DISPATCHES FROM BARACK PROJECTION OBAMA: Obama: US ‘dangerously close’ to moving toward autocracy.

Former President Obama warned on Tuesday the current political climate isn’t “consistent” with American democracy.

“It is consistent with autocracies,” Obama told a crowd in Hartford, Conn., where he spoke about the growing threat posed under the Trump administration, according to Connecticut Public Radio.

“We’re not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that,” he added.

The former president was in conversation with Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College professor who writes a daily newsletter on Substack, “Letters from an American.”

“If you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood, and not just my generation, at least since World War II — our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,” Obama told Richardson earlier in the conversation.

Related: Wielding A Pen And A Phone, Obama Goes It Alone.

—NPR, January 20th, 2014.

More: Liberals want Obama to be a king, not a president.

—CNN, June 8th, 2012.

THE DUMBING DOWN OF THE SAT CONTINUES. Pretty damning: “[T]he ACT and CLT correlate with the old SAT better than the current SAT does.”

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Longer walks linked to lower risk of chronic low back pain.

BY GIVING A DAMN ABOUT EDUCATION: How Red States Left Blue States in the Dust in Education Achievement.

REMEMBERING KNOXVILLE’S OWN Sam & Andy’s Restaurant. The original, like pretty much every landmark on the Cumberland Avenue “strip” by the university, is long gone. There’s one out in Farragut that’s very good, but not quite as good as the original.

Some background on steamed deli sandwiches, a Knoxville tradition.

Related item here. And yes, J.C. Holdway is great, probably the best restaurant in town.

SHE’S CERTAINLY SEEMS TO BE OUT OF STEP WITH THE REST OF THE ADMINISTRATION: Tulsi Gabbard Joins Trump In Situation Room Amid Reports Of Rift With President.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined President Donald Trump in the Situation Room on Tuesday following a report that she was not invited to attend a June 8 Camp David retreat, where the president “convened senior national security officials to discuss the Middle East.”

According to a report from Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy, Gabbard “had a scheduling conflict with National Guard orders, but was never invited [to Camp David] in the first place.” A senior intelligence official told The Daily Wire that the Camp David retreat was not originally planned to be an intelligence meeting and that CIA Director John Ratcliffe also wasn’t initially invited to attend, but he ended up going at the last minute. The senior intelligence official added that Tuesday’s national security meeting with Trump in the Situation Room was moved to the afternoon so that Gabbard could attend.

Last week, just after that Camp David meeting she wasn’t invited to: What the Hell Was That Tulsi Gabbard Video About?

THIS MAY OFFER A CLUE:

My friend. Have you read fiction books marketed to middle age women?

— Ælþemplær (@Aelthemplaer) June 17, 2025

PAY ATTENTION: Iran CANNOT Have Nuclear Weapons: A Reminder.

I WAS TOLD BY THE EXPERTS THAT IT WAS COMPLETELY SAFE: Cannabis use linked to doubled risk of cardiovascular disease death.

NO KINGS? HOW ABOUT A SHAH INSTEAD? Pahlavi Calls on Iranians to ‘Reclaim Iran.’

I USED TO BE DEPRESSED BUT NOW I JUST WONDER WHY MY MOP IS TALKING TO ME: Psychedelics may help cancer patients with depression.

JOHN ONDRASIK: My 2001 Hit Song, ‘Superman,’ Is for the Hostages in Gaza.

When I first released “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” in April 2001, I couldn’t have imagined it would become an anthem for first responders, men and women in uniform, and the broken everyday people working to heal our country. My song struck a chord because it wasn’t about capes or flying. It was about the vulnerabilities we all share and the burdens we all carry.

The country felt united after 9/11. Red and blue became meaningless labels. We all felt the same fear, the same heartbreak, and the same determination to rebuild. Music bridges divides. I saw that firsthand when I performed “Superman” at the Concert for New York City on Oct. 20, 2001. I took pride in the American spirit, our resilience after such an atrocity. I remember somehow locking eyes with a 250-pound union worker in the crowd who held a beer in each hand. We sang “Superman” together, loud and proud, and the tears streaming from his eyes were my tears, too.

