I THOUGHT HE WAS MORE INTO METH:  Where’s Hunter? Cocaine Reportedly Found at White House.

FOLLOW THE (MADE-UP) SCIENCE! CDC altered death certificates related to vaccines. “Someone (who needs to remain anonymous) was able to obtain the death certificates from Minnesota for all deaths that occurred from 2015 to the present, which presented the opportunity to see if the CDC is being entirely honest about the US death data. Unsurprisingly, the CDC is not”

Once I would have assumed that a story like this had to be wrong.

OPEN THREAD: How was your Independence Day?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s Changguang Satellite demonstrates space-to-ground laser links.

SALENA ZITO: The Forts of Pittsburgh.

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: The Sun Just Unleashed a Huge Solar Flare, Triggers Radio Blackout in US. “As serious as it might sound, the impact on Earth was milder than it could have been as the flare died down without further incident. Astronomers saw no sign of a coronal mass ejection that commonly accompanies such events, which would have launched streams of plasma far into space. The eruption was consistent with the upward trajectory of the current solar cycle, and suggests we have some rowdy months ahead as we head towards the impending 11-year peak of solar activity. According to the Royal Observatory of Belgium, sunspot counts have reached a 21-year high, with the average for June hitting 163 sunspots a day.”

ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA: NY Times Runs Yet Another Suspiciously-Timed Hit Piece on Hasidic Yeshivas, Casts Them as “Lawbreakers.”

Lawbreakers? They say that like it’s a bad thing.

Covid Flashback: Brooklyn Jewish Leaders Use Bolt Cutters to Reopen Park Closed by City. “The lock was cut after Jewish residents held a rally outside the park on Monday evening, calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to open the park and allow children inside. The park has reportedly been broken into at least 25 times over the past several weeks. Another video clip posted on social media showed a woman shouting at the Jewish residents for opening the park.”

Angering the Covid Karens was just a plus.

Plus: “Last week, three Orthodox Jewish congregants along with two Catholic priests filed a lawsuit against de Blasio and New York governor Andrew Cuomo in federal court, alleging that the state selectively enforced pandemic-control measures on religious New Yorkers, violating their constitutional rights. Even as mass protests were allowed to take place across the state, people of faith were targeted with threats of criminal prosecution and $1000 fines for violating the restrictions on group gatherings, the suit alleges.”

IT’S INDEPENDENCE DAY: BREAKING: Federal judge issues injunction against WH, gov’t agencies on speech suppression. “The Washington Post complains that this could upend years’ worth of coordination between bureaucrats and would-be censors.”

Good. Our bureaucratic class, and our chattering class, are not merely useless, but poisonous.

CATHERINE SALGADO: For Creator and Country: The Virtue of Patriotism.

NEWS I HOPE YOU DON’T NEED TO USE: Anesthesiologists warn: Stop taking Ozempic, Wegovy before surgery. “Semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and other drugs of their class known as GLP-1 receptor agonists cause digestion to slow down, which decreases hunger and reduces how much people eat. That food left in the stomach increases the risk you will vomit while under anesthesia, said ASA President Dr. Michael Champeau.”

READER FAVORITES: Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) Wireless Earbuds. #CommissionEarned

WELL, ONE IS MORE EXPENSIVE: 2023 Jeep Wagoneer vs. 2023 Jeep Grand Wagoneer: How They Compare.

JULY 4TH. EVERY JULY 4TH: The Geometry of Liberty: The Declaration of Independence Is a Logical Argument Based on Jefferson’s Axioms.

I was thinking about “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and remembered I’d written about it in 2019.

The Declaration as a whole is a logical argument that begins by stating its axioms:

• That all men (by which Jefferson meant humanity, humankind) are created equal;
• that by the very fact of their existence they have rights that inhere to them by their nature;
• that among these right — that is, there are other natural rights that Jefferson doesn’t assert for the purposes of his argument — are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness;
• that governments exists by the consent of the governed to secure — protect — those rights;
• that a government’s only reason or justification for existence is to secure those rights;
• and that a government’s only legitimacy and authority derives from that consent.

In that one sentence, Jefferson changes the world.

RULE OF LAW: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes tells U.S. Supreme Court to shove it.

Colorado has a law on the books that says, in simple terms, a business open to the public can’t discriminate against gay people.

The radical right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling last week saying that, yes, it can.

The court took the side of a web designer in Colorado who said it was her First Amendment right to refuse to design wedding websites for same-sex couples.

Arizona has a law much like Colorado’s.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced in no uncertain terms that her office is determined to enforce it.

The Supreme Court be damned.

This is the point of the propaganda campaign against the Court: A journalistic effort to promote Massive Resistance.

BLUE STATE HATEWATCH UPDATE: San Francisco reparations panelist calls straight white men ‘serial killers.’

If you really believed that, you’d be more polite.

WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? Substance found in White House library tests positive for cocaine.

