SOMETIMES NOT EVEN THE PARANOID SURVIVE: Qualcomm Snapdragon 1000 rumored to be specifically built for PCs.

New details on the chip were obtained by Germany’s WinFuture, including that it will be able to match the performance of Intel’s Core processors. Specifically, the SDM1000 system-on-a-chip is said to be a much larger 20mm x 15mm, and use 12W of power, significantly more than a smartphone processor.

The Snapdragon 1000 is also expected to use ARM’s next-generation Cortex-A76 architecture, with a 35% speed increase, while supporting up to 16GB of RAM and two 128GB storage modules, making it clear the chip would be a threat to Intel in the notebook market.

Other rumors suggest that in the coming years Apple will move the Mac line to its own in-house designed ARM processors, which would take a small chunk out of Intel’s i5, i7, and Xeon business.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: John McCain viewed more favorably by Arizona Democrats than by Republicans.

IT’S COMPLICATED: Dreaming of Three Californias: Is Ballot Proposition Even Possible? “Republicans wouldn’t want four additional Senate seats for the state, while some say it’s not constitutional to let voters pick a split.”

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: Democrats face trouble from population losses in high-tax blue states.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: The Army Took Over the Spigots, Forcing Thirsty Venezuelans to Pay.

Venezuela’s military has come to oversee the desperate and lucrative water trade as reservoirs empty, broken pipes flood neighborhoods and overwhelmed personnel walk out. Seven major access points in the capital of 5.5 million people are now run by soldiers or police, who also took total control of all public and private water trucks. Unofficially, soldiers direct where drivers deliver — and make them give away the goods at favored addresses.

Ayn Rand called it “the aristocracy of pull,” and in late-stage socialism it always belongs to those with the most guns.

OH: All Trump Policies Trace Back to ‘White Extinction Anxiety.’

GOOD ADVICE: Don’t Believe the Hype About a Carbon Tax.

By taxing an economic input like energy production, government essentially taxes everything that we do, wear, eat, and use. History shows that this is all very destructive: Carbon taxes in Australia and British Columbia reduced standards of living, with Australia eventually repealing its carbon tax within just two years.

While proponents of the dividend approach, or even a revenue-neutral tax swap, claim this is a market-based, conservative plan, the truth is a carbon tax is based on highly questionable assumptions, leaving it as mainly a policy tool for social engineering with huge economic costs.

For most advocates, that’s a feature not a bug.

SURVEILLANCE STATE: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs In Eight U.S. Cities.

Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In each of these cities, The Intercept has identified an AT&T facility containing networking equipment that transports large quantities of internet traffic across the United States and the world. A body of evidence – including classified NSA documents, public records, and interviews with several former AT&T employees – indicates that the buildings are central to an NSA spying initiative that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.

The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.” It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T’s customers. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it “has access to information that transits the nation,” but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.

Read the whole thing.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: The Media Continues to Gin Up Border Hysteria and Much, Much More. “The same people celebrating this hateful restaurant and its owner were demanding the government force a shop owner to violate his religious beliefs and bake a wedding cake. I’m so confused.”

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Russian Airstrikes Hit Southwest Syria, Breaking a Ceasefire Deal. “About 6,000 civilians have already fled their homes near the front lines across Daraa and Quneitra, according to the U.N.”

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Obama DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson ‘Freely Admits’ They Detained Children, Families: ‘We Believed It Was Necessary.’

Related item from Fareed Zakaria: Democrats may be walking into an immigration trap.

According to a U.N. report, last year the United States became the world’s leading destination for asylum seekers, with a 44 percent increase of Central Americans, who made up almost half the total at about 140,000. David Frum suggests in the Atlantic that most of these people are probably coming to escape poverty rather than violence (which has been declining) and that many hope bringing children will help them avoid punishment. That’s why, when asked in 2014 about the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who had come to the border, Hillary Clinton responded, “We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay. We don’t want to send a message that’s contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”

That’s also different, because reasons.

Bonus item from Josh Kraushaar:

The Left will pivot to the next set of Nazis in five… four… three…

UNEXPECTEDLY: Soda Taxes Hit Poor the Most. “Taxes imposed by Democrats have made soda more expensive than beer.”

Taxes levied per ounce on sugary drinks by Democrats in Berkeley, Philadelphia, and Seattle are even more regressive, according to the study. The middle class would pay the most if Congress passed a nationwide soda tax, as two-thirds of its revenue would come from those earning between $20,000 and $100,000.

If an excise tax per fluid ounces were to be enacted, households earning less than $100,000 would pay 78 percent of the tax.

“Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes theoretically offer the potential for reducing externality health-care costs stemming from excessive sugar consumption, and in this way they may raise the prospect of efficiency gains by signaling to consumers these higher social costs,” according to the study. “However, these taxes also raise equity concerns to the extent these goods represent a disproportionate share of the consumption among lower-income households.”

The Tax Foundation analyzed household consumption data from Nielsen and found as income increases, soda consumption decreases. Those consuming the most soda, and therefore affected by soda taxes, fall into lower-income tax brackets.

Democrats hate poor people.

CRACKDOWN ON FUN: A means to an end, or an end to memes?

Tech leaders and digital rights activists in Europe have expressed dismay over new rules they say could change the open nature of the internet forever — and potentially kill meme culture.

