SIGH:  A Visit to the DC Gulag.

TO BEGIN WITH, WE’RE NOT A DEMOCRACY:  The Big Lie that Republicans threaten democracy.

YES. IT’S THAT CRAZY:  Denver School: Segregate In The Name Of Unity.

DESPERATE OR CRAZY:  Are Democrats Desperate Enough For Hillary 2024?

MY GUESS IS THAT THEY WERE NEVER GOOD:  Time for some new messaging: the polls must be really really bad for the Democrats.

I KEEP PUTTING BOOKS ON SALE AND FORGETTING TO ADVERTISE. THIS WEEK, IT’S THE TWO GOLDPORT SERIES FIRST NOVELS:

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Draw One In The Dark

Something or someone is killing shape shifters in the small mountain town of Goldport, Colorado.
Kyrie Smith, a server at a local diner, is the last person to solve the mystery. Except of course for the fact that she changes into a panther and that her co-worker, Tom Ormson, who changes into a dragon, thinks he might have killed someone.
Add in a policeman who shape-shifts into a lion, a father who is suffering from remorse about how he raised his son, and a triad of dragon shape shifters on the trail of a magical object known as The Pearl of Heaven and the adventure is bound to get very exciting indeed.
Solving the crime is difficult enough, but so is — for our characters — trusting someone with secrets long-held.

Originally published by Baen Books.

I DON’T THINK IT WILL GET THAT BAD. I THINK IT WILL BLOW UP FIRST:  On the Edge.

LIFE ISN’T FAIR, BUT IN GENERAL THE MORE YOU WORK THE BETTER YOU DO:  Rocket Scientists,” Studies, And Hard Work,

URBAN MEYER OUT AS JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS’ HEAD COACH AFTER ROCKY FIRST YEAR: “Meyer’s only season with the Jaguars wasn’t very good on the field — the team went 2-11, its 10th season with double-digit losses in the past 11 years — but issues off the field are what doomed him. From hiring a strength and conditioning coordinator who had been accused of making racist remarks and bullying black players, to an embarrassing video of Meyer with a woman who was not his wife at a bar, to tension between Meyer and his staff and players, there was dysfunction almost from the moment Meyer was hired.”

IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?  A Modicum Of Decency In Grave Robbing.

UH OH: ‘Let’s go Brandon!’: Biden is jeered as he surveys tornado damage in Kentucky after twisters ripped through four states killing at least 88 people and leaving thousands still without water or power.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? NFL announces international market partnerships: Rams in China, Buccaneers in Germany, Dolphins in Spain.

To paraphrase Glenn from earlier this month, the WTA has more balls than the NFL — and the NBA: Peng Shuai: WTA suspends tournaments in China over concerns for tennis player.

UPDATE: NFL map endorses CCP’s claim that Taiwan is part of China.

(Updated and bumped.)

FBI:

People could be forgiven for thinking that a major role of the FBI is to cover up wrongdoing by members of our ruling class.

HEH.

“SENATOR KAREN” HAS BEEN ON A TEAR:

UPDATE: From the comments: “Wow. I think it might be fair to say that Senator Karen……went off the reservation this week.”

SHAREHOLDERS SHOULD DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY:

OPEN THREAD: They say the next big thing is here, the revolution’s near. But to me it seems quite clear, that’s it’s all just a bit of history repeating. And I’ve seen it before.

And I’ve seen it again.

UPDATE: Background. Too much on Shirley Bassey’s (understandable) fatigue at standing in a dress and high heels for 4 hours, not enough on the amazingly perfect retro production design.

BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE: New York Times columnist implores Biden not to run for reelection: ‘Alarmingly incoherent.’

Times columnist Bret Stephens on Tuesday implored President Biden to not seek reelection in 2024 and announce his intentions as soon as possible so potential Democratic contenders could begin making preparations to replace him.

In a piece headlined, “Biden Should Not Run Again — and He Should Say He Won’t,” Stephens, a conservative* and strong critic of Donald Trump, argued that Biden’s age, as well as his seemingly “uneven” cognitive state, needed to be candidly discussed because it wasn’t healthy for him, his office, the Democratic Party, or the country to remain in limbo about what to do if he decides not to run.

