GOV. ABBOTT VETOES FUNDING FOR TEXAS STATE LEGISLATURE, INCLUDING LAWMAKERS’ PAY: “Abbott said in a statement that ‘Texans don’t run from a legislative fight, and they don’t walk away from unfinished business. ’Funding should not be provided for those who quit their job early, leaving their state with unfinished business and exposing taxpayers to higher costs for an additional legislative session. I therefore object to and disapprove of these appropriations,’ the governor said.”

SYSTEMIC RACISM: VIDEO: Psychiatrist doubles down on claim that white people are ‘psychopathic.’

Well, someone’s looking psychopathic here.

ERIC CLAPTON SAYS HIS MUSICIAN FRIENDS CUT HIM OFF* AFTER HE SPOKE OUT ABOUT HIS ‘DISASTROUS’ VACCINE SIDE EFFECTS: ‘I just don’t hear from them anymore.’

Clapton added that after speaking out he “did get some flack from the people I least wanted to get flack from,” but on the positive side he welcomed the prospect of “becoming a nuisance for [political leaders]. I’d love to be an annoyance to some of them that sit ’round that table; that would give me tremendous satisfaction.”

He also called out the pro-lockdown, pro-vaccine contingent’s use of “propaganda” and their “making it so that you’re responsible for other people’s lives” if you don’t do everything you’re told to do: “I could be labeled a murderer, and people would really believe that.”

Clapton — who added that he’d been reading George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” over the course of lockdowns and vaccine pressures — said such propaganda is “powerful” and “very clever.”

It’s been fascinating to watch the freakout from members of Internet music forums over Clapton’s anti-lockdown comments. Leftists suffer extreme cognitive dissonance over a superstar having different opinions than their own, something every conservative or libertarian takes for granted when he opens up his iPad or Roku box and goes to Netflix or Amazon Music.

* Not all of them — Clapton has assembled a pretty killer band for his tour of the American south in September.

THAT’S RIGHT, BUT NOT IN THE WAY HE MEANS: College President: ‘Critical Race Theory is the new Communism.’

JORDAN PETERSON INTERVIEWS BARI WEISS:

Needless to say, it’s a long interview; at over two hours, I wish there was a highlight reel. But it’s worth it for Weiss’ take on her former employer, the New York Times, and how its current editors are even more terrified of being flamed by social media (spoken about 50 minutes in), than its past editors were of angering the paper’s advertisers. She addresses the paper’s crybully staffers’ meltdown over Tom Cotton’s op-ed last year at about an hour and a half in.

AS A LEGENDARY COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ADVISES, PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Lawsuit: Ex-Calif. Sec. of State Conspired With Twitter to Silence Critics, Secure His Path to the Senate.

CALL IT “SETTLER COLONIALISM:” Biden dumping illegal migrants around the nation without notice.

GOODER AND HARDER: Portland Mayor Scrambles as Fallout From Mass Resignations of Portland Riot Squad Begins.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! Get yourself something for being such a great dad. How about a coffee mug or T-shirt from Biblical Greek T-shirts, some Old Post Road Shaving soap or one of the Hard Man Novels.

NOTHING SAYS “CREDIBLE” LIKE ANONYMOUS CHINESE SCIENTISTS: Chinese Propaganda Outlet Trots Out Anonymous Scientists To Combat Lab-Leak Theory.

TED CRUZ SLAMS ‘EVIL’ CRITICAL RACE THEORY AS A ‘LIE,’ CALLS IT ‘EVERY BIT AS RACIST AS A KLANSMEN IN WHITE SHEETS:’

According to Cruz, a reporter tried to get the Republican senator on a “gotcha” question last week, asking him, “What is critical race theory?” Cruz theorized the Capitol Hill reporter thought the question would trip him up because the reporter likely believes “conservatives are morons,” and they “don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“I explained to him and I said, ‘Well, it’s a theory that derives from Marxism. Carl Marx viewed the entire world as a conflict between classes, between the owners of capital and the working men and women, the proletariat,'” Cruz said. “A fundamental battle in society.”

