WELL, YES: America’s Foreign Policy ‘Experts’ Are Projecting Their Own Failures Onto Jared Kushner.

Kushner-era policies—on Jerusalem, UNRWA, and regional diplomacy—were promised again and again to lead to an “explosion,” but didn’t. The return of the experts was supposed to improve lives and prospects for Israelis and Palestinians alike, but hasn’t. In fact, it was the foreign policy intelligentsia’s values and vision that have led to disaster.

Back in March, mere weeks into the new Biden administration, a leaked internal State Department memo outlined the contours of a new direction on American policy toward the Palestinian issue. The document called for renewed diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, restoring aid that had been cut, renewing American contributions to UNRWA, putting pressure on Israel for moves in Jerusalem that would make a new Palestinian Authority election possible, and pursuing a two-state arrangement based roughly on the pre-1967 lines.

These were all priorities of the smart set miffed by a previous administration that was too close to Israel for their tastes. But they were also terrible ideas. Take the renewal of UNRWA funding. UNRWA is the U.N. agency dedicated to perpetuating, rather than solving, the Palestinian refugee problem. By cultivating the myth of a non-existent “right of return” rather than rehabilitating displaced persons and their descendants, UNRWA ensures that a negotiated two-state deal cannot be reached.

What possible U.S. interest is served by rescuing an institution that actively works against U.S. policies and interests?

Leftism is inherently hostile to America’s interests and institutions abroad and at home.

SPACE (OR VERY NEARLY): Virgin Galactic spaceplane makes it to boundary of space on third test flight.

The VSS Unity, one of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo models, launched from Spaceport American in New Mexico on Saturday, May 22. VSS Unity is carried to altitude by a mothership, VMS Eve, from which it was released and hit a speed of Mach 3. Piloted by CJ Sturckow and Dave Mackay, Unity reached an altitude of 55.45 miles, then glided down back to Earth and landed on a runaway at Spaceport America.

Virgin Galactic shared a video, showing the Unity being released from the mothership and gaining altitude, and you can see it gliding along at the very edge of space.

Great video, and not only because there’s something inherently cool about spaceplanes.

KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY RIBEYE: High Steaks for U.S. Agriculture: Biden’s Climate Goals Collide With the Reality of the Meat Industry.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: New East Berlin Alert—Oregon Requiring Vaccine Passports. “Many might dismiss this by saying that it’s only one state, but I think we all know how this story plays out. There are many people in this country who’ve fallen in love with COVID oppression and it’s a safe bet that we’ll see liberal states and cities turning into New East Berlins and requiring citizens to show their papers to enjoy basic freedoms in public. As we are all painfully aware, liberals aren’t exactly known for governmental restraint.”

CHANGE (IT BACK): Bill Proposing New Marijuana Restrictions Passes First Vote. “After an eight-hour hearing at the State Capitol, the thirteen representatives on the House Public & Behavioral Health & Human Services Committee unanimously approved a bill proposing stricter rules for medical marijuana patients and physicians, as well as new packaging requirements for commercial marijuana concentrate and state-funded research into the mental-health effects of potent marijuana products.”

AT LEAST THEY ADMIT IT: Critical Race Theory Backers: ‘Our Constitution Should Be Burned.’

WALTER DURANTY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: U.S. Media Should Take a Lesson From BBC Apology for Fake News During Princess Diana Interview. They Won’t.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER: Lori Lightfoot’s Racist Policy Is a Terrifying Omen For America’s Future.

JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO CLEAN GOVERNMENT: Ex-FBI Director Gave $100K to Biden Trust, Sought ‘Profitable’ Work With Joe Biden Through Hunter. “Louis Freeh, who directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 to 2001, made a $100,000 donation to the trust fund of then-Vice President Joe Biden’s grandchildren in April 2016. In July 2016 and March 2017, Freeh approached Biden’s son Hunter, attempting to do business with Joe Biden, mentioning ‘some very good and profitable matters’ that the former Vice President could ‘enhance.'”

So long as the “big guy” gets his 10%, I’m sure.

OH: Netflix’s Reed Hastings Gives $3 Million To A Fund Opposing Newsom Recall.

MEGAN FOX: We’re in an Abusive Relationship with Our Government. Now What? “With the implementation of COVID restrictions on our formerly free society, we have all been subject to unlawful monitoring of normal behaviors, including what we wear (on our faces), where we can go, who we can socialize with, what entertainment we can have—and they even wanted access to our phones through contact tracing apps. The perpetrators of this crime against us told us it was because the government cares about our health. But according to science, this is not loving behavior, but dangerous abusive control.”

DIGITAL DANEGELD: CNA Financial reportedly paid $40 million to resolve a ransomware attack.

