THEY’RE ON THE OTHER SIDE:

If you look really closely, you’ll notice a difference in how CNN treats claims from Israel and from Hamas.

Can you spot it? pic.twitter.com/wlwXrb919c

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) June 10, 2024

JIM TREACHER: They Were Just Minding Their Own Business, Guarding Their Hostages…

Have you ever had one of those days?

You’re just sitting at home minding your own business, guarding the Israeli hostages your Hamas buddies kidnapped after their bloody rampage on October 7. Then, all of a sudden, for no reason whatsoever, a bunch of Zionists bust in and kill you. A lot of you. Hundreds of you, if your terrorist comrades are to be believed.

And for what? Why did so many people need to die just for four Jews? Aren’t your lives important too?

* * * * * * * * *

But wait, there’s more. Guess who was holding Kozlov and two of the three other hostages? A reporter for something called the Palestine Chronicle.

Terrorist, journalist, whatever.

The only difference between this guy and his counterparts in the west is that at least he had skin in the game. He didn’t just talk the talk. He actually got in there and participated in the terrorism he endorsed.

And now he’s dead, which is really great. He wanted martyrdom, and now he’s got it. I hope he enjoys his 72 virgins, or 72 raisins, or whatever these psychopaths believe.

Exit quote:

We’ve gone from the left insisting “I’d hide Jews in my attic” to the left insisting “I’d hide Jews in my attic” in the space of a decade. https://t.co/oFpafUPEW7

— Kyle Shideler (@ShidelerK) June 10, 2024

HMM: Stealth gas contracts awarded amid high-profile crewed Starliner mission.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: It’s Official: Audiences Have Forgiven Will ‘The Slap’ Smith.

The “King Richard” star slapped Oscar presenter Chris Rock in front of a global audience two years ago. The actor took issue with Rock’s reference to his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head. The incident, swiftly dubbed “The Slap,” stained Smith’s career in ways no one could have predicted.

Would audiences embrace the affable Smith again? Could he return to the action comedies that once rocked the box office?

We got our answer over the weekend.

Will Smith and the Box Office: It’s Not Complicated

“Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” Smith’s first populist film since “The Slap,” scored big at the U.S. box office. The movie’s $56 million haul not only gave Hollywood a sigh of relief given recent blockbuster fails it showed Americans are willing to forgive (if not forget) Smith’s transgressions.

The film teams Smith with Martin Lawrence again as Miami cops whose bond helps them survive crisis after crisis. It’s precisely the kind of mainstream blockbuster Smith delivered for decades.

Would the sequel land differently given the post-“Slap” era? Apparently not.

Need more?

The new film indirectly references the slap in a clever way that feels organic to the story.

John Nolte adds, “I think Bad Boys: Ride or Die overperformed for the same reasons Top Gun: Maverick, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Sound of Freedom, and Oppenheimer overperformed—because after five-plus years of the Woke Terror removing fun and humanity from the movies, Normal People are dying to go to the movies. Normal People miss going to the movies. And Bad Boys: Ride or Die looks like a non-woke, non-gay, appealing, good-time-movie made for Normal People.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: PR Primer for the Trump Convictions: Make Voters Understand Who the Real Monsters Are.

DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: How wild beast invasion is tearing up America – and killing more people than sharks: ‘I’d rather get eaten by an alligator.’

Plus: “‘There are a lot more wild boar dishes in restaurants now,’ said Mayer. ‘But we’re not gonna barbecue our way out of this.'”

I dunno guys, that sounds like a challenge to me.

WESTERN COLONIALISM ENDED THIS ALONG WITH THE SLAVE TRADE: Study confirms funerary huts at King Ghezo’s palace built with blood of human sacrifice victims. “King Ghezo ruled Dahomey from 1818 to 1858, a period marked by military conquests and the transformation of the region’s economy, heavily reliant on the slave trade. The kingdom of Dahomey, with its capital at Abomey, was a dominant power in West Africa, known for its aggressive raids on neighboring regions to capture slaves. These captives were either traded for European goods, forced to work on royal plantations, or sacrificed in elaborate voodoo ceremonies.”

READER FAVORITE: 10-Minute Strength Training Exercises for Seniors: Exercises and Routines to Build Muscle, Balance, and Stamina. #CommissionEarned

DISPATCHES FROM THE RELIGIOUS LEFT: Our Society Is Reverent, After All.

It is good to know that even in today’s anything-goes age, some things are inviolate. Like the “Pride” flag. (If anyone ever explains why being “queer”–their word, not one that I would ever use–is something to be proud of, let me know.) Thus we have kids being arrested for riding their scooters across a Pride flag that was…painted on a street:

A group of five to six kids just starting doing donuts and creating skid marks on the Pride Mural. Right in front of me as we’re reporting on three people getting arrested for doing the same thing last night.@KHQLocalNews pic.twitter.com/FMXGAg77fx

— Adam Schwager (@schwagerTV) June 6, 2024

A sane person would say, if you don’t want people driving on your religious symbol, don’t put it on a street. But sanity is in short supply these days.

And let’s not forget that religious symbols other than the Pride flag are routinely desecrated, not because they were on a public thoroughfare but because a liberal gratuitously wanted to insult them.

But in today’s world, it is dangerous to cross the “Pride” contingent.

Which leads us to this astonishing headline: Lime Scooters Will Now Shut Down If Driven Over Pride Flag Crosswalk In Spokane, WA.

Lime has now implemented a “no-go zone” over the crosswalk, meaning scooters driven over the mural will be remotely shut down. According to the company’s website, entering a “no-go zone” will cause a Lime vehicle to “gradually come to a stop,” forcing a rider to walk their scooter until it is outside the zone.

The incident in Spokane is not the first time an individual has been arrested or investigated for “defacing” a pride mural painted on the street.

