RED FLAG ALASKA EXERCISE PREPARATION: An A-10 on the runway at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.

LET’S HOPE: Supreme Court Will Hear Case on the Excessive Fines Clause that Could End Up Curbing Asset Forfeiture Abuse.

THEY’RE CERTAINLY WOKE; LET’S SEE HOW LONG BEFORE THEY GO BROKE: 100% renewable energy omnibus clears Massachusetts Senate.

THE RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR’S VIOLENT STAGNATION: Some consequences Putin didn’t expect.

SHOCKER: Report: Illegal immigration harms blacks, robs social services from legal Americans.

A new report that put the cost of illegal immigration at $113 billion a year shows that the burden falls disproportionately on urban blacks who have to pay taxes to fund free services to undocumented aliens and then compete with them for those same programs.

In seeking a “better deal” for black Americans, the report from Project 21, part of the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research, is calling on Congress and the White House to bar illegals from receiving public aid except emergency services and prosecute groups that use federal funds on those in the country illegally.

“Blacks and the working class shouldn’t be taxed to pay for illegal immigrants,” said Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper.

Seems like a winning message.

REMINDER: Sports Tickets, Other Freebies for FBI Leakers Raise ‘Bribery’ Issues, Legal Experts Say.

Government employees aren’t supposed to accept “gifts.” Journalists aren’t supposed to bribe sources. But somehow, this story isn’t getting much attention.

CHANGE: Merkel, Macron announce plans for new eurozone budget. “German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her French counterpart have vowed to introduce a single eurozone budget and emergency funding as part of far-reaching reforms.”

Moving national budgets to Brussels means even less accountability to voters.

A NEW USE FOR EMINENT DOMAIN: Seize Ivy League Dorms and Give Them to Immigrant Families.

DOA: Republicans Propose Stand Alone Fix for Family Separations.

“My assumption is in order to fix this problem you can’t fix all the problems” with immigration policy, McConnell said.

Around 2,000 children have been separated from their parents since the zero-tolerance policy’s April debut.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday cast doubt on whether Senate Democrats would support the Republican proposal.

“Let’s hope the president does the right thing and solves the problem, which he can do,” Schumer said. “It’s an excuse from our Republican colleagues who feel the heat, don’t want to attack the president, even though they know, they know legislation will take a very long time and is unlikely to happen, and the flick of a president’s pen could solve this tomorrow.”

McConnell, however, disagreed.

“We need to fix the problem and it requires a legislative solution,” he said.

Please take note which side is presenting a fix, and which side is obstructing.

ON THE OTHER HAND, THEY’RE BLOWING WAY POST THEIR SANCTIMONY TARGETS: Germany Likely to Miss Emissions Target for 2020.

German environment minister Svenja Schulze has declared that the country would likely not meet its carbon emissions goal for 2020. Germany is one of the leading countries combating climate change, which makes its inability to curtail its own emissions troubling.

As part of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change, each signatory country is asked to set ambitious goals for reducing emissions in that country, with the aim of limiting global warming to 2℃ or less by the end of the century. One of Germany’s goals was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

In a statement to a group of delegates in Berlin, environment minister Svenja Schulze announced that Germany would fall short of that goal. “It’s painful for me to have to tell you that we will miss the targets we’ve set for ourselves for 2020,” said Schulze to the delegates, who were gathered in preparation for a summit in December.

Related: Carbon Dioxide: U.S. Emissions Down, European Emissions Up. We need to step up on the sanctimony, though. We’re not even close to competitive there.

JETS WITH FRICKIN LASER BEAMS: Directed-Energy Capability Targeted By Pratt F-35 Engine Upgrade Plan.

J.D. TUCCILLE: After the IG Report, Let’s Kill the FBI While We Can. It’s time for this intrusive, politicized, and overly powerful agency to be dumped.

HMM: Trade Fight With U.S. Complicates China’s Campaign to Contain Debt. “Recent economic expansion seems to be ebbing, triggering calls for Beijing to reopen credit spigot before trade conflict further dents growth.”

From behind the WSJ paywall:

The unusually-large liquidity injection surprised market participants, helping drive down the yuan’s value against the dollar to its weakest level in five months, at 6.4743 per dollar. The benchmark Shanghai Composite stock index plunged 3.8% Tuesday, dipping below 3,000, a psychologically-important level for investors and hitting its lowest mark in two years.

