“WE WILL DECIDE OUR FUTURE”: You’ll Never Guess Who Just Made a Power Play on the Cover of Vogue.

THIS IS WHAT WINNING LOOKS LIKE:

BREAKING:

Javier Milei has disbanded the Ministry of Women and fired 85% of its employees.

The rest were redirected to work in the old Department of Gender Protection, which will now be renamed as the “Department of Family Protection”

🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/yWZugmCmHg

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 30, 2024

Plus: “The changes mean that the department will now help all people who are in abusive relationships, not just women.”

WAIT, WHAT? Philadelphia Inquirer Says Trump Should Drop Out After Debate.

OUCH: Record-High July 4th Cookout Costs: Inflation Hits the Backyard.

We’ve come a long way — in the wrong direction — since the Biden Cabal made this sad attempt at gaslighting in 2021.

Planning a cookout this year? Ketchup on the news. According to the Farm Bureau, the cost of a 4th of July BBQ is down from last year. It’s a fact you must-hear(d). Hot dog, the Biden economic plan is working. And that’s something we can all relish. pic.twitter.com/7h9qLauIbC

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 1, 2021

Related (From Ed): Choosing Inflation:

Interestingly, [British economist Stephen D. King] points out that it’s easier to solve hyperinflation, like the notorious Weimar Germany episode of the early 1920s, than moderate inflation like today’s. Because outright monetary destruction benefits few, the many who suffer are prepared to support radical strokes of currency reform, no matter what the short-term pain. No such consensus of public opinion supports determined action against mild inflation (especially, perhaps, in a presidential election year). For one thing, a slow rate of currency debasement benefits some debtors and a certain class of leveraged speculator. For another, Congress has charged the Fed not only with delivering price stability (as the Fed perversely defines that concept) but also with supporting maximum employment. Tight money, whatever its salutary effect on consumer prices, may temporarily wound the economy, and therefore the job market and the stock market. Perhaps [Jerome] Powell recalls some unnamed diplomat’s rueful quip about the Balkans: “Anything you do is going to be wrong, including nothing.”

Exit quote: “Inflation is a disease you choose, and we moderns have cast our ballots.”

FINALLY, SOME NEWS THAT (ALMOST) DOESN’T INVOLVE THE BIDEN CLAN: U.S. Bases in Europe on Second-Highest Alert for Terrorist Threat.

BREAKING: SCOTUS Rules on Texas, Florida Censorship Laws.

Stay tuned — the Trump immunity ruling is up shortly.

UPDATE: Supreme Court Rules on Trump Immunity Case.

(Bumped.)

HMM: EVs are giving new owners more headaches, and Tesla is a big reason why: J.D. Power study.

J.D. Power’s study tracks responses from nearly 100,000 purchasers and lessees of 2024 vehicles within the first 90 days of ownership, and for the first time in the study’s 38-year history, it incorporates repair visit data. Overall, internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles averaged 180 PP100 (or 180 problems per 100 vehicles), while battery electric vehicles (BEVs) averaged a whopping 266 PP100, 86 points higher than ICE vehicles.

Automakers have typically said that EVs are generally less problematic and require fewer repairs than ICE vehicles because they have a smaller number of parts and systems. However, J.D. Power’s study with newly incorporated repair data shows EVs, as well as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), require more repairs than gas-powered vehicles in all repair categories.

“Owners of cutting edge, tech-filled BEVs and PHEVs are experiencing problems that are of a severity level high enough for them to take their new vehicle into the dealership at a rate three times higher than that of gas-powered vehicle owners,” wrote Frank Hanley, senior director of auto benchmarking at J.D. Power, in the study.

I’m so old, I remember when TCO was supposed to be EV’s big advantage.

NOT JUST THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY, OF COURSE, BUT THEY HAVE BEEN HIT PARTICULARLY HARD: TV Host: Dem Policies ‘Devastate’ Restaurant Industry. “The host/executive producer of TV show ‘Bar Rescue’ is calling out how destructive Democrat policies are for the restaurant industry, urging voters to remember this crisis when they go to the polls.”

THEY ALL KNEW: Top aides shielded Biden from staff, but couldn’t hide the debate.

Current and former White House aides are feeling whiplash — and now questioning whether Biden could fulfill a second term.

“It’s time for Joe to go.” That’s what Chandler West, the White House’s deputy director of photography from January 2021 to May 2022, wrote in an Instagram story after the debate.

“I know many of these people and how the White House operates. They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago,” West wrote, according to screenshots obtained by Axios.

Reached by phone, West said he wrote the post because “the debate was not the first bad day, and it’s not gonna be the last.” He declined to comment further.
The president and his team have acknowledged Biden had a bad night but said he had a cold.

Zoom in: Biden’s behavior stunned many in the White House in part because Biden’s closest aides — often led by Jill Biden’s top aide, Anthony Bernal, and deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini — took steps early in his term to essentially rope off the president.

They roped him off in the White House for the same reason they roped him off during the campaign four years ago — because they knew he was unfit then. And he’s clearly less fit now.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: MSM Hacks Are Just as Guilty of Elder Abuse as Jill Biden. “The deluded media lapdogs have yet to come to grips with the fact that they don’t have the power in the American conversation that they used to. They believe that they can turn on a dime and no one will notice because they will tell the public what to think.”