In February, a 19-year-old from Clearwater, Florida, was arrested after being caught on video doing “burnouts” with his truck on a pride crosswalk in Delray Beach. Dylan Brewer turned himself into the Delray Beach Police Department after the video began to circulate online. He was charged with felony criminal mischief over $1000 and reckless driving.

I’m pretty sure Mike Judge didn’t intend for Idiocracy to be a how-to guide for life in the 21^st century. But then, as John Hinderaker wrote above, “A sane person would say, if you don’t want people driving on your religious symbol, don’t put it on a street. But sanity is in short supply these days.”

In any case, as a wise woman once wrote, “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them.”

PRIORITIES: Fifteen Percent Of NYC Hotel Rooms Occupied By Illegals in Major Blow To Local Tourism.

JAMES LILEKS: Without World’s Fairs, Can America Imagine Its Future? World’s Fairs are but a remnant of a time when America thought big.

VARIOUS THOUGHTS ON the Columbia Law Review imbroglio. Various views by various people, but this from Steve Lubet is worth quoting: “The apparently secretive process for soliciting and editing the article was wrong and manipulative in the first instance. It is a clear example of the politicization of scholarship, which should not be used to circumvent previously agreed upon editorial processes. The justification for it, which has been repeated by Prof. Katherine Franke, is nonsense.”

IT’S SATIRE, BUT JUST BARELY: Ilhan Omar Calls For Day Of Mourning Over Hostages Rescued.

Related: You ever have one of those days? “You’re just sitting at home minding your own business, guarding the Israeli hostages your Hamas buddies kidnapped after their bloody rampage on October 7. Then, all of a sudden, for no reason whatsoever, a bunch of Zionists bust in and kill you. A lot of you. Hundreds of you, if your terrorist comrades are to be believed. And for what? Why did so many people need to die just for four Jews? Aren’t your lives important too?”

No. They don’t just have zero value. You’re better for the world when you’re dead.

Plus:

No matter what these terrorists do, no matter how many wars they start, their entire strategy is to paint themselves as the aggrieved party. They’re always the victims.

They had to butcher all those people on October 7, you see. They had to kidnap the survivors and hold them hostage.

Because Jews still exist on this planet.

Then, terrorist sympathizers in the West do their usual song and dance: “Both sides are bad! Is it really worth killing so many people just to save four?”

Yes, it is. Because they were hostages.

Hostages.

If you can’t tell the difference between a hostage and a hostage-taker, it doesn’t make you somehow enlightened. It means your brain is broken and your soul is excrement.

Yep. And that describes much of our media/academic/political class. And even more of the NGO crowd.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Top cancer charity apologizes for using word ‘cervix’ instead of trans-friendly ‘front hole.’

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: From Cars to Star Wars, We’re Not Buying What They’re Selling. “The root cause is the same: somebody forgot who their customer is.”

INSIGHTS ON IRAN FROM MUSLIM’S ROAD TO CHRISTIANITY: There is a steady flow of conversion reports from the evangelical underground in the Middle East. This particular testimony on HillFaith from a former Shiite Muslim provides some key insights about the vulnerable underbelly of the Iranian Mullahs.

LYING LIAR MAINTAINS LIE: Ex-DNI James Clapper says he won’t retract letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says he would not retract the letter he signed about first son Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In 2020, Clapper along with 51 other officials signed a letter saying that Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” was Russian disinformation.

When Clapper recently was asked if he would retract the letter he signed, he told Fox News in a one word answer, “no.”

Any news organization that gives a damn about its reputation would blackball Clapper.

LIKE SO MANY SANCTIFIED POLICIES IN TODAY’S AMERICA, THIS IS ONLY POPULAR WITH ELITES: U. Chicago survey: Two-thirds of U.S. adults oppose transgender females in women’s sports. See also open borders, defunding the police, etc.

WHAT’S HE GOING TO RUN ON, THE ECONOMY? Desperate Biden Campaign Continues to Push Long-Debunked Hoax.

THE ENEMY WITHIN: Catholic university in Chicago gives several AWARDS to terrorism-loving SJP chapter that argued ‘Resistance is justified.’

I WONDER WHY THIS ISN’T A BIGGER STORY: NYTimes Hacked, Source Code Stolen. “We are talking about a 334 gigabyte archive containing supposedly 3.6 million and some change files, individual source code files. Massive. Off-the-charts massive.”

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: Revealed: the Majority Black Committee that Excluded Caitlin Clark for U.S. Olympic Basketball Team.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Hostage Rescue Brings Out the Worst In the Worst People on Earth. “As is always the case with the leftists, there are no limits to how low they can go. The anti-Semitic rage we’ve seen from them these past eight months has been beyond awful. Unfortunately, they found new depths to plumb after the Israel Defense Forces rescued four hostages last week. They immediately looked for ways to taint a great cause for celebration — especially given the fact that many had lost hope that any hostages remained alive.”

CHANGE: Far-right gains in EU election deal stunning defeats to France’s Macron and Germany’s Scholz.

An initial projection provided by the European Union indicated far-right parties have made big gains at the European Parliament.

In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections, a massive political risk since his party could suffer more losses, hobbling the rest of his presidential term that ends in 2027.
…
Macron acknowledged the thud of defeat. “I’ve heard your message, your concerns, and I won’t leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling a snap election only underscored his democratic credentials.

In Germany, the most populous nation in the 27-member bloc, projections indicated that the AfD overcame a string of scandals involving its top candidate to rise to 16.5%, up from 11% in 2019. In comparison, the combined result for the three parties in the German governing coalition barely topped 30%.

European governments have been so bad for so long that it’s impossible to tell whether any changes will lead to improvements or if they’ll be just as bad but in new ways.

DON SURBER: The Real Reason for the Hunter Trial.