A DEFENSE OF JOE BIDEN: Physicality used to be politically normal. Yes, but that was when our politics were normal. Now they’re woke. And Biden was a major cheerleader for the change.

DECLINE IS A CHOICE. Man Buns: Proof Positive That Western Civilization Is Doomed.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Tim Ryan, Ohio moderate, joining crowded Democratic field of presidential contenders.

ACT OF WAR? Report: Russia Engaging in Widespread Satellite Navigation Spoofing.

STANDING UP FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: Ted Cruz threatens legal action against Yale Law School for policy that ‘blacklists Christian organizations.’ A copy of Cruz’s letter is at the link.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Texas AG Launches Investigation After San Antonio City Council Intentionally Excludes Chick-fil-A From Airport Contract.

INSTAPUNDIT READER JEREMY LOTT IS CROWDFUNDING A PROJECT: Movie Men: Crowded Theater. I donated.

FLASHBACK: It’s too easy to form a mob today. Where are our protections from online mob ‘justice?’

THIS IS CNN: CNN Plays Cover-Up On Analyst’s Ties To Qatar Regime.

AND THEN THERE WERE SEVEN: Three More Women Come Complaining About Creepy Encounters With Joe Biden.

As Jim Treacher writes, Biden is “caught in a trap of his own making. He stops himself from talking about it in that video, but he has worked really hard to make it tougher for college men to defend themselves from accusations of sexual harassment. He has worked really hard to make everybody assume men are always guilty as charged. He has worked really hard to change our assumptions about the burden of proof so that an accusation of wrongdoing requires no further evidence. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess?”

WAIT, I SAW THIS MOVIE: Chinese, US researchers create monkeys with human-like brain development.

I mean, the best you can hope for is the Uplift world and it’s quickly downhill from there.

“PROBLEM,” SINGULAR? Biden’s Problem Is His Ego.

He’s clueless in the way that old Washington hands who refer to themselves in the third person and consider themselves living legends always are—only more so.

To use Biden’s own term, he believes his own malarkey.

He really thinks he’s the most charming man in the room and a master at human interaction. In his view, he’s doing everyone a favor by giving them a warm bath of Biden.

It’s truly never occurred to him that some women might not want to be grabbed, smelled, held, nuzzled, Eskimo-kissed, whispered to, and generally handled by their great champion and defender, Joe Biden.

I’d wager that his office and his security detail are the only reasons some husband or father hadn’t decked him long ago.

THIS CREEPY JOE AD is nothing compared to what Trump will do in a general election.

WILL THE GRAND PROGRESSIVE COALITION MARCH TOGETHER FOREVER?: Despite all the internal contradictions, Progressives usually manage to keep their jerrybuilt identity politics coalition humming along. African Americans are expected to support lax immigration enforcement even though it drives down wages for low-skilled workers. Asian Americans are expected to just shut up about race-preferential admissions policies at competitive colleges and universities. Women, too, are expected to support “diversity” even when it means affirmative action for men.

But there are limits. And maybe with anatomical males competing in women’s athletics, the limit is starting to be felt.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: With Mueller Hopes Gone, So Goes Progressive Unity. “They may now begin to turn on one another… and the fighting won’t be pretty.”

Periodic leaks from Mueller’s team during the investigation’s 22 months prompted giddy media anticipation that “the walls were closing in on” Trump. It always seemed that the “noose was tightening” around him, and that yet another “bombshell” was about to go off.

This anti-Trump echo chamber lessened the need for progressives to offer a comprehensive, coherent and winning alternate agenda. Damning the sure-to-be-impeached Trump was unity enough. All progressives at least agreed on that.

But as Mueller was supposedly about to indict Trump, a divisive, hard-left agenda was almost imperceptibly floated to the public: the Green New Deal, reparations for slavery, abortion redefined as permissible infanticide, open borders, packing the Supreme Court with liberal justices, the abolition of the Electoral College and ICE, free college tuition, the elimination of student debt, Medicare for all, a wealth tax, a 70 percent top marginal income tax rate, a 16-year-old voting age, voting rights for ex-felons, and on and on.

It seemed as if today’s radical proposal would become yesterday’s sellout within 24 hours, as progressives awaited tomorrow’s even more revolutionary idea.

The Left eats its own, always.

And it’s VDH, so read the whole thing.

CHANGE: Jobless Claims Fall to 49-Year Low.

ROGER SIMON: Dems Have Vastly More to Fear From Full Mueller Report than GOP.

YES: GOP Senator Puts Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Notice: Time for a ‘Third-Party Audit’ of De-Platforming Policies. “Sen. Josh Hawley hinted that Twitter’s immunity from civil liability may need to be reviewed.”

Twitter acts like a publisher, not a common carrier, and ought to be treated as such.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Manhattan D.A. Spent $250K in Asset Forfeiture Funds on Fine Dining and Luxurious Travel: The expenses included five-star Parisian hotels and sumptuous dinners. “Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance spent nearly $250,000 over the past five years from a state asset forfeiture fund on fine dining, first-class airfare, and luxurious hotels, according to public records obtained by The City, a nonprofit news outlet in New York City. While regular state employees, like the line prosecutors under Vance, are bound by strict travel and expense rules, Vance is under no such regulations, and his office controls more than $600 million in funds seized by New York law enforcement in civil and criminal cases.”

MODERN PROBLEMS: Microsoft is removing books from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10. “Microsoft has announced that starting today, customers looking to buy books from the Microsoft Store will no longer be able to do so. The book store, hosted within the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and online, is going away. Customers who have previously purchased books from the Microsoft Store will be receiving refunds, as those customers will not be able to access their already paid for books after July 31.”

It’s nice that people are getting refunds, but if an ebook seller were to go bankrupt, there’s no guarantee that readers would be left with anything other than wasted money. Ebooks are great for one-time reads, but for anything you treasure — or need on hand for an emergency — paper is still the way to go.

I’M GUESSING IT’S GOING TO BE A NO: Dear Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will you join me in honoring free market success stories?

WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S CONSISTENT WITH THE LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION: Lawyers largely support Betsy DeVos’s Title IX proposal at Senate hearing. Also, Patty Murray is an idiot, but that’s hardly news.

EMILY YOFFE: “JOE BIDEN IS NOW LIVING IN THE WORLD OF ACCUSATION HE HELPED TO CREATE:” When it comes to due process, what goes around comes around, and it’s coming around fast, in historical terms. If only someone could have foreseen such an occurrence.

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