TRANSPARENCY: Keith Ellison Moves To Shield Records on Controversial Legal Scheme.

TYLER O’NEIL: An Ominous Portent for America Under Biden Gets Even Worse.

THAT ’70S SHOW:

But, hey, the Administration wants you to know you saved 16¢ if you treated your family to the lamest Independence Day cookout ever (without driving anywhere).

The big guy won’t notice until his 10% cut no longer buys him enough ice cream.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: You Won’t Believe Who Bought a Ticket on Branson’s SpaceShipTwo.

Plus:

• Progressivism is miserablism, Exhibits #1, #2, #3
• Masks are for the little flyers
• Can’t Hide Love (Of Election Fraud)

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

BILL PRESS, PROVIDING THE IMPORTANT ANALYSIS: Ice cream’s back — thank you, Joe!

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LAY DOWN THE ‘WELCOME’ MAT: Illegal Immigrant Deaths Soar During Heat Wave.

THIS IS A BIG DEAL, NEW YORK MAGAZINE FINALLY ADMITTING WHAT MILLIONS OF US HAVE KNOWN FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS: Why now is the time to rethink COVID safety protocols for children — and everyone else.

All told, 80 percent of American deaths have been among those 65 and above. According to the White House, 90 percent of American seniors are now fully vaccinated. Which means that while more cases are likely and some amount of hospitalization and death, as well, vaccines have eliminated the overwhelming share of American mortality risk, with the disease now circulating almost exclusively among people who can endure it much, much better — kids especially.

The country’s whole risk profile has changed. But our intuitions about risk tolerance haven’t — at least not yet.

You don’t say.

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

Matt Margolis: Matt Damon Gets a Valuable Lesson About Conservative Folk. “These people were wonderful to us, they really helped us. It was eye-opening for me.”

Stacey Lennox: Dr. Fauci’s Latest Comments on Vaccine Hesitancy Are Disingenuous and Wrong. “The irony of people politicizing the virus, framing those choosing not to be vaccinated as ideologues, cannot be overstated. It is not remotely based in reality.”

Yours Truly: Richard Branson and the Retro Future of Spaceflight. “I’ve often wondered what might have happened if the Soviets hadn’t had so many early successes with their space program. Ours could have looked less like Mercury-Gemini-Apollo, and more like Chuck Yaeger climbing aboard whatever spaceplane might have come after the X-15 and saying, ‘I think I’m gonna fly into orbit today.'”

SQUAD MEMBERS JUST AREN’T THAT INTO HUMAN RIGHTS: Omar and Tlaib Mum on Whether Palestinian Aid Should Be Conditioned on Human Rights Abuses.

PEACE OUT: Texas Dems Vote With Their Feet… for a Federal Takeover of Election Law.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Google angers employees with ‘hypocritical’ remote work policies. “Employees were already stirred up over opaque policies on remote work. Then a senior executive announced he’s moving to New Zealand in what some workers consider special treatment.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Democrats Want All Elections to Be Lawless Fraud-Fests. “Chaos and an election riddled with irregularities worked out well for them last year, so one can see why they’d like that to be the norm. That’s what H.R. 1 is all about. It’s federal oversight that perversely makes sure that states and municipalities can’t do much in the way of, you know, oversight.”

EMBRACE THE HEALING POWER OF ‘AND’: Is failure a byproduct or an aim of Democratic policy?

Everywhere one looks, it’s impossible to recruit staff. A local grocery has posted a notice asking customers to be patient with slow service because the place is short-staffed. A builder who’d like to take on more projects amid the real estate boom is frustrated because he “can’t hire people to do the work.” The local YMCA has lost 30 lifeguards because it can’t keep them on the wages it can pay. A lodge catering to whitewater rafting groups on the Kennebec River turns customers away because its diminished staff can’t cope. In its restaurant, tables are left uncleared around other diners because it’s impossible to hire busboys to tidy up. The frazzled manager says bluntly that his inability to match what Joe Biden pays people to stay idle “has something to do with it.” A hostess in another understaffed restaurant put the issue with succinct completeness, saying, “Until the unemployment runs out, no one wants to work.”

Paying people not to work saps morale, slows wealth creation, and becomes a habit of idleness — a malaise even. Does anyone think this is good for the country? Why would one persist in such folly when evidence abounds of the harm it does and the good it thwarts? It’s almost as if the Democrats want not only a torpid public dependent on central government but also actively want America to fail — which is the theme of our cover story by Peter Savodnik.

Here’s a chicken and egg question about which came first. Was it the Left’s wish for American failure and thence its adoption of a deleterious ideology of government interference? Or was it an ideological antipathy to freedom and thus its tenacious embrace of policies that don’t work? Sadly, the answer appears to be that it’s a lot of both.

Read the whole thing.

CHARMING: Abortion Activists Vandalize Jesus Statue, Calling Abortion a ‘Miracle.’

EVERYTHING IS RACIST: Now Belief in Creationism Is ‘White Supremacy.’ News Flash: We Won’t Bow to Your Secular Idols.

BUT OH-SO VERY HARVARD: Harvard’s anti-Asian bias is unAmerican.

THEY CAN’T STOMACH LIBERTY: The Left Can’t Stomach This Symbol That Inspires Freedom Fighters in Cuba, Hong Kong, Venezuela.

SEN. RICK SCOTT: Real police reform – ignore Dems’ radical policies and start with this commonsense step.

PROBABLY, YES: Does the Left Want Anther Capitol Riot? Because This Is How You Get Another Capitol Riot.

SPOILER: HE ISN’T KOREAN. Meet the British Man Who Spent $200K To Become Korean.

LOSER MENTALITY: Jenna Ellis Calls Out RNC for Abandoning Trump Camp After Election.

NOTHING’S SHOCKING: The G-20 Shock. “It is shocking to see President Biden cutting with the Group of 20 wealthy countries a deal to raise taxes on American corporations without first getting a mandate from Congress. On the contrary, Mr. Biden has to be well aware that the sentiment for such a deal might well not even be there in Congress. Never mind. Mr. Biden seems to imagine that the Constitution granted the taxing power to the president — of, say, France.”

THIS WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD STATEMENT, NOT THAT I EXPECT ANY ACTION: Biden Breaks His Silence on Cuba Protests.

ENABLING THEIR DESTROYERS: With T-Mobile Stores Favorites Of BLM Looters And Arsonists, Execs Told Workforce To Be ‘Respectful’ Of Those Who Want To ‘Burn This Whole Place Down.’

Sounds like T-Mobile execs have told their workers that T-Mobile stores aren’t a safe place to work.

Related: What Is the Great Resignation of 2021? (If You Don’t Know, You’ll Want to Read This).

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Shocking Depths of Fauci-China Connection Revealed in New Documents.

Plus:

• Not even Alabama can rid itself of the CCP’s Confucius Institutes
• So Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey is a thing we have to be concerned about now
• The Trudeau-Castro connection you won’t believe

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