THE ROCKET’S RED GLARE: Oakdale Fire Ignites Fireworks Warehouse, Upending Fourth of July Plans.

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Gay Comedian Scott Thompson: Eliminate GLAAD. “The ‘Kids in the Hall’ alum still saved plenty of venom for another target, one that’s unexpected given his political leanings.”

HMM: Is This How Mamdani REALLY Won the NYC Democrat Mayoral Primary? “Lazer claims Mamdani’s ‘rizz’ — a Gen Z term that’s short for charisma — helped earn him what his campaign couldn’t afford to buy. That, and cracking TikTok’s algorithm.”

Reminder: TikTok is social malware.

THEY’RE JUST DOING THE JOBS THAT LOCAL GOVERNMENT WON’T DO: Four more Portland Antifa riot suspects federally charged. “This brings the total federally charged so far to 17, devastating the numbers Antifa need to attack the building night after night. The cases are not being dropped immediately. Dozens of local Antifa riot cases have also not been dropped by the moderate district attorney, Nathan Vasquez. (Vasquez, running on a law and order platform, won against radical leftist incumbent Mike Schmidt in November last year.)”

TO BE FAIR, THEY HATE THE MIDDLE CLASS:

Breaking … all House Democrats to vote on a 68% tax hike for the middle class. https://t.co/x8bRIqcVop

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) July 2, 2025

DESTROY? NAH: Meet the ‘Mercenaries’ Who Will Destroy the MAGA Movement.

HMM: Foxconn mysteriously tells Chinese workers to quit India and return to China.

Citing unspecified sources said to be familiar with the matter, the report claims that Foxconn has been telling Chinese workers to return, for about the last two months. So far over 300 Chinese workers have left, and one source claimed that most people remaining are support staff from Taiwan.

Neither Foxconn nor Apple have commented on the move.

It’s not known why Foxconn has done this, nor is it clear whether workers have been laid off or redeployed to the company’s facilities in China. The move, though, does follow Beijing officials reportedly working to prevent firms moving away from China.

Those officials are said to have been verbally encouraging China’s local governments and regulatory bodies to curb exports of equipment or technologies to India and Southeast Asia.

Overall, China has been making it harder for skilled labor to leave the country.

Looks like they’re making it more difficult for skilled labor to remain abroad, too.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: So I Installed That ICEBlock App on My Phone…

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Obama District Court Judge Rules California’s Non-Resident Concealed Carry Ban Violates the Second Amendment.

WINNING: Waffle House Proves That Trump’s Policies Are Egg-cellent. “The egg surcharge is officially off the menu. Thanks for understanding!”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX rocket sets reuse record on 500th Falcon 9 launch.

SpaceX launched its 500th Falcon 9 rocket on early this morning (July 2) and broke its own reuse record in the process.

The milestone mission lifted off with 27 Starlink satellites at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) on Wednesday from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The rocket entered space about nine minutes after leaving the ground and deployed the new units for SpaceX’s broadband internet network 55 minutes later.

On the way to orbit, the Falcon 9’s most-flown first stage, Booster 1067, separated from its upper stage and flew back to a landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 29th successful recovery for this stage, three more than any other in SpaceX’s fleet.

Impressive. Now, if they can just work the gremlins out of Starship…

COME SEE THE RACISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Race-Based Organ Transplants in Biden Era Flipped DEI to DIE.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: California moves to allow non-related adults to consent to medical care for minors, enroll them in school to support immigrant families.

A bill working its way through the California State Legislature would allow individuals not related to a child in the state to consent to medical care for a minor, potentially without informing the child’s legal guardians.

The bill, AB495, passed the Assembly on June 3 in a 62 to 7 vote. It is now in the state Senate, where hearings are set for July 1 and 7. Celeste Rodriguez introduced the legislation in the Assembly.

The bill amends existing law, which allows a caregiver 18 years of age or older who is related to the minor to sign a “caregiver’s authorization affidavit” and enroll the minor in school, as well as consent to medical care. Under the amendment, those persons who are authorized to sign a caregiver’s authorization affidavit are expanded to include a “nonrelative extended family member.”

More:

Over 300,OO0 children are unaccounted for after migrating to the US and California’s answer is to permit anyone 18 or older to fill out a one page affidavit to claim guardianship of the child. Schools cannot call CPS. No proof of kinship needed. Relative by marriage 5 times removed or a friend, neighbor (or trafficker) is just fine. Just swear that you tried to find the parents but couldn’t. And the kid is yours. No questions asked. No proof. No blood test. No paperwork. Just an affidavit. No wonder California is home to the most sex- trafficking kids. AB495 will pass, because Democrats place politics above children.

Is this a child trafficking legalization bill? Advanced grooming for “trans” kids? Both?

KRUISER: The Tedious Myth of Transgender ‘Invisibility.’

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Mamdani’s government grocery stores plan is based on an accounting error.

Here are the hard numbers: All in all, the city has given up about $30 million in tax revenue through this program. In the last six years, since FRESH got into full swing, the program has reduced revenue by about $20 million total, according to the city’s estimates. That is, it costs an average of $3.3 million per year. So, this program would take 42 years to cost the city the $140 million that Mamdani says “the city is set to spend” on it.

