June 5, 2026

CAMPAIGN AUTOPSY? James Carville gave Democrats the only one they needed.

The ongoing furor about the Democratic National Committee’s deeply flawed and incomplete autopsy of the 2024 presidential election has been misplaced. Democrats already had an autopsy report — one delivered in pithy if brutal fashion not long after the election.

That autopsy was provided by the crusty Democrat strategist, James Carville, who in late January 2025 likened the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris to a “seventh-string quarterback” playing in the Super Bowl.

“Now that’s what happened, okay?” Carville declared in an appearance on PBS “Firing Line.” “You can’t address a problem unless you’re honest about a problem.”

Of course, Carville neglected to mention that he had predicted a Harris victory. In fact, he  said in August 2024 that it was more likely Harris would win by 5 points than that Trump would win by 1.5 points. The latter is what actually what ended up happening, and of course, Trump carried the Electoral College, 312 to 226.

Even so, Carville’s “seventh-string quarterback” post-mortem, unsparing as it was, possesses considerable explanatory power. It was a moment of analytical clarity, a metaphor for the many mistakes and clumsiness that hobbled Harris’s campaign. It also stands as a relevant lesson for Democrats in choosing a presidential candidate in 2028 — a race in which Harris, according to some recent polls, is the frontrunner.

But probably not for long. Just ask former Presidents Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

LOCAL MAN ENJOYS AIRLINE AMENITIES:

Posted at 5:15 pm by Ed Driscoll

JOANNE JACOBS: Too much ‘adult supremacy’ at school? Or not enough?

I am an adultist, and proud of it. Now that I know there is such a thing.

San Francisco teachers were urged to resist “adult supremacy” at a weekend workshop sponsored by Teachers4SocialJustice, reports Annie Gaus in the California Post. “Youth as Knowledge Producers: Challenging Adult Supremacy Through Ethnic Studies” was part of an “Ethnic Studies Everywhere” conference.

Teachers who chose to attend learned that “the relationship between students and educators is an oppressive one,” as a slide explained. Adult supremacy “constructs adults as developed, mature, intelligent, and experienced, based solely on their age and ensures that adults control the resources and make the decisions in society.”

Somebody has to be the grownup, as my wife likes to say.

Posted at 4:54 pm by Stephen Green

BETTER DEAD THAN RUDE: “I Was Sacked From Police for Questioning Islam.”

A Christian police support officer was sacked after he asked questions about Islam in a diversity training session. The Telegraph has the story.

Luke Salmons lost his job as a police community support officer (PCSO) with the North Yorkshire force and was barred from policing after a conversation about Gaza with a Muslim officer.

He later won an appeal against his dismissal but has never received an apology from the force where he said a “culture of fear” existed among officers who were terrified of being fired for saying the wrong thing.

Salmons, 46, told the Telegraph that a training day on race, religion and culture turned into an “indoctrination” session as trainers chanted “Islam is a religion of peace” and discussed white privilege.

Having been encouraged to ask questions in what staff were told was a safe space, he asked a Muslim officer about his views on terrorist attacks by Islamist groups including Hamas. The officer happily discussed the issue with him and invited him to chat further over coffee after the session.

But within two days he had been suspended for gross misconduct by an inspector who told him: “I don’t like your beliefs.”

Salmons told the Telegraph: “I loved my job and I was good at it. I was well respected as a PCSO and my colleagues said they loved working with me and couldn’t understand what was happening.

“But an overzealous inspector took against me and that was the end of my career, even though I had done nothing wrong.”

On Thursday, the Telegraph reported how police officers in the force that failed Henry Nowak felt “controlled and pressured” during diversity training.

Related: JD Vance goes out on a limb: Vance blames Nowak murder on ‘migrant invasion.’

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Is That a Stolen Radiological Device in Your Pocket? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn why you don’t bring your own chimichanga to Taco Bell, where not to sell your stolen radiological device, and how an excavator is best used to settle domestic disputes in Pennsylvania.”

Posted at 4:23 pm by Stephen Green

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: How to Raise ‘AI-Native’ Kids.

Across the country, we’re living through a moment of intense skepticism toward tech-forward childhoods. When it comes to phones, the received wisdom is that they’re bad for kids: Just last month, Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a surgeon general’s advisory against screen time; at least 35 states have now banned cell phone use in school. At home, many parents are embracing analog devices to shelter their children from the tyranny of app addiction at an early age.

“I’m decent at AI, and my 12-year-old is just passing me rapidly,” Scharf said.

