THEY ARE CORRECT:  Gutfeld: We can’t let them win.

IS THIS THE CLUB WE WANT TO BE IN?  What Other Countries Have Persecuted and Prosecuted Opposition Leaders?

IT’S BEEN NOTED!  Who Else, Besides Donald Trump, Is a Convicted Felon?

IT’S THE ONLY THING COMMUNISTS PRODUCE IN ABUNDANCE: North Korea Sending Trash- and Poop-Filled Balloons Into South Korea.

IT IS INDEED TIME:  Pray & Prepare.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: It’s no ‘vibecession’ — in the real world, we’re still feeling economic pain.

The efforts of the press to convince people otherwise are just pathetic.

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: “Boy, was I wrong.”

GREAT MOMENTS IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: Man accused of driving without a license appears in court — while driving.

A man accused of driving without a licence dialled into his remote court hearing in Michigan from behind the wheel of a car.

Corey Harris, 44, appeared before the dumbfounded courtroom from his moving vehicle despite being charged with driving on a suspended licence.

Washtenaw County Judge Cedric Simpson looked confused as the defendant joined the virtual Zoom hearing, asking him: “Mr Harris, are you driving?”

The defendant replied: “I’m pulling into my doctor’s office actually,” before casually turning the steering wheel and saying he would be ready in “one second”.

Whoops:

Man driving while suspended, has a zoom court session about driving while suspended.

And now, looks like he catching another violation 😅🤣😂

🔊 … watch what the judge does at the end pic.twitter.com/E2KnuGdG7g

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) May 29, 2024

UPDATE: The Viral Story About a Defendant Driving With a Suspended License Was Fake News.

It turns out all those stories, however, were based on a falsehood. Harris’ license had been reinstated years prior and was only registering as suspended due to a clerical error. As of this writing, there has been no spate of additional articles, corrections, or a reinvigorated news cycle based around this information, because the truth here doesn’t lend itself to virality and engagement.

That’s a good indication that this never should have been a national story to begin with, which would be true even if Harris had been driving on a suspended license. A man in Michigan driving allegedly when he wasn’t supposed to is not newsworthy enough to deserve coverage in the most influential outlets in the U.S. (and beyond). Good for a social media laugh? Sure. Justifying its own news cycle? No.

To be fair though, as Ed Morrissey writes, “Clearly the judge thought he wasn’t supposed to be driving, and this still doesn’t negate one reason the story went viral: the man was driving while calling in on Zoom. Certainly that was worth a smirk or two along the way.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

The audio recording 👇 h/t @KarluskaPpic.twitter.com/TwNlR0h2Nq

— E 🇺🇸 (@Simply4Truth_) June 3, 2024

OPEN THREAD: There’s one roulade you can’t sing.

BECAUSE IT’S THEIR CORE DEMOGRAPHIC. NEXT QUESTION? The New York Times sure is pushing hard on the narrative of the middle-aged, childless, single-woman lifestyle. Why?

CONVICTED BY THE ‘RATIONAL STATE:’

Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in New York last week must be understood in terms of a political war that has been going on since Watergate. This 50-year fight—between the American people and an increasingly powerful ruling class—is the last stage of a project that began over a century ago, when progressive intellectuals imported German political science into America with the explicit aim of transforming the Constitution. In place of a representative government chosen by the sovereign American people, a new ruling class claimed superior intellectual authority, derived from “rational” empirical science and its methodology. The Constitution may continue to exist in name, but it has mostly been replaced by an administrative state of bureaucratic experts.

Trump is the greatest threat to this ruling class since Richard Nixon. He has therefore aroused more raw political passion than anyone in recent memory. Making him a convicted felon is a calculated gamble to keep him from returning to the White House. There is a risk it could backfire. But the ruling class knows that Trump is entirely alone in the political establishment. He has the support of millions of voters—almost certainly a plurality of the American people. But he is opposed by virtually all of the influential social, economic, political, and cultural interest groups that determine the outcome of elections.

