MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Trump Tweets Ignite Firestorm — On the Right. “Trump’s tweets have always been tailored to generate a gut response. The trick — and I admit it took me months longer than it should have to take this to heart — is to allow yourself a brief cooling down period, consider his target audience and their gut response. Instead of luxuriating in an outraged #Resist or a chest-thumping #MAGA insta-reaction, ask yourself what was the purpose of Trump’s tweet, and did he achieve it. Do that, and you’ll find that while Trump takes a lot of flak for his tweets, it’s almost always because he’s directly over his target.”

Read the whole thing, if you don’t mind me saying so myself.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): You absolutely should. And note this deconstruction from Ann Althouse, too. She understands what Trump is doing in a way that few law professors do. Plus, Ernest Tubb.

TYLER O’NEIL: Attendees Shoot Down SPLC Smear Calling Trump Social Media Confab a ‘Hate Summit.’

Tyler has been doing solid reporting on the SPLC’s partisan antics for a long while now.

HMM: Red states move to end death penalty.

“I think we have to decide what our system to look like. If it’s not a deterrent, we have to ask ourselves what is it,” said state Rep. Jared Olsen (R), who sponsored the Wyoming bill. “I think the only thing we can conclude is that it serves one purpose, and that’s retribution. I personally don’t believe that we want to enshrine in our laws a system of retribution.”

Olsen said he was troubled by the number of prisoners sentenced to death who had subsequently been exonerated. Since 1973, more than 160 people have been released from death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a think tank that opposes capital punishment.

“That tells me that the system is broken,” Olsen said. “It is way too much authority to vest in our government, and we get it wrong.”

McCoy said he is building a coalition of Catholic legislators who oppose the death penalty on moral grounds and traditional Republicans who see it as ineffective both in deterring crime and in keeping costs down.

“I’m a very pro-life person, and if you’re going to be pro-life, it would include these lives,” McCoy said. “I’m hoping we can at least get a vote.”

I’m not gung-ho about the death penalty either way, but it’s interesting to see what could be the ground shifting under typically conservative law-and-order issue — without a Civil War like the big one the Democrats are enduring over a whole host of issues.

TOTALLY EXPECTED HEADLINES: There’s a big problem with Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency.

Since Libra’s unveiling, the project has gotten a chilly reception from some policymakers. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled skepticism about Facebook’s plans for Libra.

“I don’t think that the project can go forward … without there being broad satisfaction with the way the company has addressed money laundering, all of those things,” Powell said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. He added that the project raised “serious concerns” for regulators.

According to The New York Times, even some of Facebook’s official partners are lukewarm on the project. Partners are slated to contribute $10 million each to help fund the launch of the network. But the Times’ Nathanial Popper reported in late June that “no money has changed hands so far,” and he noted that some of the companies who agreed to lend their names to the project avoided making strong public statements in support of it.

That reflects significant uncertainty about how Libra will actually work—and if it’s even possible to launch a network like this within the bounds of the law.

Much more at the link.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: What Happened with the Immigration Raids? “The targets are illegal immigrants who have been through the legal system and ordered removed by a court. There was a media and Democrat melt down because it’s racist to remove criminals from the U.S. and it’s racist to expect people who are released into the U.S. to respond to court orders and it’s racist to expect people to appear at their asylum hearings.”

COMMUNIST FRONT CORPORATION: After ban, Huawei plans extensive layoffs at its U.S. operations.

BILL WHITTLE ON THE APOLLO 11 ANNIVERSARY: What We Saw | Part 1 – We Choose to Go to the Moon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAeSmerpn_A

It’s too long to watch on Instapundit, so I embedded just the trailer here. But it’s a helluva good show, and the set Bill is on is real, not virtual. The headline link (above) will take you to the premiere episode, with four more to follow between now and July 20.

EVERYTHING IS PROBLEMATICAL: Should you boycott Amazon Prime Day? “There’s a deeper queasiness to Prime Day that’s harder to dismiss. It’s Amazon at its most Amazonian — fast, cheap, convenient, and totalizing. Prime Day draws you in, not just to Amazon Prime membership but to a whole world of seamless consumerism. It’s the kind of intra-corporate pride that was on display in the bizarre concert series, and much of the company’s messaging around Prime Day in general. But is Amazon really something to be proud of?”

