SABO STRIKES AGAIN: ‘Republicans Are Forbidden!’ Conservative Artist Puts Up Nazi Propaganda-Style Posters.

MAYBE PATTON OSWALT WAS NEVER THAT FUNNY TO BEGIN WITH: “Trump is the worst thing for comedy right now because the longer he stays in office, the more tense and angry and on edge everyone is.”

George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, and Bill Cosby all honed their comedic skills during the ’60s and ’70s, which weren’t exactly the most relaxed and happy decades in American history.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Did ICE Hurl a Pregnant Woman Over a Border Wall?

AMELIA HAMILTON: Millennials Get Classes On Basic Adult Skills, Still Act Like Children.

ON REFLECTION I MIGHT NOT BE ENTIRELY OPPOSED TO A TWITTER TAX: Porn Detectors, Facebook Tax: Uganda Tightens Grip on Internet.

STEPHEN KRUISER: Politico Examines Leftist Incivility and Finds…the Tea Party.

But of course.

QUIET PRIDE: I’m A Gay Man. Here’s Why I Don’t Celebrate Pride Month.

I can get away with flirting, joking, and certain mannerisms straight men are not allowed, and many women view me as an equal confidant and girlfriend. None of this is negative, and I happily encourage the social interaction because it is part of how I learned to engage with my world. But outside of this, my sexuality is remarkably minimal in my day-to-day activities. Despite my awareness of my social designation, its really only useful in playful social interaction or politics.

This was the stated goal of the gay movement for more than a decade. However, today’s LGBT movement is far more focused on the smallest variation of identity as an absolute characterization of who a person is. More importantly, the movement tends to treat people based solely on who they are not. The growing intolerance of intellectual diversity and the move towards mandatory class and identity association in all areas of life has restricted what was once a uniquely colorful example of freedom of expression.

What Chad Felix Greene is experiencing is just the modern version of Karl Marx’s “false consciousness,” which is just identity politics weaponized for taking raw political power.

THE NEW RULES: Actor Ron Perlman: Hopefully Someone Will Pee In Trump’s KFC. “Is this evidence that liberals have reached a crass new depth in incivility towards the right or is it evidence that Ron Perlman has some sort of undiagnosed head injury?”

How many people go their entire lives without having the impulse to piss on themselves, in any context? When was the last time you ran into someone whom you deeply dislike and thought, “I want my urine on him, even if it means having my urine on me first”?

Also, his visceral disgust at Weinstein suggests that he had some idea, if only through the grapevine, of what Weinstein was up to with the women around him. Given the option to call the police, Perlman chose to … piss on himself instead.

As Glenn has noted here previously, Trump’s greatest talent is for goading the progressive left into revealing their true selves.

GAMING THE SYSTEM: More People Cramming Healthcare, Then Dropping Coverage as Prices Hike. “‘Dropout rates appear to rising over time across each enrollment period of the ACA,’ the report says, indicating that more people are expected to do so in the future.”

OFF THE RECORD: Just had a brief text chat with someone who says their sources claim that 20% of public employee union members will leave in the wake of Janus v. AFSCME. That would be a significant hit to the unions’ pocketbooks, but the bigger hit will come later, as new employees simply refuse to join up in the first place.

PROCUREMENT: Air Force Expands Mission for Reaper Attack Drones, Adds New Weapons.

“The MQ-1 Predator paved the way through 24 years of service and adaptation leading to expanded capabilities of the MQ-9 Reaper. The mission set doesn’t change. The capabilities to fulfill those multi-role missions are expanded by the MQ-9 Reaper,” Maj. Ken Scholz, Air Force Spokesman, told Warrior Maven.

The Air Force is adding new weapons to the Reaper, in part by leveraging an emerging “universal weapons interface.” This would allow the Reaper to more quickly integrate new weapons technology as it emerges and efficiently swap or replace bombs on the drone without much difficulty, Air Force weapons developers explain.

This is something brought to fruition by common standards and IP protocol engineered with adjustable software and hardware configurations. This enables faster integration or a more seamless addition of new weapons on the Reaper platform.

Compared to (admittedly more-capable) manned jets, the Reaper is a relative steal at about $20 million per.

