THE NEWS HERE IS THAT THERE’S STILL OIL LEFT TO RAID: Biden to Raid Strategic Oil Reserves Again in Desperate Bid to Lower Gas Prices Before Election.

KRUISER: Of Course the White House Correspondents’ Association Is Working With the Dems.

As most of you know, I have been writing professionally about liberal bias in the mainstream media for most of the 21st century. It had bothered me for my first 15 or so years as a conservative activist (I started during the Reagan administration), so I finally started venting about it online when even getting online was an adventure.

It was a rather fortunate area of focus for me to choose, as I will never run out of material.

Back to the Dems’ family squabble. During one of his many unfortunate off-leash appearances last week, Joe Biden bristled at a reporter’s question, and slurred something about wishing that the reporters would “play by the rules a little bit.”

Oh-oh, Grandpa just let out a secret.

Read the whole thing.

DON’T GET COCKY BUT DO POP SOME CORN: CNN’s Enten: We’re Watching Historic Numbers Of Black Voters Under 50 Giving Up On Democratic Party. “Look at Black voters under the age of 50. Holy cow, folks, Joe Biden was up by 80 points among this group back at this point in 2020. Look at where that margin has careened down towards. It’s just — get this — 37 points. That lead has dropped by more than half.”

BIDENOMICS IS WORKING: Does $42 Billion for Zero Miles of High-Speed Internet Sound Like a Lot?

You’ve read more than once right here at PJ Media about the $7.5 billion that Presidentish Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act put on the table as an inducement to build a network of 500,000 EV charging stations up and down the nation’s interstate highways, and about how few have been built. Eight, at last count.

Well, that was a bargain compared to today’s boondoggle.

Much more at the link.

REMEMBER THIS, THE NEXT TIME BIDEN OR AUSTIN TELLS YOU HOW MUCH THEY SUPPORT THE TROOPS: Another Classic DoD Equation: LAB-GROWN MEAT + US Troops = Captive Guinea Pigs Again. “The Progressive Wokesters, who see the members of our military as one big lab rat colony, are here to tell you they’ve got a world to save, no time to do it, and might as well make use of available and basically rights-free subjects to see how it goes.”

PAULA BOLYARD SPEAKS A HARD TRUTH: The Real Reason Johnny Can’t Read: Bad Parenting.

FLASHBACK: Retired WNBA Player Reveals She Was Bullied for Being Straight. “Wiggins, a four-time All-American at Stanford, asserts she was targeted for harassment from the time she was drafted by Minnesota because she is heterosexual and a nationally popular figure, of whom many other players were jealous.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems’ 2024 Platform — Your Reality Is Wrong, Stupid Voters. “It’s not just the sobering reality of Biden’s behavior that the public is being told to ignore, it’s the harsh reality of the consequences of his policies too.”

AXIOS: Biden backstory: Runs darkened by family trauma, addiction.

To my eyes, the Axios report reads like an attempt to generate sympathy for Biden, and it doesn’t contain much you probably didn’t already know. There is something newsworthy in the lead, however: “The recent courtroom revelations about the turmoil in Joe Biden’s family have left some of his aides torn about whether he should have run for president at all.”

White House senior staff meeting this morning going to be lit, folks. pic.twitter.com/5IGo8oXadI

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) June 17, 2024

Indeed.

HMM: This Could Be The Biggest News of the 2024 Campaign Yet. “There is no scenario where Trump wins Iowa by 18 points but loses Wisconsin.”

HMM: China Property Drag Is Getting Worse, Factory Output Disappoints.

Among a slew of data published on Monday, analysts latched onto the bad news from the property market, which has been the biggest drag on China’s economic growth. Declines in real estate investment and home prices both gathered pace last month.

Industrial production rose 5.6% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said, slowing from April and missing the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Retail sales offered some encouragement, picking up more than expected, but Chinese shoppers remain far from recovering their pre-pandemic mojo.

The numbers add up to a still-weak recovery, most economists said — likely requiring more action from Beijing to bolster consumer demand and tackle imbalances, if this year’s 5% growth target is to be met. That could take the form of stepped-up government spending and heightened efforts by the central bank to put a floor under housing markets and get credit flowing.

“The most disappointing in May’s data is probably that property sales barely saw any improvements even after so many supportive measures,” said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas SA.

It isn’t that Beijing’s troubles aren’t serious — because they are. But not serious enough to detail the country’s unprecedented peacetime naval expansion.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Contrary Take: Maybe Trump Was Right to Accept Biden’s Sundowner Debate Rules. “They’ll try to shut him up. They’ll try to trip him up with questions like, ‘How can America trust you when your record shows that time and again, you would feed transgender people to feral hogs on a pay-per-view channel you owned, and now you want to spend taxpayer money to have SpaceX launch your political opponents into the Sun as part of your program to destroy our precious democracy?'”

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: The Pursuit of Excellence.

There are 141 men and women in the Blue Angels unit, but only 6 of them fly the iconic blue and yellow F-18s. The rest are support staff… everything from the Doctor to the Crew Chiefs who make sure the jets are ready and safe to fly, to the mechanics and the supply officers who load the unit’s gear onto the C-130 Hercules nicknamed “Fat Albert.” These latter are not the stars of the show, but you wouldn’t know it to watch them work. The pride of being part of an elite unit where success depends on everyone… everyone… pursuing excellence in everything they do is evident in the smiles on their faces, the exuberant high-fives and the choreographed celebrations that come with the completion of even the smallest tasks.

