GOOD: Vermont school board pays family punished for speaking against biological male in girl’s locker room. “The Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust will pay $125,000 in damages and attorneys fees under the settlement to Travis Allen and Jessica Allen on behalf of their daughter, Blake Allen, as well as their attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal nonprofit.”

FIGHT THE POWER: Colleagues Want A 95-Year-Old Judge to Retire; She’s Suing Them Instead.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Five Days Into Pride Month and the Rainbow Weariness Is Already Bone-Deep. “We care about being held hostage by the fringe of a fringe. We care about being told that the rules of biology and nature have been suspended and that there are more genders than there are flavors of ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. We care about being called bigots if we think that it’s monumentally unfair that biological male athletes are competing against biological females and ruining their dreams.”

PRIVATELY OWNED IMMIGRATION DETENTION FACILITIES:  Progressives really hate them.  But the one I visited a few years ago looked quite good.

THE TRUTH HURTS: ‘CNN Staffers Are Shocked’: Brutal Magazine Exposé Leaves Employees Angry and Frustrated.

Employees of CNN have expressed frustration and anger following a brutal exposé published in The Atlantic focused on newly-appointed CEO Chris Licht.

Brian Stelter, a former chief media correspondent who spent nearly a decade with CNN before leaving last August, publicized the sentiments of several employees admitting they were completely blindsided by the piece, written by Tim Alberta.

“I woke up to messages like this from CNNers: ‘He [Licht] made a bunch of these comments to Alberta without any apparent regard for how hurtful they’d be…’ ‘Even if he thinks these things…if he’s so concerned with the CNN brand, what is the point of saying any of this stuff publicly?’ Stelter tweeted on Saturday.

“The consensus, among people who knew @TimAlberta’s piece was coming, is that it’s much ‘worse’ than they expected. Licht confided in Alberta the way a client confides in a therapist. Some CNN staffers are shocked,” Steler wrote.

I read the piece over the weekend, and the only thing new were details filling in the gaps in what everyone already knew. The real story is that even The Atlantic seems to have given up on CNN.

ROGER KIMBALL: A History of Hate: The New York Review of Books joins the chorus of America haters deliberately distorting American history and all those who work to actually understand it.

FLASHBACK: Affirmative action, democracy & the Supreme Court: On the consequences of racial preferences.

WELL, OKAY THEN: Man video-recording in women’s locker room OK if he is trans.

“WOKE? NEVER HEARD OF IT.”

https://twitter.com/xenophonrocks/status/1665548058484981760

https://twitter.com/xenophonrocks/status/1665700912940175360

CHANGE: Chuck Todd to Leave ‘Meet The Press.’

BECAUSE THE ECO-OBSESSION IS STUPID, AND THERE’S NO AFRICAN AUDIENCE FOR WOKE VIRTUE-SIGNALLING: Why Africa is turning its back on the eco-obsessed West: The developing world needs rapid growth, not lectures on sustainability. “The Western democracies appear united in their support for Ukraine, but they may also be losing the bigger, more consequential battle for the loyalties of the developing world. Virtually no developing country – including democracies like India, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa – has chosen to take steps opposing Russia’s aggression (in fact, South Africa may have joined Iran in sending weapons to Moscow). This is a stark reflection of the West’s waning influence. The West is losing not because the developing world wants to genuflect to Vladimir Putin, or to his liege lord, Xi Jinping. Instead, we are seeing a growing disconnect between Western ‘values’, including on critical issues like food and energy production, and the needs of developing countries, many of which have struggled since the pandemic. In a period of steadily rising costs, countries such as Egypt, Pakistan and India are refusing to sanction Russian oil, allowing Moscow to match its pre-war oil exports. China has also boosted its oil purchases from Russia, as demand hits record levels. Unlike the affluent West, people in these countries still believe in future growth.”

In the West, on the other hand, yammerheads are talking about “degrowth.” And unfortunately, they have influence.

