CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS AND DANIELLE CRITTENDEN: Introducing the Femsplainers Podcast.

FAITH MOORE: HuffPo Claim Women Would Rather Have Sex with a Fish Than a Man.

This may only apply to HuffPo readers and possibly writers.

DIANE FEINSTEIN: Trump wants to undo everything Obama has done.

Elections have consequences, or hasn’t she heard?

DAVID FORSMARK: Rush Was Wrong About ‘Homeland.’

Caution: Spoilers.

WHERE TO BEGIN? The Problem With ‘Feminist’ Men.

At home, it seems, Mr. Schneiderman was a sexual sadist and manipulative misogynist. At work, he was a champion of women’s rights, investigating potential charges against Harvey Weinstein, appearing at events supporting reproductive freedom, and even writing a bill specifically to punish the same kind of strangulation he is said to have forced on some of his partners.

How do we reconcile these two versions of a single man? It wasn’t just that Mr. Schneiderman appears to have been a feminist in the brightness of day but a violent misogynist when the lights went down.

The reality may be darker: that the power he derived from his role in progressive politics was intertwined with his abuse. He seems to have used his feminist-minded political work to advance his own career, to ingratiate himself with the women he would go on to harm, and to cover up his cruelties

Jill Filipovic might not realize it, but she’s making an excellent argument for less of the “progressive” government which empowers abusers while providing cover for it, too.

I HAVEN’T LIVED IN THE MIDWEST IN ALMOST 30 YEARS AND I STILL SAY THIS: ‘Ope!’: The All-Purpose Expression of Midwestern Politeness. “Trying to flag down a waiter? Almost run into someone? Feel the first drops of rain? There’s only one way to say it all.”

PRIVACY: Apple’s iOS 11.4 update with ‘USB Restricted Mode’ may defeat tools like GrayKey.

“To improve security, for a locked iOS device to communicate with USB accessories you must connect an accessory via Lightning connector to the device while unlocked — or enter your device passcode while connected — at least once a week,” reads Apple documentation highlighted by security firm ElcomSoft. The feature actually made an appearance in iOS 11.3 betas, but like AirPlay 2 was removed from the finished code.

The change blocks use of the Lightning port for anything but charging if a device is left untouched for seven days. An iPhone or iPad will even refuse to sync with computer running iTunes until iOS is unlocked with a passcode.

USB Restricted Mode may be intended to impose a seven-day window on when digital forensics specialists like Grayshift can break into a device, at least using any simple techniques. Those firms will often employ a “lockdown” record from a suspect’s computer to create a local backup of iPhone data, skipping passcode entry.

Smart.

ELECTION: Trump-Endorsed Ohio Senate Candidate Jim Renacci Blows Out Four Opponents.

And “Tolbert” commented on a previous post:

Ohio Governor Primary
Democrat vote tally – 560,258
Republican vote tally – 720,000

Perhaps that blue wave really isn’t happening.

One more time: If you want to make a difference in November, spend less time online and more volunteering for a local campaign.

CONTAINMENT: Japan Should Increase Military Ties With Taiwan, Says Former Japanese Navy Chief.

“FAILURE WAS A FEATURE”: Obama Killed His Own Iran Deal.

JEFF DUNETZ: Analysis Of Trump’s Withdrawal From Obama’s Iran Nuclear Facade.

While Europe was displeased, some of our Middle East allies were very pleased.

Saudi Arabia the leading Sunni Muslim country celebrated the President’s announcement. Iran is a Shia Muslim country And has threatened the Saudi monarchy. The official announcement on State-owned Al Arabiya TV reminded the Saudi people, “Iran used economic gains from the lifting of sanctions to continue its activities to destabilize the region, particularly by developing ballistic missiles and supporting terrorist groups in the region.”

Israel’s reaction was no surprise. Prime Minister Netanyahu made a nationwide address immediately after the president’s speech. His praise was effusive, “President Trump made a courageous decision today, a correct decision, and if the nuclear agreement with Iran had remained in place within a few years, he would have allowed Iran to enrich enough uranium to produce a whole arsenal of nuclear bombs. (…) Therefore, we are very appreciative, I greatly appreciate, and with all of Israel, the firm decision of President Trump to block this bad agreement and stop Iran’s aggression.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also gave a TV address after the Trump announcement. He claimed he had ordered the country’s “atomic industry organization to be fully prepared for subsequent measures if needed so that in case of need we will start our industrial enrichment without limitations.”

