June 23, 2026

I MISSED THIS ONE OVER THE WEEKEND: ‘Send them back’ chants rock European Parliament after landslide vote to speed up deportations.

Members of the European Parliament voted 418 to 218 Wednesday with 30 abstentions to approve the Return Regulation, a measure designed to speed up the removal of third-country nationals who are staying illegally in the European Union.

The moment quickly turned explosive. After the vote was announced, right-wing lawmakers stood, applauded and chanted “send them back,” according to a video of the meeting.

Lawmakers on the left responded by chanting “shame on you.”

The legislation still requires formal approval by the Council of the European Union and publication in the Official Journal before it goes into force, but the confrontation underscored how sharply divided Europe remains over migration, even as the bloc’s institutions move ahead with policies once seen as politically taboo.

The new rules would allow member states to detain some migrants for up to 24 months, with a possible six-month extension, and create a framework for “return hubs” outside the European Union in third countries willing to receive migrants with return decisions.

Those are baby steps, but at least they’re in the right direction.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

SOUNDS LIKE THEY’RE UNFIT TO PRACTICE LAW: Roughly one-third of UC Berkeley law students claim ‘psychological’ disabilities.

Recent UC Berkeley Law graduate Andrew Testerman notes in a James G. Martin Center article that 37.5 percent of UC Berkeley Law students get some sort of disability accommodation, a figure greater than the total number of male students at the school.

Ninety-eight percent of those “have a primary or secondary diagnosis of ‘ADD/ADHD,’ ‘anxiety,’ or (somewhat less commonly) ‘depression.’”

By comparison, American community colleges have a disability rate of 3-4 percent, and U.S. senior citizens about 24 percent.

“Yet we are asked to believe that students at elite law schools are significantly more likely to be disabled” than the elderly, Testerman says.

Maybe it’s all that time spent at Berkeley.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

2004 FLASHBACK: Instapundit is not a news service. “I do try to call attention to stories that I think deserve more attention than they’re getting from Big Media outlets, but that very effort means that InstaPundit isn’t going to be ‘balanced.'”

Posted at 8:59 am by Glenn Reynolds

HARDER TO BE A YOUNG MAN: HillFaith’s Amanda Hughes digs into new survey data showing growing challenges for young men to be … genuinely masculine young men.

Posted at 8:50 am by Mark Tapscott

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES:

Posted at 8:50 am by Stephen Green

NIGEL FARAGE: Britain is broken, we need an election.

Starmer isn’t the first Prime Minister I’ve deposed, and he won’t be the last. David Cameron. Theresa May. Rishi Sunak. And next up – Andy Burnham. The reason each leader has failed is the same. What the political class fails to understand is that the electorate won’t accept being taken for fools. They cannot continue to take the votes of the people who supported them for granted, only to betray them upon having gained power. Politics is about trust.

That is why I am calling for a General Election at the soonest possible date. You know as well as I do that the country cannot afford to waste another week drifting from crisis to crisis. That’s why millions of you turned out in the local elections to vote for Reform councillors, and it’s why we have led in more than 300 opinion polls for well over a year.

The British public have made their voices clear in May this year and last: Britain is broken and they want a radical reforming government that will fundamentally fix our country. But instead, Westminster wants to crown Andy Burnham off the back of a single by-election.

Labour isn’t finished breaking Britain, so I’m not sure how Farage will force an election before the 2029 due date.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

ICYMI: Go East, Young SpaceX Millionaire! “Aside from fueling Elon Musk’s orbital data center ambitions, the recent SpaceX initial public offering minted thousands of new millionaires — and where they put their money will have ripple effects lasting a generation. Can you guess where that money won’t go?”

Posted at 8:04 am by Stephen Green

SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED:

Plus this reminder that Wikipedia seems to be just another lefty slush fund: “But make sure to donate! Time is running out! In case you missed it here’s a big notification that takes up the entire screen. Just ignore the fact that Wikipedia makes $200M a year and is sitting on $300M of assets, they need your money NOW. TIME IS RUNNING OUT! HURRY! (sarcasm)”

Where does the money go?

Posted at 7:48 am by Stephen Green

UGH: Judge Shuts Down Trump Admin Database Used To Remove Non-Citizens From Voter Rolls.

A Biden-appointed federal judge shut down a database used to remove noncitizens from voter rolls Monday.

The 75-page opinion, issued by Sparkle L. Sooknanan, follows a civil action suit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the state of Texas by parties including the League of Women Voters.

The decision set aside a modified version of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, created following a Trump-signed executive order to “verify the citizenship or immigration status of registered voters or individuals registering to vote,” and put in place by the DHS and SSA.

Sooknanan justified vacating the SAVE system by citing “two fundamental rights that protect Americans from government overreach,” namely the right to privacy and the right to vote.

Every illegal vote effectively disenfranchises a legal voter, but we’re not supposed to look into that, I suppose.

Exit quote: “Sooknanan also blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust probe into Media Matters and barred the executive branch from deporting unaccompanied migrant minors and reunifying them with their families abroad.”

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green

THE PLACE DOESN’T SOUND VERY POSITIVE, DESPITE ITS NAME: Open Letter to Restaurateurs –and specifically to the owners of Positive Pie in Montpelier, Vermont.

I never “give orders” to waitstaff or treat them as if they were servants. I always say, “When you get a moment, may I please have a refill?” I can’t be any more polite or easy to serve. There’s nothing else I can do to signal that I’m friendly and won’t cause a problem.

Here’s the part where I get really candid because I have nothing left to lose: How dare your staff treat me like I’m some piece of shit interrupting their day? What’s wrong with your management, your business vision, and your standards?

I realize you’ve probably never had a letter like this. You’re likely to see this letter as coming from an asshole customer, because that’s the standard response in business today even when customers are reasonable.

But I’m not alone. Most people won’t tell you candidly what your service is like because they don’t want to cause a fuss. But I’m one of millions of Americans who are fed up with this shitty, rude service that’s taken over our culture in the past six years.

I have to say, I basically never have this experience in Knoxville, where people are almost always pleasant and helpful, and if they’re not it’s obviously because they’re busy and they’re generally apologetic. Maybe it’s a blue-state thing?

Example: I was having lunch at the Chop House in West Knoxville a while back, and had ordered the prime rib sandwich. It came medium, not medium rare, but it was juicy, not dried out, and basically fine. (I order medium rare because I’m pretty much fine with anything from rare to medium). So I noted the difference but didn’t even think of sending it back, which I will do only in extreme circumstances. But a couple of minutes later the manager showed up with another one that was actually medium rare, apologized and said the server had noticed that my prime rib was overdone and put in for a replacement. Now that’s service, but this is just a nice but not particularly expensive West Knoxville eatery. Maybe that’s just southern hospitality culture, or maybe people here are just in a better general mood than people in Bernie Sanders’ home state.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

IMPRESSIVE, MOST IMPRESSIVE:

Posted at 7:17 am by Stephen Green

#JOURNALISM:

Posted at 7:06 am by Glenn Reynolds