CLAIM: U.S. will take weapons from Kurds after Islamic State defeat.

The United States has told Turkey it will take back weapons supplied to the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria after the defeat of Islamic State, Ankara said on Thursday, seeking to address Turkish concerns about arming Kurds on its border.

Turkish defense ministry sources said U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also promised his Turkish counterpart to provide a monthly list of weapons handed to the YPG, saying the first inventory had already been sent to Ankara.

Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK, which has been waging an insurgency in the country’s southeast since the mid-1980s. It has said supplies to the YPG have in the past ended up in PKK hands, and described any weapon given to the force as a threat to its security.

What’s the Kurdish for “molon labe?”

SHOT: Left-Wing Politics Will Be the Demise of the Dems.

CHASER: Democrats don’t have a policy problem. They have a marketing problem.

One has been tried and found wanting. The other is still wanted by the Progressive Left, but is just trying voters’ patience and donors’ pocketbooks.

THE PLOT AGAINST NANCY, COMEY’S NYT FIELD TRIP, AND MORE: All in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

QUESTION ASKED: Who Does The FBI Work For?

Ben Domenech:

There’s no reason to beat around the bush here: what the FBI is claiming is mind-boggling when they claim the shooter had no target in mind. Consider the number of accidents of circumstance you would have to believe were going on here to not have the shooter doing what seems obvious from every piece of evidence we have: researching and planning for an attack on Republicans of some kind, particularly looking for an opportunity when security will be low and vulnerability will be high. This was an attack, not an “anger management” problem.

Step back, though, and think on the institutional conclusions here. Considering how ludicrous the FBI’s conclusions are as it relates to an attack on the third ranking member of the House of Representatives, you might reconsider whether to trust the FBI’s conclusions in other areas, as well.

I’d wager many people came to that conclusion almost exactly one year ago.

NO. Should I sue Donald Trump for blocking me on Twitter?

21ST CENTRUY WARFARE: China launches record-breaking UAV swarm.

The 11 June news report states that the swarm comprised 119 UAVs, breaking CETC’s previous record swarm of 67 UAVs. Xinhua did not mention when or where the event took place.

The size of the mini UAV swarm is greater than that trialled by the US Air Force in October 2016 when three Boeing F/A-18 Hornets deployed a swarm of 103 Perdix micro UAVs, which the US Department of Defense noted was one of the world’s largest micro UAV swarms to date.

CETC published a video in 2016 of its fixed-wing UAV swarm prototype, which shows the UAVs in a co-ordinated launch from the ground. The corporation said that the UAVs were flying ad hoc networks, sensing and avoiding collision, and demonstrating autonomous group control.

The 2016 video also indicates that the development is aimed at enhancing capabilities in the fields of collaborative intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), target acquisition, distributed wide area surveillance, and saturation attack.

My guess is that the intention is for future UAV swarms to be used to gather and feed realtime intelligence to China’s “carrier killer” ballistic missiles.

HEY, STUDENT, LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE: Evergreen State College Student: ‘F*** Free Speech’

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Mr. President, Meet Avner Shapiro, Saboteur From the DOJ Swamp.

LEAKED AUDIO: Republican Senate Intern Calls British ‘F*gg*ts,’ Paul Ryan ‘a C*ck,’ and Talks of a ‘Superior Race’

FLYING THE FRIENDLY SKIES: Toddler Forced to Wet Herself After Airline Refuses Access to Bathroom.

BOOM! Pelosi Reacts to Calls From House Dems to Stand Aside: ‘How Long I Stay is Not Up to Them’

HMM:

Roy has been one of ObamaCare’s sharpest and best-informed critics, so I can’t wait to read the fleshed-out version just as soon as he publishes it.

HEALTH: Extra virgin olive oil staves off Alzheimer’s, preserves memory, new study shows.

It’s important to know that there’s been confusion about which extra-virgin olive oils are actually extra virgin, and which ones are cut by the mob with lesser oils. My wife Melissa researched and found three brands which are believed to be the genuine article, one in each price category of low(ish), medium, and high.

For everyday use, Kirkland’s (yes, the Costco house label) extra virgin is supposedly just that, and it’s what we use for non-fancy salad dressings, frying croutons, adding depth to red sauces — anywhere you want good olive oil but don’t need to break the bank. The next step up is from California Olive Ranch. It’s great for Caesars, dipping bread, tossed pasta, and the like. And for when the tomatoes are in peak ripeness for making Caprese, we have a bottle of Bariani stashed away in the back of the pantry. The three bottles all cost about $20-$25 but vary greatly in size. Mostly what you’re paying for is the greater concentration of grassy/fruity/buttery flavor as you step up the scale.

Flavor-wise though, even the Kirkland stands head and shoulders above typical supermarket fare, and I suspect that the same is true of the health benefits.

OH: Ann Arbor Teacher Making $77k Complains His Salary Is ‘Embarrassing’

NO. WAY. Germany spied on the White House over years.

Other monitoring targets ranged from military institutions including the US Air Force or the Marine Corps, space agency NASA to civic group Human Rights Watch.

Hundreds of foreign embassies as well as international organisation like the International Monetary Fund were not spared, Spiegel said.

The BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s intelligence service] declined comment in the Spiegel report.

Germany had reacted with outrage when information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that US agents were carrying out widespread tapping worldwide, including of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany where state spying on citizens was rampant, declared repeatedly that “spying among friends is not on” while acknowledging Germany’s reliance on the US in security matters.

But to the great embarrassment of Germany, it later emerged that the BND helped the NSA spy on European allies.

I’m not sure Merkel embarrasses.

GOOD LORD: Trump Supporter Stabbed Nine Times Following Political Rally.

TAKE MY MONEY! Arrow Video Has Begun a 4K Restoration of ‘The Thing’

Not merely an effective fright-fest, The Thing might also be the most impressive achievement in practical horror effects before the computers took over.

SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA: British Police Just Imprisoned A Man For Posting Mean Things About Muslims On Facebook.

A man who posted what authorities deemed “hateful” things about Muslims on Facebook is facing eight counts more than a year in prison in Sussex, a coastal county in southeast England, United Kingdom.

“The charges brought in this case are extremely serious and were only brought against four people in England and Wales during 2016,” said Sussex Police Hate Crime Sergeant Peter Allan (because apparently “Hate Crime Sergeant” is a real, taxpayer-funded, paid position in 2017 Great Britain). “Nigel Pelham used Facebook to express some truly offensive views, with no understanding of how serious his actions were.”

The Orwellian officer continued, threatening anyone and everyone who dared to express a racist, offensive, or even cheeky opinion on their own personal social media accounts.

I wonder what might happen if British authorities investigated and prosecuted all those “known wolves” with the same vigor.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Customers share stories after $12 billion lawsuit accuses CenturyLink of defrauding them.

It is being brought by a former employee, who is describing herself as a whistleblower.

Attorney Mark Geragos is representing the plaintiff in the case. The lawsuit calls it “frighteningly” similar to the Wells Fargo Bank scandal.

Experts say to check statements to see if anything looks out of the ordinary. If it does, contact the Denver Better Business Bureau or the firm that filed the lawsuit.

In January, the Denver Better Business Bureau issued a warning about CenturyLink, saying it had identified a pattern of complaints against the company.

The BBB said some customers claimed they are charged more than the price they agreed to pay when signing up for service, and that they don’t receive the speed and quality that is promised by sales representatives.

“Really take a look at those line items and really understand what you are being charged for,” said Krista Ferndelli, a spokeswoman with the Denver’s Better Business Bureau.

I can’t speak to the merits of this particular case, however…

My personal experience with CenturyLink was so bad that it was the deciding factor in getting rid of our land line — which by that point hadn’t had a phone plugged into it for years, and was kept live only in case of emergency.

VIDEO: Democrats Are Blaming Donald Trump for Obama Admin’s Failure to Notify Public About Russian Interference.

I wish I could afford to live rent-free the way the President does.

EVENTUALLY WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT SOMEHOW: Let’s Clean Up the Space Junk with Magnetic Space Tugs.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Spare Me The Principles Lecture.

If our principles are worth having, they are worth fighting for in a way that might conceivably lead to success. One of the folks telling me how wrong and unconservative I am for finding it amusing – a patriot, though wrong – also mentioned that he had been fighting for free speech on campus and in the culture for 20 years. Hmmm. I’ve been fighting for them for 30 years, ever since my dean at UCSD called me in to yell at me because I wrote that the student government was composed of leftist dweebs. Shouldn’t the fact that we have spent decades using the same tactics and losing indicate that maybe we ought to try something new?

Are we going to reason the left out of its ruthless quest for absolute power? Are we going to talk them into civility? Is our sterling example of high principles – which apparently include never, ever, for even a moment, annoying leftists by interrupting their bloody assassination festivals – leading to anything but defeat?

At Fort Benning, they didn’t teach us to lose.

Read the whole thing.

CHANGE: Wisconsin lawmakers advance bill to suspend or expel students who disrupt campus speakers.

“Students” with no interest in learning and who make it impossible for others to learn have no business on a college campus.

QUESTION ASKED: How much do Democrats really want to defeat Donald Trump?

Rich Lowry:

There’s no doubt that Democrats want to watch TV programs that excoriate the president. They want to give money to candidates opposing him. They want to fantasize about frog-marching him straight from his impeachment proceedings to the nearest federal penitentiary. But do they want to do the one thing that would make it easier to win tough races in marginal areas, namely moderate on the cultural issue? Not so much.

In retrospect, Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District was overdetermined. He didn’t live in the district. He had no record of public service. Youthful to a fault, he looked like he should have been running for class president. Yet it didn’t help that he was an orthodox liberal who conceded nothing on cultural issues, even though he was running in a Republican district in the South.

In this, Ossoff merely reflected his party’s attitude. Stopping Trump is imperative, so long as it doesn’t require the party rethinking its uncompromising stance on abortion, guns or immigration. Every old rule should be thrown out in the cause of the resistance—except the tried-and-true orthodoxies on social issues.

It’s the endgame after eight years of choosing “community organizing” over politicking.

WINNING? DNC Has Worst Fundraising May Since 2003.

The party’s appeal has become more selective.