Translation: Now Iran won’t have to try so hard at pretending they aren’t still doing what they’ve been doing.

SPENGLER: What Next for Iran?

It’s complicated.

BARREL DIPLOMACY: Saudi Arabia Pledges to Support Oil Markets. “U.A.E. has also previously said it is willing to boost exports to meet any supply shortage.”

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was pulling out of a multilateral deal that removed sanctions on Tehran in exchange for Iran abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Washington indicated new U.S. sanctions would limit Iranian exports of crude, although officials didn’t provide specifics.

Saudi Arabia, long a regional rival to Iran and a fierce competitor for global oil market share, quickly telegraphed its willingness to step in. It has limited its own output since 2016, as part of a pact among big producers to help lift prices.

In the wake of Washington’s decision, Saudi Arabia issued a statement saying it remained “committed to supporting the stability of oil markets.” It said that, along with other big producers, the country would help “mitigate the impact of any potential supply shortages” caused by the new sanctions.

The Saudis opened the spigots wide in the 1980s, helping the West to undercut the Soviet economy. And with oil prices already on the rise, now they can undercut Iran while still filling their own coffers.

FASTER? PLEASE! Conservatives to McConnell: Time to Force Issue on Nominees, Spending Bills.

Perdue and several other GOP senators plan to send a letter to McConnell later this week encouraging him to keep the Senate in on Mondays and Fridays and in August if it has not finished its spending bills and wrapped up work on the confirmations.

“This is a commitment to [McConnell] that we are willing to do whatever is necessary to get these confirmations accomplished and also to ensure that we debate the funding bills now in whatever manner they come,” Perdue told reporters Tuesday.

“We have an uphill battle, and we believe we have to get outside the box in terms of getting the government funded before September 30,” he added.

Canceling the August recess would be particularly punitive for Senate Democrats, as well as vulnerable Democrats running for reelection, although there are far more Senate Democrats than Republicans in close reelection contests this year.

If Democrats want to play the delay game, don’t let them play the campaign game.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Hollywood Hypocrite Alyssa Milano’s Disastrous NRA Video.

Armed bullies for me but not for thee.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Avenatti Claims RUSSIANS Paid Cohen and Much, Much More. “How does Avenatti have Michael Cohen’s bank records? You cannot just get someone’s back records. This leads me to believe that something very illegal is going on here. Where does this fit on an index of lie to FISA court to snoop on opposing political campaign and leak the newshook for CNN to report the fake dossier, is hard to say at this early stage.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump Is Now Free to Fight for Iranian Freedom. “The most urgent task after the nuclear deal is increasing the odds of success for the democratic uprising.”

That’s Eli Lake, and it dovetails nicely with Michel Weiss yesterday on Twitter:

Yuge.

NIALL FERGUSON: An ancient trap awaits China and US.

Historians often look back to the events of the 1890s and 1900s in an effort to trace the origins of the Anglo-German antagonism. The long-established narrative goes something like this: The German economy was overtaking the British economy, a trend summed up in the words “Made in Germany” that were stamped on a rising proportion of imported manufactures.

Germany had imperial ambitions, too, acquiring colonies in Asia and Africa. And it was building a fleet that was obviously intended to rival the Royal Navy.

Increasingly, as their economy boomed, the Germans argued that their political system — in which the parliament (the Reichstag) had much less power than its British equivalent, and the monarch much more power — was intrinsically superior. Their material successes bolstered an already deep-rooted nationalism.

The ultimate result was that Britain and Germany followed the ancient example of Sparta and Athens: the incumbent power and the rising power ended up going to war. The Harvard political scientist Graham Allison calls it the “Thucydides trap,” after the historian of the Peloponnesian War.

Are the United States and China on the way to repeating this classic historical mistake? Having just spent a fascinating week in Beijing and Shanghai, I fear they may be.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: U.S. Navy’s Costliest Warship Suffers New Failure at Sea.

The previously undisclosed problem with a propulsion system bearing, which occurred in January but has yet to be remedied, comes as the Navy is poised to request approval from a supportive Congress to expedite a contract for a fourth carrier in what was to have been a three-ship class. It’s part of a push to expand the Navy’s 284-ship fleet to 355 as soon as the mid-2030s.

