SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

U.S. STATE DEPT SHACKLES TARGET MADURO’S VENEZUELA KLEPTOCRATS:

In 2020, the military continues to support Maduro. Why? The ranks participate in the regime’s theft racket, so obedience pays in cash and privileges. Maduro’s clique has maintained control over major economic assets, like oil production. Regime military loyalists control food distribution and deny food to his opponents. However, they are willing to sell starving citizens food and, presumably, toothpaste, for cash — the bribes paid in jewelry, euros or dollars.

Read the entire column.

LEARN TO CODE: Microsoft lays off journalists to replace them with AI.

SO OBAMA’S GOING TO ADDRESS THE NATION? Funny, because I remember what a running joke this became during his presidency.

Obama could have been a racial healer. But — and this is very important — he never wanted to be one.

Related: Former Obama Intelligence Official Helps Secure Bail for Molotov Cocktail-Throwing NYC Lawyer.

BORIS JOHNSON OFFERS HONG KONG RESIDENTS REFUGE, PATH TO U.K. CITIZENSHIP IF CHINA CRACKS DOWN.

WITH ALL THE DEMOCRATS BUYING GUNS SINCE THE PANDEMIC AND THE RIOTS, IS GUN CONTROL EVEN A THING NOW? Virginia’s Gun Rights Battle Spawned the Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: A new era: The Space Age is making a comeback, but it’s cheaper this time with SpaceX. “Though the news is filled with stories of riots and a pandemic, the most transformative things going on at present are in a totally different sphere.”

COMING UP AT 3:30PM EASTERN: VIP Gold Live Video Chat with VodkaPundit, Stephen Kruiser, and Bryan Preston.

If you’ve been thinking of becoming a member, you can do so here — and don’t forget to use that VODKAPUNDIT discount code.

THE NARRATIVE THAT WILL NOT DISPERSE: No, Peaceful Protesters Were Not Tear-Gassed So Trump Could Do a Photo-Op.

RECREATE ’68: How to destroy civilization — Thanks to tenured radicals, we are witnessing the retribalization of the world.

(Classical reference in headline.)

ALSO, “VORTEX LASER” JUST SOUNDS SO 21ST CENTURY: Vortex Lasers May Be a Boon for Data.

NY POLICE UNION: ‘We Are Losing the City, We Have No Leadership, No Direction, No Plan.’

But we do have a theme song: NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio Invokes John Lennon’s “Imagine” To Dismiss The Idea Of Defunding Police.

WE’LL TURN THEM ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND: Arrested Looters in NYC Are Immediately Released Because of Bail-Reform Law.

I know Glenn is done with the Steely Dan references, but I just haven’t been able to resist today.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE “PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY?”: Remember when we had to listen to the allegedly unanimous opinion of public health experts that nothing, literally NOTHING, was more important that social distancing to prevent the spread of Coronavirus?

I agree that it’s important (regardless of whether the particular incident of excessive use of force by police in question was a product of racism or just routine police brutality). I also think that putting 30% of the public out of work is important, indeed more important, especially given that racism is a persistent issue that will create plenty of protest opportunities, whereas destroying millions of people’s livelihoods was immediate.

Some of my social media friends have been insisting for some time that many of the hardcore lockdown/social distancing advocates were less concerned about public health and more about imposing their own value system against what they considered an unenlightened public, and some subset of those people actually welcomed the lockdown because they prefer people to live on the government dole that to allow “capitalist exploitation.” I’m not, to say the least, a big fan of the political and public health establishment, but I nevertheless thought this was too cynical.

Yet today we see Mayor DeBlasio arguing that protesting racism is more important than being banned from attending religious services indefinitely, and Governor Murphy of New Jersey stating that protests against racism may flout social distancing rules, but he’s going to continue to enforce them against lockdown opponents.

