BREAKING: SCOTUS Punts Decision on Idaho Pro-Life Law.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (UK EDITION): Britain Spent Millions to Send Migrants to Africa. So Far, Just Two Have Gone.

Two years ago, the British government decided to spend big to outsource a migration problem.

To deter migrants seeking asylum from illegally entering the country, it announced a radical plan: Those smuggled on makeshift dinghies to British shores would be sent to Rwanda, a small country in central Africa, where they would remain. The U.K. government handed Rwanda a £120 million (about $150 million) down payment and told it to get ready to host thousands of potential refugees.

Shortly after, Hope Hostel, a neatly kept yellow-fronted hotel in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, was rented out with British taxpayer funds to accommodate the expected planeloads of asylum seekers. Hotel manager Ismael Bakina and his team of 40 have been keeping busy ever since, changing the sheets on 100 double beds weekly, trimming decorative pot shapes into the bushes that adorn the hotel’s entrance and mowing the lawn on its mini-soccer pitch.

But on a recent day the beds at Hope Hostel were untouched. The suggestion box at the reception desk sat empty. No one has yet come to stay. “We are still waiting,” Bakina said, standing near a sign that reads: “Come as a guest, leave as a friend.”

No one may ever arrive. The U.K. government’s plan—criticized by some as inhumane, praised by others as a pragmatic response to a global migration crisis—has faced logistical, political and legal hurdles. So far, it’s been a huge waste of money. Just two migrants have volunteered to go to Rwanda after being paid £3,000 by the British state.

“Volunteered” is just one of several problems with Britain’s plan.

THIS CERTAINLY DOESN’T MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MOSCOW IS WINNING: North Korea to Send ‘Cannon Fodder’ Troops to Fight in Ukraine, What Could Go Wrong?

ANALYSIS: TRUE. “I don’t think there is any chance in the world that Biden will be replaced. He is far and away the best at giving democrat voters what they need.”

Biden lies. And he performs his lies on a level that not even AOC or Newsom could ever possibly dream of doing. He hits the whisper and hits the angry yell every single time. He creates the straw man and passionately knocks it down. “They are going to end social security but I won’t let it happen. I will always be here for you.” He accuses Republicans of doing exactly what he and his party is doing and he doesn’t ever flinch.

Only Biden could spend 2020 campaigning on opening the border, on not deporting anyone, spend three years ignoring the problem, and then spend this year blaming it on Trump. That is not as easy to do as people think. Only Biden could look into the camera and claim that inflation was at 9% when he took office. The average sleazy politician can’t do what Biden does. Even the worst politicians have some limits.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: ‘Conservative’ Supreme Court Paves Superhighway to Totalitarianism. “Conservatives are back in familiar, ‘With friends like these…’ territory. Painfully familiar, I should say. The erosion of faith in our institutions has been, put mildly, depressing. It just got worse, and greatly raised the already sky-high stakes for the 2024 presidential election. Some of the justices who conservatives hoped would be friendlies weren’t so friendly yesterday.”

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Under Biden Administration, Border Patrol Officers Pressured To Allow Border Crossing Without Vetting. “The June 7 report, authored by Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, said that supervisors at multiple land ports of entry pushed Border Patrol officers to only question the drivers of vehicles entering the United States and not passengers. Officers were instructed not to use ‘Simplified Arrival,’ a biometric tool used by the DHS to ‘identify criminal warrants, national security concerns, or border crossing history, before admitting [individuals] into the country.’ The report further noted that ‘DHS will remain at risk of admitting dangerous persons into the country who may pose threats to public safety and national security.'”

YEAH, THIS ONE HURT: ‘Gut Punch’: Free Speech Lovers Lament SCOTUS Ruling.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘It’s All Happening Again.’ The Supply Chain Is Under Strain.

Stephanie Loomis had hoped that the chaos besieging the global supply chain was subsiding. The floating traffic jams off ports. The multiplying costs of moving freight. The resulting shortages of goods. All of this had seemed like an unpleasant memory confined to the Covid-19 pandemic.

No such luck.

As head of ocean freight for the Americas at Rhenus Logistics, a company based in Germany, Ms. Loomis spends her days negotiating with international shipping carriers on behalf of clients moving products and parts around the globe. Over the last few months, she has watched cargo prices soar as a series of disturbances have roiled the seas.

Late last year, Houthi rebels in Yemen began firing on ships entering the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal, a vital artery for vessels moving between Asia, Europe and the East Coast of the United States. That prompted ships to avoid the waterway, instead moving the long way around Africa, lengthening their journeys by as much as two weeks.

Meanwhile: Let’s Kick Off Summer With Another Losing War! “As an unapologetic booster of Western Civilization, I’d remind you with all the bitterness I can muster that the Suez Canal was built by Westerners to serve Western interests, and now we can barely use it, thanks to medieval pirates — the likes of which we used to know how to deal with.”

EUROJUSTICE [VIP]: German Teen Raped by Immigrants, Woman Sentenced to Prison for ‘Insulting’ One.

PAULA BOLYARD: The Most Important Supreme Court Case You’ve Probably Never Heard Of. “As I write this, we await the Supreme Court’s ruling on the so-called Chevron deference (or doctrine). It concerns the power of federal agencies to interpret laws and promulgate them into regulations that affect nearly every American in one way or another. It’s not sexy, but it could end up being the most significant case the court will rule on this year—maybe in any year.”

A VERY PERSONAL REQUEST FROM BEARING ARMS’ CAM EDWARDS:

Update on Miss E and a request for your help in giving her something to smile about.