BREAKING: Supreme Court Rules No Gov. Employee Can Be Fired For Refusing to Pay a Union.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: DO NOT TAUNT Elaine Chao and Much, Much More.

SKYNET SMILES: A team of AI algorithms just crushed humans in a complex computer game. “Algorithms capable of collaboration and teamwork can outmaneuver human teams.”

This is an important and novel direction for AI, since algorithms typically operate independently. Approaches that help algorithms cooperate with each other could prove important for commercial uses of the technology. AI algorithms could, for instance, team up to outmaneuver opponents in online trading or ad bidding. Collaborative algorithms might also cooperate with humans.

OpenAI previously demonstrated an algorithm capable of competing against top humans at single-player Dota 2. The latest work builds on this using similar algorithms modified to value both individual and team success. The algorithms do not communicate directly except through game play.

“What we’ve seen implies that coordination and collaboration can emerge very naturally out of the incentives,” says Greg Brockman, one of the founders of OpenAI, which aims to develop artificial intelligence openly and in a way that benefits humanity. He adds that the team has tried substituting a human player for one of the algorithms and found this to work very well. “He described himself as feeling very well supported,” Brockman says.

So the AI is willing to work alongside human partners — for now.

WE COULDN’T FIND A THING! Eric Holder’s Law Firm Launches Investigation into Facebook’s Anti-Conservative Bias.

COMPETITION: Russia’s Proton rocket, which predates Apollo, will finally stop flying.

The decision will bring down the curtain on one of the longest-used and most versatile rockets in world history. As the United States developed the space shuttle in the 1970s and began flying it in the 1980s, the Russian space agency saw the opportunity to commercialize the Proton rocket, and by the end of the 1990s, the booster became a major moneymaker for the Russian space industry. With a capacity of 22.8 tons to low-Earth orbit, it became a dominant player in the commercial market for heavier satellites.

It remained so during much of the 2000s, but as Ars has previously reported, the lack of technical oversight began manifesting itself in an increasing rate of failures. At the end of 2010, one Proton plunged into the ocean because too much propellant had been mistakenly loaded into its upper stage. In 2013, another vehicle performed a fiery dance seconds after liftoff because flight control sensors were hammered into the rocket’s compartment upside down.

More failures have followed in recent years. These problems, combined with the rapid rise of low-cost alternatives such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, have caused the number of Proton launches in a given year to dwindle from eight or so to just one or two.

The Russians historically are good at this stuff, but the Angara isn’t scheduled to exit the develop stage before next year — at which point the BFR, SpaceX’s follow-on vehicle for the Falcon 9, is expected to begin full testing.

DAVID HARSANYI: Dear Judd and Kumail: You Have No Idea What A Nazi Really Was. “Please find another historical event to exploit. Because you sound like a bunch of hysterical know-nothings.”

In September 1941, the Germans took Kiev. On Hitler’s orders, the new military governor orders the round-up of all Jews in the vicinity and marched them north of the city to a place called Babi Yar. There, Jews were stripped naked and taken into a ravine in groups of ten. Once at the bottom their fate was clear. Among the cries of children (many already separated from their parents), Jews were made to lie down atop others who had already been murdered. German soldiers then walked across the bodies in the large pit and meticulously shot every man, woman, child and baby in the head or neck. Then the next group would be brought down and it would happen all over again and again over a period of two days — until almost 34,000 people were no more.

Babi Yar was only the third largest massacre of Jews during the war. But the killing of children — Jewish and otherwise — started in 1939, when German medical professionals were reporting any child with disability to the authorities, and parents started handing them over to special “schools” where thousands were eliminated using drugs and starvation. All of this before the wholesale industrialized killing of humans was in full swing.

Now, if you really believed Donald Trump or Kirstjen Nielsen or Sarah Huckabee Sanders are keen on engaging in this sort of behavior one day, or anything close to it, you’re a depraved coward for not taking up arms and stopping them. And the only other possible reasons for you to constantly compare them to Nazis are that you’re tragically illiterate on basic history or a hopelessly unimaginative and dishonest partisan — or maybe both.

Read the whole thing.

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Saudi Moves Forward With Plan to Turn Qatar Into Island.

