CALIFORNICATION: The Challenge of Economic Recovery Continues to Grow under New Regulatory Burdens and More than $2.1 Billion in New Taxes and Fees. “New net direct costs, which will exceed $2.1 billion in 2023, comprise only part of the financial burden facing Coloradans and Colorado businesses—they do not include the indirect costs of numerous new laws and regulations. While the impact of each new regulation has not been fully valued yet, efforts to comply with them will cost many individuals and businesses billions of dollars in total, likely even more than the $2.1 billion in direct costs. Though any single new regulation may not change the outcome of a firm’s decision to expand in Colorado or to relocate to our state, at some point the cumulative regulatory burden could.”

I HAD JUST BEEN ASSURED YESTERDAY THAT NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRAT EVER DID THIS: Texas Democrat James Talarico Opposes Voter ID.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: MLB All-Star Game bombs in ratings again. Here’s why. “For the Ohtani factor alone, the numbers should have landed at least above the 10 million-viewer threshold, but didn’t. And if you’re looking for a big reason outside of cord-cutting, look no further than the backlash baseball is receiving for moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia to Colorado due to the former’s new voting laws.”

HE FIGHTS AND SELLS: New Ron DeSantis Campaign Merch Is Absolutely Epic.

MALTHUS IS UP THERE WITH MARX FOR DAMAGE DONE: Malthusian Myth Busting: Easter Island Edition. “While it is true that the Easter Islanders deforested their island, forensic historians have now determined that by converting the forest to farmland and innovatively adapting to prolonged Little Ice Age droughts, they avoided collapse.”

WIN ANY WARS LATELY? Joint Chiefs Chairman Compared Trump to Hitler, MAGA to Nazi ‘Brownshirts.’

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: The Reverse Cuban Boatlift, Real Americans Doing What Biden Won’t.

Plus:

• Meet the world’s shortest, baldest, oldest, least-talented, and most-desperate Solid Gold dancer
• Everybody in Florida is going to die of smart policy
• Donald Trump takes a scam car insurance call

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY: Traumatized Ex-Harris Staffers Terrified at Thought of Her Becoming President. “Some people have defended the vice president against the charges of staff abuse, including Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide who served as a ‘damage control’ adviser to disgraced Hollywood pervert Harvey Weinstein. According to Dunn, the situation in the VP’s office was ‘not anywhere near what you are describing,’ though she declined to elaborate as to whether it was better or worse than the situation being described.”

EQUALITY IN MISERY AND OPPRESSION: Communism Solved Racism in Cuba, 1619 Project Founder Claimed. “Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people of any place really in the hemisphere. I mean the Caribbean — most of the Caribbean — it’s hard to count because the white population in a lot of those countries is very, very small, they’re countries run by black folks, but in places that are truly at least biracial countries, Cuba actually has the least inequality, and that’s largely due to socialism, which I’m sure no one wants to hear.”

NOT THE BEE: Circle Back And Watch Psaki And The Biden White House REFUSE To Blame Communism For The Unrest In Cuba.

I almost headlined this one with “NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT,” but how far to the left of the Biden Administration is the Cuban regime, really?

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Paula Bolyard: Toronto Police Refuse to Say Whether This ‘Female’ Bearded Child Molester Has Boy Parts. “‘I understand that Eby identifies as a woman, but does this individual have male anatomy?’ I asked Constable Laura. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, random sexual assaults in parks are typically not attributed to genetic females, so this would seem to be an outlier if Eby has female anatomy.’ Twelve hours later, I still haven’t heard back from her — assuming Constable Laura is a woman, which may be presumptuous of me.”

Bryan Preston: Vinyl Sales Keep Outrunning CDs and This Makes No Sense. “Some music connoisseurs swear that vinyl sounds richer than digital audio on a CD. I think they’re mildly full of it.”