GAUNTLET THROWN: How Partisan Facebook ‘Fact-Checkers’ Silence Debate and Punish Those Who Stray From the Narrative. “The worst thing about these witch-hunts-disguised-as-fact-checks is that the fact-checkers almost always win. While we can and do appeal their decisions—which can result in significant declines in traffic and revenue, not to mention the time wasted going back and forth with them, when they bother to respond at all—they always come back with some version of ‘our scientists are right and yours are wrong.’ When they do respond to our appeals, they make ridiculous demands: either retract the article (with a note apologizing for the ‘error’) or rewrite it to say what they want it to say (and throw in an apology while you’re at it). The Ministry of Truth will not be defied—and they won’t settle for sending the article down the memory hole, either. They want everyone who clicks on the article to know you retracted it and that you’re sorry about it.”

Read the whole thing — the situation is worse than most people understand.

It also feels very, very nice to work for a company that’s basically declared war on Facebook’s fact-checkers. Or to be more accurate, to fire back in a war they declared on us years ago.

UPDATE: Word came through PJ Media’s Slack channel that Facebook has already squelched Paula’s article.

ANGELO CODEVILLA: Regime vs. Regime.

The attempt of America’s ruling class to convict 455 persons of “armed insurrection”—i.e. of waging war against the United States, a species of treason—for protesting insufficient scrutiny of the 2020 election on January 6 in the Capitol, while at the same time it excuses and even cheers the burning and looting of courthouses, police stations, and downtowns all over America, is not the exercise of a “double standard.”

The people in and out of government who do this are not corrupt. Instead, acting as part of the regime—the oligarchy—they are replacing the American republic and waging war to crush its remains.

The sooner Americans realize that we are being governed by people at war with our Constitution and contemptuous of ourselves, the sooner those people may be treated as the enemies they are.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

CHARMING: ‘Racist, Sexist Pig,’ ‘Corrupt Motherf**ker’: Here’s What Obama Said About Trump in Secret.

GRIFT: Report reveals UC-Berkeley’s ‘Equity and Inclusion’ budget is $25 MILLION.

VIDEO: Did CNN Finally Admit That Biden’s Presidency Is a Disaster?

ROBERT BERG: Why Is the U.S. Army Abandoning Due Process?

At a time when the United States is facing worldwide threats and the first near-peer adversary in a generation, the Army is purging commanders without due process. For the Army to work, there must be trust among different levels of commands. But our current General Officers (GOs) no longer support commanders under their authority and are happy to throw away any semblance of due process to shield themselves from scrutiny. GOs hide behind investigations that remove fundamental elements of the rights of the accused and rely on “administrative actions” that are actually punitive in nature. Unsupported complaints are enough to launch full-scale investigations, lacking even basic due process.

When unscrupulous GOs disguise their witch hunts behind the veil of “administrative actions,” the Army can turn a blind eye to the procedural due-process rights of the accused. Currently, any member of a unit can levy a complaint — more accurately, a laundry list of complaints — without providing any evidence besides the allegation alone. If the allegations are part of the sacred trinity of racism, sexism, or bullying, a higher-level commander will not even question the veracity of the claims and instead will immediately appoint an investigating officer under the authority of Army Regulation 15-6 (AR 15-6).

While AR 15-6 investigations have been around a long time, their current use to circumvent due-process rights and avoid full Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) proceedings, where robust due process is afforded, is a recent trend.

Sadly, the surest way to purge this debilitating leftism is by losing a major war.

THEY TOOK SIDES WITH TERRORISTS: AOC, Bernie Sanders Try to Undermine Israel’s Ability to Defend Itself Amid Hamas Rocket Attacks.

FIGHT THE POWER: ‘1619 Project’ Founder Loses Tenure Offer Amid Growing Concerns of Racism in CRT.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Mainstream Media Is OK With Biden’s Russia Collusion. “The formerly Russia-obsessed mainstream media has now lost all curiosity about any possible buddy-buddy action between the president and Moscow. Maybe the hacks are exhausted from the three years they spent writing all of that fiction during Trump’s time in office.”

DON’T HAVE A COKE (BUT SMILE ANYWAY): Coke Tempers Its Politics Amid ‘Woke Capitalism’ Ad Campaign.

JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO DECENCY: Two Migrant Facilities Closed After Allegations of Misconduct, Unwanted Hysterectomies.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Feds Now Investigating Whether Andrew Cuomo Let Family Jump The Line For COVID Testing.

THEY JUST AREN’T VERY GOOD AT THEIR JOBS: Media Falsely Reports Arizona Election Auditors ‘Walked Back’ Deleted Election Databases Claim.