THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS PUSHING COMPETITION POLICY. I hadn’t noticed the specifics on the alcoholic beverage industry until I read this. “They direct the Secretary of the Treasury (with the Attorney General and the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)) to look at the impact on small business from the consolidations occurring in all three tiers and direct the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) to undertake new rulemaking on trade practices to update the regulations, rescind current regulations that unnecessarily impede competition, and reduce any barriers (within TTB’s legal authority and control) to market entry by smaller and independent distillers, wineries, or breweries.”

This all sounds positive. The small/independent businesses in this field were flourishing pre-Covid and seem to be bouncing back, but there are a lot of barriers to entry and many of them are regulatory. And, as I’ve mentioned before, our alcohol regulatory structure dates back to a Prohibition mindset.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: You Won’t Believe Who Bought a Ticket on Branson’s SpaceShipTwo.

Plus:

• Progressivism is miserablism, Exhibits #1, #2, #3
• Masks are for the little flyers
• Can’t Hide Love (Of Election Fraud)

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

ROGER SIMON: Will Cuba Be Biden’s Iran?

Remember in November 2009, when thousands of freedom demonstrators in the streets of Tehran, Iran, were chanting “Obama, Obama, you are either with us or you are with them [the Islamic Regime]!”?

If not, click on the link and see for yourself. It was the moment then-President Barack Obama revealed himself as the hypocrite (with a totalitarian soul) that he was and is.

He, of course, did nothing for the suffering people of Iran then for fear of undermining his nuclear deal with the mullahs that they had no intention of actually adhering to in the first place, and didn’t.

I can’t help but believe Obama must have known that too (most of us did), but went ahead anyway. I leave his motives for you to decide.

Now, Joe Biden is confronted with an oddly similar situation. For the first time in decades, the Cuban people are rising up against their communist masters. Will our president stand up for democracy and freedom or will he crumble (or bow to other interests) like his “former” boss?

There’s a lot riding on how President Klain handles Cuba: Democrats Start to Panic After They Realize They’ve Screwed up in Florida.

BILL PRESS, PROVIDING THE IMPORTANT ANALYSIS: Ice cream’s back — thank you, Joe!

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Inflation Surged to 5.4 Percent in June in Biggest Jump Since 2008.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LAY DOWN THE ‘WELCOME’ MAT: Illegal Immigrant Deaths Soar During Heat Wave.

AT HELEN’S PAGE: From Terry R. Lacy’s Savannah 1.0: The Quest for Love.

THIS IS A BIG DEAL, NEW YORK MAGAZINE FINALLY ADMITTING WHAT MILLIONS OF US HAVE KNOWN FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS: Why now is the time to rethink COVID safety protocols for children — and everyone else.

All told, 80 percent of American deaths have been among those 65 and above. According to the White House, 90 percent of American seniors are now fully vaccinated. Which means that while more cases are likely and some amount of hospitalization and death, as well, vaccines have eliminated the overwhelming share of American mortality risk, with the disease now circulating almost exclusively among people who can endure it much, much better — kids especially.

The country’s whole risk profile has changed. But our intuitions about risk tolerance haven’t — at least not yet.

You don’t say.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Left wanted a culture war. It got one. Now it’s upset.

To be fair, lefties are always upset when they don’t get their way. Also when they do. Because being upset is their only reason for living.

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: Matt Damon Gets a Valuable Lesson About Conservative Folk. “These people were wonderful to us, they really helped us. It was eye-opening for me.”

Stacey Lennox: Dr. Fauci’s Latest Comments on Vaccine Hesitancy Are Disingenuous and Wrong. “The irony of people politicizing the virus, framing those choosing not to be vaccinated as ideologues, cannot be overstated. It is not remotely based in reality.”

Yours Truly: Richard Branson and the Retro Future of Spaceflight. “I’ve often wondered what might have happened if the Soviets hadn’t had so many early successes with their space program. Ours could have looked less like Mercury-Gemini-Apollo, and more like Chuck Yaeger climbing aboard whatever spaceplane might have come after the X-15 and saying, ‘I think I’m gonna fly into orbit today.'”

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Student leaders issue ‘anti-racist’ demands to UNC in aftermath of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ rejection of tenure offer.

SQUAD MEMBERS JUST AREN’T THAT INTO HUMAN RIGHTS: Omar and Tlaib Mum on Whether Palestinian Aid Should Be Conditioned on Human Rights Abuses.

THEY SHOULD BE RANKLED: Unions’ Focus on Woke Over Work Rankles Rank and File.

People focus on “woke” politics because it’s easier than doing their actual jobs, and earns easy plaudits from their peers. If you’re a union member, the people running the unions don’t think of you as their peer.

IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: CRT Wars Are Taking A Toll On Lefty Administrators. The best way to influence bureaucrats is to reduce their quality of life when they do things you don’t like. Leftists have known this forever. Expect a sudden revival of interest in “civility” now that people on the right are picking up their playbook.

PEACE OUT: Texas Dems Vote With Their Feet… for a Federal Takeover of Election Law.

STILL POPULAR: The Weightless Ribbon: Rolling with Ease in Seven Lessons.

AN IDEA SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: “The national vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law enforcement union, is calling on voters to oust politicians doing little to protect cities from violent crime.”

HMM: US says Haitian suspects were sometime informants for DEA, FBI.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Marketing And PR Are Corrupting Universities.

To be fair, they’re not the only thing corrupting universities today.

THE ARKANSAS LAW NAMING SCANDAL CONTINUES: All in the name.

