THEY CHOSE . . . POORLY. Arnold Kling: Jewish Christophobia: Fear of Christians keeps many Jews on the left.

Reality:

Most pro-Hamas protesters are likely to be:

— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) May 27, 2024

POWER OVER PRINCIPLES, BUT THERE’S NO CHOICE WHEN YOU HAVE POWER BUT NO PRINCIPLES: Top #MeToo Dems Go To Bat for Embattled FDIC Chair Who Allegedly Oversaw Rampant Sexual Harassment.

SHUTTING DOWN DEMOCRATS’ VOTE-AND-ACTIVISM FARMS WHILE EDUCATING KIDS BETTER: School choice programs have been wildly successful under DeSantis. Now public schools might close. The Republican governor’s school choice programs may serve as a model for other GOP-leaning states across the country.

Sounds like a success to me.

REMEMBER THIS WHEN THEY PLAY THE “DECENCY” CARD:

When Mitt Romney ran for president, Joe Biden said he was going to reinstitute slavery and put black people in chains. https://t.co/XSfsTMDWpb

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) May 28, 2024

MARK JUDGE: How I Single-Handedly Spiked a Hollywood Hit Job.

I’M AFRAID THIS IS APT:

I worry there is more truth to this analogy than we should be comfortable with.

In WWII, Japan had a superb standing Navy and air force and America had a massive industrial base and numbers.

Are the roles to some extent reversed with China? More than we should like. https://t.co/7x9a9bReUd

— Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby) May 26, 2024

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: A Flagging Campaign Against Justice Alito: The ‘ethics’ attack having failed, the left turns to flag etiquette.

Yeah, well, the left has been burning flags and putting them on the seat of their pants for my entire lifetime, so STFU about etiquette.

Plus:

It might seem that nothing could top such silliness, but never underestimate an obsessive. This week we are also told—in ominous tones—that Justice Alito in August 2023 sold a small holding of shares in Anheuser-Busch some four months after the company’s decision to broadcast its wokeness by forming a public partnership with a transgender social influencer. Investors had for months been fleeing a stock that was near bottom, so if anything, Justice Alito was behind the trend. Yet this act of portfolio management is now presented as proof that the justice supported an anti-transgender “boycott.”

Democratic politicians and activists are racing to translate these meritless stories into futile actions. Nearly 50 House Democrats on Tuesday signed a letter demanding Justice Alito recuse himself from any Jan. 6-related litigation and for Justice Thomas to join him because his wife works in politics. Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen introduced a resolution of censure against Justice Alito, for not having already recused himself from Jan. 6 cases.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested he may call for a vote on a Democratic bill that would dictate recusal standards for the justices—a challenge to the separation of powers. The activist group Demand Justice says it will spend “six figures” on ads calling on Justice Alito to recuse himself. The group began its effort on Tuesday by unimaginatively projecting an upside-down flag onto the Supreme Court building.

This desperation belies any claim that the left’s interest is in ethics at the high court. The nonstop attacks—week after week—are aimed at altering the outcome of high-profile cases currently in front of the court, including Donald Trump’s claim that presidential immunity shields him from criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 riot. If the activists could force a recusal or two, they might sway a decision. If they fail, as they almost certainly will, they will continue smearing the court and casting doubt on the legitimacy of its decisions, with the longer-term aim of enacting legislation to pack the court by adding new justices when the Democrats control the White House and Congress.

The left tries to destroy any institution it can’t control. Note that the weak link in this process is that it depends on uncritical press support. The press should be made uncomfortable when it does this. If the parties were reversed the left would go after them — individually — Alinsky-style.

WELL, YES: We’re gonna need a bigger boat to hate the media enough.

OPEN THREAD: Monday came on a Tuesday this week.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese firm files plans for 10,000-satellite constellation.

RFK, JR: RFK Jr. had a ‘visceral’ reaction to tear-downs of Confederate statues/Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on a podcast that he doesn’t think ‘it’s a good, healthy thing for any culture to erase history’.

I WAS TOLD THAT TO EVEN SUGGEST THE POSSIBILITY MADE YOU A CONSPIRACY THEORIST: Scientists Decode Deadly Blood Clot Disorder Triggered by COVID Vaccines.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Robert De Niro Melts Down During Biden Campaign Train Wreck Presser in Manhattan.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Exercise Reverses Specific Age-Related Brain Changes In Mice.

IF TRUE, THAT SHOWS GOOD JUDGMENT: Entering Law Students Do Not Rely On The U.S. News Rankings In Choosing A Law School. “We compared changes in law school US News rankings to changes in prospective law student preferences the following year. Those variables should be strongly positively correlated. If a school’s US News ranking increases, prospective law students should prefer it more the following year, and if it decreases, they should prefer it less. But in fact, they were at best very weakly positively correlated, and often they are weakly negatively correlated. In other words, prospective law students appear to be largely indifferent to changes in a school’s US News ranking. This suggests that prospective law students are getting information about which law school to attend from someplace other than US News. And it also suggests that law schools can safely stop paying attention to the US News rankings, because their customers don’t care.”

PLAY STUPID GAMES, WIN STUPID PRIZES: California’s $25-an-Hour Minimum-Wage Boomerang: Gov. Newsom now says the law he signed last October would add to the state’s fiscal woes. He ignored warnings at the time.

Progressives in Sacramento rarely think twice before burdening businesses. But lo and behold, they are having second thoughts about California’s new $25-an-hour minimum wage for healthcare workers. Why? Because its burdensome budget costs are threatening liberal programs.