“Critical race theory takes that same Marxist concept except it replaces ‘class’ with ‘race,'” he explained. “And it says all of America and all of the world is a battle between the races.”

“Critical race theory says every white person is a racist,” Cruz stated. “Critical race theory says America’s fundamentally racist and irredeemably racist. Critical race theory seeks to turn us against each other and if someone has a different color skin, seeks to make us hate that person.”

“And let me tell you right now, critical race theory is bigoted, it is a lie and it is every bit as racist as the Klansmen in white sheets,” Cruz emphatically proclaimed, which was greeted by applause from the conservative audience.

Just ask the guys in the white sheets themselves:

Related: Don’t Ban CRT. Expose It.

WHAT WOULD A PUTIN STOOGE DO DIFFERENTLY? Biden White House temporarily halts $100 million weapons sale to Ukraine.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

AS BIDEN SURRENDERS TO IRAN: Mass Executioner Raisi wins Iran’s Sham Presidential Election.  Ebrahim “The Butcher” Raisi sent some 5000 Iranian dissidents to their deaths in the late 1980s.

DEMOCRATS ARE BECOMING THE PARTY OF WALL STREET, SILICON VALLEY, AND THE GENTRY CLASS: Democrats lost ground with non-college voters of color in 2020.

MY FORMER STUDENT MATTHEW MCCLANAHAN WON THIS ONE: Judges Halt Race and Gender Priority for Restaurant Relief Grants.

On May 27 — three days after the 21-day priority period ended — a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with Antonio Vitolo, an owner of Jake’s Bar and Grill in Harriman, Tenn., who said he had “been pushed to the back of the line” because he is a white man.

In a 2-to-1 decision, the court said, “When the government promulgates race-based policies, it must operate with a scalpel.” The Small Business Administration’s “scattershot approach” was unconstitutional, the court found.

Matthew McClanahan, a lawyer for Mr. Vitolo, said his client was pleased with the decision.

A similar case in Texas by the owners of two restaurants — the Lost Cajun in Keller, Texas, and Penn Hotel Sports & Raw Bar in Hershey, Pa. — accused the government of “actively and invidiously discriminating against American citizens solely based upon their race and sex.” Judge Reed O’Connor ruled against the agency on May 28, ordering it to evaluate the plaintiffs’ claims “in accordance with a race-neutral, sex-neutral ‘first come, first served’ policy.”

I’m proud to see my former students standing up against racism.

OPEN THREAD: The stars are indifferent to astronomy.

SPACE: SpaceX stacking giant Super Heavy rocket ahead of Starship orbital flight test (photo). “The plan is this: The Super Heavy-Starship duo will lift off from Starbase, and the huge first-stage booster will come down about six minutes later in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles (32 km) off the Texas coast. The upper stage will make its way to Earth orbit, ultimately returning for a soft splashdown about 62 miles (100 km) off the northwest coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.”

HOW ABOUT YOU JUST FIGURE OUT A WAY TO KEEP YOUR SHIPS FROM COLLIDING, SINKING, AND CATCHING FIRE? CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS: “I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO BE WOKE.”

SO FAR, I FEEL LIKE THE “VARIANTS” HAVE BEEN OVERSOLD: Everything We Know So Far About The COVID-19 Delta Variant.

ILLINOIS TOWN HOLDS PRIDE AND JUNETEENTH PARADES, CANCELS JULY 4TH CELEBRATION.

To be fair, the Founding Fathers Persons had no sense of which pronouns to use: Illinois Governor Signs Bill to Make Official Titles Gender-Neutral.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Marijuana use in teen years may hinder brain development, study finds.

IT’S A GRIFT: Well-meaning Americans are being suckered into an illiberal political cabal.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Portland Mayor Scrambles as Fallout From Mass Resignations of Portland Riot Squad Begins.