HARDBALL: McCarthy’s future on the line as he whips debt ceiling deal.

Basic political wisdom dictates that McCarthy needs a majority of House Republicans to support the bill in order to maintain his political power, and McCarthy has repeatedly said that he will meet that standard. He knows he’ll need Democratic help to pass the measure, but the more GOP members that vote with him, the better for the Speaker.

“If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the Speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on Newsmax on Tuesday – referring to a move to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.

As of Tuesday evening, more than two dozen members of the slim, four-seat GOP majority said they will vote against the bill, meaning McCarthy will need to rely on Democratic members supporting the Biden-blessed deal to pass the bill.

If more Democrats than Republicans vote for the bill, McCarthy could be in hot water.

It would also be a measure of the conservative quality of the bill, something that usually gets lost in these horse race type reports.

Related: ‘Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants’: GOP Rep. Nancy Mace joins growing list of at least TWENTY-SIX defectors voting ‘NO’ on Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling ‘debacle.’

AN IDEA SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: Portfolio Manager Will Encourage Major Oil Company To Ignore Activists, Embrace Fossil Fuel Sector.

ROUTINE BUT NOT BORING: SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying private Ax-2 astronauts splashes down off Florida coast.

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Delivers a Fiery, Patriotic Memorial Day Speech Denouncing Left-Wing Ideologies.

SALENA ZITO: The first GOP can­di­date in the swing 17th dis­trict is a Black pas­tor from Penn Hills.

Mr. Nelson’s decision to run comes at a time when Democrats — who often bank their ability to win on non-white voters — have seen a small but not insignificant number of minority voters turned off by the party’s apparent slide toward elitism.

Our interview came in the same week Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, launched his presidential campaign and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is seeking to become the state’s first Black governor, crushed all of his well-funded GOP primary opponents.

Both Mr. Scott and Mr. Cameron have faced racial remarks from some media, and some Democrats, that would in other contexts be considered terribly racist.

“In other contexts. . . .”

BLUE CITY BLUES: ‘Beyond the financial, it’s personal’: Portland business owner frustrated with crime.

“We have a small U-Haul operation we are likely to shut down now because we just can’t keep them operational because of the vandalism and theft,” said Angelechio. “On Monday I saw a gentleman who was siphoning gas from one of the U-Hauls. I assume he drilled a hole into it so it is now nonoperational.”

The man took off, leaving a hose and bucket behind.

“We’re getting no help and that’s where I think the frustration boils over,” said Angelechio. “You can’t get a police response. If you try, you’ll wait on hold for hours only to be told to just fill something out online and hope. That hope is dead. What do we do? Where do we turn?”

His message to the city: the cost is much more than the money going towards repairs.

“Beyond the financial it’s personal,” said Angelechio. “I’m working 50, 55 hours a week just trying to make it and here are these individuals that have nothing to lose I assume and are willing to take everything from you. We have charged and available tasers for the safety of our employees. We have to protect our employees and our business and we are getting no help. It’s not just us. I represent one of thousands of businesses in this area. If they don’t turn the tide, there won’t be any small business left.”

That would be “Mission Accomplished” for Portland’s progressives.

THE NEGLECTED IMPORTANCE OF Riverine Warfare.

LIGHTNING DEAL: 80×100 HD Monocular Telescope for Adults with Smartphone. #CommissionEarned

COVID IS TRULY OVER: Air Traffic Exceeds 2019 Levels.

The seemingly endless COVID pandemic may have finally ended.

According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), holiday air travel has fully recovered.

Reuters reported that holiday air travel traffic over the Memorial Day weekend actually exceeded levels seen in 2019.

Almost 9.8 million passengers went through security or were screened by the TSA from Friday-Monday. That exceeded the 2019 Memorial Day period by about 300,000, according to Reuters.

On Friday alone, the TSA screened 2.74 million passengers, the highest single day since before COVID in November 2019.

And: Half-Empty a Year Ago, Cruises Are Now Packed Like Sardines.

Anyone expecting a repeat of the ample elbow room on many cruises last summer should prepare. The crowds are back at sea.

Cruise lines are seeing occupancy levels above 100% on many ships, largely due to the discounts and promotions many cruise lines offered in late fall and winter. Passengers are encountering long lines for activities on board, sold-out excursions and stressed-out crew members, a year after all but having ships to themselves. In extreme cases, cruise lines are canceling some people’s trips after overselling.

Royal Caribbean Group reported that the occupancy rate across its cruise lines averaged 102.1% during the first quarter of 2023, up from 57.4% in early 2022. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings says the occupancy rate averaged 101.5% during the first quarter and projects it to average 103.5% for the full year.

Cruise occupancy rates can rise above 100% because they are based on the expectation that two people will stay in each cabin, and this was a common occurrence before the pandemic. When three or four passengers stay in one cabin, occupancy rates can exceed 100%.

The average starting cost of a five-night cruise on a major cruise line for an inside cabin is $743 in June, according to data from cruise website Cruise Critic. That’s up from $551 during the same month last year. The price of a cruise vacation varies based on destination, duration, cabin type and cruise line, among other factors.

Bookings have been strongest for “sun and fun destinations” like the Caribbean, says David Crooks, senior vice president of product and operations for World Travel Holdings, a Massachusetts-based travel agency that operates cruise-booking sites including CruisesOnly and Cruises.com. Many of these cruises are sold out for this summer and are seeing strong demand well into 2024, he says. There is more flexibility for cruises in Europe and Alaska.

Exit quote from the first article: “Fauci must be furious.”

CONSCIOUSNESS OF GUILT: The medical field is erasing its own COVID-era history.