Yours Truly: It’s Official: The Fed Has No Clue What’s Going On or What It’s Doing. “While Powell has said he believes the burst in inflation is caused by ‘temporary’ issues such as COVID-related bottlenecks, it’s almost as though he has no clue about what’s going on in the White House and on Capitol Hill.”

DOG BITES MAN (AND THEN DEMANDS A TREAT): Democrats look to keep Coloradans’ tax refunds.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Democrats Are Looking More Commie Every Day. “As far as we know, Sinaloa cartel members are allowed to stay here and hang out in California and my home state of Arizona. Not so much for any pesky freedom seekers who might want to flee communism.”

CHARLES LEHMAN: Why Cops Are Quitting.

Officers I spoke with who had left their old departments all offered the same explanation: since last year’s explosive protests, they no longer feel that they have the support of the public or of civilian officials. As one now-retired NYPD officer put it: “One day, the good guys became the bad guys and the bad guys became the good guys.”

That moment, the officers to whom I spoke agreed, came last June, when tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of major cities, calling for the “defunding” of police departments in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Analysis of an unnamed midsize, midwestern city estimated that resignations nearly quintupled specifically in the months following the Floyd protests, supporting the claims of officers on the ground.

The officers grew worried by the ferocity of some protesters, particularly those who came to perpetrate violence after the peaceful majority had gone home for the night. Seattle has a proud history of protest—and riot, one former officer who left the SPD for a suburb told me. But this time was different: “It was people blowing up police cars. It was people throwing gasoline on to police headquarters and seeing if they could light the headquarters. It was people cementing my coworkers into a precinct and seeing if they could light the precinct on fire.”

As I’ve been saying for a year now, demoralizing the police is just as “effective” as defunding them — and more immediate, too.

MORE EVIDENCE THAT VARIANT-PANIC IS JUST PANIC: Preliminary Data From Israel Suggests Durable Immunity to the Delta Variant in Recovered COVID-19 Patients.

CHANGE? South Africa Burning. “If officials are actually arresting rioters, that would be a significant difference from how many Democrat-run cities and counties (especially those with George Soros-backed DAs) handled last summer’s riots.”

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE KARENS: Fauci Says Kids as Young as 3 Years Old Should Wear Masks.

COLORADO: Jefferson County parks & rec district to take up concealed carry ban as gun rights fight goes local. “A large special district in Jefferson County may be among the first entities in Colorado to test the limits of a new law allowing local governments to enact gun control laws within their jurisdiction.”

JUSTICE? Jussie Smollett Back in Court, Maintains Innocence in Hate Crime Hoax.

THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Boston Pride committee acknowledges its systemic racism and disbands over QTBIPOC criticism. “It is clear to us that our community needs and wants change without the involvement of Boston Pride. We have heard the concerns of the QTBIPOC community and others. We care too much to stand in the way.”

VIDEO: Watch the Music Video That Inspired the Cuban Uprising.

HE’S TOO KIND: The Establishment Democratic Media Complex Is Utter Garbage. “Conservative had long known of the media’s leftwing bias, and the open Obama adulation pretty much disabused any conservatives of the notion that the press was a neutral reporter of truth. The difference is that the Trump years showed the media wasn’t even bothering to try to hide that bias anymore, and were caught nakedly, blatantly manufacturing fake news to support their narrative.”

Related: US ranks last among 46 countries in trust in media, Reuters Institute report finds. “Just 29% of people surveyed in the U.S. said they trust the news.”

Not even American lefties believe what the media tells them.

READ THE WHOLE THING: The ‘COVID Collaborative’: More Proof Our Smug Ruling Class Is Real.

PRIORITIES: ‘Every officer is up to speed on diversity training. Not so much ship handling’: Scathing official report finds US Navy is too woke for war because of risk averse, politically correct, control-freak top brass.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Evidence Shows Georgia Hand Recount Was ‘Riddled With Massive Errors and Provable Fraud,’ Claims Lawsuit.