PUNDITS: TESLA IS DOOMED NOW THAT LEFTIES ARE BOYCOTTING MUSK.

REALITY: Tesla production hits another record in Q2, beating estimates.

THE POWER LINE MID-WEEK IN PICTURES: Special July 4 Edition.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: U.S. manufacturing activity hits record low in June.

JEFF DUNETZ: July 4th 1776, The First Brexit.

IF NOTHING ELSE, TO ANNOY A LEFTIST:  Why Celebrate The Fourth.

FLASHBACK: QUEST FOR FIREWORKS: When I was a kid, I read a book (already old by then) called Henry Reed’s Journey. Reed is a boy who, on a cross-country drive, is trying to buy fireworks, but they turn out to be illegal almost everywhere he goes. As I noted back when InstaPundit was new, it’s a sort of metaphor for creeping nanny-statism in America, and Reed’s wry commentary now seems prophetic.

That seems to be changing, though. Fireworks have always been a booming business around here, but there are more and bigger stores, catering largely to tourists passing through from less-enlightened regions. And my sense is that there’s a bit less hostility to the idea of fireworks in general. I hope so. Yeah, fireworks can be dangerous. But so can lots of things. A bit of danger is part of life, as is learning how to handle dangerous things without being hurt. If you celebrate the Fourth with fireworks, I hope you do so safely. But also loudly.

Celebrating with one of these, however, would be amusing:

Some Americans this Fourth of July plan to get a bang out of blowing Osama bin Laden’s head off. The bin Laden Noggin, a cone-shaped pyrotechnic device with a cartoon of bin Laden’s face, has been a hot seller at some fireworks stores around the country. When lit, the bin Laden cone erupts in blood-red flames and screeches for 60 seconds. Two shots blow his head off.

It is part of an Exploding Terrorists Heads four-pack that also includes Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Moammar Gadhafi.

Of course, not everyone is happy:

Lisa Myer of Papillion was appalled when she heard about the fireworks while shopping for smoke bombs and sparklers for her son.

“What are we trying to teach our children?” she asked.

I’ll bet Henry Reed could answer that question.

UPDATE: Yep, I did this, too. But we wore shop goggles for safety. Meanwhile, Michael Ubaldi is unconcerned about creeping nannyism:

If Nanny is wrapping her arms around the 4th on paper, she’s accomplished nothing in practical terms. Fireworks are strictly regulated in Ohio but every Independence Day evening, as long as I’ve lived, I’ve heard and seen the incendiary stuff going off in every direction.

People have been testing their kits out around here for weeks. Given the day in question, I kind of like the irony.

Yes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: SKBubba, proud owner of a Nikon D70, offers fireworks photos taken at the Alcoa, TN duck pond last night. Very nice!

MORE: Dean Peters is collecting fireworks related blog posts. And reader Bradley Ems emails with these thoughts in response to the photograph above:

How much have I dropped in your state at the Tennessee-Alabama fireworks stands on I-24 outside of Chattanooga on our pilgrimages to Atlanta and Florida? I shudder to think. Best damn fireworks stores in the US.

Tennessee — exporting liberty!

BIRCH, SITTING IN FOR JAMES LILEKS AT THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE: Fireworks from a dog’s point of view.

Hello, my name is Birch. I belong to James Lileks, who has the day off. I decided to write his column. On behalf of all of us in the dog community, I beg you to listen: Terror Boom Bomb Time is coming up and we dogs are begging you to stop it.

We have no idea what’s going on and it scares the heck out of all of us, except for Winnie up the street — he’s like a beer barrel with fur who wouldn’t flinch if a meteor landed next to him. The guy’s so chill his butt smells like ice cream. But the rest of us live in dread and fear, because this is the worst time of the year. And I say that as a dog with no sense of linear time at all, so you know previous July 4ths have left an impression.

Look at it from our point of view. It’s a nice night. We’re all outside, guests are over, the grill’s working overtime and we all are having a good time. Then, all of a sudden, there’s a sound we can’t explain. Something really big just made a huge boom so loud that we can feel it in our guts. Or, worse, a whoosh and a shriek. Or a lot of short, buzzing sounds like when your mouth is full of bees.

And none of you humans seem at all bothered. By any of it.

I’m, like, “Hello? Did you not hear that? Do you not smell that? I know you have bad ears and you couldn’t smell a dead deer if it was a mile in front of you, but I’ve got thick flaps of skin and fur hanging over my ears and I heard it. Every bang, boom and hiss. I’m convinced we’re all in terrible danger. It could be that the world is ending. Let’s find shelter! Now!”

But you humans just laugh and look at the sky.

It’s always great to see a new budding journalist make his debut, so read the whole thing.

(Bumped.)

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Liberals Run In Terror As Pride Flags Replaced With American Flags.

Farragut, Tennessee. Happy Fourth of July! Leftists who hate America can drop dead.