As much as the government probably wishes you would, most of you have hopefully not forgotten how “The Science” unfolded over the course of the pandemic. Pfizer and the rest of the Big Pharma companies assured the government that everything was just fine with the vaccines because they had been doing super serious testing. Outside medical clinics were running trials in parallel. And the government dutifully reported the cheerful news to us, while using all of that “data” to impose lockdowns, mask mandates, and immunity passport systems. But as we have since learned, there really wasn’t all that much testing going on in the rush to get the vaccines out the door. And now, according to one group that tracks publications in scientific journals, a lot of the original research and test results are mysteriously disappearing.

Shameless Orwellianism is the order of the day.

THE QUESTION IS WHY THEY FEEL STYMIED BY HAVING TO MAKE AN ADULT EVENT JUST FOR ADULTS: Florida Furries Stymied by Child Protection Law, Make Convention 18+.

FROM MARY HARE:  Cloak and Stola.

When the Roman legion sweeps through the farmlands of Syria, Sophie loses everything: her home, her family, even her freedom. Changes to the marriage laws under Caesar Augustus bring her to the attention of Procerus, a Roman soldier stationed in Judea.
Procerus is looking for a wife. Sophie’s looking for a way forward. Neither are looking for love. But will they find it anyway? A historical romance set in the sweeping drama of ancient Rome.

HMM: Depressing thoughts.

First of all, a bit like communist China, America and Europe are – let’s be honest – increasingly totalitarian societies, in which it is no longer enough even to refrain from speaking out against Big Sister; no, you must love and affirm Big Sister, and all her values and beliefs, and all her progressive works, and you must say so constantly and at high volume or be instantly suspected as a dangerous, hateful, reactionary threat not only to the regime but to all humanity.

But, unlike China, many Western “liberal-democratic” societies are despite this totalizing obsession also increasingly dysfunctional, dangerous, and awash with anarchic madness. No one is satisfied with this state of affairs. The globalist liberal presses for ever more centralized and supranational government power and tighter control over wrong-thinkers – erm, I mean “disinformation” – in order to crush the nationalist-populist opposition – erm, “threats to democracy” – whom they think are to blame for destabilizing the profitable liberal-progressive project. The conservative nationalist, having had quite enough of the top-down ideological crusades and the lawless chaos that has proliferated in their wake, is in revolt against globalist liberalism and dreams of a Hungarian-style “illiberal democracy” that could return power to the people of sovereign nation-states and allow for a restoration of public order and moral stability. . . .

This is because the causes of Western liberalism’s civilizational breakdown run much deeper than bad policy and incompetent or even malevolent elites. Rather, as many, including myself, have by now concluded, over a couple of centuries Western liberalism essentially cannibalized the prior substructure of Christian values, moral assumptions, and social norms that it inherited and unknowingly relied on to function; now that those foundations have been sufficiently destroyed, it has no solid ground to stand on and is collapsing into the weird transitional stew of dysfunctional post-modern totalitarianism we now enjoy.

Sad, if true.

ALL CORRUPTED BY GNOSTICISM:  Life of Python.

THOSE STEPS SHOULD BE: Disband the FBI.  Salt the Earth. If those aren’t the steps, they’re underestimating the seriousness of this situation:  House Oversight Committee ‘Taking Steps’ to Hold Christopher Wray in Contempt of Congress After FBI Refuses to Comply With Subpoena.

WE ARE THE ONES WHO AT LEAST TRY TO:  Making your own breaks.

THE CURRENT SITUATION HAS MADE MEMORIAL DAY COMPLICATED FOR A LOT OF US:  Memorial Day in a corrupted land.

SPEAKING OF, KIM DU TOIT IS HAVING A FUNDRAISER. YOU KNOW WHAT THE TIMES ARE LIKE. IF YOU CAN HELP, GO DO SO:  Jumping The Gun.

I’D SHOW YOU MY SHOCKED FACE, BUT KIM DU TOIT BORROWED IT, AND I’M NOT SURE WHAT THOSE STAINS ARE, SO IT’S BEEN SENT FOR CLEANING:   New data gives the same result as old data: Like the flu, COVID hurt NO ONE who was young and healthy.

WE KNOW:  Evidence of Joe Biden’s knowledge of and involvement with Hunter’s schemes.

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT TO HAPPEN AFTER THREE YEARS IN WHICH LAWLESSNESS WAS HELD AS CLOSE TO PERFECTION?   Mob Assaults Marines in San Clemente.

SORRY, BUT ENDING STUDENT LOAN FREEZE IS DUMB:  Debt Ceiling Agreement Includes Cuts to the IRS, Ending Biden’s Freeze on Student Loans.

No, I don’t care to debate the ethics of it, though I’m mulling a post, because the idea these loans are sacred rest on a bunch of stupid assumptions on the right (on the left the idea they should all be forgiven rests on equally dumb assumptions, but still.) However, for the record, this is strategically speaking paste-eating dumb, and will get hanged around the necks of the Republicans come 2024. Paste-eating, own boogers coveting dumb.

GOOD MAN:  Elon Musk Pulls Twitter from European Union’s ‘Anti-Disinformation’ Agreement.

THERE IS LIFE IN MY LOST HOME STATE:  Colorado College Students Boo and Turn Their Backs on Commencement Speaker Liz Cheney.

BUT KERRY’S STATEMENTS CAME FROM THE GROUP BRAIN WE’LL CALL “BIDEN” FOR THE SAKE OF CONVENIENCE:  Two Dozen Republicans Want Biden to Disavow John Kerry’s Statements Targeting Farms.