KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Defund Rich Anti-Capitalist Hippies—Ben & Jerry’s Episode. “The thing about the ’60s hippies is that most of them embrace capitalism. They just aren’t allowed to admit it. Give them free rein in cities like Ann Arbor or Santa Monica and they are making BANK. And by ‘free rein,’ I don’t mean no government interference; I mean favorable government interference to the right people. Lefties really take care of their own.”

HUNTER’S OR SOMEONE ELSE’S, OF COURSE THEY KNOW WHOSE IT IS:

"A senior law-enforcement official told CBS News the substance was found “in a storage facility in a cubby routinely used by White House staff & guests to store cell phones."

Umm…I know where that is. As such, the WH knows full well whose it is.https://t.co/VTrEu8qHov

— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) July 5, 2023

A LITTLE BOOST? Hunter Biden Being Super-Weird at White House July 4 Event Two Days After Cocaine Found on Grounds.

FALLOUT: China Restricts Export of Chipmaking Metals in Clash With US. “Gallium and germanium, along with their chemical compounds, will be subject to export controls meant to protect Chinese national security starting Aug. 1, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Monday. Exporters for the two metals will need to apply for licenses from the commerce ministry if they want to start or continue to ship them out of the country, and will be required to report details of the overseas buyers and their applications, it said.”

FAIL, BRITANNIA: Former Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage Deplatformed by Entire UK Banking System.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP [VIP]: The Tedious Truth About Meghan and Harry. “Meghan and Harry are so awful that, after all these years, there was finally a story so revealing that it forced me to write about them.”

Plus:

• Ending slavery is racist or something.
• “Democracy denial” means what the Left needs it to mean at the moment, nothing more and nothing less.
• Did the military just activate SkyNet?

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

JOANNE JACOBS: Biden opposes ‘privilege,’ except when his granddaughter applied to Penn.

THIS IS PAINFUL: Watch These Clips and Tell Me You Really Think Biden Will Make It Through the 2024 Campaign.

BETHANY MANDEL: Is my favorite dress company the new Bud Light?

I’ve been pregnant for the better part of the last decade; fifty-four months to be precise. I recently started investing in refreshing my non-maternity or postpartum wardrobe. Everything I have from that stage of life is from when I was twenty-seven; and I’m definitely no longer able to pull off the same look from when I was in my twenties and childless. Now I’m a mom of six and inching uncomfortably close to forty.

In my research, I found the aesthetic I was shooting for, from a company called Son de Flor. Every time another conservative homeschool mom appeared in a dress I loved, it was one of theirs.

I was ready to pull the trigger on their summer sale… until this partnership with David Ross Lawn, a “gender-fluid” cross-dressing bearded influencer on Instagram and TikTok.

Read the whole thing.

REVIEW: ‘Sound of Freedom’ Shines a Light on the Issue of Human Trafficking.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Bud Light and Country Music: It’s Complicated.

Suffice it to say Bud Light sales losses aren’t alone. It’s losing the meme wars, too, both on Twitter and YouTube videos.

Pitch Meeting to Save Bud Light
What does this have to do with country music? Plenty, as it turns out.

Country crooners have lined up on the issue, either pouring salt on Bud Light’s wounds or insisting the initial ad campaign was a Nothingburger on Steroids.

Here’s how the battle lines shake out so far.

I’d rather enjoy my beer and my music without either having to take a stand on anything current but the Gleichschaltung doesn’t care what anyone prefers.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Gunman arrested for Philadelphia mass shooting which left 5 dead is BLM activist who wore women’s clothes.

(Bumped, by Glenn, because of course.)

GREG BYRNES: Independence Day Thoughts: What is America’s Vocation in The World? “The Revolution’s goal was not to change the old world or conquer it. The American system was to work out our destiny on our patch of earth. Rather than a warrior nation, we were to be an example of work and family responsibility capable of governing and supporting itself. It was to be an example that other countries could emulate as best they could. Leave the slaying of foreign dragons and the pipe dreams of ideological abstractions like those of the French Revolution elsewhere.”

SPACE: Scientists Find the Remains of a Catastrophe on Mars Scattered Across the Planet.

YOU WILL BE MADE TO CONFORM: Lefties Begin Denying Service to Trump Supporters.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): “Begin?”

CHANGE: Emerging economies are decoupling from China, helping them stay strong despite rising interest rates.

