ROGER KIMBALL: Some Unsolicited Advice: Trump should allow Biden to do what Biden does so well: to descend into rambling, shrewish incoherence, while his focus should be on what a future under Donald Trump might look like.

MAKE THEM PAY: Pentagon sued over deletion of ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’

A DEBACLE: Columbia Dean Calls Cops on Free Beacon Reporter: We wanted to ask Columbia College dean Josef Sorett questions. He summoned the police—after calling to defund the NYPD in 2020.

SHOCKER: Federal Budget Deficit Forecast Jumps $400 Billion, Fueled by Student Debt Forgiveness.

HE’S NOT WRONG:

BREAKING: The former Democrat Governor of New York just admitted live on air that the Trump case would've never been brought if Trump wasn't running for President

"I'm telling you, that case would have never been brought. And that's what's offensive to people. And it should be."… pic.twitter.com/KHrq7asKNh

— George (@BehizyTweets) June 22, 2024

Related: Bill Maher and Cuomo Admit Something We’ve All Known About the Trump Hush Money Trial. “hat case, the attorney general’s case in New York, frankly, should have never been brought. If his name was not Donald Trump and if he wasn’t running for president. I’m the former AG in New York. I’m telling you, that case would have never been brought. And that’s what is offensive to people. And it should be.”

MEH, PALESTINIANS SAY A LOT OF STUFF. Israel Airstrikes Hit Gaza City, and Palestinians Say Many Are Killed.

OPEN THREAD: Happy Saturday.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: How SpaceShipOne’s historic launch 20 years ago paved the way for a new space tourism era. And much more. It wasn’t huge in itself, but then, neither was the flight at Kitty Hawk.

ANOTHER “SCIENTIFIC” MYTH, BUSTED: The Mysterious ‘Ecocide’ Collapse of Easter Island Never Really Happened. “The myth of this so-called Rapa Nui ‘ecocide’ – held up for decades as a cautionary tale about overexploitation of natural resources – should be firmly relegated to the bin of outdated theories, scientists now say. This finding is just the latest in a mounting body of evidence that the Pacific Islander population’s decline had nothing to do with their way of living.”

It now seems likely that they were casualties of open borders: “In fact, the collapse so soon after European contact in the 1700s probably had more to do with the slave trade, enforced migration, and introduced pathogens.” I don’t see people being as eager to hold that up as a warning.

INSERT STANDARD JOKE ABOUT NO INTELLIGENT LIFE HERE: Astronomers May Have Found Life Beyond Earth.

SEXISM IS FINE, SO LONG AS IT’S SUITABLY INDIGENOUS SEXISM: Museum withheld images of African mask that ‘must not be seen by women’: Pitt Rivers curators applied warning to Igbo artefact in the interest of ‘cultural safety.’

Of course, considerations of “cultural safety” only apply to some cultures. For others it’s epater les bourgeoise.

WELL, TO BE FAIR, THE FDA DOESN’T CARE ABOUT AMERICANS: If Opiates Are Killing Americans, Why Won’t the FDA Let Us Try an Alternative?As the DEA relentlessly tightens regulations on pain meds, the FDA refuses to approve a safer alternative already being used in similar countries.

THE ROBERTS COURT: The Contorted Rahimi Ruling Didn’t Damage Bruen as Anti-Gunners Had Hoped.

FASTER, PLEASE: Mapping the heart to prevent damage caused by a heart attack.

THE FUTURE: Jensen and Elon Both See Future with Billions of Humanoid Robots.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: Top FDA official overrules staff to approve gene therapy that failed trial: Peter Marks overruled three teams and two top directors.

WELL, GOOD: Weight-loss drug effective in treating sleep apnea, study finds.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, CONFIDENCE EDITION: Polls: Confidence in colleges and universities continues plummet to ‘new lows.’

The results not only demonstrate a significant decline in national confidence since the 2023 Gallup poll, but that this decline was especially severe among young people ages 18 to 34, Democrats, and women, with those demographics showing the largest drops, FIRE researcher Nathan Honeycutt wrote in a news release.

What’s more, the drop in confidence from FIRE’s February to May polls shows the unrest and pro-Palestinian protests that have engulfed campuses in recent months has hurt higher education’s reputation further.

Honeycutt told The College Fix recent headlines over academic dishonesty, such as the plagiarism accusations lodged at several top-level campus leaders over the last seven months, could also explain the decline.

Other possible factors cited by FIRE include bias against center-right beliefs, rising tuition costs, and administrative bloat. . . . “The curtain is being pulled back.”

None of that’s a surprise to InstaPundit readers, but apparently their core customer base is catching on.

THOSE BOZOS SAY A LOT OF THINGS: Columbia SJP calls for alleged arsonist and firebomber Casey Goonan to be released from Jail: ‘Resistance is Love.’

I’d like to show them some love.

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT: Lock Merrick Garland Up For Protecting Biden: Voters. “In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey shared with Secrets, voters said that like Trump advisers before him, Garland should be sent to prison for failing to give Congress Biden’s interview recordings, drawing a contempt of Congress charge. By a 47%-31% margin, voters told Rasmussen that they believed Garland was guilty as charged. And 44% said he should be sent to prison, while 35% didn’t.”

Yeah, but it’s pretty hard to get Merrick Garland to prosecute Merrick Garland.

Related:

DOJ Opens New Tipline For Criminals To Report Whistleblowers https://t.co/ARN5JCngHl pic.twitter.com/h3Q4f84Hy5

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 21, 2024

WOKENESS AND LABOR ARE UNEASY BEDFELLOWS: Axios: Labor’s GOP flirtation heightens Democrats’ 2024 election nerves.

SALENA ZITO: A Lincoln Highway Icon Dies.

Two weeks ago, Jack Dunkle was sitting with his best friend Bob Barnes at his auto parts store along U.S. 30. Barnes was telling a story to his friend of over 40 years. Dunkle looked pale, but he waved Barnes off when asked if he needed anything.

“A little bit later, as Jack started to leave, he turned and paused for a moment at the threshold of the shop door, looked over his shoulder, and said to me, ‘I do need something, but it is not anything anyone, including you, can give me, and that is time,’” recalled Barnes, 70, who chokes up over the memory.

It was the last time he saw Dunkle alive. The 76-year-old died last week. Those who didn’t read the obituary in the Bedford Gazette found out soon enough when they made the bend along the old Lincoln Highway and saw that the iconic Gulf service station — the last original decorative terracotta Gulf gas station in the country — was closed.

“NO GASOLINE” signs were hand-scrawled and taped on to the two ancient pumps where his wife Susan would come out with a broad smile and pump your gas, check your tires, and wipe your windshield down when you pulled into the station; taped up across the big bay window was another sign left by Barnes that read: “Jack, you were simply GREAT will miss you FOREVER, Bob Barnes.”

It’s Salena Zito so read the whole thing.

DHS IS THE DOMESTIC ENEMY: New DHS Doc Reveals It Labels Trump Supporters, Catholics As Terror Threats.

STEPHANIE GUTMANN: When the trans movement was young, before everybody knew what ‘bottom surgery’ meant….

OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.