When most elected Republicans and conservatives accepted the legitimacy of the globalist interpretation of the 2020 election, they abandoned the rule of law for hundreds of American citizens. These citizens were called insurrectionists and were denied basic rights by a Congress and courts that funded and conducted what was clearly an elaborately staged hoax. The first, and still the greatest, political hoax in American history was Watergate, which first confirmed to the expert class that it could rule without consent. The official interpretation of Nixon and his legacy has dominated public opinion for the last half century. To this day, the delegitimizing of Nixon has given powerful support to the “rational structures” in government which have replaced the Constitution.

* * * * * * * *
Yet the authority of the rational bureaucracy remains insecure until the threat of Trump can be neutralized. He threatens to unite the country around an understanding of the older America—an understanding that denies the authority of the rational bureaucracy. What they have done to Trump, and his response, has now made the problem political in such a way that it cannot be resolved without a fight.

As America’s Newspaper of Record notes, the left are fully prepared to have it out in the name of, err, democracy:

Democrats Vow To Arrest As Many Political Opponents As It Takes To Defeat Fascism https://t.co/aUrQnbJZn3 pic.twitter.com/5ReqjNoegT

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 3, 2024

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Peru and Slovakia sign the Artemis Accords.

THIS READS LIKE A FAR SIDE CARTOON COME TO LIFE: A remote tribe was given the internet for the first time – here’s how it’s gone.

It’s a familiar scene around the world – but not deep in the Amazon rainforest.

Asked if the change has been a positive one, villager Tsainama Marubo, 73, said: ‘When it arrived, everyone was happy. But now, things have gotten worse,

‘Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet,’ she explained. ‘They’re learning the ways of the white people.’

Many of the tribespeople did speak of the benefits the internet has brought, including the ability to chat with loved ones living far away, educational opportunities and the possibility of sharing their way of life with others.

It’s also saved lives. Before Starlink, when there was an emergency the Marubo used amateur radio to send a message via several villages, which would eventually reach authorities.

Now if someone has been bitten by a snake, for example, a quick call on a mobile can mean a speedy helicopter rescue.

But many Marubo people acknowledge the internet has brought with it a fair share of problems.

Marubo leader, Enoque Marubo (all Marubo use the same surname), 40, who was instrumental in bringing Starlink to his people, said a big issue in the early days was people not hunting and growing food because they were stuck on their phone.

He said: ‘In the village, if you don’t hunt, fish and plant, you don’t eat.’

This was to some extent solved by ensuring the internet is now only switched on for two hours in the morning, five hours in the evening and all day Sunday.

But other issues have been more difficult to tackle, such as scams, violent video games, graphic pornography, addictive social media scrolling, abusive online strangers and gossiping group chats.

It’s stuff many of us have been dealing with for years, but for most of the world it’s been a relatively gradual change, whereas for the Marubo people and other Amazon tribes who have recently received high-speed internet it’s all come at once.

When do the Marubo begin to learn about the joys of Tupperware?

Related: In 1999, “Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan’s first crime wave — murder, fraud, drug offenses.”

UPDATE (6/12/24): Fake news?

The @nytimes posted a false story about Starlink and an Amazon Tribe becoming addicted to porn 🤦‍♂️ They have apologized and corrected the story, highlighting Starlink's benefits in healthcare, education, business, and communication.

My thoughts, the subject and accusations of… pic.twitter.com/mGw9AloQ13

— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) June 12, 2024

WAPO FIRES EDITOR, REPLACES WITH WSJ AND TELEGRAPH ALUMS:

Well, well, well. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it still kinda does.

After losing half its readers and hundreds of millions of dollars, the Bezos-owned newspaper is radically shifting strategies.

Sally Buzbee, the author of this absolute disaster, no doubt left under her own steam to spend more time with her family or something similarly false and anodyne-sounding. It certainly had nothing to do with the wreckage of a once-great and respected news outlet.

* * * * * * * *

I, for one, thank her for helping inspire this dramatic shake-up. Among other things, it looks like the Post will be putting much of its most egregious propaganda-producers in a new division of the newsroom, and it may even rededicate the regular newsroom to reporting actual news.

Perhaps. I will believe that when I see it, but clearly there is at least a desire to do so. After all, the interim Executive Editor will be coming from The Wall Street Journal and the permanent replacement will be coming from The Telegraph Group–you may recall, I have recommended The Telegraph in one of my Things I Like columns.

