BREAKING: Just the News reporting that “In shocking litmus test, FBI security inquiry tried to unmask employee’s Trump support, memos show”:

I cannot help but find it ironic — to say the least — that the same people bleating about “saving democracy” are doing their damndest to subvert it.

“FBI officials conducting a top-secret security clearance review for a longtime employee asked witnesses whether that employee was known to support former President Donald Trump, if he had expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine or had attended a Second Amendment rally, according to internal memos that prompted a complaint to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog alleging political bias inside the bureau.

The employee’s security clearance was revoked months after the interviews, which confirmed his support for Trump and gun rights and his concerns about the COVID vaccine, according to the documents obtained by Just the News.”

TBH, I suspect this is a matter of “the emperor’s new clothes.” That is to say there’s no evidence that this was directed by President Biden — who probably thinks FBI stands for “Female Body Inspector” — but some Permanent Washington lackey who thinks he (or she) is doing the country a service.

God save us from “helpful” bureaucrats.

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space tourism dreams live on.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: My New York Post column: Trades surge, colleges sink as the ‘toolbelt generation’ turns to hands-on work.

WEIRD THAT INJECTING LOTS OF A FOREIGN, POSSIBLY TOXIC SUBSTANCE IN YOUR BODY COULD BE BAD FOR YOU: Tattoos Linked to Increased Cancer Risk, Scientists Warn.

FROM MY FORMER RESEARCH ASSISTANT ISABELLE THIBAULT, a terrific article on space mining.

HUMANS CAME WITH FIRE AND SPEARS AND TEAMWORK: The Megafauna Mystery: Scientists Discover New Clues to What Happened to North America’s Largest Animals.

CHARLES COOKE: Did I Miss the ‘Vandalism Is Fine Now’ Memo?

Many of the protesters wore masks and keffiyehs to cover their faces, in apparent violation of a D.C. law that prohibits demonstrations “while wearing any mask, hood, or device whereby any portion of the face is hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer.”

No arrests were made during the day, even as protesters vandalized property and clashed with police, according to law enforcement officials.

Can someone please explain to me, in words that your average ten-year-old could understand, what the argument in favor of this abdication is supposed to be? Suppose, arguendo, that I do not share the worldview of the vandals. What case could be made for their liberation that would persuade me? I can’t see one.

As a rule, I am very much interested in what other people think about politics. In my estimation, you cannot be useful as a citizen if you do not comprehend what your ideological opponents believe, and you cannot be effective as a writer if you do not understand why you don’t share those views. But here? Here, I’m stumped. Vandalism is a crime, and a malum in se crime at that. It is a crime at the federal level. It is a crime at the state level. It is a crime at the local level. Morally, it is considered a crime even where there is no law. I was taught as a child that vandalism was wrong; I have taught my own children that vandalism is wrong; and, even if I hadn’t done that, I suspect they’d grasp it instinctively. There is no ethical framework I can intuit in which defacing public monuments is acceptable, and no prosecutorial theory I can detect in which it ought to be ignored. Opposition to vandalism is obvious, widely understood, and value neutral. All in all, there cannot be more than 5 percent of Americans who believe that spraying graffiti on statues is okay.

Right around this time in  2020, it became widely accepted on the left that toppling statues of bad people was perfectly acceptable. These were historic figures who committed doubleplus ungood crimethink, and thus desperately needed to become unpersons, the sooner the better. Historians and even mainstream publications such as Popular Mechanics(!) dispensed advice on how to topple said statues without getting injured in the process. So what’s some graffiti in comparison.

It’s not like it’s skidmarks on a pride flag-painted crosswalk, after all. Speaking of which, as America’s Newspaper of Record reports:

Kids Avoid Felony By Defacing Pride Mural With 'Free Gaza' Skid Marks https://t.co/YEGJWAwiqp pic.twitter.com/TfTE1Sy1kI

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 10, 2024

THE GENE POOL IS CLEANSING ITSELF: “For progressives, waiting to have children has also become a kind of ethical imperative.”

