HOW’D THAT WORK OUT FOR YA?

I INVOKED MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO DRINK A FIFTH:

MICHAEL YON ON FACEBOOK LAST NIGHT:

Hong Kong: This is going to get very serious.

I am one of the most experienced conflict correspondents alive. I am saying with high certainty that Hong Kong is a key battlefield with Communist China, and this will get bloody serious. This is still in the warm up stage.
All my long term readers know that when I say “mark my word,” you can safely bet your money.

This is just the beginning.

Important: Anyone who says this is about the Extradition Bill should be ignored. This is NOT about the Extradition Bill, despite thousands of signs saying this at the protests I am at.

Let’s put this in American terms. Remember the massive and bloody riot after the Rodney King case in Los Angeles?

‘Analysts’ who say that was about a court verdict should be ignored. The causes of the bloody rampage had little to do with the verdict other than that was a specific trigger.

Any flaming match will set a dry forest ablaze, and we don’t name matches. The rampage was based on historical and cultural issues. That was and is the dry forest.

Similarly with the information war coming from China and Korea heavily targeting Japan. (Especially Japan — but America is also heavily targeted and is the ultimate target. China is also targeting Korea and the Koreans are mostly blind to this.)

We will see increasing sparks of violence against Japanese. Mark my word. And then someone will blame this or that specific match that starts the fire. Meanwhile, China continues with a giant blow-drier prepping a giant forest to burn. Waiting for that match.

The conflict in Hong Kong is not about the Extradition Bill — and now many other issues are piling up almost weekly. The issue is that Communist China is trying to swallow and digest Hong Kongers who know the taste of freedom.

Humans are far more likely to fight to keep something they have than to fight for something they do not have. Mainland Chinese as a group never in their lives have tasted freedom. The communist cowboys in Beijing ride their broken slave horses daily and the broken horses just stare at the ground and go where they are told.

The British helped Hong Kongers taste freedom, and rule of law, and Hong Kongers love their freedom and legitimate judicial system. They will fight. The real fight is beginning.

Honk Kong is a key battle ground in a much larger war. Taiwan and others are watching.”

More to come, I’m afraid.

Related (From Ed): Green Activists With Ties to China Advised Obama State Department.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Reminder: After years of warnings, U.S. finally investigating secret foreign funding of American universities. “They can no longer expect to ignore the law with impunity.”

Related: China, not Russia, is the biggest threat.

Also Related: While Everyone Is Distracted By Russia, Chinese Spying And Influence Runs Wild. But it’s not just China.

EVERYTHING ELSE WAS FLUFF: Robert Mueller Confirms His Investigation Was Not Curtailed, Stopped, or Hindered.

GOOGLE ENGINEER: Google News Search Results Are Intentionally Biased Against Trump.

FLASHBACK: Was the Trump Camp’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer All a Clinton Set-Up?

Newly relevant with this morning’s Mueller hearing.

WE LIVE IN DEEPLY STUPID TIMES: Josh Hawley Faced Accusations Of Anti-Semitism For Using The Word ‘Cosmopolitan.’ Here’s Video Of Obama Saying The Same Thing.

OH: We Found Red Flags All Over Jeffrey Epstein’s Jail Records. “Since Epstein is a Level 3 registered sex offender (the most dangerous kind), it raises troubling questions about how closely he was monitored during his work release.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Mueller to Bring Wet Nurse Along for Congressional Hearings. “There was a last minute surprise from Mueller, a request to have a wet nurse present and sitting next to him during the hearings. The wet nurse is one Aaron Zebley, who you might remember was the attorney for the Hillary Clinton IT guy who set up the illegal basement server and smashed up Hillary’s Blackberry phones. Why was this guy on Mueller’s team since it seems like he has some very real conflicts of interest? Nevermind.”

BLOODY MARY, ANYONE? Drunkblogging the Mueller Hearing.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Majority Sees Race Relations Improving Under Trump In The South, Race Baiters Hardest Hit.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: UPS forms a new subsidiary for drone delivery and seeks FAA approval to fly.

CONDUCTED BY KULAKS, TROTSKYITES, COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES, CAPITALIST PIGS, AND OF COURSE JEWS: Venezuela is recovering from its worst blackout since March, and the government is blaming it on ‘electromagnetic attack.’

BUT OF COURSE: Journalist Who Peddled Shoddy Kavanaugh Story Defends Al Franken.

While there were pictures of Franken’s described behavior, there is no evidence that Kavanaugh had even met his primary accuser, much less that he tried to rape her. There is no evidence whatsoever that he led a serial gang rape cartel that roamed suburban Maryland, as Michael Avenatti and Julie Swetnick accused him of. Neither is there evidence that he had gone on a nationwide rape spree from California to a boat off Rhode Island.

