THE ENEMY WITHIN:

Shameful Princeton students rush to stop a MEMORIAL DAY parade after spotting American flags coming towards them.

Hundreds of activists charged onto the road and sat down while shouting “Free Palestine” at the parade marchers who were honoring fallen service members & veterans. pic.twitter.com/dSQWK0J4YD

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 26, 2024

Related:

Israeli mother Ayelet Samerano addresses UN Security Council after a UN employee kidnapped her son.

“An UNRWA worker kidnapped my son. A social worker employed by a so-called humanitarian organization under the umbrella of the UN….

A man who dragged my son’s body on the… pic.twitter.com/UZD3NF9aCg

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 26, 2024

Plus:

1) Israel finds the bodies of hostages in UN buildings.

2) UN's top courts orders Israel to stop looking and go home.

That's where we are.

— Sunny (@sunnyright) May 24, 2024

WELL, THAT’S THE USUAL STYLE OF DEMOCRATIC MESSAGING: So, the “better way to talk about” climate change to black voters — instead of talking about “a planet free of climate crisis” — is to let them know there are billions of dollars “waiting to be doled out” to their specific communities. And that’s “how much black Americans care” — they care about the money that might be doled out to them. That’s what it says in the article.

Plus, from the comments: “Sorry, but the NYT overestimates how much anyone cares about about climate change.”

Like open borders and trans rights, these are priorities of the elites, and actually anti-priorities with voters.

OPEN THREAD: How was your weekend?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s secretive spaceplane releases object into orbit.

I HAD MISSED THIS: ICE confirms Jordanians who attempted to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico were both in US illegally. “A spokesperson for the base said two people in a box truck were stopped at a gate, with the driver allegedly telling military police officers they were making a delivery to the post office and worked for a company subcontracted by Amazon. . . . Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is now facing scrutiny over the incident.” One of them overstayed a student visa. The other was an illegal border crosser who was caught and released on his own recognizance.

Possibly related: Mysterious shooting outside Army Special Forces residence in North Carolina raises questions. “Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the soldier’s home. The family alleges the suspected intruder, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev of Chicago was taking photos of their children. When confronted near a power line in a wooded part of the property, an altercation ensued and Daraev was shot several times at close range. A second man, Dzhankutov Adsalan, was in a vehicle some distance from the incident and was questioned by authorities and then released.” Released, huh? Plus: “U.S. Special Operations soldiers around the country have experienced strange interactions in recent years that they say involve suspicious surveillance of them and their families. Many believe that U.S. military bases have become an increasing target of foreign probes. . . . The two Chechens had no personal identification. They did have two cell phones with Russian language contacts and camera equipment. They were not wearing any uniforms for the power company that reportedly employed them.”

Okay, these are probably weird but unrelated, but if you were probing vulnerabilities in advance of a Kurt Schlichter-like attack, wouldn’t you be doing stuff like this? I think you would.

Plus: “Members of the Special Operations community are asking why two Russian-speaking Chechens were taking photos near an elite Army special forces residence at 8:15 pm on a Friday night some 10 minutes after sunset and why the FBI is not the lead in the investigation.” Why, indeed?

It was like this before 9/11 too. As I noted some time ago: “FBI investigators misunderstood the law, and were thus too slow to search Moussaoui even though the evidence in their possession was more than sufficient. The bureaucratic resistance to searching Moussaoui was so great that field agents in Minnesota wondered — before Sept. 11 — if Usama bin Laden had a mole in Bureau headquarters.”

Related:

There’s a quiet scandal at the heart of Sept. 11; one that for different reasons neither the government nor the privacy lobby really wants to talk about. It’s this: For two and a half weeks before the attacks, the U.S. government knew the names of two hijackers. It knew they were al-Qaida killers and that they were already in the United States. In fact, the two were living openly under their own names, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. They used those names for financial transactions, flight school, to earn frequent flier miles, and to procure a California identity card.

Despite this paper trail, and despite having two and a half weeks to follow the scent, the FBI couldn’t locate either man—at least not until Sept. 11, when they flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

Too busy playing politics, then and probably now.