So why does Mamdani use that $140 million number?

He misread the city’s webpage.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation estimates that grocery stores have invested $140 million of their own money thanks to the FRESH program. Mamdani is counting the $140 million in private spending as government spending.

He’ll certainly try to make it into government spending.

MAYBE OUR BEST SECSTATE SINCE GEORGE SCHULTZ — AND HE’S STILL NEW IN THE JOB: Rubio: ‘Americans Should Not Pay Taxes to Fund Failed Governments In Faraway Lands.’

IT’S PROBABLY PAST TIME FOR ANOTHER CUT: Fed rate cut bets rise after Powell doesn’t rule out July. “Short-term interest-rate futures pointed to about a one-in-four chance of a rate cut by the Fed’s July 29-30 meeting after the comments at a central banking conference in Sintra, Portugal, up from less than one-in-five from earlier. A rate cut by September is seen as virtually certain, with two more rate cuts expected by yearend, based on market pricing.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: A Big Step Towards Getting Boys Out of Girls’ Locker Rooms. “The individuals who orchestrated the obliteration of so many young women’s dreams will never be held accountable, but this is still an important correction. The University of Pennsylvania put itself in the center of this controversy, no doubt hoping that the institution would forever be given a place of honor in whatever leftist Utopia that they thought the Biden Commie Cabal was leading them towards. It’s good that the school has to take its lumps, even if the mea culpa is a faceless one.”

THAT WOULD BE NICE: Operation Midnight Hammer—Can’t We All Just Be Proud Americans?

As a military aviator and veteran of more contingencies than I care to remember, I watched with bated breath and prayers in my heart on the evening of June 21st as Operation Midnight Hammer was unfolding on live TV. A 37 hour long mission, cramped cockpits, strapped to ejection seats, radio silence, with only a tiny toilet to take care of nature’s calls and a small cot to try and catch some shut eye, were just some of my thoughts.

But I went to sleep that night so proud to have been an American aviator—and an American citizen—proud of my nearly four decades of military service. Knowing what it takes to plan and flawlessly execute a mission of such scale and scope, at extreme ranges, over enemy territory, with incredible skill, precision, and courage, I saluted my fellow pilots and stood a bit taller, as a proud American Airman. What those Airmen, Guardians, Sailors, and Soldiers pulled off was nothing short of miraculous. No other country on planet earth could have done this—without a single casualty or mishap.

Yet waking up that next morning I found myself in a parallel universe. Rather than praise and pride, the airwaves were filled with bellyaching naysayers, all looking for a cloud in the silver lining….

I’m old enough to remember when Democrats like Tip O’Neil largely stood behind Ronald Reagan’s bombing of Libyan terror camps in 1986 — which makes me feel pretty old.

ICYMI: Forget ‘Go Woke, Go Broke’ — Jaguar Went Stupid Instead.

CONRAD BLACK: Democrats, Animated by Loathing of Trump, Are Driving Their Party to Self-Destruction.

As Mr. Trump refused to vanish like a dreadful meteor as had been predicted, and retained the support of scores of millions of Americans, the Democrats resorted to the final assault on the integrity of the system and deluged him with four ludicrous political criminal indictments. The perfidy of the prosecutors combined with the skepticism of the public; Mr. Trump was effectively acquitted by 78 million of his fellow citizens in a close but decisive election, despite a partisan stonewall in the national political media and a large Democratic advantage in fundraising.

Mr. Trump returned to office much more knowledgeable about Washington and how to adopt his comprehensive program to end the massive illegal invasion by mainly destitute and frequently criminal migrants, to strengthen the market economy, roll back the green terror, and define America’s national interests in the world and credibly provide for the defense of them.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s acceptance of sharp increases in defense spending and the American and Israeli destruction of the military and terrorism-supporting potential of Iran and moves to eliminate America’s trade deficit of over $1 trillion are important accomplishments. Last week’s rejection by the Supreme Court of the Democrats’ latest obstructionist wheeze of judge-shopping to notoriously liberal federal district judges and inducing them to purport to injunct federal policies, is another Trump victory.

The great Democratic party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and even up to a point Clinton, has given way to an unfeasible ragtag of superannuated tyros, influence peddlers, decayed servitors, and now completely unacceptable extremists personified by the likely nominee to be mayor of New York City, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, an economic Marxist who does not accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and expresses sympathy for calls to globalize the intifada.

Yet even a onetime DLC-style moderate like Clinton bent the knee for Mamdani.

GOOD LORD: 5th Grade Murder Plot Uncovered. “According to the police report, four students, who probably had been watching way too much ‘CSI’ rather than buckling down and studying their graphic novels, were accused of plotting to fatally stab a fellow fifth-grade student in the school’s bathroom.”

CROSSINGS ARE ALREADY SO LOW THAT THIS ALMOST SEEM LIKE OVERKILL: DoD Declares Rio Grande Defense Zone.

Then again, I’m a big fan of overkill.

GREAT NAME: Trump Excited to Open ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’

HE’S AN OLD-SCHOOL MARXIST: Mamdani and ‘fact checkers’ deny he is a Communist, but his own words say otherwise.

Seriously old school.