LEGALIZED REPRESSION: DOJ Asked to Probe China’s Use of INTERPOL Notices to Persecute Dissidents. “‘Questions have also been raised about the ability of Interpol’s president, Meng Hongwei, to maintain Interpol’s neutrality in this regard, given his concurrent position as China’s Vice Minister of Public Security,’ write senators.”

MARK RIPPETOE: Adaptation, Your Environment, and You.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Michelle Wolf Has ‘Em Howling (With Rage). “Let’s not pretend that insulting a member of the Trump White House is in any way brave.”

SUZANNE VENKER: It Isn’t Men Who Are Toxic. It’s Women.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: The World’s First Space Beer Could Cost $1 Million.

BLUE WAVE? Democrat Disavows Pelosi, Even As She Raises $16 Million for 2018 House Dems. “It’s time for a new generation of leadership in Washington.”

Usually in Washington money absolutely can buy you love — but Dems are increasingly worried that Pelosi will sink them in November.

FALSE ECONOMY: Retired General Says F-22 Production Was Killed So That A New Bomber Could Live.

Air Force Magazine was first to report on the revelations from the General’s new book “Journey: Memoirs of an Air Force Chief of Staff,” which also includes much more detail about how exactly the fight for the F-22 was lost, as well as how the battle to re-launch a Next Generation Bomber program was eventually won.

Behind the scenes, Schwartz’s predecessor General Mike Moseley “never gave up in his principled attempts to get those 381 F-22s” the book states. That push ended up getting Moseley fired along with his civilian counterpart, Air Force Secretary Mike Wynn. After the culling, the brass thought that the new bomber was simply too important and that the chances of winning both the F-22 and bomber arguments with Gates, who was staunchly averse to building high-priced weapons that couldn’t be used in Iraq or Afghanistan, was next to zero.

Schwartz, in an attempt to see if a reduced F-22 production number would be palatable to the Defense Secretary, executed an independent assessment that ended up stating 243 F-22s was the absolute minimum the force could get by with. But Gates balked at that number as well.

The most generous take I can think of is that Gates was working under the impression that serious Great Power disputes were a thing of the past — and since F-22 production was capped far below the “absolute minimum,” we can only pray that he was right.

NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE: Oil Hedge Fund Manager Says $300 Oil ‘Not Impossible.’

Pierre Andurand, one of oil’s most prominent hedge fund managers, said the current reluctance of energy companies to invest in new production meant $300 a barrel was “not impossible” within a few years.

Andurand, who’s often espoused bullish views, said in a series of tweets on Sunday that concern about the impact of electric vehicles on future demand was limiting investment in projects with long lead times.

“So paradoxically these peak demand fears might bring the largest supply shock ever,” he wrote. “If oil prices do not rise fast enough, $300 oil in a few years is not impossible.”

The hedge fund manager, who runs oil-focused Andurand Capital Management LLP, also went against the conventional view that triple-digit oil prices will dampen demand growth.

“So no, $100 oil will not kill the economy,” he wrote. “And we need +$100 oil to encourage enough investments outside of the U.S.”

A spokesman for Andurand declined to comment on the tweets, which were later removed from Andurand’s Twitter account.

His comments on demand echo those of Saudi Oil Minister Khalid Al-Falih, who earlier this month suggested that prices could rise further from their current level close to $75 a barrel without doing economic damage.

Left unsaid is that the cure for $300 oil is $300 oil.

In the meantime, American frackers are encountering unexpected hurdles ramping up production to catch $75 oil, which might be making the market seem worse than it actually is.

OFFENSIVE PERIMETER: What Beijing is Building in the South China Sea.

The recent addition of mobile equipment for electronic warfare to Mischief Reef adds to the already-extensive electronic network on the reef. To the southeast, China has constructed what is probably a high-frequency, direction-finding antenna array installation which could be used to collect electronic or signals intelligence from transmissions by aircraft or ships in the region, as well as to detect stealth aircraft. North of the island, China has also built what is probably an inter-island communication tower with an associated antenna array similar to the ones found at Cuarteron, Hughes, Johnson South and Gaven reefs. On top of that, China constructed a Doppler very high-frequency omnidirectional range (DVOR) radio system adjacent to the airfield on Mischief Reef. DVOR systems provide short-range navigation information for aircraft without using satellite navigation data.

The deployment of EW equipment is particularly notable because the gear could be used to harass and jam the electronic equipment of various actors in the South China Sea, including the United States. In fact, the equipment deployed to Mischief Reef could have already been used for this purpose. A recent statement from a U.S. Navy pilot, for example, alluded to an incident in recent weeks when his aircraft was likely jammed by Chinese electronic equipment.

China’s next-most vulnerable sea area is the Strait of Malacca, where Beijing has already announced serious interest — so far, merely financial in nature.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is the American voter ignorant?

LET’S NOT: Let’s Embrace Our Blubbering and Make Cry Closets Happen. “To help students over the last hurdle of the academic school year and assist them in regurgitating 15 weeks’ worth of knowledge in five days, one university has allowed a student to install an inventive coping method in the campus’ library. Devised by University of Utah student and visual artist Nemo Miller, the ‘cry closet’ is pretty self-explanatory. The closet, outfitted with black felt, stuffed animals and a strict ten-minute cry-policy, is a self-described ‘safe space for stressed-out students’ to have a breakdown in the privacy of large wooden box.”