It's been eight years since the docs first discovered a mass in her lungs, and she's been fighting like hell ever since. Her last scans showed the tumors are growing once again, so next week…

— Cam Edwards (@CamEdwards) June 26, 2024

I voted.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT INFLATION WAS OVER ALREADY: Good Luck Trying to Rent an Apartment in Biden’s Economy.

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: McDonald’s points to soft customer demand for plant-based food options.

Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) traded lower on Wednesday after McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) U.S. President Joe Erlinger highlighted at a business forum that the restaurant chain’s plant-based burger tests failed in the San Francisco and Dallas markets.

Erlinger said customers simply were not showing strong demand for plant-based options on the company’s menu at participating locations. Expectations have already been dialed back for Beyond Meat (BYND) and Impossible Foods (IMPF) due to similar feedback from other restaurant companies.

If McDonald’s can’t sell fake meat in San Francisco, the fad might finally be ending.

ACTUALLY, YOU WILL: You’ll Never Believe Who Biden Is Using Now to Buy Votes in November.

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK:

Two Falcon Heavy side cores landing after NASA's GOES-U launch. pic.twitter.com/AGyvted7Ye

— Star✦Fleet Tours (@StarFleetTours) June 25, 2024

Watching these landings never gets old — these twin landings, doubly so.

ATHENA THORNE HAS THE RECEIPTS: All Three of Trump’s Debate Opponents Have Compared Him to Hitler

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s Chang’e 6 lunar probe returns to Earth with first-ever samples from far side of the moon.

GOVERNMENT IS NOT ONLY GREEDIER AND STUPIDER THAN YOU IMAGINE, IT IS GREEDIER AND STUPIDER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE: Denmark Taxes Cow Farts Because Everything Is Absurd.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: De Niro, Charlamagne Perfectly Highlight Trump Derangement Syndrome. “It’s the mid-level stages where things get truly worrying.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Denver Trans Illegal Immigrant Makes a Fatally Bad Decision

WELL, WHAT ELSE HAS HE GOT? Outside advisers urging Biden team to focus on Trump – not first-term record.

CNN’s cranked the denial in this piece up to 11:

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with the campaign, four sources close to the White House said they’ve urged the Biden camp to go on offense on the economy, using the time on the debate stage to challenge Trump’s cozy relationship with corporate America and the inflationary nature of his proposed policies. Biden and Trump square off in the first presidential debate at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday live on CNN.

The behind-the-scenes warnings echo concerns raised by Biden’s longtime aide, Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff who is also prepping the president for Thursday’s debate in lasagna-fueled sessions at Camp David. Earlier this year, Klain reportedly remarked to a private crowd that Biden was spending too much time praising bridges that were being built instead of connecting with voters. The White House at the time denied that Klain’s views were a departure from their strategy.

“Klain gets it,” one of the sources said of the former chief of staff, who is taking vacation from his job as Airbnb’s chief legal officer to return to a role as debate coach.

That’s a departure for Biden, a lifelong politician who has grown accustomed to seeking credit when he feels credit is due, especially as the list of accomplishments has grown longer. His frustration when he feels that credit is withheld can be apparent.

Then there’s this: “’He wants the credit, but it’s not working,’ one top Democrat, who recently shared these concerns with the campaign, said of Biden.”

Why that might be is not addressed.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Welcome to the Second Thirty Years’ War.

BREAKING: SCOTUS Rules on COVID-Era Social Media Censorship.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A BAD IDEA: All across America, kids go to bed with a story, a kiss, and a potent dose of melatonin. Is there anything wrong with that?

The negative impact of melatonin on kids’ health remains more of an amorphous possibility than a concrete inevitability, which partly explains why so many well-informed parents and caregivers continue to ignore or downplay negative headlines. The American Academy of Pediatrics notes somewhat opaquely that “there are concerns about how it might affect a child’s growth and development” when used at length. “We just don’t know for sure what the impact is, and that’s the problem,” says Lauren Hartstein, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder Sleep and Development Lab, who adds that there’s a shortage of research on the long-term effects of regular melatonin use by children and that the research that does exist has been fairly inconclusive. Participants in a 2018 study reported delayed puberty after taking the hormone for an average of seven years as children. In animal studies, melatonin has been shown to suppress the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which stimulates the production of other hormones that help the ovaries and testicles mature and function. The body’s nocturnal secretion of melatonin tends to drop throughout childhood, paralleling the progression of sexual maturity. Raise the former, and you may be slowing the latter. And a 2022 study concluded that “whether or not melatonin could play an important role in the pubertal onset in humans is still an open question.”

The contents inside the gummy bottles are also a question mark, though the packaging tells a straightforward and cheerful story. Olly, which makes kids’ sleep gummies, as well as gummies made for kids to “chillax” and lollipops for a “calm mood,” packages its sleep gummies in square jars — the word sleep is in all caps, many font sizes bigger than the list of actual ingredients. Nature’s Bounty, meanwhile, calls its Kids Sleep Jelly Beans “a fun and delicious way to promote peaceful sleep in children.”

My kids have been lucky — so have I, for that matter — because they’re both good sleepers. But I’ve found the best way to ensure a good night’s sleep is to wear them out, not melatonin them down.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Feds Allow Crime, Fudge Numbers, Then Declare Guns a ‘Public Health Crisis.’ “In what I assure you will result in yet another assault on the 2nd Amendment, the freedom-despising, gun-grabbing pinkos in the federal government have declared so-called ‘gun violence’ a public health crisis.”