MICHAEL WALSH: Trump to Germany — Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.

NEWS YOU HOPEFULLY DON’T NEED TO USE: The Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool has been updated for WannaCry.

SALENA ZITO: Promised Land Lost.

Only ghosts and shadows haunt the empty halls of Sheaffer Pens, the onetime giant pen manufacturer on H Street.

Its locked doors and worn brick stand like weary sentinels along the banks of the Mississippi in this struggling southeast Iowa river-and-railroad town.

Rust weeps through the paint on the window frames; the once magnificent illuminated-letters sign with the trademark white dot that faced Illinois is gone, no longer serving as a gatekeeper for its fortress of employees.

At its peak, it employed more than 2,500 people in a town of 14,000; nearly everyone here had someone in their family who worked there — sometimes, two or three or more.

By the time they were bought out by French-owned BIC in 2003, the 40 employees left in the iconic company’s pen-point assembly department were told it was only a matter of time before the operation would be moved to a third-party manufacturer in Asia; Slovakia would become the home for customer service, purchasing, warehousing and distribution work, as well as packaging and quality control.

What made Sheaffer special?

Ingenuity.

Read the whole thing.

It’s a sad story, and one repeated in too many town across the nation. But relying on fountain pen sales in the second decade of the 21st Century might indicate that the ingenuity had run dry.

DHS SECRETARY: Intelligence Leaks Are ‘Darn Close To Treason’

They certainly aren’t much short of “attempted coup.”

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Loosen Polygraph Requirements to Speed Up Hiring of More Border Patrol

GOOD MORNING: It’s a Memorial Day edition of Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

ALAN DERSCHOWITZ: Russia Probe Sounds Like Stalin’s Secret Police.

HMM: Kushner Proposed Communicating with Kremlin Through Russian Systems.

YOU MAY NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG, BUT THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG IS INTERESTED IN YOU: U.S. Soccer Silent on Whether Religious Players Can Opt Out of Wearing LGBT Jerseys.

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

NEWS YOU CAN USE: This is what it’s like to be struck by lightning.

SHE-WOMEN MAN-HATERS CLUB: Salon’s Misandrist Assault On Critics Of Women-Only ‘Wonder Woman’ Premiere.

FLASHBACK:

OUR FRIENDS THE TURKS: Turkey seeks arrest of NBA star Kanter.

Turkey issued an arrest warrant on Friday for Turkish NBA star Enes Kanter, accusing him of being a member of a “terror group”, a pro-government newspaper reported.

A judge issued the arrest warrant after an Istanbul prosecutor opened an investigation into Kanter’s alleged “membership of an armed terrorist organisation”, Sabah daily reported.

Kanter, 25, a centre for Oklahoma City Thunder, previously backed Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen in Twitter postings after an attempted putsch last July aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey accuses US-based Gulen of ordering the failed coup and refers to the movement as the “Fethullah Terrorist Organisation” (FETO). Gulen denies the claims.

We’ll see if Erdogan’s new powers stretch as far as Oklahoma City.

VIDEO FLASHBACK: When a Dem Congressman Attacked a Student Journalist, the Media Didn’t Bat an Eye.

FOR STRCITLY PEACEFUL PURPOSES: Iran says it has built third underground ballistic missile factory.

Or maybe this one should have been filed under “Thanks, Obama.”

TRUMP’S RAMADAN MESSAGE: Holiday Can Strengthen Muslims’ Resolve to Battle Terrorists’ ‘Perverted Ideology’

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to launch your own beer brand for $5,000.

Although I can’t help but think of an old joke I first heard in Napa. “How do you make a small fortune in wine? Start with a huge fortune…”

YOU DON’T SAY: Comcast customer satisfaction drops 6% after TV price hikes.

BUT OF COURSE: De Blasio Confirms He Will March In Parade Honoring Puerto Rican Terrorist.

WHY ARE LEFTWING UNIVERSITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF INTOLERANCE AND VIOLENCE? Police Tell Prof He’s in Danger for Not Participating in Campus ‘No Whites’ Day.

BANNING LOU REED: The Cultural Revolution Eats Its Fathers.

I wrote about the left’s counteraction to Reed just a few days ago.

S.C. SERIAL KILLER: Todd Kohlhepp pleads guilty in seven South Carolina slayings.

Todd Kohlhepp admitted his role in the deaths of seven people less than seven months after he was arrested when investigators checking on a missing couple rescued a woman “chained like a dog” inside a shipping container on his Spartanburg County property. “48 Hours” investigated the case in the episode, “Buried Truth.”

The woman, Kala Brown, had been raped and locked inside the container for more than two months after Kohlhepp shot and killed her boyfriend, authorities said. Charles David Carter, 32, was the last of the seven murder victims.

CBS News does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Brown has spoken publicly about her ordeal. She said on the “Dr. Phil” show in February that Kohlhepp raped her daily during her captivity and bragged that he was good at killing, claiming that his victims numbered nearly 100.

The plea deal keeps Kohlhepp from facing execution, but the story doesn’t say whether it includes cooperating on identifying any victims beyond the seven he pleaded guilty to killing.

PUTTING THE “C” IN GENOCIDE: Hunter College Offers ‘Abolition of Whiteness’ Class.

ELI LAKE: Trump’s Allies, Convicted of High Crimes Without a Trial.

Flynn has yet to be charged with a crime. If there is evidence that he betrayed his country, it has yet to be presented. None of the many news stories about Flynn’s contacts with Russians and Turks has accused him of being disloyal to his country. And yet a decorated general has already been tried and convicted in the press.

None of this would be happening without some very dirty business from the national security state. It’s a two-pronged campaign. First there are the whispers. Anonymous officials describe in detail elements of an ongoing investigation: intercepts of conversations between Russian officials about how they could influence Flynn during the transition; monitored phone calls about how Flynn had lied about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to his colleagues; how Flynn failed to disclose his payment from the Russian propaganda network on his official forms. This prong of the campaign is at least factual, but the facts don’t speak for themselves.

The second and more insidious element here is the innuendo. Yates never says Flynn was a spy for Russia. But her public remarks to Congress and the media appear designed to leave that impression. As she told Lizza, Flynn was “compromised by the Russians.” This sounds far more sinister than Flynn’s explanation when he left his post in February. Back then he said he had forgotten elements of his discussion with the Russian ambassador that covered a wide range of issues.

Yates’s innuendo is nothing compared to that dropped by former CIA director John Brennan.

Read the whole thing and remember: The Deep State does what it wills.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Gasoline prices ahead of Memorial Day are higher than 2016, but second lowest since 2009.

KARL HERCHENROEDER: Dem Bill Would Require ‘Good Cause’ for FBI Director Dismissal.

How many more good causes would Comey have required?