MY LATEST FOR THE PJMEDIA MOTHERSHIP IS PROBABLY GOING TO HAVE TO BECOME A DAILY FEATURE: Thursday’s Insanity Wrap: Cancel Culture Comes for Orwell, Biology Is Transphobic.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Omar paid new husband’s consulting firm nearly $900,000.

JON CALDARA: The woke mob’s ‘Reign of Terror’ moment.

During the French Revolution’s “Reign of Terror,” those accused of not being true enough to the cause were publicly beheaded. To unify the Communist Party in Russia, the Stalinist purges did much the same. Mao used the equivalent tactic with his Cultural Revolution.

It’s a tried and true technique.

People who didn’t want to get swept up in these eradications learned quickly to not just embrace the political philosophies championed by the new power structure, but to chant the new mantras louder than the person next to them. This way they can show they’ve always been on the winner’s team, and hopefully not be beheaded.

Take three minutes and watch “Crying for Kim Jong-il” on YouTube to witness this life-saving phenomenon. North Koreans take turns in front of the Great Leader’s monument to wail and bellow in grief over his recent death, each louder and more hysterical than the last. It’s a competition to see who acts the most hurt over his demise.

Looked very much like the city of Boulder when Jerry Garcia died.

Of course, this competition of staged sorrow was to prove how faithful one is to those in charge. They aren’t crying over Kim’s death. They’re crying to save their own lives. And who can blame them?

Is corporate America’s public self-flogging over Black Lives Matter all that different?

Read the whole thing.

One last thought: If you’re looking for a single word for all the various progressive, woke, and Marxist groups running rampant right now, it’s “Jacobins.”

SO THIS IS ANOTHER DAMN THING WE’RE SUPPOSED TO WORRY ABOUT NOW? Should you stop using the word ‘marijuana’?

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Madison Ave. Business Sues Cuomo, De Blasio for Riots, Estimates $100M in Damages.

Related: Giuliani’s NYC Is All But Dead, Dems Killed It.

NOT FOR THE BETTER: The internet is changing drastically for Hong Kong’s citizens.

The big picture: It’s only been one week since China passed a controversial national security law that gives it vast new powers over Hong Kong, but the internet has already changed dramatically for people in the semi-autonomous city.

What sort of powers? The law lets mainland Chinese officials operate in Hong Kong for the first time. It also gives Beijing the power to overrule local laws, and it creates a series of vaguely worded new crimes: for example, making it illegal to incite “hatred” toward the Chinese government. Hong Kong police can censor internet content and track citizens online. They can now conduct searches without a warrant, force web platforms to take down or block posts, seize electronic records, and conduct surveillance of suspects without court oversight. Companies that don’t comply with these orders can be fined up to HK$100,000 ($12,903), and employees can face jail terms of up to six months.

The fallout: Effectively, this brings Hong Kong into China’s Great Firewall, a tightly controlled and censored version of the internet that blocks most foreign internet tools and mobile apps. Foreign companies are permitted to operate only if they comply.

It’s time to start shutting Communist Chinese surveillance apps out of Western markets.

THE FUTURE IS KNOWN. IT’S THE PAST THAT KEEPS CHANGING: History Is Whatever The New York Times Wants It To Be.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Jill Biden Wants to Trash Her Husband’s Dignity to Be Edith Wilson 2.0. “When Crazy Joe the Wonder Veep’s handlers first began letting him do videos from his quarantine basement, Jill was often sitting at his side, grinning like a proud mother whose idiot underachieving kid had just successfully recited the alphabet for the first time. It was, quite frankly, very creepy to watch.”

WELL: House Rep Who Changed Parties After Trump Impeachment Wins Primary.

Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew won his Republican primary Tuesday, beating his challenger, Bob Patterson, by over 60 points, The New York Times reported.

The race was first catapulted into the national spotlight when incumbent Van Drew announced that he was changing his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in December 2019.

The switch came one day after the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Van Drew was one of only two House Democrats to vote against both articles presented.

All the smartest people assured me that opposing impeachment was the kiss of death.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE: Billions of passwords now available on underground forums, say security researchers. “Usernames and passwords for everything from network administrator accounts and bank details to streaming services and anti-virus software are up for grabs on the dark web – and many are being distributed for free.”