WELL, GOOD: Marines Battle-Tested a Mysterious Suit of Armor From 3,500 Years Ago.

READER FAVORITE: Cruise Ship Essentials, Flat Extension Cord with Multiple Outlets. #CommssionEarned

NASA SHOULD BE DOING THIS KIND OF THING, NOT BUILDING ITS OWN ROCKETS: Straight Out of Sci-Fi: NASA Advances Six Pioneering Space Technologies for Tomorrow.

JOHN LUCAS: This Memorial Day, Remember The Fallen, Like This Farm Boy From North Carolina.

I PREDICT THAT THIS WILL END BADLY: Cracker Barrel CEO says brand isn’t relevant and needs a new plan.

Much like the failed plan to turn McDonald’s into a “progressive burger company.”

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: All 80 COVID Counts Against New Jersey’s Atilis Gym Have Been Dropped With Prejudice (NSFW Language).

COVID restrictions were INSANE and there were a lot of people during the time that stood up and yelled about it from the get-go. Many of us even yelled beginning with 15 days to slow the spread. Many took a cautious approach to the government closing down businesses and did not really begin getting upset until it was way past the 15 days and some places were allowed to be open and others were not.

We know going back to that time when our government overlords were literally deciding who gets to keep their livelihoods and who does not is hard to do, but we think it is a necessity. It is a necessity so we can remember it and make sure it NEVER happens again. We have some really great news on that front. Remember Atilis Gym in New Jersey? They opened despite the restrictions put in place by the Garden State. They have had a MAJOR VICTORY! ALL 80 counts have been dropped! *Chant USA USA USA!*

More like this, please.

PROGRESS OF A SORT: Eric Adams: “New York City’s beaches are our French Riviera.”

French Riviera & NYC pic.twitter.com/VS6kKTfI5a

— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) May 25, 2024

But let’s face it, we all know where America’s French Riviera actually is:

Everyone is moving to Texas and I see why.

This is Galveston, TX.

Got to be americas best kept secret. pic.twitter.com/1bvLhKfXd6

— Chris Munn (@chrisxmunn) February 22, 2023

Trolling aside, both comparisons may be more apt than the authors realize: Shore To Please. Review: The Once Upon a Time World: The Dark and Sparkling Story of the French Riviera.  

If Hieronymus Bosch ran a holiday resort, it would look like St. Tropez in the summer. It’s the same all the way along the coast from Marseilles to Menton. The rocky hillsides are swathed in concrete. The roads are jammed with preposterous sports cars and Germans in camper vans. The harbors are slick with oil and other fragrant discharges from the yachts in the bay. The harborside restaurants are extortionate and smell of drains. In Nice and Monaco, the surviving Belle Époque mansions are dwarfed by glass towers. This is the Côte d’Azur, the French Riviera: a sweaty panorama of organized crime, municipal corruption, tax-dodging, drug-smuggling, money-laundering, compulsive gambling, and gratuitous thong-wearing. I went last summer and had a great time.

The locals joke that Nice gets its name from “Ni ici, ni là“: “Neither here nor there,” neither French nor Italian, a living city and a stage set for a dream. That is what the visitors want, a break from reality on a cosmopolitan shore between the mountains and the sea. They come to escape life, as once, when the Riviera was an al fresco hospital for tuberculosis patients, they came to escape death. The English invented the French Riviera as a home away from home in the 19th century. The Americans reinvented it in the early 20th as a sophisticated alternative to home. The Germans only knocked it about a bit. The French destroyed it as the Venetians destroyed Venice, by catering to the world’s dreams and desires.

Jonathan Miles’s The Once Upon a Time World is the story of the making and remaking of the Riviera. It would be tidy to speak of its “unmaking,” but that has not yet happened and probably never will. A coast of malarial fishing villages and busy ports became an exclusive resort for the rich, then a glamorous gambler’s paradise with artist colonies on its fringes, then the world’s beach in the Jet Age when being a movie star was worth the trouble, and latterly a money laundry for oligarchs. But the view remains unchanged, and so the Riviera will go on forever, like a Disney cruise that has slipped into the Bermuda Triangle.

