WE DON’T CHOOSE OUR ANCESTORS: Reuters Spends 7,000 Words Digging Up Which Politicians Are Related To Dead Slaveowners And Demanding You Care.

Also Obama is related to slave owners in both Africa and the US. Does anyone care?

WE’VE NOTICED:  DOJ Rot Goes So Much Deeper Than Merrick Garland.

JEFFREY CARTER: Living Rural. “For what it is worth, I have a fair amount of friends that are in the trades and they are almost unanimous in their support of Trump.”

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

IF ADVENTURE HAS A NAME, IT MUST BE PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE! Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny Box Office Projections Described As “Abysmal,” Film Could Lose Upwards Of $250 Million.

COUNTERING SOROS: This movement could retake control of prosecutors’ offices: Our country needs a group of conservative prosecutors who are bold. “George Gascon in Los Angeles, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Kim Foxx in Chicago, and dozens of other radical left DAs have similarly tragic track records. Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and Kim Gardner in St. Louis have already been booted out of office before the end of their terms. Far from acting independently of one another, all of these prosecutors are part of a cohesive national movement with a shared set of policy goals, including the elimination of cash bail, a drastic reduction in prison sentences, and a refusal to prosecute entire categories of crimes.”

To beat them at their own game, it’s necessary that people on the right start playing the game.

SPACE: SpaceX Dragon’s Homecoming: Space Station Crew Loads 3,600 Pounds of Cargo for Thursday Undocking.

TAKE THAT, GAVIN NEWSOM! How Texas shrank its homelessness population — and what it can teach California.

San Jose’s homelessness response team visited Houston earlier this year. City and county representatives from the Los Angeles area went last fall. They came away jealous of some of the advantages Houston has over California cities – such as the lower housing costs that make it easier for the Texas metropolis to find or build homes for people.

But the Californians also were impressed by the way the city coordinates with the county and other local organizations, prioritizes funding for permanent housing instead of temporary shelters and finds places for people before clearing encampments.

“What those folks are doing – really focusing on housing folks – is working,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow for the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

In April, two city council members from the East Bay city of Richmond headed to Austin to tour a 51-acre tiny home community that provides permanent housing for 350-and-counting homeless residents. Elected officials from Sacramento trekked to San Antonio to see a 1,600-person shelter that offers everything from dental care to counseling – serving nearly the city’s entire homeless population in one place.

Many experts agree California can learn something from these homeless solutions. But unless the Golden State fixes its housing affordability crisis decades in the making, copying the Lone Star State will get us only so far, said Eric Tars, legal director of the National Homelessness Law Center.

“Elected officials in California are desperate for quick-fix solutions,” he said. “They want a silver bullet to be able to solve homelessness for them. And so when they see results like what’s happening in Houston…they say, ‘that’s great, we want that.’”

As Thomas Sowell wrote about the Bay Area’s ultra-expensive real estate, it’s “The Housing Price of Liberalism.”

In this part of California, liberalism reigns supreme and “open space” is virtually a religion. What that lovely phrase means is that there are vast amounts of empty land where the law forbids anybody from building anything.

Anyone who has taken Economics 101 knows that preventing the supply from rising to meet the demand means that prices are going to rise. Housing is no exception.

Yet when my wife wrote in a local Palo Alto newspaper, many years ago, that preventing the building of housing would cause existing housing to become far too expensive for most people to afford it, she was deluged with more outraged letters than I get from readers of a nationally syndicated column.

What she said was treated as blasphemy against the religion of “open space” — and open space is just one of the wonderful things about the world envisioned by liberals that is ruinously expensive in the mundane world where the rest of us live.

As Sowell writes, “Much as many liberals like to put guilt trips on other people, they seldom seek out, much less acknowledge and take responsibility for, the bad consequences of their own actions.”

PLEASING YOUR ENEMIES DOES NOT TURN THEM INTO FRIENDS: Macon Bacon baseball team refuses to change name.

A collegiate summer baseball team in Macon has faced some bacon backlash from a nonprofit led by doctors who claim the organization glorifies unhealthy foods.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has demanded the Macon Bacon baseball organization choose a new name, offering a suggestion like “Macon Facon Bacon” instead. The nonprofit said a name change would help encourage fans to stay healthy.

The group even went as far as to sponsor a billboard in town aimed at fans of the Georgia baseball team, warning of the risks of cancer.

“Macon Bacon’s glorification of bacon, a processed meat that raises the risk of colorectal cancer and other diseases, sends the wrong message to fans,” wrote Anna Herby, DHSc, RD, CDCES, nutrition education program manager for the PCRM in a letter to Macon Bacon president Brandon Raphael. “I urge you to update the team’s name to Macon Facon Bacon and promote plant-based bacon alternatives, such as Facon Bacon or Mushroom Bacon, that will help your fans stay healthy.”

But the Macon Bacon organization pushed back, saying it will not change its name.

Raphael said when he received the letter, he initally thought it was a joke until a local newspaper started reporting on it. That’s when he said the organization realized the nonprofit was serious about its stance against bacon.

“We didn’t feel as though we were glorifying bacon even though bacon is glorious,” Raphael said.

Exit quote: “Bacon Yesterday. Bacon Today. Bacon Tomorrow. Bacon Forever.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

I’M SURPRISED: Coast Guard says ‘presumed human remains’ found in wreckage of Titan submersible.