OUCH: Boeing’s Spaceship Still Really, Really Sucks.

In an announcement, NASA outlined a whopping 80 recommendations for Boeing to fix its astronaut shuttle. It’s the final assessment of the agency’s investigation that followed a botched December test flight that almost ended in disaster.

The news comes after Boeing was found in February to have failed to conduct an “end-to-end” test of its Starliner spacecraft prior to the December test flight. At the time, Boeing was under the belief that it would have been “more logical to break the mission phases into chunks and do a lot of testing in those smaller chunks,” according to Starliner program manager John Mulholland.

The recommendations released this week include overhauls to the communications hardware, several updates to the spacecraft’s software, and changes to safety reporting structures.

That’s a lot to fix before the Starliner’s next test launch this fall.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: What Boeing is doing instead of building spaceships and aircraft that work.

ROSS IZARD: Kids won big in school choice ruling. “Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark ruling invalidating the use of state constitutional “Blaine Amendments” to bar faith-based schools from participating in K-12 scholarship programs. That ruling removes the largest legal impediment to private school choice in three dozen states and throws open the doors of opportunity for millions of students nationwide.”

Read the whole thing, which focuses on a yearslong legal battle over schooling here in Colorado.

Parents, I’d add, seem more than ready to take advantage of the new opportunities.

YES: We Need More Statues and Ways to Interact With History, Not Less.

TYLER O’NEIL: Supreme Court Offers ‘Glimmer of Hope’ on Religious Freedom After Disastrous Trans Ruling.

WELL, DON LEMON: CNN’s Don Lemon Knows How to Solve Racism, and It’s the Dumbest Idea You’ve Ever Heard.

IT’S THEIR WAY: Leftists Freak Out After Noam Chomsky and Other Liberal Voices Declare Support for Free Speech.

TODAY At 3:30 ET: VIP Live Chat with VodkaPundit, Kruiser, and Bryan Preston.

If you’ve been thinking of becoming a member, you can do so here — and don’t forget to use that VODKAPUNDIT discount code.

WE HAVE NOT YET REACHED PEAK STUPID FOR 2020; WE HAVEN’T EVEN REACHED PEAK STUPID FOR JULY: Today’s Insanity Wrap: Racism Comes to Reddit, CAREN Comes for 911 Callers.

Plus: “Upward-thrusting buildings ejaculating into the sky – do cities have to be so sexist?”

You can’t make this stuff up, and in 2020 you don’t have to.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Conservatives Must Support Cancel Culture to Kill It. “No, conservatives must swallow hard, ‘support’ Cancel Culture by applying it consistently (sorry, ‘Hamilton’) and show how it will bite the Left… hard, just as it’s doing to the Right right now. It’s why many on the right dragged the media, kicking and screaming, into covering Jimmy Kimmel’s blackface past.”

ISWYDT: It’s Okay For Halle Berry To Play An X-Man, But It Is Bad If She Even Considers Playing An Ex-Woman.

1984 WAS NOT AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL: Teacher Blames ‘Western Imperialism,’ ‘Colonization’ for Concept of 2+2=4.

INSTANT KARMA: BLM Protester Punches a Trump Supporter Right In Front of Cops, It Doesn’t End Well.

PROGRESSIVES READY TO REBEL AGAINST BIDEN IF HE ‘COMPROMISES’ WITH THE GOP: “This is yet another example of the hole that Joe Biden dug for himself during the primary. He’s embraced nearly every far-left fantasy of the progressive movement in an effort to win over Sanders’ supporters and try to build some enthusiasm among those who supported Elizabeth Warren and the rest of the socialist crowd. But now the general election is gearing up and he needs to not only generate some excitement with minority voters, but also win back the persuadable moderates who migrated over to Trump’s camp in 2016.”

SKYBORG, SKYNET: U.S. Air Force Launches Three-Year Fielding Plan For Skyborg Weapons. “The Skyborg family of aircraft is expected to fill an emerging ‘attritable’ category for combat aircraft that blurs the line between a reusable UAS and a single-use cruise missile.”

WELL, SHE CAN’T COME RIGHT OUT AND SAY SHE WANTS TO DO ALL THAT IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH OPPRESSION: Ilhan Omar Calls for ‘Dismantling’ America’s ‘Economy and Political System’ to Root Out ‘Oppression.’