Decades later, “Superman” didn’t die. Oceans away, it found a second life.

Read the whole thing.

(Update: here’s an archive copy. — Charlie)

ELIZABETH SCALIA: “No one was saved”: Paul McCartney out-harshed Lennon’s Critique with 4 words.

“CHILDISH” IS KIND:

And this childish way of thinking is exactly how Venezuela went from one of the richest nations in the world to not being able to feed itself. https://t.co/IkjC8rWrXj

— tedfrank (@tedfrank) June 18, 2025

HMM: Teens in Crisis: School Versus Family. “What is triggering this precipitous decline in our children’s mental well-being? Dr. Peter Gray writes in Psychology Today that teen suicides jumped more than 400% from 1950 to 1990, largely due to what he has dubbed “the imprisonment theory,” or constraints on independence by institutionalized schooling and correspondingly altered home life.”

TO HAVE GRAVITY, ONE MUST HAVE MASS:

To have gravity, you would have to assume that the NAACP has mass.
It has nothing. It doesn’t matter. It’s completely irrelevant. It has no more high ground or standing.
Why?
Because it’s simply a partisan organization like any other group of hacks.
I think it’s funny that… https://t.co/CQVmiADvRm

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) June 17, 2025

BUT OF COURSE: Michael Avenatti is Apologizing to Everyone—Except Brett Kavanaugh.

CHANGE: Streaming Viewership Surpassed Cable and Broadcast Combined for the First Time Ever in May, Nielsen Finds. “The news comes from the Gauge, Nielsen’s monthly TV consumption report, which has now been running for four years. From its launch in May 2021 to this May, streaming usage has jumped 71%, with broadcast down 21% and cable down 39%.”

NEXT, METALLIC BLUE AND CHAMPAGNE:

BREAKING 🚨: Honda successfully launched and landed its own reusable rocket

It flew for almost a full minute and reached an altitude of 890 feet before landing within 14 inches of its target pic.twitter.com/gKpZlXODYh

— Latest in space (@latestinspace) June 18, 2025

BREAKING: Supreme Court Delivers a Crushing Blow to Trans Agenda.

KRUISER: Dear Democrats: I Won’t Let You Exhaust Me With Your Diaper-Filling Tantrums. “While I have never been a fan of the Democrats’ motivating principles, I do miss the days when they had something other than seething hatred driving them. After Hillary’s fall from relevance, they’ve all become her.”

READER FAVORITE: NORTHYARD Men’s Athletic Running Shorts Quick Dry Workout Shorts. #CommissionEarned

WHO WAS IN CHARGE? The Latest Immigration Numbers Practically Prove Joe Biden’s Criminal Intent

HMM: Microsoft and OpenAI play high-stakes tug-of-war.

Microsoft and OpenAI are engaged in tense negotiations that could unravel one of the most important alliances in AI and fundamentally reorder the industry.

Why it matters: Microsoft has injected billions of dollars in OpenAI and made it a cornerstone of its AI strategy, but the companies have also remained rivals that, in many cases, offer competing AI services.

State of play: The two companies have been in talks for months to amend their partnership, with OpenAI needing approval from Microsoft to move forward with the corporate restructuring it has promised recent investors it would make.

Driving the news: The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that tensions have escalated between the two companies, with OpenAI considering a “nuclear option” of accusing Microsoft of violating antitrust laws.

To date, AI looks an awful lot like the late-’90s dot-com bubble. There’s an awful lot of investing into things people don’t really understand, and zero returns — except for infrastructure providers like Cisco (back then) and Nvidia (today).

Unless something changes, the shakeout ought to be nasty.

DOMESTIC TERROR IN MINNESOTA (AGAIN): Five U. Minnesota regents’ properties targeted in vandalism spree.

Find the perpetrators and make an example of them. No more leftist impunity.