IT IS UNWISE TO ASK UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS, COMRADE: How Many Lives Could Barack Obama’s Library Have Saved?

In the city of Chicago, which is about 90 minutes south of me, roughly 17 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty. That’s about 448,000 people, and of those, more than 160,000 were in ‘deep poverty,’ below 50 percent of the poverty threshold. That works out to about $21 per person per day. The majority of Chicago residents are Black or Hispanic, and about 29 percent of Black and 15 percent of Hispanic Chicagoans live in poverty.

It’s estimated that 25 percent of Chicagoans face food insecurity and persistent hunger.

For the 2025-2026 school year, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) face a $734 million deficit, driven by the end of federal pandemic aid and pension obligations. On top of that, students in CPS test well below the national average in math and reading, with just 31 percent proficient in reading and 18 percent proficient in math.

Chicago is also one of the most violent cities in the United States, with 416 homicides and 1,471 shootings in 2025. For the start of 2026, homicides are up roughly six percent and shootings are up slightly, too.

Despite these deplorable statistics, Democrats celebrated the Barack Obama Presidential Library, which opened about two weeks ago. The brutalist building, which looks like something straight out of the Empire in Star Wars, cost roughly $850 million.

To be fair, Barack didn’t build his library with his own money, either.

DON’T BE A SOFT TARGET:

I’m going to add one qualification to Hen’s grim observation here.

All these targets are Democratic Jews.

Republican Jews are no less hated, but are inclined to stand up for themselves, and are led and surrounded by colleagues who unite to reject antisemitism and Israel-haters. https://t.co/0JivOOCkCQ

— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) July 1, 2026

And I liked this from the replies: “There’s no denying it. You need to be armed to the teeth to enter the big welcoming blue tent.”

IT’S MEASURED IN TRILLIONS OF BIDENFLATION DOLLARS: Is This Gavin Newsom’s Biggest Lie Ever? “California Governor Gavin Newsom, perhaps best described as ‘seven lying serpents in a skinsuit,’ just told a lie so big that even my jaded self had to sit back, take a sip of coffee, and admire the handiwork of whoever steam-cleaned the soul out of his body.”

NOW OUT: From Dave Portnoy, Cancel Me If You Can. #CommissionEarned

ONCE AGAIN, IT’S THOMAS FOR THE WIN:

"The century of progressivism did not go well. The European system that Wilson and the progressives scolded Americans for not adopting—which he called nearly perfect—led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini… pic.twitter.com/EqBQJUkI3t

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) April 22, 2026

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME:

Shot:

AOC: I think young people overall feel a tremendous amount of betrayal about the world that we’ve been left with. pic.twitter.com/eiDjreVwtE

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 1, 2026

Chaser:

“In the first place, I would like to observe that the older generation had certainly pretty well ruined this world before passing it on to us. They give us this Thing, knocked to pieces, leaky, red-hot, threatening to blow up; and then they are surprised that we don’t accept it with the same attitude of pretty, decorous enthusiasm with which they received it, ‘way back in the eighteen-nineties, nicely painted, smoothly running, practically fool-proof. “So simple that a child can run it!”

—John F. Carter, Jr., the Atlantic, September, 1920.

CEASEFIRE UPDATE: Iranian Clerics Urge Trump, Netanyahu Assassinations. “According to The Telegraph, the statement said killing ‘the criminal American president’ and ‘the wicked prime minister of the Zionist regime’ was a religious duty and that anyone who had the opportunity to do so ‘must not’ neglect it.”

A WIN AGAINST RACISM: MIT pauses legally questionable minority reporting fellowship.

SHE DARED TO NOTICE AND SPEAK THE TRUTH:

Yes. Penn’s treatment of Amy Wax was disgraceful. They knew she was right. Knew it. And still went after her https://t.co/51JnzfTGnV

— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) July 1, 2026

Murray was responding to this:

Let us now dedicate this graph and the entirely unsurprising information contained on it to all the scumbags who sit atop the admissions committees at elite universities who accused Amy Wax of being a liar (or worse) for claiming that there are few if any blacks graduating near… https://t.co/GeFEPHNnN4

— i/o (@avidseries) July 1, 2026

Which came from this: “Amy Wax got in trouble for remarking that she’d not seen a Black student in the top quarter of a Penn Law class. Thanks to hacked Columbia data, we can see that she was… Probably right!”

