June 9, 2026

FINGERS CROSSED, I SUPPOSE:

One the one hand, riots are bad. On the other, they tend to turn off normies who don’t much care for them or for convicted murderers.

Posted at 12:58 pm by Stephen Green

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Newsom targets undocumented Californians with new healthcare cost increase.

At the end of 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom framed it as a matter of principle when under his administration, California became the first state in the nation to pay for undocumented immigrants to use Medicaid.

“In California, we believe everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care coverage – regardless of income or immigration status,” Newsom said in a statement to ABC News at the time.

People flocked to the system, with about 1.5 million undocumented Californians using the state’s Medi-Cal healthcare by November 2025. But now Newsom and fellow Democrats in Sacramento are walking back on their promise to provide healthcare access to all.

Lawmakers have slashed the program in a series of cuts over the last year with more expected to come. In January, the state froze any new undocumented adults from applying for the program. Dental benefits for undocumented people are set to expire in July. And Newsom’s latest budget proposal, released in May, calls for increasing premiums from a planned $30 to $50 for undocumented people starting in July next year.

Illegal aliens paying a lousy $50 premium for taxpayer-subsidized insurance, and SF Gate frames it as “It’s getting harder for undocumented people in California to get insurance.”

You cannot despise these people enough.

Posted at 12:43 pm by Stephen Green

OLD AND BUSTED: #FIGHTFOR15.

The New Hotness? McDonald’s testing AI at the drive-thru.

A robotic voice may soon be taking your order at the drive-thru.

McDonald’s is testing out an artificial intelligence-based operating system called ArchIQ, the company announced this week. The voice-activated AI system is being tested at five locations around the country, Restaurant Business Magazine reports.

A franchisee showed off a demo of the technology, nicknamed Archy, on X. The video shows ArchIQ taking orders in English and Spanish.

While it’s currently in a test phase, the franchisee, who posts under the popular account McFranchisee, said “every McDonald’s in the US” is getting a technology upgrade in anticipation of the new tech.

More here: “Taco Bell and Wendy’s previously announced that they had launched their own AI-powered drive-thru ordering systems. [Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business, told ABC News that] the trend could significantly reshape the industry in the years ahead. ‘You can imagine a future five, 10 years down the line, where no orders at McDonald’s are actually taken by a human being,’ he said.”

As a wise man once said, “the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

GIVE IRELAND BACK TO THE IRISH: Sudanese migrant arrested after ‘attempted beheading’ in Belfast.

A Sudanese man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a knifeman appeared to try to behead a man in Belfast.

The suspect has been taken into custody after the victim suffered “significant injuries” to his face, neck and back in what police called a brutal attack.

The injured man, a resident of the area in his 40s, is being treated in hospital, where his condition is described as serious.

Footage shared on social media – which is too graphic to publish – appears to show the knifeman, in his 30s, pinning the man to the ground before repeatedly stabbing him in the head.

The video shows three apparently local men intervening, one hitting the attacker with a wooden hurling stick as others kick him to try to force him to release his victim.

Police revealed the suspect had been granted leave to remain after crossing the border from Dublin.

Asst Chief Constable Ryan Henderson, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), told a press conference: “My understanding is that the individual was given leave to remain in Northern Ireland, but I know that colleagues in the Home Office will be confirming the exact details of the status in the coming days and hours.”

There is “no information” to suggest the attack was terror-related, the police chief added.

Well, I’m really glad it wasn’t a terror-related attempted beheading.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

R.I.P. GORDON WOOD:

He debunks the 1619 Project here. The woke was so strong then that he had to go to the World Socialist Website to find someone who’d run it.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

I’D HATE TO SEE HER GO; SHE RUNS A TIGHT SHIP: Susie Wiles on reported White House departure: ‘I am not going anywhere.’

“After an accomplishment filled week by President Trump, I have the pleasure of reading a piece of Friday fiction, courtesy of the Daily Mail,” Wiles wrote on social platform X.

“To be crystal clear, I am not going anywhere. I am honored and proud to serve President Trump, proud of our team and remain fully committed to advancing his agenda on behalf of the American people.

The Daily Mail, citing five sources, reported Friday that Wiles was preparing to leave the administration after the November elections. The longtime GOP operative ran Trump’s successful 2024 campaign and is the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.

The Daily Mail, eh?

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

FRAUD ALL THE WAY DOWN (COLORADO EDITION):

It’s difficult to imagine a reason not to investigate improper payments except for being in on the action.

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

I’VE SEEN THE VIDEO, AND IT ISN’T EASY TO WATCH…:

…but if it “radicalizes” just one more Briton into rejecting his country’s cultural destruction, then it’s worth it.

Visegrád 24 posted it here.

Posted at 10:54 am by Stephen Green

FORGET IT, JAKE:

Posted at 10:23 am by Stephen Green

STILL FURIOUS ABOUT THIS:

Posted at 9:52 am by Stephen Green

ATTENTION LOYAL INSTAPUNDIT READERS:  If you have a X/Twitter account, please help me out by liking and retweeting this post.  It’s my last chance to convince the California state senators on the committee considering the bill that would gut Proposition 209 that the public will be against it.

We are fighting an uphill battle at this point.  But hope springs eternal.  The only upside is that I managed to convince the senators that putting this referendum on the 2026 ballot would be ill-advised, because we’ll only be halfway through the Trump Administration and the Trump Administration could respond with a thorough Title VI compliance investigation.  As a result, they amended the bill to put the referendum on the 2028 ballot instead.  That at least will give me the opportunity to take care of the various things wrong with house before diving back into this.

I am resigned to the reality that I will be fighting to preserve California’s Prop 209 and its various clones in other states for the rest of my life.

Posted at 9:47 am by Gail Heriot

REMOVE STARMER AND HIS GOVERNMENT:

UPDATE:

Posted at 9:46 am by Glenn Reynolds

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Penn Station slashing suspect was free despite eerily similar 2022 attack.

The homeless madman who allegedly slashed five people with a double-edged knife in Penn Station carried out an eerily similar attack in New Jersey just four years ago, The Post has learned.

But despite the victim being grievously injured in that 2022 Newark stabbing, Hector Deleon, 51, was given just two years of probation as a sentence, court records show.

The victim in that heinous attack, a man who wasn’t publicly identified, landed in the trauma ward, where he received nine stitches to close the knife wound on the left side of his neck, a criminal complaint from February 2022 shows.

Still, Deleon doesn’t appear to have spent any significant time behind bars before Sunday evening — when he allegedly went on a random rampage in the busy Midtown commuter hub, according to law-enforcement sources and witnesses.

The mentally ill don’t belong on the streets.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

THE NEEDS OF THE PARTY ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE, COMRADE:

Posted at 9:21 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Scott Pelley’s Podcast Tears Made My Schadenfreude Cup Runneth Over. “Pelley is such an arrogant piece of garbage that he probably thought that he was untouchable and wouldn’t be fired. He must have had amnesia regarding Dan Rather. He also must not have appreciated the resolve that the new sheriff in town at CBS News has.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green