Worse yet, Slate reports that:

Facing a slew of media requests asking about how protests might be a risk for COVID-19 transmission, a group of infectious disease experts at the University of Washington, with input from other colleagues, drafted a collective response. In an open letter published Sunday, they write that “protests against systemic racism, which fosters the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported.”… By Tuesday afternoon, more than 1,000 epidemiologists, doctors, social workers, medical students, and other health experts had signed the letter.

I don’t think anyone who knows me would describe me as at all credulous, but I think I need to get even more cynical.

UPDATE: Just a few days ago, Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, was literally accusing President Trump of “genocide” for not taking stronger measure to contain Covid-19. Today, he signed the “protests against racism are more important than stopping the spread of Covid-19” letter.

AS THEY SHOULD: After Crew Dragon soars, some in Congress tout benefits of commercial space.

Although the saying probably originated with one of the greatest Roman historians, Tacitus, President John F. Kennedy popularized the phrase—”Success has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan.” This aphorism can be applied to commercial space now that SpaceX has successfully launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on a Falcon 9 rocket inside Dragonship Endeavour.

Since this flight, several congressional leaders have begun speaking more about commercial space, an approach in which private companies self-invest in their hardware, own their vehicle, and sell services to NASA. Prior to Dragon’s flight, no private spacecraft had ever flown humans into orbit before—only large government space programs in the United States, Russia, and China had done it. Now, private companies such as SpaceX are demonstrating their capabilities.

Just a reminder that I’ve been strongly supporting commercial space since the 1980s.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Stars Bail Out Protesters, Silent on Helping Victims. “Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and more mum on helping minority-owned businesses.”

DEA GAINS POWER TO ‘CONDUCT COVERT SURVEILLANCE’ FOR GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS.

NO, I’M NEVER GONNA DO IT WITHOUT THE FEZ ON: Masks During Sex? One Crazy COVID-19 Study Says Yes.

WELL, PAYING PEOPLE TO BE UNEMPLOYED CERTAINLY GOT RESULTS: New coronavirus stimulus plan would pay you $1,200 to go to work.

MICHAEL WALSH: ‘Resistance’ Has Become Insurrection.

I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB: Boris Johnson on the Hong Kong crisis: We will meet our obligations, not walk away.

Britain would then have no choice but to uphold our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong.

Today, about 350,000 of the territory’s people hold British National (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million would be eligible to apply for them. At present, these passports allow visa-free access to the United Kingdom for up to six months.

If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change our immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights, including the right to work, which could place them on a route to citizenship.

This would amount to one of the biggest changes in our visa system in history. If it proves necessary, the British government will take this step and take it willingly.

Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life — which China pledged to uphold — is under threat. If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honour our obligations and provide an alternative.

Read the whole thing.

BUT IS IT ENOUGH? COVID-19 cases drop slightly in warm weather. In my own community, interestingly, cases are up (possibly due to much more testing), but hospitalizations remain rare, and we haven’t had a death in weeks. So maybe it affects severity? Also, most of the increase in cases seems to be clusters in the Hispanic community, for some reason.

BUT ORANGE MAN BAD OR SOMETHING: Doubt looms over hydroxychloroquine study that halted global trials.

In the Lancet study—which was published May 22 and reported by Ars—researchers aimed to provide some clarity of the drugs’ effects in COVID-19 patients. The researchers claimed to do so using the largest set of data to date, involving more than 96,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from six continents. According to the authors, a thorough hashing of the data indicated that those taking either hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine had significantly higher risks of death and heart complications compared with COVID-19 patients who did not take either of the drugs.

The safety issues were concerning enough that on May 26, the World Health Organization announced that it was suspending the use of hydroxychloroquine in its global Solidarity Trial, which is evaluating several potential COVID-19 therapies. Regulators in the UK and France also changed their recommendations surrounding the drugs.

Amid the global influence, outside researchers began closely examining the data behind the study—or at least tried to do so—and have been left concerned.

Maybe next time don’t halt the ongoing studies until after assessing the value of the new study?