It was the second failure in less than a year with a “main thrust bearing” that’s part of the $12.9 billion carrier’s propulsion system. The first occurred in April 2017, during sea trials a month before the vessel’s delivery. The ship, built by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., has been sailing in a shakedown period to test systems and work out bugs. It’s now scheduled to be ready for initial combat duty in 2022.

The $12.9 billion figure is misleading, as it includes development costs on several all-new shipboard systems, which won’t carry over as more Ford-class ships are built.

This propulsion issue seems to be due to “an out of specification condition,” which I assume to mean some kind of manufacturing defect, and therefore ought to be repairable.

More worrisome is that the Navy can’t seem to get the Ford‘s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) working to spec — and EMALS is a huge part of the justification for the Ford-class of carriers. It’s supposed to allow for more sorties and less wear-and-tear on the aircraft, but testing still isn’t going gone well. If the Navy and shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls can’t get EMALS to work as advertised, or at least to work as well as the steam-driven catapults on the existing Nimitz-class carriers, then it puts the entire Ford-class at risk. And despite what President Trump said last year, you can’t go back to “goddamned steam” without redesigning the entire ship.

ALIVE WITH FLAVOR: Guess What Nanny-State Hero Chuck Schumer Wants To Ban Next.

BLUE WAVE? The ‘experts’ were wrong in 2016; they could be wrong in 2018 too.

Newt Gingrich:

Now, we are seeing the blue wave may be shrinking to a blue ripple. The generic congressional ballot has tightened, and the leads Democrats averaged in the December polls have been cut nearly in half. One national expert told me last week that if the election were held now, the GOP would keep control. His research indicated the GOP was leading the generic ballot in seven of the 12 Senate races.

As the benefits of the Republican tax cuts, deregulation, and growing business and consumer confidence have taken effect, approval of President Trump and support for Republicans has grown. When combined with the president’s successes in both foreign policy and trade, Americans have significantly increased their support for his presidency and agenda.

With African American unemployment at a historic low, Trump’s approval among black men jumped from 11 percent to 22 percent in the last week of April. While 22 percent is still a minority, it is a huge improvement over traditional Republican support in the black community. As the facts and the conversation continue, do not be shocked if President Trump’s reputation as the “jobs President” drives his support among African Americans significantly higher.

Nancy Pelosi’s recent appeal to the “Tax You Bastards Back to the Stone Age” wing of the Democratic Party can’t be helping matters, either.

GOOD READ: The Seven Steps to the Destruction of the Islamic State Caliphate.

If the Islamic State leadership were in fact queried about the reasons for the destruction of their caliphate, what would they say? With the probability of this occurring virtually nil, certain points can be brought to the surface by examining the trajectory of the operational and strategic decisions of the Islamic State from June 2014 to October 2017. In light of such analysis, it is posited that the following steps resulted in the destruction of the Islamic State caliphate:

1. Failure of the Islamic State to achieve a policy-strategy match
2. The Islamic State’s premature transition to the “strategic offensive”
3. Al-Baghdadi’s unilateral declaration of the caliphate
4. The Islamic State’s attempt to control territory
5. The Islamic State’s use of ultra-violence
6. Incorrect strategic assumptions by the Islamic State leadership
7. The Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh

Failure of the Islamic State to achieve a policy-strategy match: The Islamic State made a fundamental error in its quest for an enduring political victory in that its policy goals were never aligned with its strategy. This policy-strategy mismatch, in which the Islamic State’s policy goals outran its capabilities, contributed significantly to the destruction of the caliphate.

It also helps to have a POTUS and a SecDef who understand that the way to deal with terrorists is to kill them in great numbers.

THIS WON’T BACKFIRE: Walmart and Sam’s Club to Restrict Opioids to 7-Day Supply.

I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, forcing people with chronic pain conditions to make a 52 trips to the pharmacist each year instead of 12.

WELL: Israel Will ‘Eliminate’ Assad if He Continues to Let Iran Operate From Syria, Minister Warns.

SALLY KOHN ON TRUMP SUPPORTERS: “No One Is Just Who They Voted For.” “CNN commentator Sally Kohn explained how her experience working at Fox News turned out to be the opposite of what she had expected and how it influenced her new book, The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity.”

Good for her.