THE WAR ON PUNISHMENT:  California is considering a ban on solitary confinement in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers.  Unlike many other California ideas, this one doesn’t strike me as completely crazy.  Many people consider solitary confinement, at least over long periods of time, to be unnecessarily cruel.

But it’s interesting to remember that at one point in history the opposite view was riding high:  In the early 19^th century, the notion that convicts should be placed in solitary confinement in order to allow them the opportunity to reflect upon their sins and become penitent (hence the term “penitentiary”) was considered kind.  This Quaker-inspired philosophy was pushed by the Philadelphia Society for Ameliorating the Miseries of Public Prisons in part as a substitute for corporal punishment and other harsh treatment.

The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was built on this view in 1829.  Each prisoner was to be separately enclosed in a cell lit by a glass skylight representing the “Eye of God.”  They had no contact with other human beings except when absolutely necessary and were expected to read their Bibles silently, work, and contemplate the wrong turns they had taken in life.  The importance of solitude was taken to such an extreme that their heads would be covered when they had to be moved from one cell to another.

In its time, Eastern State Penitentiary was the most famous prison in the world.  Alexis de Tocqueville visited in 1831 with Gustave de Beaumont.  (Don’t forget that the original purpose of their American tour was to learn about the prison reform movement here).   Charles Dickens visited in 1842 and was apparently horrified:

Looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails is awful.  Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s shuttle, or shoemaker’s last, but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound.  Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired…. He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of years….

But here’s the problem for me:  It seems like every form of punishment known to man is considered intolerable these days.  They all have to go.  The de-incarceration movement is regarded as God’s work on both the Left and certain portions of the Right. Corporal punishment is considered barbaric by huge numbers of people these days, certainly for adults and increasingly for children too.  And many view the death penalty with horror.  My colleagues on the Commission on Civil Rights are aghast at the use of monetary fines and also at so-called “collateral consequences” of felony convictions (such as ineligibility to vote, ineligibility for certain public housing, etc.).  And don’t get me started about school discipline issues ….

There is every reason to want to avoid unnecessary cruelty in the world.  But it seems naïve to think that the world can get by without the need to punish wrongdoers.  If we try, I suspect we’ll find ourselves with a lot more wrongdoers.

I recently ran across a vividly worded passage from The Laws of Manu, an ancient Hindu legal text:  “If the king did not, without tiring, inflict punishment on those worthy to be punished, the stronger would roast the weaker, like fish on a spit.”

Maybe it’s my dour Scottish ancestry talking, but that sounds like a bit of ancient wisdom to me.

HOLD ON TIGHT: Top economist David Rosenberg says the US economy is a ‘dead man walking’ – and warns of a ‘hard landing’ ahead.

“You look at the United States and it seems to me that we’re still making this transition from expansion to recession,” Rosenberg said.

“I know it sounds extremely controversial to talk about the US going into recession, just because the lagging and coincident indicators are telling you that we’re into something brand-spanking new about a no-landing or a soft landing. We’re heading into a hard-landing in the second half of the year,” he said.

That strengthened the case for a global recession, Rosenberg added.

Related: Costco CFO says customers switching from beef and steak to cheaper meats may indicate looming recession.

The old joke is that economists have predicted seven out of the last four recessions. But for what it’s worth, gas prices have been mostly holding steady or even dropping a bit just as we’re supposed to be entering peak summer demand.

SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER! Harvard University Is Hosting A Race-Based Music Program, Civil Rights Complaint Alleges.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Carhartt Men’s Force Relaxed Fit Midweight Short-Sleeve Pocket T-Shirt. #CommissionEarned

NOBODY CARED ABOUT DRAG UNTIL THEY BROUGHT KIDS INTO IT: Federal Judge Rejects Tennessee’s Anti-Drag Law as Unconstitutional. “A lot of parents are wondering why is an adult male putting on women’s clothing and dancing and talking about sexual themes with other people’s children, not only in libraries but also in schools and other public institutions.”

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: It’s time for Gen Z to stop “bed rotting” and leave the house.