The Wall Street Journal is not actually a conservative newspaper–it’s opinion section is, but much less so the newsroom–but it is superior to both The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Telegraph actually leans centrist and by newspaper standards, is far-right. It probably provides the most objective reporting in the English-speaking world.

Vanity Fair describes how the WaPo’s publisher broke the news to his employees: “I Can’t Sugarcoat It Anymore:” Will Lewis Bluntly Defends Washington Post Shake-Up.

During the Monday meeting, Lewis said, “We need world-class journalism every single day, and the people that are coming in to help us do that will be a real benefit to the organization.” He said he “really enjoyed working with Sally” and “wish[ed] it could have gone on for longer, but it couldn’t.” As far as diversity goes, Lewis admitted “it’s not great” and vowed to do better going forward.

Later in the meeting, another reporter asked Lewis whether “any women or people of color were interviewed and seriously considered for either of these positions,” a question that prompted applause. Lewis said there will be “significant opportunities” within the new organizational structure. Asked by another staffer about which people he met with, Lewis said, “It was an iterative, messy process, which I don’t want to go into the details of.”

At one point Lewis was asked whether he was intentionally bringing in people who come from a different culture than the Post. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore,” Lewis said. “So I’ve had to take decisive, urgent action to set us on a different path, sourcing talent that I have worked with that are the best of the best.”

He continued to take a blunt approach when asked about the “third newsroom,” specifically how it would be staffed. “I’ll be looking for people to put their hands up internally, but also sourcing talent externally,” said Lewis. (Of the “third newsroom,” Lewis said in Sunday’s memo, “The aim is to give the millions of Americans—who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed—compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want.”)

It sounds like the “third newsroom” might end up as the rubber room where Taylor Lorenz and the more outre members of the Post’s staffers will be housed, perhaps where they can do the least damage to the paper’s actual reporting:*

* Or lack thereof: Sally Buzbee’s Rocky Tenure at the Helm of the Washington Post.

During her tenure, she oversaw the creation of a “Democracy” team at the paper in the wake of January 6. While the idea predated Buzbee, she helped make it a reality: a nine-person team within the National desk that counts reporters in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin among its members.

The idea that the institutions of democracy are under threat from the right came to inform much of the Post’s reporting under Buzbee. During her three-year tenure, the paper dedicated significant space to airing the concerns of left-wing activists and dismissing or distorting the concerns of those Americans who don’t share the progressive assumptions of the paper’s editors and reporters.

Today, we look at some of the best examples of that phenomenon.

Beginning with one of the most egregious examples: reporting that New York City mayor Eric Adams might not have approved the deployment of police to Columbia University’s campus during anti-Israel protests without pressure from Jewish “billionaires and business titans.”

“Overall, the messages offer a window into how some prominent individuals have wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business and political leaders — including New York’s mayor,” the Post’s report read.

New York City deputy mayor Fabien Levy and others were quick to call out the antisemitic undertones of the article. “The insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all too familiar antisemitic trope that the Washington Post should be ashamed to ask about, let alone normalize in print,” Levy said.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that the Post seems to think it wasn’t necessary for the NYPD to get involved, even when students and outside agitators seized a building on campus — the outlet had previously characterized the anti-Israel protests as “antiwar demonstrations.”

But lackluster campus reporting is just one part of the paper’s larger failure to accurately and fairly cover the Israel–Hamas conflict.

Finally, Kyle Smith of the Wall Street Journal lays down a marker:

Gonna make a bold prediction: "Democracy Dies in Darkness" will disappear from the masthead.

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) June 3, 2024

NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT CLAPTON-ROGER WATERS COLLABORATION, TO BE HONEST: Eric Clapton Discovers the Secret: Israel is Running the World.

“Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show.”