But New York’s mayor is making progress; I’m so old, I can remember back in March when Adams claimed that New Yorkers thought of their city as the “Port-Au-Prince of America,” a comparison that must have been a first for virtually all residents of Fun City.

LOTS OF THINGS ARE THAT WAY IN HOLLYWOOD: Hollywood at a Crossroads: “Everyone Is Using AI, But They Are Scared to Admit It.”

ADVICE: What Basic Defense Guns Should A New Gun Owner Get?

STAY HYDRATED: Stanley Quencher H2.0 FlowState Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Tumbler. #CommissionEarned

ROCKET REPORT: SpaceX focused on Starship reentry; Firefly may be for sale.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX Fixing Starship to Reach Rapid Reusability.

THIS COULD BE A PROBLEM IF TRUE: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma revealed.

INSERT JOE BIDEN JOKE HERE: Cognitive declines lead older adults to quit driving.

INTO THE LIONS’ DEN: Trump Was Booed Relentlessly at the Libertarian National Convention, Here’s Why That’s a Good Thing for Him.

TRUMP: “Only do that if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your three percent every four years.”

I sort of apologize to the more libertarian-leaning folks reading this, but only sort of. It’s all in good fun.

Long story short, showing up to face people who don’t like you is much more impressive than only speaking to adoring crowds. Trump isn’t going to lose a single vote because of the boos at the LNC, and by the end of his speech, he had drawn another important distinction with Biden. That’s a win.

In sharp contrast: Libertarian Chair Just Levels Biden Team After Their Hot Take About Rowdy Reaction to Trump Speech. “‘You didn’t even show up. You have zero credibility,’ she chastised them. Exactly. Trump made an effort, and you guys couldn’t even be bothered.”

THIS WILL END WELL: The Left’s war on merit comes for medical schools.

Most people don’t want diversity hires responsible for life-and-death matters. But new investigative reporting shows that the anti-meritocratic ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has even infiltrated some medical schools — to disastrous results.

These revelations come from the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium, who just published a remarkable exposé on the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school. It alleges that the university has systemically violated laws prohibiting race-based admission and held applicants of different races to wildly different standards, all in an effort to boost diversity, while instead producing incompetent and unqualified doctors.

Based on conversations with many people inside the admissions office and the medical school, Sibarium recounts how things have gone drastically wrong ever since the appointment of DEI-obsessed Dean of Admissions Jennifer Lucero in June 2020.

“Faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed,” he reports.

One former member of the admissions team told the Washington Free Beacon that this approach has turned the institution into a “failed medical school,” concluding, “We want racial diversity so badly, we’re willing to cut corners to get it.”

If you think this is going to end well, I’ve got a bridge in Miami to sell you.

GOODER AND HARDER: California Has Sacrificed its Energy Stability on the Altar of Green Energy ideology.

Governor Gavin Newsom and the legislature have not shied away from doubling down on their green energy crusade, enshrining in law mandates that 60% of the state’s electricity generation be renewable by 2030 and a staggering 90% by 2035. However, the glaring irony lies in the fact that many of these politicians will be long gone and termed out of office by the time these mandates become a reality, conveniently avoiding any accountability for the unattainable goals they set.

Meanwhile, nuclear energy, a proven and reliable zero-emission source, has been relegated to the back burner, shunned by the environmentalists who have the full attention of the majority party. Nuclear energy’s share of electricity generation has dwindled to a mere 8%. Even more frustrating, hydroelectric power, a historically dependable and cost-effective source, has been left to wither, with dams either languishing or being shuttered entirely.

In a desperate bid to try to please everyone, lawmakers thought it would be a good idea to propose a solution to base electricity bills on income. This quick fix is like putting a Band-Aid on a massive wound. It is not dealing with the problems causing our electricity bills to skyrocket: there’s not enough power to go around, and we are relying too much on expensive renewable energy sources. This half-baked solution might make things worse, creating even more shortages and higher prices, making people feel there is no point in trying to save energy if their costs are going to continue to rise.