When they finally interview for a job, I hope these kids ask their prospective bosses if their office building includes at least one cry closet.

PASS THE BUCK: Former UN Amb. Samantha Power Now Blames Congress For Obama’s Fecklessness in Syria.

DEMOCRATS HATE POOR PEOPLE. AND THE MIDDLE CLASS, TOO: CA Democrats Reject Plan To Allow More Housing Supply in San Francisco.

KANYE WEST: “All Blacks Gotta Be Democrats? Man, We Ain’t Made It Off The Plantation.”

ONE HUNDRED MILLION CORPSES LATER: Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!

HMM: Foreign Investors Lose Some Hunger for U.S. Debt. “Decline in demand from ‘indirect bidders’ stirs worries of higher bond yields and slower growth.”

Investors in a broad category known as “indirect bidders,” which includes both mutual funds and foreign investors, have been winning the smallest percentage of the bonds they’ve bid for since 2011, according to bidding data for recent Treasury bond auctions. The average percentage of the auctions won by this group fell for the first time since 2012, a decline some analysts attribute to both lower demand from investors outside the U.S. and their recent tendency to post less-aggressive bids.

The behavior of these bidders is crucial for the ability of the U.S. to fund itself, at a time when the budget deficit is forecast to surpass $1 trillion by 2020 and remain above that level for the foreseeable future. Foreign investors currently hold about 43% of U.S. government debt, the lowest since November 2016, a proportion that has steadily declined from its peak of 55% during the 2008 financial crisis.

The next financial crisis, wherever it hits, will likely get foreigner desperation-buying U.S. debt. But also keep in mind that we’re issuing a trillion dollars of it each year, plus the existing $21 trillion which must be periodically refinanced.

NANCY PELOSI: Trump Might Qualify for Nobel Peace Prize; ‘Let’s See How It Goes.’ “‘There’s always an opportunity for a president of the United States to qualify,’ House Dem leader says of speculation around potential North Korean talks.”

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Dentists, soldiers mix cocktails to leave crisis-hit Venezuela.

Valentina Maggi, 22, studied graphic design and dreams of illustrating children’s stories, but has followed in friends’ footsteps to learn how to mix cocktails at the National Bartender Academy.

“I have many friends who have left the country and have told me to do this type of course because when you get there, you have more work options,” she said in a room with a long table where she had just completed her final test: a Gin Fizz made from gin, lemon, sugar and soda water.

At the academy, 6,000 students are expected to graduate this year – up from 4,500 a couple of years ago.

With Maggi were a 60-year-old retired military officer and a 52-year-old former Supreme Court prosecutor, both hoping to land work at bars in the United States and Argentina respectively.

Asking not to disclose his name for fear of reprisal, the former soldier said his monthly pension of some $5 at the black market exchange rate, left nothing for food after paying for his two sons’ schools.

Plus: Exodus of Venezuelans Overwhelms Northern Brazil.

Flashback: Bernie Sanders Says “American Dream More Apt to Happen in Venezuela.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. It’s Time To End the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Michelle Wolf’s jokes weren’t particularly funny or offensive, but they – and the media’s outraged reaction – belie an event whose best days were long ago.”

The Washington press corps is verging on becoming nothing but Caesar Flickermans, all the way down.

I DON’T SEE A PROBLEM HERE: Washington’s heavy-drinking ways in spotlight.

Washington, D.C., has the highest rates of binge and problem drinking in America.

It’s a booze problem fueled by a uniquely stressful environment where many of the corporate structures of accountability and oversight don’t exist.

From the executive branch to Capitol Hill, K Street lobbying firms to high-pressure newsrooms, free alcohol is easily accessible.

The days of the three-martini lunch may be gone, but they have been replaced by hard-partying nights filled with fundraisers, receptions or long bar tabs.

Watching Washington from a remove of 2,000 miles drives me to drink, so I have nothing but empathy for the livers of those who live and work there.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Hate Prom, Migrant Caravan and Much, Much More. “Did the ‘entertainment’ at past WHCD ever treat Jay Carney or Josh Earnest in this way? Never. Sexists, all of them.”

POT, KETTLE: James Comey calls House GOP’s Russia probe ‘a wreck.’

Flashback: The Biggest Scandals and Controversies in James Comey’s Career.

MEN NOT WANTED: University of Texas to treat masculinity as a ‘mental health issue.’

Cajoling or requiring people to behave in ways contrary to the reality of human nature ought to be treated as a mental health issue. But instead we grant them tenure.

THE LAST WORD on the White House Correspondents Dinner:

BECAUSE THEY CAN: Why Single-Payer Health Care Denies Care To Sick Children Like Alfie Evans.

Alfie’s outcome doesn’t seem to have ever been in doubt. But the UK government’s refusal to allow his parents to act as parents, or even to let the boy travel abroad at zero taxpayer expense, was a muscular reminder of the State’s power — and the actual life-and-death nature of its authority.