Watch the men and women in the unit as they say goodbye to one another at the end of a successful season and you’ll see what being a part of an institution where excellence is the minimum acceptable standard does to the human spirit. Everyone, from the “Boss” to the most junior supply officer seems to radiate joy.

In The Blue Angels, we see a world where corrosive concepts like Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) have not been able to gain a foothold, because they are unnecessary. Institutions like The Blue Angels, where the only thing that stands between the pilots and death is everyone on the team performing at the absolute top of their game, don’t need DEI because when you take only the very best, you wind up with a team that “looks like America.” Because that’s what America is and that’s who Americans are.

DEI would destroy the Blue Angels because it creates distrust, that is its very nature. And as the Blue Angels’ Commander points out during a segment on crew selection, when you’re flying a cluster of fighter aircraft at near supersonic speeds only twelve inches apart, no one cares about gender or skin color… they only care about two things… “are you the best?” and “can I trust you?”

Demand excellence and you’ll get it.

IF YOU STRIKE HIM DOWN, HE SHALL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE: Politico Thinks They Have a Bad Post-Verdict Poll for Trump. They Don’t.

DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH:

Foreigners committed 77% of solved rape cases in Paris in 2023, according to data from the Paris Police.

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 16, 2024

Full story here.

Related: One-third of primary school children in Vienna are Muslims, overtaking Catholics as largest religious group.

Colonialism, straight up.

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: The California Exodus May Be Just Beginning.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China takes small step towards the moon with rocket test.

A Long March 10 first stage test article was fired in Fengtai district of Beijing, Friday, June 14. The stage started normally, operated steadily, and shut down on schedule, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) stated via its WeChat channel.

The test was conducted by the Institute 101 of the Sixth Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s main space contractor.

The successful test is a step towards China’s goal of putting astronauts on the moon before 2030. NASA currently aims to land humans on the moon once more with Artemis III no earlier than 2026.

“No earlier” is right.

WE’VE BEEN GETTING A LOT OF “WHITE HOUSE DENIES” STORIES LATELY: White House Denies Biden Froze at Hollywood Fundraiser.

POSTMODERN MANNERS: Brides and grooms are cracking down on wedding guests and publicly shaming those who don’t comply with their gift registries and dress codes.

Desires for picture-perfect weddings, bachelor and bachelorette parties, or baby showers have led to skyrocketing costs and increased stress around planning for new parents or engaged couples. But now, guests are feeling the pressure as well.

Recently, brides, grooms, and expectant parents have gotten more particular about what they’d like for their guests to wear and the gifts they’d be happy to receive, and they’re becoming increasingly more demanding of their expectations on their special day.

Taking things a step further, some are also publicly shaming their guests on forums like TikTok and Reddit.

One bride berated a guest for sending her $100 on Venmo a few days after the wedding, saying it felt a “bit disrespectful,” according to a Reddit thread, which also said the guest had been late to the wedding. Out of disappointment, the bride sent back the money, saying she had expected more.

Think twice before you RSVP.

I’VE READ THIS STORY BEFORE AND IT NEVER ENDS WELL: Suppose They Threw an Arms Race But Only One Side Showed Up. “The seeds of World War III — which ended with America’s humiliating retreat from everything west of Hawaii in the Pacific and recognition of Communist Chinese hegemony over the region — were planted in the 1990s.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: The 8 gun bills passed by Colorado’s legislature this year and signed into law by the governor.

There’s a lot of infringement going on here in Colorado.

ATHENA THORNE: As a Woman, I Deeply Resent Being Put at Risk From the Democrats’ Imported Monsters.

THE EV BUBBLE IS DEFLATING: Used EV price crash keeps getting deeper with ‘premium’ brand idea history.

The decline has been dramatic over the past year. In June 2023, average used EV prices were over 25% higher than used gas car prices, but by May, used EVs were on average 8% lower than the average price for a used gasoline-powered car in U.S. In dollar terms, the gap widened from $265 in February to $2,657 in May, according to an analysis of 2.2 million one to five year-old used cars conducted by iSeeCars. Over the past year, gasoline-powered used vehicle prices have declined between 3-7%, while electric vehicle prices have decreased 30-39%.

“It’s clear used car shoppers will no longer pay a premium for electric vehicles,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer stated in an iSeeCars report published last week. Electric power is now a detractor in the consumer’s mind, with EVs “less desirable” and therefore less valuable than traditional cars, he said.

The gap between used luxury brands and EVs has widened, too. Used BMW prices exceed prices for comparable, all-electric, Tesla vehicles by a significant amount, according to iSeeCars. A Tesla Model 3 cost $2,635 more than a BMW 3 Series in May 2023, but by May of this year, was priced over $4,800 less than the 3 Series.

I assume no one at CNBC noticed any irony in filing this report under the network’s “SUSTAINABLE FUTURE” heading.

HAPPY BELATED FATHER’S DAY: Schumer Deleted This Humiliating Tweet But the Internet Is Forever. “The post included a lovely photo of Schumer… DOING WHAT TO PERFECTLY GOOD MEAT?”

Also, my recipe for the world’s second-best beef jerky.

STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME: McDonalds is removing its AI drive-thru voice ordering system from over 100 restaurants after its mishaps went viral. “One video showed a woman attempting to order water and a cup of vanilla ice cream. The AI system accounted for those items but incorrectly added four ketchup packets and three butter packets to her order.”