Things must be pretty good, when people have the energy and free time to get this worked up over a sale.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Congress’ awful anti-sex-trafficking law has only put sex workers in danger and wasted taxpayer money.

Three months after the bill’s passage, the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri, said, “We have shut down nearly 90% of the online sex-trafficking business and ads.” The Washington Post fact-checked this claim and gave her three Pinocchios.

Among other issues with her comment, most of the decline in sex-work ads came after the government seized the website Backpage, a move that happened before FOSTA-SESTA was passed. And, The Post wrote, “after the initial drop, advertising for the sex trade appears to have rebounded, such as on new websites that mimic Backpage with named like ‘Bedpage.'”

As for the actual business of sex trafficking, there’s no evidence that the law has made any difference whatsoever.

The cofounder of the St. James Infirmary, “a health clinic that supports sex workers in California’s Bay Area,” told The Verge “that in the weekend following FOSTA, the infirmary’s mobile van outreach saw a dramatic increase of street-based sex workers in the Mission District.” Sex workers weren’t just going to disappear, and police departments across the country seem to have been caught off-guard by this influx.

“Getting hookers back on the streets!” isn’t much of a rallying cry, and it’s probably riskier for everyone involved than screening first in virtual space.

IF SHE WASN’T A ROGER STONE PLANT, WHAT WOULD SHE BEING DOING ANY DIFFERENTLY? Private Democratic Poll: AOC Most Recognizable Democrat in America Among Swing Voters.

OH: Cover Up? Calendar Showing Harvard Profs Meeting Sex Criminal Epstein Scraped From Internet.

COLD WAR II: China To Sanction American Defense Contractors Who Sell Arms To Taiwan.

No, trade wars aren’t easy to win, and they can be unexpectedly expensive. That doesn’t mean they aren’t sometimes necessary.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Florida Woman Tag-Teams with Florida Daughter on Another Florida Man Friday.

PRIVACY: Florida DMV sells your personal information to private companies, marketing firms.

UGH: Arizona governor welcomes Nike again after bad-mouthing move to pull Betsy Ross sneaker.

BREAKING: Labor Sec. Alex Acosta Resigns Amid Pall of Jeffrey Epstein Investigation.

DECOUPLING: China’s exports and imports both fell in June, as higher US trade war tariffs blitzed Chinese economy.

SPENGLER HAS A MODEST PROPOSAL: Cut the Intelligence Budget and Use the Money to Build Our Own 5G Systems.

Why not? We don’t seem to get nearly the intelligence we pay for.

AMERICANS SMARTER THAN OFTEN GIVEN CREDIT FOR: Most Americans Didn’t Care Enough to Watch the Democratic Debates Live.

WOW: A New Plan for Keeping NASA’s Oldest Explorers Going.

One key issue is that both Voyagers, launched in 1977, have less and less power available over time to run their science instruments and the heaters that keep them warm in the coldness of deep space. Engineers have had to decide what parts get power and what parts have to be turned off on both spacecraft. But those decisions must be made sooner for Voyager 2 than Voyager 1 because Voyager 2 has one more science instrument collecting data — and drawing power — than its sibling.

After extensive discussions with the science team, mission managers recently turned off a heater for the cosmic ray subsystem instrument (CRS) on Voyager 2 as part of the new power management plan. The cosmic ray instrument played a crucial role last November in determining that Voyager 2 had exited the heliosphere, the protective bubble created by a constant outflow (or wind) of ionized particles from the Sun. Ever since, the two Voyagers have been sending back details of how our heliosphere interacts with the wind flowing in interstellar space, the space between stars.

Not only are Voyager mission findings providing humanity with observations of truly uncharted territory, but they help us understand the very nature of energy and radiation in space — key information for protecting NASA’s missions and astronauts even when closer to home.

It’s exciting to see NASA keeping the Voyagers going, just to see that they can keep them going. After a combined 24 billion miles of space travel over 42 years, the ongoing science almost seems like icing.

SUSTAINABILITY: $3,355,970,000,000: Federal Spending Sets Record Through June; Deficit Hits $747,115,000,000.