While PG&E certainly bears culpability for its deferred maintenance and negligence in improving transmission lines, the lion’s share of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the state itself, which has crafted a regulatory framework that prioritizes renewables at the expense of reliability. By neglecting nuclear, hydroelectric, and gas-powered plants, California has effectively sacrificed its energy stability on the altar of green energy ideology.

It is time for California’s leaders to wake up from their green energy fantasy and refocus their efforts on restoring reliable sources like dams, nuclear facilities, and gas plants. This reckless green energy experiment has only served to drive prices skyward, squander taxpayer dollars, and leave consumers in the dark —literally and figuratively. It is time to put pragmatism ahead of ideology and prioritize affordability and reliability in our energy policy for the betterment of all Californians.

Good luck turning the Titanic around. California has been pursuing its green fantasies ever since Jerry Brown replaced Gov. Reagan in 1975, and as a result imports 26% of the energy it needs. (And has for some time; City Journal ran the headline “California’s Potemkin Environmentalism” back in 2008.)

No wonder Steve Hayward recently dubbed the state “The North Korea of the USA.” As he wrote, “Never mind the social tyranny the state has attempted to impose, such as strict vaccine mandates, legal sanctions for anyone who dissents from transgender ideology or uses the wrong pronoun, and attempted legal penalties for any physicians who dissent from official Covid ideology. Stick with just economics.”

SO HIS SINS WERE BAD ENOUGH TO LOSE HIS JOB OVER, BUT NOT BAD ENOUGH TO RISK GOP CONTROL: FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg to Resign Following Report Detailing Sexual Harassment at Agency: Gruenberg plans to stay until successor is confirmed, avoiding scenario that would leave a Republican as acting chairman.

What exactly is going on at the FDIC that makes partisan control so important?

JOHN NOLTE: ‘Mad Max with a Girl’ Faces Worst Memorial Day Weekend Debut in 41 Years.

Anyway, the sycophants at Deadline are in a tough spot with Furiosa. The prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road earned great reviews, opened on the perfect weekend for a blockbuster, and with no competition in its action lane. What’s more, it’s based on a successful franchise and Warner’s promoted the living hell out of it. So how does Deadline explain away this breathtaking failure? How does Deadline write around the truth of how stupid it is to make a girl the star of a movie called Mad Max?

In the Sycophancy Hall of Fame, this delicious piece of credibility-selling will earn a wing all its own:

Despite more movies in the marketplace, we’re still feeling the aftermath of the strikes. How is that? Many aren’t in the habit of moviegoing yet[.]

Many aren’t in the habit of moviegoing yet.

How far up Hollywood’s ass does one have to be to come up with a sentence like that?

Previously, these gerbils blamed the faltering box office on a lack of wide releases caused by the strike. That was easily proved a lie by comparing the number of pre- and post-strike wide releases. Turns out there is no lack of product. So now we’re being told the strike somehow took people out of the moviegoing habit.

What!?

Well, then, why were Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Dune 2 so successful? Why is Deadpool & Wolverine about to blow the doors off the box office?

Sorry, sycophants… The problem is not the three-years-gone pandemic, it is not the strike, it is not that people kicked their moviegoing habit, and it is not a lack of product. The problem is…

The product.

With very rare exceptions, the product sucks.  

And when you put a girl in a Mad Max movie, all the gushing reviews cease to matter because we can smell the affirmative action a mile away, and we know that movie reviewers, just like the corporate news media, cannot be trusted.

South Park’s “Panderverse” episode last year was only so-so as actual entertainment, but simply by making fun of the Kathleen Kennedy-style formula (“Put a chick in it! Make her gay! Make it lame!”), how much did that spell the death knell for this Hollywood cycle? (See also: the original Star Wars ending Hollywood’s 1970s obsession with dark European-inspired existentialism.) If Hollywood in 2024 does indeed wish its customers to return to “the habit of moviegoing,” then the industry has to decide if it wants to make product that entertains, or if it wishes to keep sermonizing. Because the latter formula, in the era of social media, when fans can quickly find out if the film is worth watching, or contains what Nolte once dubbed “the liberal sucker punch”), has run its course.

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