit of truth in both) bi-partisan approaches in a calm, intelligent non-partisan setting are always good.

ROGER SIMON: The Big Immigration Charade.

PAULA BOLYARD: Corey Lewandowski Mocks Down Syndrome Migrant Separated from Mother: ‘Womp, Womp.‘ “They’re not pawns in your little game of political one-upmanship — they’re children.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): WOMP WOMP: Turns out ICE *RESCUED* the 10-year-old with Down syndrome from smugglers.

Our politics is stupid.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Clinton Corruption Update for June 19, 2018.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The $1.5 Trillion Student Loan Debacle Hits a Tipping Point.

What’s to be done about the large and growing number of Americans who cannot repay their student loans? There are two new developments. The New York Times reports, “Senators Marco Rubio and Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill on Thursday that would prevent states from suspending residents’ driver’s licenses and professional licenses over unpaid federal student loans.”

And The Wall Street Journal explains, “For decades, bankruptcy judges refused to consider reducing student loans. That is now changing, and some judges are throwing lifelines to people struggling to repay their debt.”

The Rubio/Warren bill, though it comes from the oddest of political bedfellows, makes a fair amount of sense. Depriving debtors of the means to repay their debts never seemed the smartest way to collect what they owed. The NYT reported last November that it had found 8,700 cases of student loan defaulters being stripped of their professional licenses, a figure that “most likely understated the true tally.” Tennessee appears to be the worse state in which not to repay student loans. Between 2012 and 2017, it went after the licenses of 5,400 student loan debtors.

Before giving too loud a hurrah for Rubio and Warren, however, it is worth considering why states passed such laws in the first place. Some student loan debtors, for example, do have the means to keep up with their repayments and simply choose not to. I’ve encountered several such individuals in the last few years—encountered because they boasted about it. What leverage does a state have to make such deadbeats pay up?

If only there had been some sort of warning.

AITAN GOELMAN: Donald Trump is wrong. My client Peter Strzok is a patriot, not a ‘sick loser.’

Interfering with elections is a serious crime, except when badge-wielding Democrats do it.

RACIST COMMUNITY BLAMES “OUTSIDE AGITATORS:” Harvard derides affirmative action lawsuit as ‘ideological.’

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Peter Strzok Has Left the Building and Much, Much More. “The media/Democrats/spineless GOPers are wailing and lamenting about humanity of it all and are blaming the administration for enforcing the US borders and they are not blaming the migrants who are putting their children at risk while they illegally transgress our borders.”

FORGET IT, JACOB, IT’S THIS WEEK’S DESIGNATED FREAKOUTRAGE: Jacob Sullum: Yes, Trump’s Immigration Policy Is Just Like the Holocaust, Except for the Genocide: Nazi analogies do not strengthen the case against forcibly separating illegal border crossers from their children. “Over the weekend, former CIA Director Michael Hayden displayed the calm reflection and sense of proportion for which Donald Trump’s opponents are known by likening the separation of illegal border crossers from their children to the Holocaust.”

One thing that Twitter has done for us is expose the utter incompetence and stupidity and self-involved vacuity of the people in charge of leading our institutions.