The 60s movements were largely led by Red Diaper babies, from back when commies had kids like everyone else. If these attitudes had been prevalent in 1940, everything would have been different.

HMM: FDA clears GSK’s RSV vaccine for adults ages 50-59.

WAS UNC RIGHT TO CALL THE COPS ON THE PRO-PALESTINIAN CAMPERS? Rules should be consistently enforced. If enforcing them would be wrong, the rule needs to be changed. Here’s a rule of thumb for admins: if your campus is treating pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli rulebreakers differently from how it would treat the Patriot Front or Proud Boys in the same situation, it is in the wrong.

SEE THIS MOVIE: ‘Hit Man.’ “This is an old-school Hollywood script that director/co-writer Richard Linklater and Powell have written that lets the stars lure the audience in with charm and sex appeal, while slowly ramping up the tension.”

AT AMAZON, Find something for the hard to gift Dad. #CommissionEarned

OOPS: In the Hot Seat: The Kia Telluride Is Being Recalled Over Fire Fears. “Kia’s Telluride just went under a recall advisory over a defect pertaining to power seats. Based on documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the front power seat motor on the affected vehicles could overheat due to a stuck slide knob. Since the situation can result in a fire, Kia plans on recalling a whopping 462,869 examples inside of the United States.”

IT’S ACTUALLY WORSE THAN I THOUGHT WHEN THE NEWS BROKE LAST WEEK: Adobe Just Wants Unlimited Use Of Everything You Create. “Adobe has just changed the terms for subscription applications like Photoshop. Nothing big, just a demand of unlimited use of everything you ever create, forever. Oh, and you’re locked out of your existing work until you agree.”

Adobe is forcing users to cross the line between “Whose software is it, anyway?” to “Whose work is it, anyway?”

JUDENFREI: A ‘Jew Exclusion Zone’ at UCLA.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: Jewish students, come here to the South — where you’ll be safe.

WAR ON AMERICA: Anti-Gun Politicians Are Working Overtime to Destabilize Nation’s Judicial System, Starting with Highest Court.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, REAL THIEVES:

Al surveillance in-store pic.twitter.com/NV4f7juOj5

— Visual feast (@visualfeastwang) June 10, 2024

Nifty tech, I suppose — but without arrests and prosecutions, what’s the point?

MICHAEL WALSH: In Europe, A Cheer Moment.

Back in the days when real writers instead of gay teenage-girl ideologues wrote motion-picture scripts, and were concerned not only with plot but theme and character development and the three-act form and finding an emotionally and artistically satisfying ending to a memorable film, they often used to include something called the “cheer moment.” After enduring humiliation after humiliation, insult upon insult, and abuse after abuse, the long-suffering protagonist finally turns on his or her tormentors and gives them what they’ve been asking for all along. Here’s one now. . . .

All of this and more happened across Europe yesterday as voters went to the polls and delivered a well-deserved and long-overdue thrashing of the malignant Left in voting for the European Parliament. In France, Germany, and Italy, the heart of the E.U., patriotic parties — contemptuously referred to by the international state media as “far right” — made significant gains against their institutional opposition, rattling bien-pensant sensibilities and demolishing the various neo-communist “Green” parties everywhere. Savor it.

More like this please.

IT EMBOLDENS TERRORISTS AND UNDERCUTS AN ALLY SO OF COURSE YOU’LL BELIEVE IT: You Won’t Believe the Latest Stunt Biden Is Considering.

TO ASK THE QUESTION IS TO ANSWER IT: Why is ‘Gender Queer’ in the middle-school library?

WHO KNEW? “A new study from The University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University has found evidence of what’s long been suspected—that men are more likely to be risk-takers than women.”

THIS IS WHAT AMBITION LOOKS LIKE: The Countdown to Mars Begins.

IT’S SATIRE, BUT IS IT?

Biden Asks Why Europe Didn't Just Arrest Conservative Candidates Before Election https://t.co/3MgAh4kIB4 pic.twitter.com/HcP16crCUA

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 10, 2024

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA is commissioning 10 studies on Mars Sample Return—most are commercial.