Due to the recent weakness in China this year, Wall Street largely expected most other emerging economies to follow, he noted. Meanwhile, rate-hiking cycles in the 1980s and 1990s triggered crises in emerging markets, and analysts expected the latest tightening campaign to produce a similar results. But except for a few instances, that didn’t happen.

“Among the 25 largest emerging economies, three-quarters of those reporting data have beaten growth forecasts this year — some, including India and Brazil, by a wide margin,” the chair of Rockefeller International wrote. “Forecasts for global growth in 2023 are rising and most of that uplift is coming from emerging economies.”

Many developing nations entered 2020 with improved fiscal discipline and stronger banking systems compared to prior decades, Sharma said.

So when the pandemic hit, they didn’t have to borrow as much money to pay for stimulus spending, with their deficits rising on average by 15% of GDP from 2020 to 2022, just half as much as the US’ did, he pointed out.

“The old notion that ’emerging’ is another word for reckless no longer applies,” he wrote.

And, compared with the Federal Reserve, emerging-market central banks did not delay in tightening their monetary policy. Such early intervention now allows many to start cutting interest rates, while the US looks to possibly hike two more times this year, he added.

In other words, our central bank isn’t as well run as, say, Kenya’s.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: CDC Altered Death Certificates to Remove ‘COVID Vaccine’ as Cause.

RESIST: Hong Kongers are mailing memes and support to jailed pro-democracy protesters.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,900 charged for their roles in the 2019 Hong Kong protests, which first erupted in June over a government extradition bill and later morphed into a broader movement fighting for democratic freedoms. In 2020, the Chinese government quashed the movement by imposing a national security law that gave authorities expansive new powers to crack down on political opposition. In 2021 alone, 985 people were put into custody for charges related to the protests, including unlawful assembly, rioting, and endangering national security. By the end of 2022, 522 of them remained behind bars.

While public expressions of dissent have dwindled in Hong Kong, some residents continue to support the city’s jailed protestors through small-scale online initiatives. Because inmates are prevented from using the internet, supporters like Ruby update them on news of the outside world through mailed printouts of news clips, memes, and YouTube video transcripts. They send essential items such as toothbrushes and underwear using online businesses, and share handwritten letters from the prisoners on social media to help relay their conditions to the public.

More than a little reminiscent of resistance to Soviet rule.

BEIJING BARBIE: Vietnamese Government Censors Hollywood Flick Over Disputed South China Sea Map.

CORPORAL KLINGER, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Army’s transgenders are exempt from physical fitness standards.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Judge Gives Free Speech Lovers a Big 4th of July Gift. “Doughty, by the way, is a Trump appointee, so thank you once again, Mr. President.”

HEH: Joy Reid Reveals She Got Into Harvard ‘Only Because of Affirmative Action,’ Surprises No One.

LIVING HISTORY: China is in default on a trillion dollars in debt to US bondholders. Will the US force repayment?

Before 1949, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) issued a large volume of long-term sovereign gold-denominated bonds, secured by Chinese tax revenues, to private investors and governments for the construction of infrastructure and financing of governmental activities. Put simply, the China we know today would not have been possible absent these bond offerings.

In 1938, during its conflict with Japan, the ROC defaulted on its sovereign debt. After the military victory of the communists, the ROC government fled to Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China was eventually recognized internationally as the successor government of China. Under well-established international law, the “successor government” doctrine holds that the current government of China, led by the Chinese Communist Party, is responsible for repayment of the defaulted bonds.

A private group of American citizens holds a large quantity of these gold-denominated bonds. This citizen-led group, the American Bondholders Foundation (ABF), serves as trustee with power of attorney for some 20,000 bondholders, whose bonds are valued at well more than $1 trillion.

Then-U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s tough negotiation stance on the return of Hong Kong to China led to a British settlement agreement on these same Chinese bonds in 1987. Thatcher said that for China to have access to U.K. capital markets, it had to honor the defaulted Chinese sovereign debt held by British subjects. Faced with that stark choice, China agreed.

Unfortunately, the U.S. failed to take such a common-sense stance. To this day, China has had access to U.S. capital markets while openly rejecting its sovereign debt obligations to American bondholders.

Beijing always knows who to pay off in Washington.

NOW THAT’S A HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Court Hands Down A MASSIVE Victory for Freedom on the Fourth of July.

CATHERINE SALGADO: For Creator and Country: The Virtue of Patriotism.