June 16, 2025

POWERLINE: No Kings at the Old Folks’ Home. “They were leaving an assisted living facility. But still–they epitomize the demographic of those who turn out for Dem rallies. The Democrats’ violent rioters and looters, admittedly, trend younger.”

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

INCENTIVES MATTER: Nearly 1 million illegal immigrants have ‘self deported’ under Trump, which has led to higher wages.

One of those tracks relies on arrests and deportations of aliens unlawfully here, which at the outset has focused mainly on criminals (the “worst first” strategy).

The other track is more subtle but also cheaper for taxpayers and arguably much more effective —encouraging illegal migrants here to self-deport.

It began with an Inauguration Day Trump directive requiring DHS to ensure all aliens present in the United States — legal and otherwise — have registered with the federal government, and to prosecute those who don’t comply.
…
One way to track the program is by checking employment numbers. One financial wiz cited by the Wall Street Journal calculated a decline in the immigrant population of 773,000 in the first four months of Trump II.

The Washington Post claims “a million foreign-born workers have exited the workforce since March.” The Post frames this as “a sign of the weakening labor supply.” Yet the paper also notes, “Average hourly wages accelerated, rising by 0.4 percent over the month, to $36.24 in May, as earnings continue to beat inflation in a boost to workers’ spending power.”

In other words, with fewer illegal immigrants, businesses had to raise wages to attract workers.

Unexpectedly.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

THE HORROR… THE HORROR…:

“Crazy Ladies Lecturing Their Selfie Cameras” is the worst show on TV.

Posted at 9:50 am by Stephen Green

“LOVE TRUMPS HATE” OR WHATEVER: Brookline Police launch hate crime investigation after brick thrown through kosher grocery store window.

“This morning we received a report from the owner of The Butcherie that a brick had been thrown through their window overnight,” Brookline Police said in a statement Sunday. … “Written on the face of the brick in large red letters were the words ‘Free Palestine.’”

Just after midnight Sunday, police said, multiple suspects in masks approached the local kosher grocery store at 428 Harvard St. from Coolidge Street and threw the brick through the window.

The preliminary investigation indicates that there were at least two suspects in the incident, though the exact number was no confirmed, Brookline Police stated. The suspects allegedly fled back down Coolidge Street to an unknown location after the vandalization.

No other businesses appear to have been targeted “as of now,” the police said Sunday.

Brookline Police identified the case as a “hate crime investigation” with malicious damage of property.

More to come, probably.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: You Know, I Rather Enjoy Being on the Side of Patriotism. “It was rather warm like that here all weekend, so we didn’t have a much of a ‘No Kings Day’ presence here in the Old Pueblo. Apparently, the kids were successful: I checked, and we don’t have a king. In fact, there are no extra kings anywhere in the world as of yesterday. Well done, ‘No Kings’ marchers.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

SOCIAL JUSTICE KILLS:

Lives matter less than their hare-brained ideas — but there’s nothing new about that.

Posted at 8:49 am by Stephen Green

OY: Iranian media claims to hit Israeli planes, but footage was actually a video game.

Iran initially claimed to have shot down a jet and captured a pilot. The news was denied by Israel, which spoke bluntly of fake news. A few hours later, a new announcement from Iranian sources: an Israeli plane was shot down and there is also a video. The clip bounces on social media, showing a jet being hit by anti-aircraft fire.

There is something wrong, however. The doubts are more than well-founded. The clip is nothing more than an excerpt from a video game, Arma 3. The realistic images, among other things, are cyclically re-proposed to document alleged jet shootdowns. Further detail: the plane inserted in the video game is not even Israeli but, apparently, it would be a Russian model.

Then there’s this:

Losers glom on to what they need to, I suppose.

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green

ANALYSIS: TRUE. A Fatherless Nation Cannot Prosper.

Hence the war on fathers. “In 1965, nearly 80% of Black children were raised in two-parent homes.”

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

JOEL KOTKIN: AI is killing jobs and fuelling campus radicalism.

Today we may again be creating an assertive and angry class — as evidenced in the recent LA riots and the pro-Palestine protests on US campuses over the last year and a half — made up of degree holders. We can see this in recent reports that show the job market getting tougher for graduates. Hit hardest are those professionals on the “soft” side of the economy (finance, accounting, law, coding) whose jobs are increasingly threatened by the rise of artificial intelligence.

These industries tend to have a higher proportion of humanities graduates and countries in the West more generally have a problem with elite overproduction. As AI grows, there won’t be enough jobs to go round, and even if those graduates do get a job, their employers, with so many candidates to choose from, won’t pay well.

Related: The Coming “Symbolic Analyst” Meltdown. “As Eric Hoffer wrote, ‘Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status.'”

Posted at 8:05 am by Glenn Reynolds