BLUE STATE BLUES: State Farm seeking 30% rate hike for CA homeowners.

Many California homeowners are concerned about their home insurance, and that anxiety ratcheted up on Friday when State Farm requested one of its biggest rate increases ever, a sign they may be struggling financially.

“It’s critical to understand that nothing changes today for State Farm policyholders, said Michael Soller, spokesperson for the California Department of Insurance.

State Farm is asking for a 30% rate increase next year on the heels of a recent rate hike of almost 20% as they dropped many policyholders.

They are the largest residential homeowners insurers in California, insuring 1 in 5 homes.

And the insurance company is requesting a 52% increase for renters and 36% for condo owners, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

It’s been years and years since the median California income would buy a median California home and today’s news will just squeeze the middle class — or what’s left of it — that much harder.

THIS ISN’T SHOCKING AT ALL: Democrat Voters Are Making a Shocking Admission. What Does it Mean for the Trump Campaign? “Ordinary Democrat voters themselves are now dropping all pretense of caring about the candidate and admitting they’re voting for the machine.”

THAT’S A BOLD TAKE, FRUM. LET’S SEE IF IT PAYS OFF: Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform.

Most lefties have moved past denial and are well into anger or even bargaining. But not David Frum.

IT’S EITHER LAUGH OR CRY: This Post-Debate Memo From the Biden Campaign Is Comedy Gold.

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

Wow. This is apparently what was supposed to be a STATIC FIRE TEST today of a Tianlong-3 first stage by China's Space Pioneer. That's catastrophic, not static. Firm was targeting an orbital launch in the coming months. https://t.co/BY9MgJeE7A pic.twitter.com/L6ronwLW1N

— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 30, 2024

More: Chinese rocket static-fire test results in unintended launch and huge explosion. “Space Pioneer was conducting its test as a buildup to an orbital launch of the Tianlong-3, which is benchmarked against the SpaceX Falcon 9, in the coming months.”

MATT MARGOLIS’ WEEKEND UPDATE: A Big Week for the 2024 Presidential Election.

NOW THAT EVERYONE HAS HAD A CHANCE TO SLEEP AND CHILL OUT AFTER THE DEBATE: Polymarket bettors have Trump as the three-to-one favorite to win in November.

Please remember two things. The first is that Michelle Obama is still outperforming RFK Jr by two-to-one, for whatever that’s worth. The second is not to get cocky — but do enjoy this moment.

NEXT COMES ANGER: Everyone Knows Now.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China hops closer to reusable rockets.

The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), part of China’s apparatus of state-owned aerospace companies, has conducted the country’s highest altitude launch and landing test so far as several teams chase reusable rocket capabilities, Space News reports. A 3.8-meter-diameter (9.2-foot) test article powered by three methane liquid-oxygen engines lifted off from the Gobi Desert on June 23 and soared to an altitude of about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) before setting down successfully for a vertical propulsive touchdown on landing legs at a nearby landing area. SAST will follow up with a 70-kilometer (43.5-mile) suborbital test using grid fins for better control. A first orbital flight of the new reusable rocket is planned for 2025.

Lots of players … If you don’t exclusively follow China’s launch sector, you should be forgiven for being unable to list all the companies working on new reusable rockets. Late last year, a Chinese startup named iSpace flew a hopper rocket testbed to an altitude of several hundred meters as part of a development program for the company’s upcoming partially reusable Hyperbola 2 rocket. A company named Space Pioneer plans to launch its medium-class Tianlong 3 rocket for the first time later this year. Tianlong 3 looks remarkably like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and its first stage will eventually be made reusable. China recently test-fired engines for the government’s new Long March 10, a partially reusable rocket planned to become China’s next-generation crew launch vehicle. These are just a few of the reusable rocket programs in China.

SpaceX does need competitors to stay innovative — I just wish there were more here and fewer in China.

AI MICHAELS: NBC’s Olympics Coverage May Have Jumped the Shark With This Stunt.

THE ONLY NEWS IS THAT NOW THEY’RE DISCUSSING IT OPENLY: Democrats Discuss Replacing Biden on Presidential Ticket.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: The Great Big Monster Fire Truck That Could. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news and this week we have the Florida Man… er, Woman… no, Man who tried to burn down a motel, a steal of a monster truck, and the mystery of whether Texas Woman meant to steal that corpse.”

BIDEN PUMPED THE ECONOMY WITH TRILLIONS IN FUNNY-MONEY BUT IT MIGHT ALREADY BE RUNNING OUT OF JUICE: US weekly jobless claims, equipment spending data point to slowing economy.

WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT KNOW AND WHO TOLD HIM? CNN Host: Biden Knew ‘Every One of These Questions Was Coming’ and Still Blew the Debate.

DAVID AXELROD: Biden Is The Nominee Of The Democratic Party, ‘This Isn’t The 60s.’

UPDATE: A friend comments:

Democrats simply did not accept the result of November 2016. Since then, every piece of their power has been leveraged for short-term political gain through elections in 2018, 20, and 22, and they have incredibly sustained their political power at the cost of discrediting the lion’s share of the institutions they control and upon which the nation once depended.

Until 15 hours ago, those institutions were still gaslighting us that Joe Biden was in tip-top shape.

Now even the densest people know they lied.