They have been fighting against Article 13 of the proposed E.U. Copyright Directive, which would place responsibility for enforcing copyright law on websites and platforms, rather than individuals.

It would mean that any website or platform that allows users to post images, footage, sound or code would have to use content recognition technologies — branded “censorship machines” by critics — to filter out just about anything that infringes on a copyright, and either prevent the platform from uploading or push it to seek licenses.

These algorithms could mean that even internet meme culture, in which people use common images to create running jokes, could be unintentionally scuttled.

Given how frequently the targets of internet memes are politicians and bureaucrats, I’m not sure there’s anything unintentional about it.

CHANGE: Anti-American Propaganda Disappearing from North Korea. “It’s not all sweetness and light but removing vulgar anti-US propaganda is a positive step.”

TREACHER: I, For One, Welcome Our New Burger Robot Overlords.

YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID: $30M Pledged in Effort to Remake ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi.’

GOOD LORD: 13-Year-Old Charged with Felony for Recording Conversation with School Principal. “If I do go to court and get wrongfully convicted, my whole life is ruined.”

The incident took place last February at Manteno Middle School, which is about an hour outside of Chicago. Young Paul Boron was arguing with Principal David Conrad and Assistant Principal Nathan Short.

About ten minutes into the meeting, which was held with the door open, Boron told the men he was recording it. At that point, the principal told Boron he was committing a felony and ended the conversation. But then, according to the Illinois Policy Center:

Two months later, in April, Boron was charged with one count of eavesdropping – a class 4 felony in Illinois.

“If I do go to court and get wrongfully convicted, my whole life is ruined,” said Boron, who lives with his mother and four siblings…”I think they’re going too far.”

…. Members of the Manteno Community Unit School District No. 5 board, Conrad and Short have not responded to requests for comment on the incident.

Unfortunately for Boron, there is a law against recording people without their consent in Illinois. There’s even a rule against it in the student handbook. But the handbook also says that it is fine for the school to have video cameras monitoring the public areas of the building. In other words, it’s fine to keep the kids under constant surveillance, just not the administrators.

You don’t ruin a kid’s life over anything so trivial. You erase the recording and send him back for extra detention.

Unless of course you’re less interested in educating children and more interested in establishing authority over them.

JASON WHITLOCK: Conservative Voices at ESPN Intimidated Into Silence.

“Celebrate diversity” morphed into “Conform, proles” so slowly that I hardly even noticed.

NIKKI HALEY: UN Report Decrying Poverty in America Is ‘Ridiculous’ and ‘Misleading.’

I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: SpaceX wins $130 million military launch contract for Falcon Heavy.

MARKETING: This “Hot Dog Water” sells for $37.99 a bottle. “The tent selling unfiltered ‘Hot Dog Water’ — literally a bottle of water with a wiener floating inside — for $37.99 a pop included some promising, if not dubious, claims. Such as helping consumers not only lose weight but also increase brain function, look younger and improve overall vitality.”

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Hate-Crimes Indictment Returned Against Minnesota Mosque Bombing Suspects. “One allegedly told investigators that they didn’t intend to kill anyone but wanted to send a message of ‘show them, hey, you’re not welcome here’.”

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Trump’s Immigration Policies Are Actually Pretty Popular.

When asked which policy they prefer for how to handle families that are stopped for crossing the border illegally, two-thirds of the 1,500 surveyed said they support detention for lawbreakers and less than 20 percent responded that they support previous presidential administrations’ policy of letting the lawbreakers enter the country with a promise to return for a later court date. The poll was taken June 17-19, at the height of media outrage over the policy.

When given a choice for how to handle illegal border crossing arrests, some 44 percent of Americans chose “hold families together in family detention centers until an immigration hearing at a later date.” Another 20 percent of U.S. adults chose detention options that would separate families. Only 19 percent chose to return to the policy of allowing people who cross the border illegally to go without detention on the promise they’d return for a court hearing at a later date.

The Economist/YouGov poll shows an American electorate fare more serious about border enforcement than what the media conversation would indicate.

The media’s got this — or at least they think they do.

IS THE FIX NOT QUITE ALL THE WAY IN? Erdogan’s gamble on snap elections in Turkey could backfire.

The President faces his toughest political challenge yet, in snap elections Sunday that Erdogan himself called. Turkish voters go to the polls to elect both a president and a new parliament, and for the first time in more than a decade, they have an array of strong candidates to choose from.

Erdogan’s grandiose rallies have become an expected part of any Turkish election, but they appear to have been eclipsed Wednesday, as main opposition candidate Muharrem Ince drew what looked like the largest crowd in the elections period yet.
In the town of Izmir, hundreds of thousands of Ince supporters in a sea of red Turkish flags stretched for kilometers down a promenade on the Aegean coast, as the charismatic former high school physics teacher promised to end the nepotism of the Erdogan government.

“Erdogan is tired, he has no joy and he is arrogant,” he said.

“On the one hand you have a tired man, and on the other you have fresh blood.”

Whether he wins or loses this weekend, the damage Erdogan has done to Turkey’s political and religious culture will outlast him.

CALEB HOWE: AP Deliberately Manipulates—Then Stealth Updates—Immigration Horror Story to Tie Obama-Era Abuse Case to Trump.

I do think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines and it does all make sense.