Superannuated guitar demiurge Eric Clapton made this shocking and counterintuitive revelation during a recent interview, and of course the has-been rock deity is by no means the first to say this. Claiming that the Jews secretly run the world has been a staple charge of Jew-haters since the publication of the infamous czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and before that, but it’s particularly bizarre and striking for Clapton to drag out this particular canard at this point, when the entire world is ganging up on Israel, its foremost ally has betrayed it, and all the international organs of “justice,” or what passes for justice these days, are intent upon preventing the tiny Jewish state from defending itself. If Israel is running the world these days, it’s doing an extremely poor job of it.

The Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday that Clapton, who has recently been playing a guitar emblazoned with the flag of “Palestine,” not only claimed that Israel is running the world, but also expressed enthusiasm for the sometimes violent pro-Hamas demonstrations that have been breaking out on college and university campuses all over. “I was so enthused about what was going on at Columbia [University] and elsewhere,” said the aged adolescent, and who wouldn’t have been enthused?

Related: Eric Clapton says Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters suffers “terribly” from sharing his political views.

Eric Clapton has stated that he thinks Pink Floyd‘s Roger Waters has “a lot of guts” for sharing his political opinions – many of which have been heavily scrutinised and have even resulted in his own gigs being cancelled due to claims of anti-Semitism.

The guitarist’s thoughts on Waters arose during a new interview with The Real Music Observer, after being asked on what he thinks about people suggesting that musicians should “stick to music” rather than weigh in on politics.

“I don’t respond to the word ‘should’ very well,” he answers. “Anyone that tells me what I should be doing, I’m going to do the opposite. Not just out of spite, but because who are they to tell me how to live my life? I don’t interfere with them.”

Clapton continues, “I love Roger. I love him. We are brothers and he goes his way about it, and it takes a lot of guts, and he suffers from it terribly. I’ve seen him sit on the window ledge in tears and say ‘It’s morning here in Manhattan and I’m in tears again’, you know?

“I can’t do that, I am on the verge of tears a lot when I think about what’s going on and the evil there is, but I also have to carry a positive message of hope, and he does too. Music is a healing agent. I believe that there is a system of thinking about how you conduct yourself in that realm, and to be responsible not to offend people.”

When Clapton was quoted in 2021 about having “severe reactions which lasted ten days” after his first covid vaccination and being anti-lockdown, he was crucified by Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, and numerous other publications, most of which brought up his infamous drunken rant in 1976 while onstage in Birmingham England about Enoch Powell’s anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech. I hadn’t expected Clapton at age 79 to enter into Roger Waters-style anti-Semitic rants as well.

Exit quote:

Yes, Virginia, someone can be a gifted musician and a moral idiot.https://t.co/dqJPUIMeS0 pic.twitter.com/Fsf1uRTHjw

— Jeff Jacoby (@Jeff_Jacoby) May 31, 2024

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: A Highly Active Sunspot Is Pointed Right at Us Again. Here’s What to Expect.

EXPECT NO REDUCTION IN CORRUPTION, THE DRUG TRADE, OR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: Mexican presidential election: Claudia Sheinbaum becomes country’s first female leader.

VITAMIN D UPDATE: New Vitamin D Guidelines: Are You Getting Enough, or Too Much?

JOHN LUCAS HAS THOUGHTS ON DECORUM ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

BREAKING: “Feds Indict Far-Right Media Exec in Massive Money Laundering Scheme”

“Bill Guan, the chief financial officer of the far-right Epoch Times, was indicted Monday on charges of allegedly participating in a massive money laundering scheme.

The Southern District of New York released a statement saying, “Bill Guan, 61, of Secaucus, New Jersey, is charged with one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and two counts of bank fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. The charges do not relate to the Media Company’s newsgathering activities.”

HMM: Male birth control gel is safe and effective, new trial findings show.

UPDATE: Link was bad. Fixed now. Sorry!

HAVE WE BECOME MORE PRUDISH? YES. “In the last 10 years we have become … I don’t know that I would say puritanical, but less connected to touch.”

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA, YOU DO NOT DESPISE THEM ENOUGH:

Just amazing work honestly… pic.twitter.com/LOXFJu1l6k

— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) June 3, 2024

IT ISN’T THE CRIME, IT’S THE COVERUP*: Biden Admin Tampered With Evidence, Altered Biden’s Hur Interview Transcript.

*It’s also the crime.