THAT’S A RELIEF: New Study Proves Tyrannosaurus Rex Had Scaly Lizard Skin, Not Feathers.

ALLIES: Four U.S. soldiers killed in apparent insider attack in Afghanistan.

SARAH HOYT: How We’re Losing the War to Save The Islamic World: Part II When Cultures Clash.

What most people mean when they talk about “a clash of cultures” is actually a clash between two subcultures, say corporate America and ghetto. This is difficult enough but can be overcome because one is at least aware of the other, even if the habits of one are completely different from the others.

When you’re dealing with completely different cultures suddenly clashing, it’s completely different. You see, the people in each of the cultures are not aware that they’re having a cultural conflict. They just interpret other people’s actions according to the norms of their culture. Internally, at a gut level, well before thought gets involved, we assume everyone has the same basic assumptions we have, and therefore we judge other cultures as we judge our own.

Read the whole thing.

FAKE NEWS: Mattis Hasn’t Decided to Send 4K More Troops to Afghanistan.

A spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday pushed back against news reports that he’s already approved sending 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

“Secretary Mattis has made no decisions on a troop increase for Afghanistan,” Dana White, an assistant to Mattis and the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement.

White noted that Mattis in testimony to Congress through this week had repeatedly said that decisions on troop increases would await the presentation to President Donald Trump of a new strategy for Afghanistan that would be ready in mid-July.

The Associated Press on Thursday reported that Mattis as early as next week may announce that he supports deploying 4,000 more troops in response to the request of Army Gen. John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who had requested between 3,000 and 5,000 additional forces.

In her statement, White said that Trump had delegated authority to Mattis to set troop levels in Afghanistan, but any decision would have to await consultations with other government agencies, the Afghan government, NATO allies and other coalition members.

What happened to all those layers of editors and fact-checkers?

LOST IN A SEA OF FAKE NEWS: Roger L. Simon notes a grim milestone.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Money Savers for Your Summer Vacation.

BAD TIMING: Traumatized Tenants Near London Fire Threatened with Legal Action: ‘No Ball Games’ or ‘Anti-Social Behaviour’

ADVERTISING: The Original Most Interesting Man Is Back — In a Tequila ad.

Smart move. Tequila is almost always more interesting than beer — or at least the stories are.

HEH: Mike Rowe needs to do a “Dirty Jobs” episode about being Trump’s lawyer.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Atari Is Returning to the Hardware Business, CEO Says.

Atari’s last console, the Jaguar, came out nearly a quarter century ago, flopped, and was quickly abandoned. But the kid in me who never got an original Atari 2600 is hoping they succeed this time.

BRUCE BAWER: The Pride and Dignity of Living Under Two Flags.

FRED BARNES: Is Impeachment Deck Being Stacked Against Trump?

At the very least, the president will be on defense for months to come. He will be under scrutiny or attack by special counsel Robert Mueller, Senate and House committees, mobs of protesters, and the elite media. All the while the sword of impeachment will be hanging over him.

In theory, the appointment of Mueller as special counsel should be reassuring that the probe will be fair, objective, and nonpartisan. In his years as FBI director and as a Justice Department official, Mueller gained a reputation for honesty, integrity, and being a “straight-shooter.”

But already there are troubling signs. For openers, the history of such counsels—formerly known as special prosecutors—is not encouraging. Yet Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reacted to the first bit of pressure—chiefly from Democrats—and appointed Mueller. And this without much evidence of a crime to justify it.

The problem is that special counsels tend to expand their investigations beyond any underlying crime (if there is one) and keep going until they find someone to indict.

This morning Glenn wrote that we “increasingly have a Third World political class,” and this story does nothing but bolster his conclusion.

FUN FLASHBACK: DNC/Clinton Camp Consultants Dispatched Nutters to Provoke Trump Rally-Goers to Violence.

OH: The Virginia Shooting Isn’t About Bernie. It’s About the Right’s Embrace of Guns.

It’s always the object and never the person wielding it.

BEN RHODES: Trump’s Cuba Policy Will Fail.

Rhodes of course is famous (infamous?) for building an Obama Administration “echo chamber” in the American media to sell the Iran nuclear deal. Rhodes also personally insulted that same press, saying, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns… They literally know nothing.”

That The Atlantic should chose to host someone who admits to using and abusing the press reveals much about that publication’s standards.

PATRICK POOLE: Jihadist Arrests in EU Doubled Last Year, Rising for Third Year in a Row.

HMM: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein acknowledges he may need to recuse himself from Russia probe, sources say.

Those private remarks from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are significant because they reflect the widening nature of the federal probe, which now includes a preliminary inquiry into whether President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice when he allegedly tried to curtail the probe and then fired James Comey as FBI director.

Rosenstein, who authored an extensive and publicly-released memorandum recommending Comey’s firing, raised the possibility of his recusal during a recent meeting with Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand, the Justice Department’s new third-in-command, according to sources.

Although Rosenstein appointed a special counsel to lead the federal probe, he still makes the final decisions about resources, personnel and — if necessary — any prosecutions.

In the recent meeting with Brand, Rosenstein told her that if he were to recuse himself, she would have to step in and take over those responsibilities. She was sworn-in little more than a month ago.

I’m dubious of unnamed sources, but we’ll see if Brand steps in.

CLAIM: Solar Power Will Kill Coal Sooner Than You Think.

