THE 21^st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: San Francisco Declares State of Emergency over Monkeypox Outbreak.

IN CASE YOU HAD ANY DOUBTS WHO ‘THE BIG GUY’ REFERRED TO: Hunter Biden Associate’s Panicked Message About Info Coming out and the ‘Big Guy.’

SALENA ZITO: It’s the uncertainty, stupid. “But it isn’t just small business owners that are feeling or experiencing this strain. The problem is everywhere, crossing all races, genders, generations and political ideologies. It gets right to what is happening in this country regarding how we view the Biden administration. It doesn’t just not feel our pain — it jumps through hoops to tell us we aren’t feeling that pain at all.”

READER FAVORITE: Alpha Grillers Instant Read Meat Thermometer for Grill and Cooking. #CommissionEarned

THE JAMES BOND THEME’S ORIGINS IN AN UNLUCKY SNEEZE.

HOW’S THAT OPEN BORDER WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Mayor Bowser calls for National Guard to deal with migrants, citing the ‘volume of arrivals.’

ELIMINATE THEIR POSITIONS: Academic diversity officers are ‘boots on the ground’ for DEI. They perform no useful function, and do considerable harm.

STEVEN MALANGA: Public Pensions’ Lost Decade. The bear market has set government retirement systems back ten years in funding, even as taxpayers ante up ever more to keep them afloat. Illinois and New Jersey are in especially deep trouble.

HMM: West Virginia Might Just Save the Republic If Other Republican State Leaders Get on Board. “While the AG is fighting ESGs in the court system, State Treasurer Riley Moore has been working to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not support financial institutions trying to harm the fossil fuel industry.”

PAUSE TO REFLECT: Federal judge halts Biden’s Title IX changes.

COLORADO: Denver’s progressive prosecutor accused of ‘systemic discrimination.’

Denver’s top prosecutor Beth McCann has survived numerous scandals since she was first elected in 2016.

McCann is notorious for her refusal to prosecute the 9News security guard who shot and killed Lee Keltner during a 2020 conservative political rally.

Then there was the time she blocked efforts by police to pursue prosecution of Denver School Board member Tay Anderson following the school board’s own investigation of harassment complaints..

She also refused to investigate claims of sexual misconduct in the state Senate.

And who can forget her husband’s issues with fire, including one that got out of control and forced an evacuation near Kremmling. He was never prosecuted.

Plus her suspect connection to George Soros.

My state is in the very best of hands.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Clarence Thomas Annoys All the Right People. “The lefties hate Thomas because he loves the Constitution and because — let’s be honest here — they’re all racists. There is no other objective explanation for their ire.”

MY LAST WORD ON THE EVOLUTION DEBATE: That was quite an interesting and much appreciated discussion in the comments yesterday and it prompted a clarifying post on HillFaith this morning.

JEFFREY CARTER: Mitch McConnell Must Go. “The Republicans looked like they would win the Senate and the House this fall. The Red Wave was real. It still might be but Mitch McConnell is doing all he can to screw it up. The Republicans are known as ‘the stupid party’ for a good reason.”

CLEARING THINGS UP:

Related: Team Biden’s refusal to admit we’re in a recession is just another reason Americans don’t trust our institutions.

YOU DON’T SAY: The Pelosis ‘Appear To Have Taken Advantage Of Inside Information,’ Says Former Fed Chair.

THE AMERICAN PUBLIC CAN RECOGNIZE A RIGGED, DISHONEST SHOW TRIAL: Jan. 6 hearings a dud, most see riot as one-time event. Participation in this travesty should be a career-ender.

WAIT, WHAT? New York City Health Department Begs WHO to Rename Monkeypox Because It Stigmatizes Gay People.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Bekhic Chef Knife. #CommissionEarned

UGH: Don’t expect a sudden turnaround on supply chain problems, top autos CEO says. I was doing some desultory car shopping earlier this summer, but the prices and the selection convinced me to put things off.

BLUE BANANA REPUBLIC: ‘He Rules by Fear’: Colorado Didn’t Investigate Powerful Dem-Appointed Bureaucrat Until Three Years After Allegations, Report Says.

WELL, THAT’S JUST WHAT A MINION OF SATAN WOULD SAY: Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a “portal to hell.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘Play with fire and you will get burned’: China’s Xi’s fierce warning to Biden on Taiwan in two-hour call as tensions reach boiling point and White House braces for potential military response to Nancy Pelosi’s trip.

COWARDS, THUGS, GRIFTERS, AND HACKS: “For all its posturing as a rule-of-law pillar, the Biden Justice Department, like the Biden administration broadly, is cowed by the Democrats’ hard-left base.”

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Shot:

If you follow the trendline of plummeting trust in newspapers, as just updated by Gallup, you could make an argument that by the year 2030 or so, 0 percent of respondents will say they have any “confidence” in newspapers and TV news.

It sounds ridiculous, but that’s the direction the data is headed. In 1979, 51 percent of those polled said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspaper journalism. But in Gallup’s latest poll this week, the number dropped to 16 percent, marking a steep four-and-a-half decade decline. Confidence in TV news has fared even worse, dropping from 46 percent in 1991 to 11 percent today.

Will the last poll respondent to lose confidence in newspapers and TV news, please cancel his subscription and turn off his TV?

This downer news about the news — and its hell-bound trajectory — surely measures something, but what? Other surveys by the Pew Research Center and the Reuters Institute bring similar findings. Could it be that newspapers are demonstrably worse than they were decades ago? No. Would anybody who was reading newspapers in 1979 say that? No, any honest assessment would find today’s newspapers more timely and accurate, fairer, and often better-written than the newspapers of 1979. So, what gives?

—Jack Shafer, “You Trust the Media More Than You Say You Do.  A new poll shows confidence in the press is still sinking. Don’t believe it,” Politico, July 20.

It must have been quite a miraculous turnaround for the media in the last 14 years:

● Chaser:

In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled “Mediasaurus,” in which he prophesied the death of the mass media—specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. “Vanished, without a trace,” he wrote.

* * * * * * * *

“[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality,” he lectured. “Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it’s sold without warranty. It’s flashy but it’s basically junk.”

* * * * * * * *

As we pass his prediction’s 15-year anniversary, I’ve got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It’s gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren’t going extinct tomorrow, Crichton’s original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.

—Jack Shafer, “Michael Crichton, Vindicated,” Slate, May 29, 2008.