Stephens also argued it would be “liberating” for Biden’s presidency if he announced he wouldn’t run, and that it would energize a currently “listless” Democratic Party.

Flashback: “No question, I’d vote Biden-Warren. If the republic could survive Henry Wallace and Spiro Agnew as vice president, we should be OK with Warren. And yes, I realize that, more than in most campaigns, the vice-presidential spot really matters this time around.”

—Bret Stephens, Facebook, June 9th, 2020.

* ‘Repeal the Second Amendment,’ Bret Stephens writes, noting that “I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment.”

SPACE: The missing element of the first National Space Council meeting of the Biden administration. “There was, though, a missing element to this meeting: the space industry. In the previous administration, council meetings included panel discussions with outside witnesses, including company executives. At this meeting, though, the panels consisted exclusively of council members themselves. Industry was even excluded from the audience at the meeting, held in the atrium of the U.S. Institute of Peace near the State Department, with the room filled instead with government officials.”

With this administration, if you want a seat at the table, you’ve got to pay the toll.

FINALLY: Two major airline CEOs question the need for masks on planes.

TDS STILL RAMPANT IN HOUSE: Some folks on both sides of the aisle in the Senate have been doing serious thinking about why the U.S. Capitol Police were unprepared for January 6. Not so, the House select committee, a fact made abundantly clear during the debate on the Mark Meadows contempt citation.

JOHN PODHORETZ: Build Back Better’s freeze puts the bow on Biden’s very bad year.

The last time Washington gave off these particular vibes — an out-of-control economy with top-down policy solutions that only made things worse and a depressed and withdrawn foreign policy that only emboldened our adversaries — I had a full Jewfro atop my head and was watching “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island” at home on Saturday nights because I couldn’t get a date to go to the disco with me.

I’m getting old, is what I’m saying, and “West Side Story” isn’t the only convincing remake I’ve seen. All this hearkens directly back to 1979-1981, the late Carter years and the peculiar emotional combination of confusion, powerlessness and rage that seemed to emanate from the liberal ruling class when its off-the-shelf answers to pressing questions just didn’t assure anyone that they knew what they were doing.

Biden’s championing of a bill initially designed to spend $6 trillion ate up his party’s legislative attention for nearly six months. Build Back Better declined in size but never ascended in approval, no matter the propagandistic efforts to claim its provisions were popular — just so long as nobody was asked how much the provisions they liked would actually cost.

It doesn’t really matter why Biden went down this stupid path. It doesn’t matter whether he had an idea about solidifying his party’s progressive base in the way Donald Trump solidified his party’s conservative base. Or maybe it was because third-rate newsmagazine historians and bestselling pop biography toadies came to the White House sucking their “PBS NewsHour” thumbs and swelling his head with comparisons to FDR and LBJ and whatever other three-initialed liberal gods they might have invoked to cloud what little reason Biden might have left.

However, Build Back Better’s freeze is a bit of battlefield prep for the midterms:

THIS IS CNN: Nevada mother arrested last year for pimping out her underaged daughter to CNN producer.

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: Nancy Pelosi Says She Has No Idea Why Violent Crime Has Spiked and I Have Thoughts. “She knows. They all know. But they’re loath to admit it. Because if they did they’d have to take responsibility for their own culpability in fostering an anti-police atmosphere that has emboldened violent criminals in big cities all across the country to do what they do. In the process, scores of people have been victimized, some violently so and others, tragically, were killed as a result.”

Flashback to last year: Then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf: Nancy Pelosi’s ‘stormtrooper’ comment on fed agents is ‘absurd,’ ‘dangerous.’

SMART IDEA TO GO AT NIGHT. MUCH SAFER! For The First Time in History, a Spacecraft Has ‘Touched’ The Sun. “On 28 April 2021, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe actually flew into and through the solar corona, the upper atmosphere of the Sun. Not only did it live to tell the tale – proving the efficacy of Parker’s high-tech heat shielding – it took in situ measurements, giving us a wealth of never-before-seen data on the heart of our Solar System.”