OH: A Review of COVID-19 Deaths in Two California Counties Drops the Total by Nearly 25%.

IT’S OK TO QUESTION THEIR PATRIOTISM: Maxine Waters Attacks The Declaration Of Independence On The 4th Of July.

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

Matt Margolis: What the Heck Is a ‘Demisexual’? We’re Not Sure, But There’s One in Andrew Cuomo’s Family.

Kevin Downey Jr: Why Can’t the Left Let Go of Slavery?

Yours Truly: Clyburn Joins Ranks of Democrat Flip-Floppers on Voter ID.

I STILL THINK IT’S MOSTLY A SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM: Elon Musk admits self-driving is harder than he thought as Tesla owners troll him over missed deadlines.

TURKISH UNION DUES: Hunter Biden Had a ‘Genius’ Plan to Unionize Prostitutes.

#FIGHTFOR15 (EURO EDITION): Pizza-making robot makes its debut in Paris.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Surprise — Teachers’ Unions Are Showing Their Evil Again. “I don’t think that the Republicans consciously turned away from school choice, but somewhere along the line, it dropped way down on the party’s list of priorities. As I said earlier, it’s a winning issue that has broad support when you’re not talking to a teachers’ union flack or one of the Democrats the unions have in their pockets. Republicans have been talking about minority outreach for years and school choice is perhaps the best way to do that.”

HMM: Apple defeats attempt by TikTok and others to bypass App Tracking Transparency in China.

With App Tracking Transparency, developers need to get user permission to access IDFA. Only 4% of Americans choose to do so, and the global opt-in rate is only 12%.

Chinese tech giants had hoped to avoid this by switching instead to CAID: the Chinese Advertising ID. Apple’s rules explicitly forbid this type of workaround, but large developers were gambling on Apple being afraid to ban popular apps that might limit the appeal of iPhones in China.

However, Apple did indeed enforce its ban on CAID, preventing the workaround from being used, and killing demand for it.

Overall, Apple’s dealings with mainland Communist China are nothing to be proud of, but I suppose this is something.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Manhattan Institute Offers Toolkit for Parents to Fight Back Against Woke Schools.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Court Slaps Down Biden Tax Mandate and Other Items of Much-Needed Sanity.

Plus:

• We partied like any year other than 2020 or ’21
• Antifa takes on rosary-wielding Mexican dude, regrets it
• A San Francisco liberal, mugged

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

HMM: Newsom and the Calif Dems may have outsmarted themselves by pushing up the recall election from November to September 14. “The voting will be done completely by mail, which allows ballot harvesting (legal in California) and that may do the trick for Newsom, especially if union members (unions run the state government for their own benefit knock on enough doors and collect enough ballots.) But the ballots will be mailed out in mid-August, a time when many people are away from home and are not focused on politics. It would not surprise me if a lot of ballots got thrown away with the junk mail when people return from vacation. Not so many energized Republicans, but a lot of indifferent Democrats.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: New Emails Raise New Allegations of Influence Peddling By Hunter Biden And Direct Knowledge Of President Biden.

As in the past, Americans interested in such stories have had to rely on the foreign press or a couple domestic sites for such information.

The new emails include references to the use of Air Force II by Hunter Biden to pursue the deals — a similar pattern revealed with regard to the China dealings. The emails detail a number of visits to Mexico, including a February 2016 flight on Air Force II with his father. On the plane was his business partner Jeff Cooper, who ran Illinois-based SimmonsCooper. That is one of the largest asbestos litigation firms in the country and Hunter was given 3 percent of Cooper’s venture capital firm Eudora Global, according to emails. President Biden’s brother (who featured in past controversial deals) was also reportedly involved in some of these efforts.

These dealings continued into 2018 as Hunter pushed for deals with Slim. One text message from July 24, 2018 reads “Spoke to my dad about ‘Slim ask” and Cooper responds “Oh that sounds SO F’ING GOOD.”

Read the whole thing.

BLUE CITY BLUES: Shopping in San Francisco Gets a Lot More Difficult Thanks to Far-Left Criminal Justice Policies.

COLORADO’S CALIFORNICATION IS NOW COMPLETE: Polis signs off on bill establishing Front Range high-speed rail district.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING THE THREE-DAY WEEKEND AND COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR THIS ITEM: Olympic Athlete Who Disrespected the Flag Turns Out to Be a Flaming Racist.

DETERRENCE: US and Japan Conduct War Games To Counter China.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: It Was A Fun 4th of July Despite Our Drunk, Downer President. “For reasons that aren’t clear, Biden’s handlers decided to let him off-leash a lot over the holiday weekend and those of us who don’t have to pretend know that’s a recipe for slurring, gaffe-prone disaster. He had to pull out some notes to answer a question while trying to pretend to be a normal guy in an ice cream shop and still couldn’t get it right.”

RYAN FAZIO: Young Americans need to appreciate the good fortune they take for granted.

An old college professor of mine who was born under a communist police state in the Czech Republic used to preach to his American students studying abroad in Prague, “Yours is the country of individual freedom. You should be proud of what it has given the world.” He and his countrymen have now enjoyed decades of relative prosperity and freedom under the Pax Americana.

But, as we approach another Independence Day, why are fewer Americans proud of that legacy? And why do many of us often think what we have here — wealth, freedom and safety — is normal in the course of human history or even in the world today? A little perspective is in order.

Young people taking good fortune for granted is nothing new. What is new is how many of our young people have been indoctrinated against the very things that have made their good fortune possible.

SAY ANYTHING: Biden White House Takes Credit for Reducing COVID by Ninety Percent.

SPACE RACE II: China’s Ambitious Space Programs Raise Red Flags. “China has recently reorganized its space and counterspace forces … and placed them in a new major force structure that also has control over electronic warfare and cyber.”

MOST POPULAR PRESIDENT EVER: Joe Biden’s 4th of July Fail. “Even Joe Biden isn’t following his own 4th of July edict. And why not? No one else is, either.”

I’M NOT SURE I REALLY NEED TO KNOW ALL THE SPECIFICS: What Did Bill Clinton Really Do on Those ‘Lolita Express’ Trips? Records Release May Reveal the Truth.

LEAKED LEAK-PREVENTION: Apple Is Making Employees Wear Body Cams To Avoid Leaks.

BLUE CITY BLUES: Judge Orders Thug-Loving Minneapolis City Council, Mayor to Hire More Cops. Good Luck With That.

A TRILLION HERE AND A TRILLION THERE AND PRETTY SOON YOU’RE TALKING REAL TROUBLE: Joe Biden’s Reckless Deficit Spending Could Mean Economic Disaster. “This week’s latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report reminds us that the Biden Administration seems to have drunk the MMT Kool-Aid. According to the CBO, the US budget deficit for the current fiscal year will amount to a staggering $3 trillion or around 13 ½ percent of GDP. That in turn will drive the US public debt to GDP ratio to over 100 percent or to a level similar to that prevailing in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.”

The difference between now and then is that in 1945 World War II had ended but today’s Democrats are just getting warmed up.