Of all the people in the world who are in a position to write an article poo-poohing Al Franken’s problems or fretting about journalistic excesses, Jane Mayer may be the very worst choice.

That’s because she has repeatedly published unsubstantiated allegations of sexual impropriety against her political opponents. Most recently she was part of the public relations rollout of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation against Kavanaugh, publishing one of the stories that released a few details about the allegation to gin up excitement for the Washington Post report that was to come. Ford’s attorney, Debra Katz, is a frequent source for Mayer and her colleagues, including in the Franken article.

Read the whole thing.

MY RULE WOULD BE, ABLE-BODIED MEN GET SQUAT: White House Proposes Rule that Would Cut 3.1 Million People From Food Stamp Rolls.

BECAUSE “COLONEL JAMES T. KIRK” IS JUST WRONG: Why the Space Corps needs to use naval rank.

THE MONOPOLY MONEY THEORY OF GOVERNMENT:

Print it, and they will spend.

Sadly, there’s nothing new or uncommon with this kind of thinking.

CHECK YOUR SOURCES: Pulitzer Columnist Cites SPLC in Branding the GOP a ‘Hate Group.’

EVERYTHING IS PROBLEMATICAL: Ivanka Trump’s New Dog Is Supposedly A Sign Of Her White Supremacism.

GOOD CALL: Drug case to blame for Pence’s canceled NH trip.

The CEO of a New Hampshire drug treatment center Vice President Mike Pence was set to visit earlier this month said one of his staffers has been fired for pleading guilty to trafficking in fentanyl.

That staffer, a former offensive lineman for the New York Giants named Jeff Hatch, was reportedly the reason Pence never landed at the Granite Recovery Centers headquarters in Salem, N.H., according to Politico.

Granite Recovery Centers CEO Eric Spofford said in a statement to the Herald Monday night that he has taken immediate action.

“I am shocked and disappointed to learn today that Jeff Hatch has pled guilty to a drug offense. Granite Recovery Centers terminated Jeff’s employment today immediately upon learning about this matter,” Spofford said.

Politico reported Monday that Pence abruptly canceled his trip to Manchester, N.H., July 2 when he learned of Hatch’s drug case, with Air Force Two never leaving the ground.

No big conspiracy or secret crisis — just avoiding embarrassing optics.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Don’t kid yourself. This is just the cover story: We all know it was aliens.

GOOD COP/BAD COP: Why Trump keeps Bolton. “Trump has a strongly held theory of Bolton’s value, according to senior administration officials and advisers to the president, including people who have privately recommended to Trump that he fire Bolton. Seven sources who have discussed Bolton with Trump told me the president says having Bolton on his team improves his bargaining position and gives him a psychological advantage over foes like Iran and North Korea.”

Some nice reporting from Axios, but this conclusion has been obvious since the beginning of their relationship, yes?

OH: South Bend Cops Warn of ‘Mass Exodus’ as Morale Plummets Over Buttigieg’s Mishandling of Shooting.

UNCOOPERATIVE WITNESS: Ilhan Omar Marriage Flummoxes Media Fact-Checkers.

After reviewing the dearth of evidence collected by those suggesting that Elmi was Omar’s brother, Diaz assigned two reporters to come to a conclusion.

“We felt as journalists, if there was smoke, it’s our job to look behind it to see if there’s fire,” Diaz said.

The paper’s biggest impediment to finding the truth was Omar, Diaz added.

“What’s really made it hard is that she’s been unwilling to address any of these questions,” Diaz wrote. “That has fueled the controversy.”

“We’ve asked her these questions, and also asked her to make her father available. We’ve tried to reach Elmi. We’ve tried to reach her sisters. Her family could put this (the question of Elmi’s relationship to Omar) to rest easily. No one will talk to us. I wish we could send a reporter to Mogadishu (Somalia) but we don’t have the bandwidth.”

Diaz currently says there is “circumstantial evidence that begs for some kind of explanation from a member of Congress,” but his team is unable to reach a conclusion either way without more information from Omar. The Free Beacon has also been unable to come to a conclusion.

That’s an awful lot of smoke.

TO BE FAIR, IT ISN’T A VERY GOOD NEWS NETWORK: MSNBC Guests Keep Repeating False Claim That Fox News Isn’t Covering the Mueller Hearings.

Kudos to Mediaite for reporting this, though.

THE WAGES OF SIN TAXES: Bootleg Alcohol Kills 23 as Heavy Taxes Prompt Turkish Home-Brew.