SPASIBO: Russia Claims It Has Killed Islamic State Leader al-Baghdadi.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a Russian strike in late May along with other senior group commanders.

There had been previous reports of al-Baghdadi being killed but they did not turn out to be true. The IS leader last released an audio on Nov. 3, urging his followers to keep up the fight for Mosul as they defend the city against a major offensive that began weeks earlier.

The spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition said in a statement Friday he could not confirm the Russian claim.

Maybe this time reports of his death will turn out not to have been greatly exaggerated.

SARAH HOYT: How We’re Losing the War to Save The Islamic World Part I: Saving the West.

There’s no way to excerpt from this one, so just read the whole thing.

GOVERNMENT GLUT: Subsidies Encourage Maine Farmers to Keep Growing Too Many Blueberries.

During a multi-year wild blueberry glut, government agencies have been using subsidies and grants to encourage Maine farmers to keep growing the crop. Too bad no one seems to want them. Maine has a glut of the berries, and now the governor of Maine hopes to help sell them off by spending $2.5 million on agricultural marketing.
…
A combination of falling prices, increased competition, and advances in production technology should have reduced the number of blueberry farmers. Yet, government intervention has caused a multi-year surplus. According to Bott, berry prices have plummeted: 100 million pounds sold for $1 per pound in 2011 but only 25-27 cents per pound in 2016.

Despite these low prices, Canada and Maine churned out a bumper crop of blueberries in 2016: 400 million pounds, almost double the typical 250 million pounds. Bott explained that much of the wild blueberry surplus comes from improved production technology, pollination, good fertilizer, and favorable weather.

Last year’s berry surplus prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to spend $13 million buying up some of the berries. A $50,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry helped fund marketing to public schools—the berries will now be served in 19 states.

The solution to a failed government program is always more government spending, in this followed by hectoring school kids into literally swallowing the results.

DREAM ON: Trump Will Allow ‘Dreamers’ to Stay in U.S., Reversing Campaign Promise.

The Department of Homeland Security announced late Thursday night that it would continue the Obama-era program intended to protect those immigrants from deportation and provide them work permits so they can find legal employment.

A fact sheet posted on the department’s website says immigrants enrolled in the 2012 program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, “will continue to be eligible” to renew every two years and notes that “no work permits will be terminated prior to their current expiration dates.”

Immigration rights activists, who have fiercely battled Mr. Trump’s travel ban and increased enforcement of other immigration laws, hailed the decision.

And:

The decision is a reversal from Mr. Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric during the campaign and is likely to disappoint some of the president’s most ardent supporters, who view program started by former President Barack Obama as an illegal grant of amnesty.

Indeed.

CONGRESSMAN HANK JOHNSON: Americans Need to Act Less Like ‘Animals’ in Political Discourse.

Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, was asked if there’s a course of action he would like to see Congress take in the aftermath of the incident.

“I think it really boils down to what’s in the heart of legislators. Do they care about the people they represent or do they care more about corporations getting people elected here? Do they care more about the dark money that can be used either for or against them in their election? Do they care more about that than the poor, the people who are on the low end of the spectrum, those who have been down for generations, those whose forefathers were down?” he asked.

“Do they care more about bringing more money to those who already have, or should they think about sharing prosperity to the have-nots? I think it really boils down to that. The members have to really start looking into their hearts. Are we here to grease our own palms and those of our neighbors and friends, or are we here to work for peace and prosperity, not just for ourselves, but for everybody?” he added.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it seems like he’s saying that the way to make the violence stop is to enact his agenda.

FLY INVISIBLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK: How F-22 Is Deconflicting U.S.-Russia Operations Over Syria.

Of course, the F-22 is not the only asset deconflicting the crowded skies over Centcom. The Air Force’s airborne command-and-control aircraft and high-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, as well as ground-based command-and-control forces, are also helping clear the area. But the stealth F-22’s ability to evade detection gives it a unique advantage in getting noncoalition players to cooperate, says Shell.

“It is easier to bring air dominance to bear if you know where the other aircraft are that you are trying to influence, and they don’t know where you are,” says Shell. “When other airplanes don’t know where you are, their sense of comfort goes down, so they have a tendency to comply more.”

People fear what they can’t see.

THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK: Don’t Blame Trump When ObamaCare Rates Jump.. “California’s insurance commissioner discovers an ‘uncertainty’ that eluded him last year.”

At best, not one of the California Insurance Commission’s nearly 1,400 employees thought to ask whether a federal court ruling stopping an estimated $7 billion to $10 billion in annual payments to insurers throughout the country would affect the state’s health-insurance market. At worst, Mr. Jones—a Democrat running for attorney general next year—deliberately ignored the issue to avoid exacerbating already-high premium increases that could have damaged Hillary Clinton’s fall campaign and consumers further down the road.

The California Insurance Commission is not alone in its “recent discovery” of uncertainty as a driver of premium increases. In April the left-liberal Center for American Progress published a paper claiming to quantify the “Trump uncertainty rate hike.” The center noted that the “mere possibility” of and end to cost-sharing payments would require insurers to raise premiums by hundreds of dollars a year.

Following insurers’ June 21 deadline, expect a raging blame game over next year’s premium increases.

The full repeal promised by virtually every Republican in every election since 2010 would sidestep this problem.