To fend off an economic slowdown, some officials in the State Council, China’s cabinet, are urging more aggressive loosening measures to boost lending and spur growth, such as reducing the portion of deposits banks are required to hold in reserve. Others, notably those at the central bank and other financial regulators, want to stay the course of debt control.

Companies ranging from property developers, local-government financing vehicles to manufacturers recently have missed payments on either bank loans or bonds, even though overall default rates remain low.

“Financial deleveraging is now trickling down to the real economy,” said Sheng Songcheng, a senior adviser at China’s central bank. “All those efforts would go to waste if monetary policy gets loosened now.”

“If the trade war gets worse from here, China’s policy makers will be forced into easing,” said Zhang Zhiwei, Deutsche Bank’s chief China economist. “That will probably delay the current policy agenda of deleveraging and containing financial risks.”

We have our own debt issues, but when free countries hit bad economic times, oftentimes the people vote the bastards out. When dictatorships hit bad economic times, sometimes the dictators find themselves with their backs against the wall.

GREAT AGAIN: “The number of Americans seeking Social Security disability benefits is plunging, a startling reversal of a decades-old trend that threatened the program’s solvency. It is the latest evidence of a stronger economy pulling people back into the job market or preventing workers from being sidelined in the first place.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Google Now Displays Acceptance, Cost And Graduation Data In College Search Results.

What about the extent of race discrimination in the admissions process?

NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Venezuela Forced To Shut Down Production As Operations Fall Apart.

Venezuela’s oil production fell to an average of 1.392 million barrels per day in May, down another 42,000 bpd from a month earlier, according to OPEC’s secondary sources. However, with the crisis in Venezuela spiraling out of control at a horrific pace, the numbers from May might as well be a year ago.

The May numbers don’t reflect the full ramifications of having to deal with inadequate port capacity, after PDVSA diverted operations to Venezuela from its Caribbean island refineries and storage facilities following the attempt by ConocoPhillips to take control of them.

The problem of export capacity has become so acute that PDVSA is demanding customers send ships that can handle ship-to-ship loadings, since there is a backlog of ships trying to load up at the country’s decrepit ports. PDVSA is even considering declaring force majeure on contracts that it will be unable to fulfill. The upshot is that PDVSA might have only 694,000 bpd available for export in June, which is less than half of the 1.495 mb/d that it is contractually obligated to deliver this month.

To be sure, upstream operations are in crisis mode. But the bottlenecks at storage facilities and the ports have opened up a whole new crisis.

Related: Venezuela’s ‘millionaires,’ the new poor.

Elizabeth Torres is outraged, but as a Venezuelan she takes the affront in her stride. “We are a country of millionaires,” she says ironically, eyeing a carton of eggs in the market. Price? Three million bolivars.

“You are a millionaire because you have to pay that much, and for that you get 36 eggs, but the minimum salary is 2.6 million! With what you get every month, you can’t buy them,” she says.

It’s the great irony of the country’s cruel decline. Sitting atop the world’s largest reserves of crude, Venezuela — once Latin America’s richest country — is now a state of millionaires, but the millions are in bolivars and practically worthless.

According to the country’s leading universities, 87 percent of the population is now officially poor.

“They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.”

HOW MANY GUESSES DO I GET? New Survey Reveals that Many American Cannot Distinguish Between Facts and Opinions. “Which group do you think did better — Republicans or Democrats?”

BOB MCMANUS: Border Games: The Left’s dishonesty about families disguises its real intentions. The absolute certainty that Democrats would be emplacing claymore mines along the border if immigrants voted Republican undercuts any moral claims as far as I’m concerned.

DRAINING THE SWAMP STARTS WITH STOPPING THE REVOLVING DOOR: That’s the advice of Rep. Ron DeSantis in an interview with LifeZette’s Connor Wolf. Here’s a multiple choice question for you: How many former senators and representatives are now working Congress as lobbyists? 25 percent? 51 percent? 73 percent? 100 percent? This is not a trick question.

CHANGE: U.S. Exports Climb To New Record.

HE WAS A GOOD ONE:  In Memoriam: Christopher Stasheff.

BUT THEY’VE BEEN TAUGHT IT LETS THEM GET AHEAD. PURE PAVLOVIAN REFLEX. EVERY TIME VICTIMHOOD IS OFFERED, AN ENTERTAINER MUST CLAIM IT: Actresses playing the race card against film critics set a dangerous precedent.

MY FACE IS MUCH SHOCKED; SO SURPRISED; WOW: Good news: Stanford Prison Experiment was a lie.

YES, IT CAN BE DONE:  Wealth redistribution the right way.