Five international companies that specialize in digging canals have been invited to vie for the project, with bids closing on Monday and the winner to be chosen within 90 days, Makkah newspaper reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The canal should be completed within one year of work starting, it said. The report was also carried by Saudi-owned news channel Al Arabiya and shared on Twitter by Saudi royal court adviser Saud Al Qahtani.

The Saudi government’s Center for International Communication didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The government has never confirmed the plan, first reported in April.

The project, if it is carried out, would geographically extend Qatar’s isolation from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt after they cut trade and diplomatic ties with the emirate last year.

I suppose you can’t fault the Saudis for lack of ambition.

HEH: McConnell Trolls Critics of Travel Ban Ruling with Justice Gorsuch Photo.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Film’s Sharpest Mind Succumbs to Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Jason Blum games Hollywood by outsmarting the competition. Until this week, that is.”

He’s certainly woke. We’ll see if his fourth “Purge” movie goes broke.

SCOTUS: Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Turning Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers Into ‘Abortion Referral Agencies.’

EU BLUES: Lack of CO2 hits EU beer, meat production.

Carbon dioxide production is usually lower in the summer because of the hot weather, but a string of problems across the sector in Europe have caused fertilizer makers to shut down more plants than usual. Though the shortage is Europe-wide, Britain’s gas manufacturers have suffered additional mechanical problems that have further reduced supply.

Overall production of carbon dioxide was already under pressure as the market for the fertilizer ammonium nitrate has weakened, said Nick Allen, head of the British Meat Processors Association.

“Things are getting tight,” he said.

How bad is it really?

This bad: Tesco-owned Booker restricts beer sales.

Food wholesaler Booker is rationing beer and cider because of a shortage of CO2 used in carbonated drinks.

The Tesco-owned retailer, which is used by bars, restaurants and traders, is capping customers to 10 cases of beer, and five of cider or soft drinks.

It is more evidence that a scarcity of CO2 is hurting the food and drink sectors, and comes after Heineken and Coca-Cola faced disruption.

That’s bad.

SMALL WARS JOURNAL: Time for America to Leave Afghanistan.

Richard A. Carrick:

There are specific reasons why the latest U.S. strategy used to defeat Isis in Iraq/Syria is not transferable to the Afghan conflict. Three of the important strategic elements that made it work are missing in Afghanistan. In Iraq/Syria ISIS was defending a series of fixed positions located mostly in large cities and towns. These locations offered excellent targets for aerial attacks by U.S. planes, drones and missiles with maximum cost effectiveness. Heavy artillery directed by U.S. advisors was also successfully used against these fixed targets. Additionally, Russia periodically applied devastating aerial bombardment in Syria, although not always against ISIS.

In the Afghan war the U.S. military is in the reverse situation with the Afghan/ U.S. forces defending fixed positions in cities and bases. It is the Taliban that is effectively attacking these positions, frequently with suicide bombers. The new U.S. strategy of increasing the aerial bombardment of widely dispersed Taliban positions in rural locations cannot replicate the success of bombing ISIS held cities like Mosul and Raqqa. Although increased U.S. air attacks will reduce opium production, a source of funding to the Taliban, it will not be decisive because the lost revenue will be made up by their covert allies that are increasing their assistance.

The second missing factor is an effective ground force. No matter how destructive an air war, ground forces are needed to take and hold territory. In Iraq/Syria there were large numbers of trained and highly motived local ground forces. These included the Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi Shite militia and Hezbollah (with Iranian advisors) that conducted successful campaigns to recapture the cities and destroy ISIS. The presence of these forces required only limited use of U.S. troops resulting in few casualties. These local forces were motivated not by abstract Western ideas of universal values, but rather their own strong sectarian beliefs and interests.

In Afghanistan, however, after seventeen years of training and assistance by the U.S., most government troops are ineffective even when supported by U.S. advisors and air power.

You can’t get people to fight for an imaginary country. And as I’ve been writing here and elsewhere for years, Afghanistan isn’t a country — it’s a hole in the map where neighboring countries aren’t.

JOHN HAWKINS: 7 Examples from the Last Two Weeks That Show How Dangerous and Insane Liberals Have Become.

“Unhinged” is the word I keep coming back to.

NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s largest ISP blocks Tor. “It has become a necessary tool to access blocked news sources online.”