The controversy over quietly renaming an endowed professorship to honor Bill Clinton at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Bowen Law School has provided fodder for legal blogs and now prompted a state hearing.
At issue is how in an unannounced change after 20 years, the “Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy” at Bowen inexplicably became the “William J. Clinton Professor of Constitutional Law and Public Service.”

Valued readers know the resulting conflict among some on the Bowen faculty has been the subject of two previous columns.

The matter has now led to a joint hearing by the Senate and House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committees, set for 10 a.m. Aug. 10.

The committees requested that Professor Robert Steinbuch and Dean Theresa Beiner of the law school provide testimony and answer questions over circumstances involved in renaming the professorship.
Best known for his staunch and uncompromising defense of transparency in government, Steinbuch told me he believed that the questions raised by his colleague Tom Sullivan in an email Sullivan sent to the Bowen faculty are in need of complete and honest answers.

They include: “Why didn’t Bowen’s administration announce at a faculty meeting, by email (or in any other fashion) the re-designation of this long-standing professorship in the name of William J. Clinton? Why was this done in secret?

“Were the actions taken by Bowen’s administration in re-designating a professorship in the name of Clinton discussed with–and approved by–the UALR chancellor, Christy Drale, and the UA Board of Trustees prior to their implementation? Or was this re-designation withheld from the chancellor and the board, in addition to the law school faculty and general public?

“Does the law school’s administration believe it appropriate to re-designate a professorship in the name of Clinton given that: President Clinton was disbarred from practice before the United States Supreme Court and suspended from Arkansas courts for five years by plea agreement; he was involved in the mass incarceration of Americans, particularly poor and African American communities; he has a troubling history of allegations over abusing women physically, as well as threatening them to remain silent during his run for the presidency?
“Why didn’t the Bowen administration believe it was the legitimate authority of the faculty to, even at minimum, offer advice and consent on re-designating an established professorship in Clinton’s name, particularly given such a decision might have significant consequences in terms of Bowen’s mission and reputation?

“Was the recent re-designation in Clinton’s name done solely to satisfy the political interests of the dean, or a group of advisers or supporters who answer only to the dean?”

Finally, Steinbuch seeks to understand what changed in the last year that warranted adding Clinton’s name to an endowed professorship without his name attached for 20 years.

I’m surprised that anyone thought this wouldn’t raise eyebrows, even in Arkansas.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Google angers employees with ‘hypocritical’ remote work policies. “Employees were already stirred up over opaque policies on remote work. Then a senior executive announced he’s moving to New Zealand in what some workers consider special treatment.”

HEH: “So as I understand it, Democratic legislators fled the state of Texas to prevent the large legislative majority from enacting a voting reform bill. They flew to Washington, D.C., where they rallied for ending the filibuster so that Democrats’ slim majority can pass a voting ‘reform’ bill.”

Comment: “Yeah, last night the BBC was saying both those things at once, with no consciousness of any contradiction.”

WAS IT EVER? Is Haiti Governable Right Now? The only time it was ever successfully governed was by the U.S. Marines, and that collapsed as soon as they left. Are there really people talking about repeating that experiment?

SALENA ZITO: Seeing America from the Ground.

A couple of weeks ago, a native Long Islander who has called New York City his home for half a dozen years took his first trip to the Midwest for a news assignment to discuss what he found different about the way of life out here.

He flew to both Chicago and Detroit to learn about this foreign land.

The social media criticism of the resulting story was swift and brutal. The piece wasn’t any worse than the typical story flyover country folk read about themselves. But the oddest thing was that he tried to find the “Midwest” solely in the big cities of Chicago and Detroit. The true measure of the Midwest begins somewhere near the Pennsylvania state line.

Had he driven the 21 hours and 18 minutes it would take on the back roads between New York City and Chicago, he would have had one heck of a story to write about the country and the Midwest.

A mere one hundred miles from his front door, he would have found himself culturally beginning to understand what lies ahead.

Too much work, unless you’re a real reporter like Salena Zito. Who at one point was accused of making up quotes (she didn’t, she had recordings) on the ridiculous basis that flyover people couldn’t possibly speak that articulately.

GOOD IDEA, BUT BAD EXECUTION: JustTheNews has a report about Wisconsin state Sen. Julian Bradley (R-Franklin) proposing a new piece of legislation that would force the tech companies to show their algorithms and explain the policies that decide who gets blocked and who gets to post freely.

I’m all for it in concept, but Bradley makes in part, a fundamental error in saying:

“Bradley is quick to point out that judges have ruled lawmakers and other elected officials cannot block or ban people from commenting on their posts, even if those comments are negative or ugly. The courts have ruled, essentially, that social media is the new public town hall and some online speech is protected.”

Bradley’s error is reading the caselaw a little too broadly. The courts have not ruled essentially, that “social media is the new public town hall.” What they have ruled is that when public officials (be they Trump or AOC) use these platforms, their accounts are “official” government business and Freedom of Information or “Government in the Sunshine” laws, as well as the First Amendment prohibit blocking any segment of the public from reading those communiques. That’s not the same as declaring social media a “public square.”

Unless and until Congress drafts a law (or the Supreme Court rules, I suppose) declaring these platforms a “public square” the Tech Barons will still have filtering control. Given the current make-up of Congress, it inures to the Dems’ benefit to keep letting their donor Tech Barons filter out contrarian voices, so I would not look for this kind of law soon. For the record, I do think these platforms are already a de facto public square.