TRAFFICKING: Children at Center of Booming Smuggling Industry.

A 33-year-old Honduran male illegally crossed the U.S. border with his 15-year-old “son” recently.

After an investigation, it was discovered that the man had borrowed the boy from the boy’s mother in Honduras to use in an attempt to be released into the United States quickly as a family unit. He presented a fake birth certificate for the boy.

Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents are uncovering thousands of such stories as smugglers and illegal aliens learn that a child is an adult’s ticket into the United States, due to legal loopholes.

Much more at the link.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Journalism school prof: ‘I’m sick to death of the Second Amendment.’

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: So Many Gun Violence Solutions, So Much Stupidity. “Not out of character for the left and one of their favorite tools to use in service of their tyranny: deplatforming. Time to shut down some websites in the name of public safety. 8chan is already a victim of this plan and others will soon follow. What constitutes dangerous speech? No worries, we can let the left decide what that is, but we should be confident in their abilities they have been well-displayed through their governance of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. You had better keep your thoughts and words in check or else you will punished by the good Samaritans who want to stop gun violence. It’s for a good cause.”

Sadly, this is Liz’s last day with PJ. She will be missed. Stephen Kruiser will take over Morning Brief duties starting tomorrow.

RAPTOR ABOVE A WALL OF FIRE: An F-22 makes a high speed pass over a 1,000 foot-long wall of fire. The explosion simulates live ordnance.

MEET THE ‘FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR FOREIGN POLICY:’ Check out the Quincy Institute, which is helping form a braintrust for the post-Trump world” in the foreign policy arena.

THE PLOT THICKENS: Admiral Who Oversaw SEAL Prosecution Implicated in ‘Fat Leonard’ Probe, Documents Indicate.

JULIE KELLY: What’s Really Behind the ‘White Supremacy’ Terrorism Scare. There’s always an agenda. As they used to say on the left, the issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: While Democrats get crazier, Gabbard hits Harris criticism right on the nose.

HONG KONG: It’s Now A Revolution. “In Hong Kong, revolution is in the air. What started out as an unexpectedly large demonstration in late April against a piece of legislation—an extradition bill—has become a call for democracy in the territory as well as independence from China and the end of communism on Chinese soil.”

Plus: “Some of the protest messages were impossible to miss. In Wanchai’s Golden Bauhinia Square, a magnet for tourists from other parts of China, kids spray-painted a statue with provocative statements such as ‘The Heavens will destroy the Communist Party’ and ‘Liberate Hong Kong.'”

LEFTIES PROJECT LIKE IMAX: Trump defender threatened with ‘bullet hole through his chest.’

A Trump adviser with 38 years in law enforcement, who appeared on Fox to dismiss charges that the president hasn’t done enough to stop mass shootings, said that he has been threatened and the FBI and U.S. Secret Service are on the case.

Navy reservist and former FBI terrorist task force member Steven Rogers, after appearing on Fox yesterday, was threatened on a blog by a man who said he could be shot “with a bullet hole through his chest. That’s our reality now. We’re all just waiting our turn.”

Related: Sen. Rand Paul had part of his lung removed this weekend because of damage from 2017 attack, which many Democrats cheered.

WHEN NARRATIVES FAIL: Dayton Shooter’s Now-Suspended Twitter Appears To Have Had Pro-Antifa, Pro-Gun Control Comments.

COLD WAR II: What China’s Defence Paper Tells Us About Beijing’s Regional Ambition.

For all the professed good intention, the white paper’s unilateral declaration that Asia-Pacific countries are “increasingly aware that they are members of a community with shared destiny” is problematic. For all the frequent use of the phrase, China hasn’t ever explained just what is meant, and nor has any Asian country endorsed it. This hints at a deeper contradiction. The paper describes the security condition in the region as generally stable, yet nonetheless points to “major country competition” as fostering uncertainties in regional security.

To be fair, Beijing sounds much nicer when they say “community with shared destiny” instead of “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

PAUL CARON: The Tension Between Diversity and Law School Rankings. The chart on LSAT ranges by ethnicity pretty much says it all.

GOOD: Data-mining reveals that 80% of books published 1924-63 never had their copyrights renewed and are now in the public domain.

CORRECTION: The New York Times did not mean to imply anything remotely positive about the President, and we regret the error.

And Jay Caruso notes: “It’s amusing watching people get in a tizzy over a @nytimes headline about Trump’s statements yesterday, but nary a peep about people from news orgs falsely stating Trump ‘rolled back regulations’ that would prevent people with ‘mental illness’ from getting guns.”

To be fair, they’re hacks.

BRIARPATCH: Jerry Nadler Asks How Does Late Fall Look For Impeachment?

Assuming that public opinion swings to impeachment as a result of their hearings, Nadler tells Barnicle that it’ll work out great for Democrats in 2020. “If we show that this president ought to be impeached and the people support it,” Nadler replies, “if the Senate doesn’t [vote to remove], then we’ll defeat a lot of Republican senators next year.”

Er, sure. Democrats have been flogging this same horse for well over two years, and public opinion has sunk on impeachment. Mueller was supposed to stoke a new demand for impeachment, but instead the hearing blew up in Nadler’s face. Nadler’s hearings will produce nothing but the same arguments which have been in play since Mueller’s report got released and which have failed to move the needle on impeachment except to make it even fringier than ever.

Forget it, he’s rolling.

THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS YES: Are Democrats Channeling Their Inner Lenin?

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF: Everyone Should Visit A Mine.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Trump’s Deals Will Not Be Sufficient to Bring Down Enemy Regimes. “Some of the deals he seeks are not attainable, because his would-be deal counterparts are not the least bit interested in dealing with us. Iran, for example, wants us destroyed or dominated. The small group of fanatics around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believes that Allah has decreed the triumph of radical Islam over Western godless secularism. They think time, and God, are on their side. Why should they make a deal when their triumph is divinely assured? They are undoubtedly thinking, if he can’t bring down Venezuela’s Maduro, how can he possibly topple us?”

The Mullahs live in their own bubble, which makes them dangerous in unexpected ways, but more vulnerable in others. Hit the weak spots.

WHAT ELSE IS HE GOING TO DO?  Beto exploits tragedy for sake of politics.

And for every leftist who is saying the murderer was somehow on the right.

REALLY?  Really, really, really? Are you guys out of your ever loving minds?

Crusius espoused an anti-capitalist, anti-people radical green ideology. He rails against farming, oil drilling, plastic, paper towels and “consumer culture.” He sounds like Jay Inslee:

“My whole life, I have been preparing for a future that currently doesn’t exist.”

He justifies murder as “the logical step … to decrease the number of people in America using resources.”

So, since we’re playing the blame game, how about all those climate alarmist Democrats on the debate stage last week warning of a looming environmental Armageddon any chance they get.

The truly weird thing is that he’s not running for the Democrat nomination.
(And btw, calling for keeping “battle field weapons” out of the people’s hands is just stupid. This leads on a slippery slope to where they’ll be confiscating sharp screw drivers, as they do in Germany, because murders and mass murders still happen. It’s a peculiar form of authoritarian blindness to refuse to note that criminals don’t follow laws. All you’re doing is disarming the law abiding.)

FLASHBACK: How The Loss Of U.S. Psychiatric Hospitals Led To A Mental Health Crisis.

THEY ALSO EXAGGERATE HOW TASTY THEIR BURGERS ARE.  McDonald’s may have exaggerated how ‘eco-friendly’ its straws are.