California’s Democratic Legislature is scrambling this week to delay the state’s higher healthcare minimum wage, which is scheduled to take effect on June 1. It’s not uncommon for politicians to reverse themselves, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom is walking back a law that he signed only last October. What’s changed?

The state’s budget deficit has ballooned to $45 billion. Mr. Newsom projects that the new healthcare minimum wage would cost the state $4 billion more a year owing to higher Medicaid costs and compensation for workers at state-owned facilities. Legislative analyses warned about these costs, but Mr. Newsom signed the law anyway.

Thus the minimum wage for healthcare workers is set to rise to between $18 and $23 an hour this Saturday, depending on the type and size of healthcare provider. California’s current minimum wage for all workers is $16 an hour. Nearly all workers at healthcare facilities including janitors will have to be paid at least $25 an hour by 2028.

Democrats shrugged when healthcare providers warned that the wage mandate could force cuts to patient services. Who cares if Californians wait longer before being seen at the ER? But now Democrats worry that the state’s higher health costs could force bigger government spending cuts. Oh no. Californians may have to wait even longer for their bullet train to nowhere.

Mr. Newsom is proposing to tie health worker minimum-wage increases to the state’s general fund revenue and to exempt state facilities. But once capital-gains revenue picks up again, California’s private healthcare providers will be stuck paying for the wage mandate, which they will ultimately pass on to patients. Far better to repeal the $25 wage minimum en toto.

As usual, Democrats don’t want to eat their own lousy cooking.

Well, would you?

CELEBRATE APPROPRIATELY: Magpul’s Silver Anniversary.

Magpul has become a legend in a short 25 years, developing an enviable reputation for innovation and uncompromising quality along the way. It officially launched in 1999, although company founder Richard Fitzpatrick recognized a need for the firm’s initial product back in 1991, while serving as a member of 3rd Recon Battalion in the Marine Corps.

Most U.S. combat troops began adding paracord and duct tape to the bottom of magazines to improve reload speed in Vietnam. They continued to do so while Fitzpatrick was in uniform because a reliable alternative never appeared. When he left the service, though, he invented a combat-tough, rubberized system to fulfill the same mission. That year was 1997, but he still needed a method of reproducing the device in volumes large enough to meet even a modest order. So, he purchased an injection mold and began making the magazine pulls in his Colorado garage.

An entrepreneurial triumph.

MORAL LEADERSHIP: OpenAI backpedals on scandalous tactic to silence former employees.

PARODY CONTINUES TO PLAY CATCH-UP IN JOE BIDEN’S AMERICA:

This is both satire and also exactly what the corrupt New York judge has told jurors. https://t.co/QGdqQFaEp2

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) May 28, 2024

WELL, GOOD: Research says pomegranates could offer a solution to fatty liver disease.

THE 21ST CENTURY IS SERVING UP HORRORS BEYOND IMAGINATION: Illinois brewpub serving cicada-infused Malort liquor shots. Malort is perhaps the worst drink ever, except maybe for Buckfast tonic wine.

POOR GEN Z: The Global Loss of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness. “Happiness used to be U-shaped by age, with middle age the least happy. Not anymore. Young people are now the least happy. . . . It seems that the well-being of young adults (ages 18-25), especially young women, went into precipitous decline beginning around 2017 (with some evidence showing around 2014).”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: America Is Getting Ready for Space Warfare: Pentagon officials open up about potential threats as China’s presence in orbit grows and Russia shows interest in gear that can destroy satellites.

In space warfare, the U.S. military is seeking the ultimate high ground.

The satellites central to national defense and global communications have long faced threats from the ground, such as signal jamming and missile attacks. Orbital menaces are the next frontier.

Intelligence disclosures about Russia’s interest in antisatellite weapons and satellite launches from China have energized U.S. efforts to defend its interests hundreds and even thousands of miles above the Earth’s surface.

Defense companies are developing systems ranging from satellites that can chase other satellites in orbit to protecting ground stations that can beam signals to space. Those protections are critical as mobile navigation services and some television and internet services rely on equipment in orbit. Commercial startups are working on technologies, including orbital capsules, sensors and satellite structures, that could have military applications.

Pentagon officials are also doing something unusual: talking more publicly about the weapons that hostile nations might use in space to engage in warfare. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top operational leader, said adversaries are trying every day to restrict access that the U.S. and its allies have in space. . . .

The Space Force—the newest military branch—has stepped up training of its Guardians, including how to best maneuver U.S. satellites and predict what adversaries may be planning.

It has developed scenarios for countering lasers, jammers, grabbers and nuclear weapons being used in space. U.S. officials oppose placing its nuclear weapons in orbit, pointing to commitments under a decades-old space treaty, but the Pentagon has been looking to further deploy its own set of space-based arms and capabilities.

In the Space Force’s recent budget request, about 25% of the $29.4 billion funding would go toward so-called space superiority, a concept that Saltzman calls “responsible counter-space.”

To be fair, the United States has been working on this stuff for a long time. For an elderly but excellent history of the early days, see Paul B. Stares’ The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984. It’s quite impressive what was going on in the 1960s — operational satellite interceptors, AGENA drones tested for capturing enemy satellites, etc.

CIVIL RIGHTS AND ANTISEMITISM AT COLUMBIA.

SPOILED WEENIES TRYING TO FEEL IMPORTANT: Data Analysis Confirms That Anti-Israel Protests “are overwhelmingly an elite college phenomenon.” Nate Silver re Washington Monthly protest data analysis: “Of course the stereotype was that these protests were concentrated at expensive elite colleges but I didn’t realize the rather extreme extent to which that’s actually true.”