And now, the age of the AI revolution is sparking fresh suspicions. Some parents are petitioning schools to remove it entirely. Jonathan Haidt, who’s changed the face of American childhood by campaigning to limit kids’ exposure to smartphones and social media, has warned that “AI chatbots and companions are the next uncontrolled mass experiment that Silicon Valley wants to perform on the world’s children.”

But when it comes to raising children, some parents have a different view. Just as the kids of Gen Z were expected to be “digital natives” if they wanted to get ahead, these parents think kids of the 2020s should be “AI-native” if they want to succeed in life. Sure, a lucky few kids might get a chance at a formal AI education, from a place like Alpha School in San Francisco—but the parents I talked to aren’t waiting for teachers to catch up; they’re taking matters into their own hands.

I spoke to one father, Tarun Sachdeva—a start-up founder from Toronto—who has become “creative partners” with his twin 7-year-old daughters, helping them build an animated universe around a character they generated and vibe coding a KPop Demon Hunters game with them on weekends. A Colorado father, Blake Scholl—founder of the aeronautics start-up Boom Technology—often spends Saturdays side by side with his 12-year-old son, building things like a cell phone, with ChatGPT coaching them through it. When their LLM helps them solve a new problem, he says, his son’s reaction is priceless. “He’s grinning ear to ear,” Scholl said.

Almost all of the parents raising AI-native kids expressed the same simple idea: The future is coming, and it’s inescapable; it’s a parent’s job to fortify their kids for the world ahead.

Kids whose parents scold them for using AI, Scharf said, “have an arm tied behind their back.” The upside of using it, he added, is clear: “It really ends up giving them superpowers.”

Related: Toy Story 5 to set stage for debate over AI in children’s toys.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

TIS A PITY THEY CAN’T BOTH LOSE… OH, WAIT — THEY DID: Katie Porter Whacked Eric Swalwell To Come In 5th. “That’s right, Katie Porter, who we were told was the Democrat insider’s choice for governor, and the reason then-leading Democrat Swalwell had to be shived, garnered less than 5% of the vote.”

Posted at 3:52 pm by Stephen Green

FORBIDDEN FRUIT: Once Again, No One Sells More Guns in America Than Gun-Grabbing Politicians. “Recent FBI data suggests Virginia gun stores are seeing a huge surge in demand. In May, Virginia recorded 75,376 background checks — more than double the total from the same month last year. While background checks are not a direct measure of gun sales, they’re widely used as an industry indicator.”

Posted at 2:50 pm by Stephen Green

AND THE WASTE GOES ON: Four major federal departments had improper payments percentages above 10 percent all four years of the Biden administration, including the IRS within Treasury that saw 72 percent of its payments under one program going to the wrong receiver.

That’s according to the latest Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessment of the extent of improper payments. But, as I report today for The Washington Stand, there are reasons to think real progress is starting to be made.

Posted at 2:27 pm by Mark Tapscott

SENATOR ERIC SCHMITT GOES ABSOLUTELY NUCLEAR ON MAZIE HIRONO:

Senator Eric Schmitt absolutely blasted his colleague, Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono, in a Senate hearing after Hirono went to bat for fraudsters and criminals, including murderers and rapists, from being deported.

“Your comments are astounding, Senator,” Schmitt said. “You mention a few words: horrific. I think, to the American taxpayer, that’s been ripped off by people who came to this country to rip them off, that’s horrific.”

“You talk about bizarre,” Schmitted continued as Hirono tried to interrupt him. “No, no, no. It’s my time now. It’s my time. You went over time. It’s my time. Bizarre is the idea that you would be here in this committee defending violent murderers from being deported. That you would be defending violent rapists from being deported. That you would defend people who took advantage of the good people of this country, their taxpayer dollars. That is bizarre.”

Related:

Considering that 1990s-era Democrats at least paid lip service to stopping fraud and illegal immigrants, this is very much true:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

NOT REALLY SHOCKING, but there’s some weirdness going on here…Politico looks at US “journalist” (yes, those are my scare quotes) pleading guilty at being an unregistered foreign agent, for China.

 

Posted at 2:07 pm by Charles Glasser

A MUST-READ FROM J.D. VANCE:

Posted at 1:52 pm by Glenn Reynolds

UM, WHAT? ‘Khamenei’ says US, Israel hit by ‘decisive blow’ amid mixed signals on talks, US security alert. “Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen or heard in public since being wounded in strikes that killed his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the US-Israeli war with Iran on February 28. His message, read out by a prayer leader at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic’s founder, came amid weeks of talks marked by threats and flare-ups of violence that have so far failed to secure a deal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for global energy flows.”

Kudos to the Times of Israel headline writer who put scare quotes around “Khamenei.”

Posted at 1:48 pm by Stephen Green