The U.S. Coast Guard says it has likely recovered human remains from the wreckage of the Titan submersible and is bringing the evidence back to the United States. The submersible imploded last week, killing all five people on board. The vessel was on a voyage see the wreck of the Titanic.

The return of the Titan debris to port in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador on Wednesday is a key piece of the investigation into why the submersible imploded. Twisted chunks of the 22-foot submersible were unloaded at a Canadian Coast Guard pier.

The U.S. Coast Guard said late Wednesday it had recovered debris and evidence from the sea floor and that included what it described as presumed human remains.

Surprised they recovered anything, much less human remains.

HUNTER BIDEN INVOKING ‘MY FATHER’ RESULTED IN MILLIONS FLOWING FROM CCP-LINKED COMPANY:

Hunter Biden sent messages to Chinese businessman Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017, in which he leveraged his father’s name and threatened CEFC executives unless a lucrative deal was worked out with Ye, whose biography said he had been “deputy secretary-general” of the China Association for International Friendly Contact, which the U.S.-China Commission assessed was a “front organization” for the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department.

The newly released messages provide key context to previously discovered foreign bank transactions involving Hunter Biden. Within days after the president’s son named dropped his father in a text threat, Hunter Biden and his associated businesses soon received an estimated $5 million in payments from CEFC in 2017 and 2018, with Chinese payments quickly beginning to roll in, according to banking findings from a 2020 Senate report.

“I am sitting with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden told Zhao in one of the July 30 messages. “I am very concerned that [Ye] has either changed his mind and broken our deal without telling me or that he is unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept.”

Astonishingly, the story has begun to trickle out to the DNC-MSM: Who let the dogs out? CBS goes after Hunter Biden and Garland.

BECAUSE IT MEANS EVEN THE PROLES CAN BE SKINNY? What Is Ozempic And Why Are People Saying It’s a Sad Way to Lose Weight? But actually, the point here is that life without appetites is dull: “That may eventually be a problem, that once you’ve been on this for a year or two, life is so miserably boring that you can’t stand it any longer and you have to go back to your old life.”

IT’S COME TO THIS: Tester press aide to reporter: “Can the senator’s penis please be off the record?”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Korean cosmetics firm to use genetic testing to customize skincare.

DOD ABOUT TO GO MORE WOKE: President Joe Biden’s choice of Gen. CQ Brown as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff promises to make the U.S. military less prepared for combat, at least judging by the videos released today by the American Accountability Foundation.

HMM: Intermittent fasting may work as well as cutting calories for losing weight.

BURIED LEDE: JEFFREY TOOBIN IS STILL HOLDING HIS OWN! This liberal journalist’s defense of COVID vax mandates makes zero sense.

(Classical reference in headline.)

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA:

I’m sorry but people (and I mean everyone of age) MUST listen to Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County Florida. This (sadly) horrific description of this Disney World employee is happening in many, many places around our country and the world.

Is there a cabal of cannibals and… https://t.co/dagHD4W4ID

— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) June 28, 2023

CBS MOURNS OPPOSITION TO TRANSGENDER CAMPAIGN WITH ANHEUSER-BUSCH CEO:

Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth joined the crew of CBS Mornings on Wednesday to discuss the fallout to Dylan Mulvaney marketing campaign. It would prove to be a segment full of corporatespeak, Republican bashing, and covering up of just how badly the campaign backfired.

While talking about the Mulvaney campaign, co-host Gayle King illustrated, “How and why did it — did it go so off the rails? Because that certainly wasn’t your intention when you did one can to one person.”

A guy with “10.8 million TikTok followers and another 1.7 million on Instagram.”

For his part, Whitworth conceded it has “been a challenging few weeks,” but lamented “I think the conversation surrounding Bud Light has moved away from beer, and the conversation has become divisive. And Bud Light really doesn’t belong there.”

Still no apology from Whitworth. Things became “divisive” because Anheuser-Busch waded into the culture war — and in a war, the other side gets to fire back. It also became divisive because former Bud Light Marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid chose to insult her brand’s former customers. As Ed Morrissey wrote last month, “This is what happens when corporations take sides in social debates — especially when their executives either don’t know their customer base, don’t like their customer base — or in Heinerscheid’s case, both.”

JOANNE JACOBS: Why Johnny can’t read in Oregon. “Oregon schools, which once outdid national averages, produced “jaw-dropping declines in student outcomes” during the pandemic, and now score well below similar students nationwide, writes Betsy Hammond in The Oregonian.”

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP [VIP]: I’ve Got Some Bad News and Some Good News About Trans Suicide Rates.

Plus:

• Bud Light and the Return of He Who Shall Not Be Named?
• A “Sister” of Perpetual Indulgence has just the thing for your teenager.
• The wildest hearing test ever.

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

ARGUMENT: Why The Shotgun Is Best For Home Defense.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Cricketer Carries Climate Protester Off the Field.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Men’s Minimalist Credit Card Holder. #CommissionEarned

BLUE CITY BLUES: Portland Real Estate Nightmare. “For a lot of people and businesses, it’s too late. Such as Kevin Howard, for whom the City of Portland refused to do anything about the homeless people breaking into his property and trashing the place. And who then fined him because the place was trashed.”