NOT THE BABYLON BEE: Portland officials demand feds remove courthouse fence in bike lane.

A SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY: New FBI Notes Re-Debunk Major NYT Story, Highlight Media Collusion To Produce Russia Hoax.

IS THE SIMILARITY TO THE ORIGINAL STARSHIP ENTERPRISE LOGO INTENTIONAL? Space Force unveils logo, ‘Semper Supra’ motto.

THE DEMOCRATS’ PLATFORM IS RACISM, STRAIGHT UP: Democratic National Committee platform mentions ‘whites’ 15 times, all damning.

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: TV Nets’ Portland Coverage Evaporates After Antifa Attempted to Murder Agents.

TED CRUZ’S BILL WOULD PUNISH LOCAL OFFICIALS WHO FAIL TO PROTECT CITIZENS AGAINST RIOTERS:

The bill would hold state and local officials liable when they abdicate their legal duty to protect the public in cases where death, serious bodily harm or significant property damage have occurred.

Specifically, my bill would allow for treble damages, meaning a plaintiff could be awarded triple the amount of the damage done to his property. It would also establish a federal cause of action, which would empower victims of violence in autonomous zones to take legal action against senior local or state lawmakers who have tolerated or encouraged radicals to take over the area. Finally, when politicians refuse to defend innocent Americans, this bill would remove or limit federal funding under grant programs that supply important law-enforcement and crime-prevention programs for local governments.

As public officials, our first responsibility is to protect our fellow citizens. Any politician who willfully ignores that sacred duty is in gross violation of that oath. It’s time to restore civility, hold government officials accountable, and take our cities back.

Seems like a sensible piece of civil rights legislation, consistent with our long tradition of federal protection for citizens where state and local officials deprive them of their rights, or stand by while others do.

COLD WAR II: U.S. charges Chinese researcher with lying, as tensions rise. “Federal prosecutors have charged a Chinese cancer researcher at the University of California, Davis, with lying about her ties to the Chinese military and Communist Party when seeking a visa to come to the U.S. The FBI believes she is evading arrest by staying at China’s consulate in San Francisco.”

HERE’S MORE ON MIKE ADAMS’ DEATH, including a roundup of disgraceful comments from leftists, including faculty colleagues.

GOOD: Austin Tong is refusing to back down after posting a photograph in which he criticized China’s Tiananmen Square massacre. Fordham’s insistence on a public apology here must mean they get a lot of money from the PRC or something. As I say, it’s easy to tell who’s on the payroll, or at least on the team.

Fordham University President Joseph McShane needs to be called to account for this bullying.

BUT IT MIGHT MAKE #ORANGEMANBAD LOOK GOOD: The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It.

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc. . . .

Why has hydroxychloroquine been disregarded?

First, as all know, the medication has become highly politicized. For many, it is viewed as a marker of political identity, on both sides of the political spectrum. Nobody needs me to remind them that this is not how medicine should proceed. We must judge this medication strictly on the science. When doctors graduate from medical school, they formally promise to make the health and life of the patient their first consideration, without biases of race, religion, nationality, social standing—or political affiliation. Lives must come first.

Second, the drug has not been used properly in many studies. Hydroxychloroquine has shown major success when used early in high-risk people but, as one would expect for an antiviral, much less success when used late in the disease course. Even so, it has demonstrated significant benefit in large hospital studies in Michigan and New York City when started within the first 24 to 48 hours after admission. . . .

In the future, I believe this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence. But for now, reality demands a clear, scientific eye on the evidence and where it points. For the sake of high-risk patients, for the sake of our parents and grandparents, for the sake of the unemployed, for our economy and for our polity, especially those disproportionally affected, we must start treating immediately.

Read the whole thing.

APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT? Fordham Demands Apology For Student’s Tiananmen Protest. “Fordham University administrators are demanding that rising senior Austin Tong submit an apology letter to the school by July 23 after he posted to Instagram a photo that shows him holding a firearm in honor of the Tiananmen Square protests, according to a disciplinary letter from the school. Tong risks suspension or expulsion if he refuses to apologize.”

WAIT, DOES THIS MEAN PORTLAND MAYOR TED WHEELER IS TRANSITIONING?

On the other hand, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind: Chicago Mayor Agrees to Allow Deployment of Federal Police to Chicago after Call with Trump.

WAR ON WOMEN UPDATE: Police officers shouldn’t be responding to rape calls if the suspect runs away, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison says.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Ilhan Omar Campaign Mailer Accuses Opponent of Being ‘in the Pocket of Wall Street’ and Only Quotes Jewish Donors by Name.

THE TROUBLE WITH LOCKDOWNS: People are more likely to contract COVID-19 at home, study finds.

ACTUALLY IT’S A ‘ZERO OR NONE’ QUESTION: ‘It’s A Yes Or No Question’: Harris Faulkner Challenges Marie Harf To Name One Republican-Led City Experiencing A Rise In Violence.

GEORGE KORDA: Fulfilling Orwell’s vision, or bringing out the best in us?

UNEXPECTEDLY: Mayor Lori Lightfoot planning to remove Christopher Columbus statue from Chicago’s Grant Park.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is planning to remove the controversial statue of Christopher Columbus from Chicago’s Grant Park as soon as Thursday night, in part to avoid another high-profile confrontation between police and protesters like the one that happened last week, sources told the Tribune.

As I asked on Sunday, “I wonder how long it will be before Mayor Lightfoot orders the statue crated and then removed under the onus of ‘public safety concerns,’ the language used by Philadelphia’s mayor to remove his town’s Columbus statue in June.”

The answer is: not very long at all.

IF YOU ARGUE OTHERWISE, YOU’RE EITHER EXTREMELY GULLIBLE OR ARGUING IN BAD FAITH: No, it’s not ‘fascism’ to protect federal property from riots, revolutionaries.

And, by the way, the local authorities who are running interference for the rioters and revolutionaries are looking kind of seditious. It seems like just yesterday the left was blasting Confederate “traitors,” but now they’re talking “states’ rights” with the enthusiasm of Theodore Bilbo.

THE FACE OF FAILURE: Lori Lightfoot Grasping at Straws on Guns to Mask Her Own Ineffectiveness.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Tom Cotton Aims to Defund Schools That Indoctrinate Kids With NYT’s ‘1619 Project.’

WELL, THIS INSPIRES CONFIDENCE: In Error, Tricare Tells 600K Beneficiaries They’ve Had COVID-19.

THEIR METRICS ARE BEYOND REPROACH. COMPLETELY JACKED UP. INSANE BEYOND BELIEF. UTTER BS BUT BEYOND REPROACH:  America ranked among worst countries to raise a family: study.

Their metrics are however NOT beyond humor…