LINCOLN BROWN: My Advice for the Idaho Student Barred From Graduation for Saying ‘Guys Are Guys and Girls Are Girls.’ “I won’t bother addressing the congress of idiots behind this ridiculous stunt. But Travis, if by some chance you read this, here is my advice to you:”

COLD WAR II: As China raids U.S. businesses and arrests workers, the corporate landscape is getting ‘very risky.’ “The risks of doing business in China are increasing for foreign companies. The offices of Capvision, a consulting firm with offices in New York and Shanghai, and two American firms have been raided in recent weeks as Chinese authorities exercise their power under a new security law.”

Beijing won’t crack down hard enough to drive out anyone important, just hard enough to make western businesses behave like good Communists.

ATHENA THORNE: What Happened to America’s Ambulance Chasers? “The biggest mystery of all is the lack of lawsuits against the malignant pediatric ‘gender affirming care’ industry.”

LOS ANGELES IS MAGA COUNTRY: Did Ellen ‘Elliot’ Page Just Pull a Jussie Smollett?

FALLOUT: Bud Light only has a few months to prevent sustained market share loss, warns former Anheuser-Busch sales exec.

Come September, retailers are expected to begin reallocating the limited shelf space by relying on sales data from the preceding months.

In Bud Light’s case, that could mean a diminished presence going forward following the controversy over its brief partnership with a transgender influencer, according to Anson Frericks.

A president of sales and distribution at Budweiser’s U.S. parent Anheuser-Busch until his departure in April 2022, he told the Daily Mail that rivals like Coors Lite and Yuengling could then remain a more prominent fixture in stores following this “reset.”

“Those brands will have a better likelihood to succeed long term because they have more shelf space, they have more inventory, they have more back-stock, and they have more availability for consumers,” he said.

Soda and beer companies spend so much on marketing because beverage sales are basically a zero-sum game and, once lost, market share is very difficult to regain.

ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Prof: ‘Nothing wrong with’ murder of Trump supporter from a ‘moral perspective.’

WELL, YES: Manchin is ‘dead man walking’ in West Virginia.

Former Obama White House senior political adviser David Axelrod says Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is “dead man walking” in West Virginia, where the senior senator finds himself far behind in the polls ahead of the 2024 election.

Axelrod on Monday said the dim outlook of Manchin’s reelection bid may lead him to instead run for president as a third-party candidate, which the senior Democratic strategist called “a graceful exit for him.”

“I don’t want to be unkind to Sen. Manchin, but he’s kind of dead man walking in West Virginia. There’s nowhere for him to go,” Axelrod said on CNN, referring to a new poll showing the three-term senator trailing West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) by 22 points.

“Slow-motion political suicide” might be more apt than “dead man walking.”

KRUISER: Pride Shouldn’t Be the Only Deadly Sin With Its Own Month. Rather than just write something every day in June about how wearisome Pride Month is (which I could easily do), I have decided to mock it a little during the first week, then get back to ignoring all things rainbow (except actual rainbows, of course).”

TEXAS: Abbott Signs Law Banning Child Genital Mutilation. “It sad that there even needs to be a law that bans child genital mutilation (AKA ‘gender affirming care,’ but really “sex-defying cosmetic surgery”), but this is the world we’re living in.”

Just like those right-wing radicals in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the UK.

APPLE VISION PRO: Who Is Supposed to Wear This Augmented Reality Headset? “I’m reminded a bit of the Apple Watch, which only turned out to be a huge success after Cupertino finally figured out what the Watch was supposed to be — thanks to input from early adopters.”

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Feds spent over $1.3 billion in Russia, China on controversial projects. “The watchdog group, Open the Books, and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, released the analysis, which detailed an array of examples they deemed troubling ‘including $770,466 to a state-run lab in Russia to put cats on treadmills’ and another project for nearly $100,000 for gender equality cartoons.”

WAIT, WHAT? As Crime Rises, Newsom Is Naturally Under Pressure to Close More Prisons.

SHOP ACCORDINGLY: Target backs org pushing US demilitarization, Mt. Rushmore shutdown for being a ‘symbol of White supremacy.’

Related:

COME SEE THE RACISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Washingtons State’s ‘Equity’ Director Pink-Slipped Over Allegations of Racism.