Just wait until the last quarter of the fiscal year, when agencies start burning through any leftover cash to make sure they don’t get any less to spend next year.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Interest Groups Ready to Fight Trump’s Citizenship Exec. Order. “The president held a press conference with A.G. Bill Barr to announce the administration would not continue to fight to get the citizenship question onto the census. Progressive left interest groups sued the administration and for some inexplicable reason, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the nutters. Do you ever wonder if ‘certain people’ have some dirt on Roberts? He sure delivers for the left on really important issues. I digress. AG Barr reiterated that the SCOTUS determined that putting a question on the census was legal but due to time constraints, the administration would not furnish a more agreeable rationale to the court and continue to fight. Instead they were taking new path using an executive order.”

BLUE ON BLUE: Democratic lawmaker unloads on Ocasio-Cortez, chief of staff for ‘using the race card.’

“What a weak argument, because you can’t get your way and because you’re getting pushback you resort to using the race card? Unbelievable. That’s unbelievable to me,” [Missouri Congressman Lacy] Clay said. “I could care less. I could really care less. I agree with the Speaker. Four people, four votes out of 240 people, who cares.”

In an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez accused Pelosi of singling out newly elected women of color.

Pelosi had previously been dismissive of the four freshman female lawmakers, saying that despite their large presence on social media, they only account for four votes in the Democratic caucus.

“It shows you how weak their argument is when they have to resort and direct racist accusations toward Speaker Pelosi … it’s very disappointing to me,” Clay said.

The Missouri Democrat also described Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti and the progressive group Justice Democrats as “juvenile” and “ignorant.”

Ocasio-Cortez is making enemies out of so many high-profile Democrats in Washington, that it’s almost impossible to imagine her not getting primaried next year.

HMM: Tech vanguard is dodging Pentagon.

The Pentagon’s cybersecurity mission is facing a classic supply and demand problem: There’s a nationwide shortage of tech talent and an oversupply of jobs.

This leaves the Pentagon starved of the cyber-sentries needed to defend its digital networks as the nation’s top computer scientists and software engineers often choose careers in the private sector that offer fat salaries and generous benefits.

“They are so talented and in such high demand,” then-acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said of the Pentagon’s red team members, cybersecurity experts who test and defend Defense Department computer networks, at a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in May. “We really get out-recruited.”

MEANWHILE, IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR: Amazon to Retrain a Third of Its U.S. Workforce.

The company announced Thursday that it will retrain 100,000 workers by 2025 by expanding existing training programs and rolling out new ones meant to help its employees move into more advanced jobs inside the company or find new careers outside of it. The training is voluntary, and most of the programs are free to employees, the company said.

“Technology is changing our society, and it’s certainly changing work,” said Jeff Wilke, chief executive of Amazon’s world-wide consumer business, adding that the initiative is meant to help workers “be prepared for the opportunities of the future.”

Maybe there’s a training-for-service option the Pentagon could look into.

PRIVACY: Who’s Listening When You Talk to Your Google Assistant?

Verheyden says he gained access to the file and more than 1,000 others from a Google contractor who is part of a worldwide workforce paid to review some audio captured by the assistant from devices including smart speakers, phones, and security cameras. One recording contained the couple’s address and other information suggesting they are grandparents.

Most recordings reviewed by VRT, including the one referencing the Waasmunster couple, were intended; users asked for weather information or pornographic videos, for example. WIRED reviewed transcripts of the files shared by VRT, which published a report on its findings Wednesday. In roughly 150 of the recordings, the broadcaster says the assistant appears to have activated incorrectly after mishearing its wake word.

Some of those captured fragments of phone calls and private conversations. They include announcements that someone needed the bathroom and what appeared to be discussions on personal topics, including a child’s growth rate, how a wound was healing, and someone’s love life.

Google says it transcribes a fraction of audio from the assistant to improve its automated voice-processing technology. Yet the sensitive data in the recordings and instances of Google’s algorithms listening in unbidden make some people—including the worker who shared audio with VRT and some privacy experts—uncomfortable.

It’s one thing to say, fine, don’t use any Google products or services (I don’t). It’s quite another when you find out that it is literally impossible to use the internet, any internet-connected devices, or any internet-connected services without Google having a digital dossier on you.