FALLOUT: Russia’s oil and gas revenue plunged in May as sanctions and dwindling exports weigh on Moscow’s energy trade.

According to the country’s Finance Ministry, last month’s revenue from oil and gas taxes sank 36% from a year ago to 570.7 billion rubles, or about $7 billion.

Revenue from crude and petroleum products slid 31% to 425.8 billion rubles, while gas revenue plummeted 46% 145 billion rubles. That’s despite higher income from a mineral extraction tax on gas, which was not enough to cover export duty losses.

Proceeds from the two commodities make up around a third of Russia’s budget, which is already under pressure from spending for Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia’s just-announced production cuts won’t do much to lift prices on Russian export, which have their prices capped by sanctions.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: James Comey Unwittingly Makes the Case for Trump 2024. “Everything Comey said after that was pure lack of awareness gold. A president using the law enforcement he oversees in the Executive Branch for his own personal purposes? Why, wherever would we find examples of that?”

SOMEBODY’S DESPERATE: Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up major dam.

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of blowing up a vast dam on the front lines of the war, threatening hundreds of thousands of residents as well as a nearby nuclear plant.

Water was surging through the critical Kakhovka dam on Tuesday, according to video verified by NBC News and local officials, risking massive flooding across the war zone in southern Ukraine that sparked evacuations and warnings of an “ecological disaster.”

Officials in Kyiv accused Moscow of a “terrorist attack” and raised international alarm, while Russian officials blamed Ukraine but played down the gravity of the situation.

NBC News has not verified the claims of either side about the dam, which sits in a Russian-controlled area of the front-line Kherson region.

At least there’s this: “The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was monitoring the situation and there was no immediate nuclear safety risk at the [Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear] plant.”

ROBERT SPENCER: FBI Top Dog Wray May Be Held In Contempt of Congress. Can He Be Held In Contempt of the American People? “Wray faces the prospect of being held in contempt of Congress because of the latest confirmation of the fact that the FBI is no longer a law enforcement agency, but a fetid cesspool of corruption that has been weaponized to persecute and destroy Donald Trump and other opponents of the Biden regime while sheltering Old Joe, his chip-off-the-old-block boy Hunter, and their henchmen from all possible consequences of their influence-peddling and other crimes.”

JUST WHEN I WAS STARTING TO ENJOY THE UNEXPECTEDLY LOW SUMMER GAS PRICES: Saudi Arabia Plans To Cut Oil Production Again After No ‘Consequences’ From Biden. “The move comes almost one year after President Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia, during which he fist-bumped autocratic Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, prompting widespread criticism. Despite Biden’s visit, the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in October announced a production cut, leading Biden to vow ‘consequences’ for the Middle Eastern country. The president never followed through on his threats, the Washington Free Beacon reported.”

THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP: Mark Levin Explains Why the Debt Ceiling Negotiations Didn’t Matter: The System Is Broken.

STOP, I ALREADY PLAN ON VOTING FOR HIM: Comey Warns Trump Might Use the Constitution Against Him and His Corrupt Friends.

THE FIELD ISN’T YET COMPLETE: ‘The Guy’s Got Balls’: Meet The Little-Known Governor Who’s Expected To Jump Into The 2024 Presidential Race.

UKRAINE WAR: Go Home, Everybody, Russia Already Countered the Counteroffensive. “The most interesting news might be the action going on around — and I do mean around — the pile of rubble once known as the town of Bakhmut. We could all be forgiven for thinking that the Battle of Bakhmut was over, with Russia taking the town in May after ten months of heavy fighting. New developments show that the battle might be far from over.”

CHANGE: Enforcers of China’s One-Child Policy Are Now Cajoling People to Have Three.

Using coercion and fines, China was adept at preventing couples from having children during the decades of its one-child policy. It has been less successful in fostering a “birth-friendly society.”

Births in China continue to fall despite the government’s efforts to shift away from birth restrictions to encouraging all couples to have three children. With a drop in its population last year, China is ceding its long-held title as the world’s most populous country to India.

Chinese births have gone from around 18 million a year in 2016, when the one-child policy was scrapped, to below 10 million now, a drop of 46%. Even during starvation years in the early 1960s, when China’s population was less than half what it is now, births never fell below 10 million.

China seems determined to grow much older before it grows rich.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Dear Conservatives: RFK Jr Is Still Just a F****** Commie.