THAT’S PRETTY MUCH HER ENTIRE SCHTICK: Tlaib’s Lebanon Resolution Failed, but Her Anger Still Has a Seat.

TRUE: Campus climate activism is the gateway drug to the radical left.

LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS:

BBC had to release, on average, TWO CORRECTIONS PER WEEK for TWO STRAIGHT YEARS due to lying about Israel so much… and these people still somehow think BBC is pro Israek 😂 https://t.co/ZexbVnY7y0 pic.twitter.com/cDUDIGqaT6

— Nick Matau (@nick_matau) June 30, 2026

Of course, the corrections never generate the views (or rage) the original stories do. So for the Beeb, it’s mission accomplished.

WELL, GOOD: Air Force Accelerates Sending B-21s to Ellsworth.

One of the two B-21s now in flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., will be the first Raider at Ellsworth. “The test aircraft will be going there,” Meink said during a wide-ranging interview at the Pentagon.

“We’re going to actually turn the test aircraft into operational aircraft at some point in time. They’ll be going there and starting to really do the things you need to do to prepare the base to get the long-term operational aircraft there.”

An Air Force spokesperson declined to say whether both test B-21s at Edwards will move to Ellsworth, or exactly when in 2027 the first plane will arrive. Flight testing typically continues even after planes arrive at operating bases.

When the first B-21 rolled out in December 2022, the Air Force and manufacturer Northrop Grumman touted the first plane as “production-representative,” meaning its stealth coating, mission systems, and other components were virtually identical to the final model. The Air Force decided early that the first test B-21 would be production representative, rather than an experimental aircraft. Northrop officials said in 2022 that opting for the production-representative plane was more complicated up front, but would accelerate testing.

The Raider so far is one of those rare procurement success stories. Any delays (not many) and cost overruns were due largely to COVID lockdown stupidity and Bidenflation woes that hit everything.

EVERYBODY’S UNHAPPY ABOUT BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, BUT: Don Surber: Trump’s Supreme victory: Justices helped the president Slaughter the deep state’s hold on the republic.

Related: Supreme Court Gives Trump New Tools to Accelerate Deportations: Although justices strike down executive order curtailing birthright citizenship, courts give president other ways to pursue immigration crackdown.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: No Reason to Panic Over a Mild Case of SCOTUS Whiplash. “As you might imagine, I’ve been buried in the Supreme Court rulings and the reactions to them the last couple of days. It’s been a lot and, because there was no whiskey in my coffee either day, I was a little cranky. By early Tuesday afternoon, I had already decided to focus on the positive. We’re celebrating America’s big birthday this week, and I’m not going to let the news ruin it for me.”

HMM: Justice Kavanaugh May Have Handed the United States a Roadmap to Fix Birthright Citizenship. “Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the majority in striking down President Trump’s executive order but wrote separately in partial dissent. He concluded the order conflicted with existing federal law, not that it was unconstitutional. In his opinion, he also outlined a framework for addressing concerns surrounding birthright citizenship through legislation, making clear that any path to lasting change would likely require an act of Congress.”

That’s the rub, isn’t it?

PLAN B: Trump Plans Assault On Birth Tourism After Letdown At SCOTUS.

ROGER SIMON: RFK Jr Was Right about Genocide: It’s against Jews and Christians.

WE KNEW THIS, BUT IT’S NICE TO HAVE IT CONFIRMED:

Islamic Extremists are joining forces with the DSA, along with marginalized groups to form a powerful voting block. This is another reason passing the SAVE ACT is vital. Intersectionalism has been around for a long time, but it's taken over the Democratic Party. Vote in November! https://t.co/N1TaVnFMyK

— Bruce Pearl (@coachbrucepearl) July 1, 2026

I’M PRETTY SURE THE DARK KNIGHT RISES WAS A WARNING, NOT A HOW-TO GUIDE:

Isn't this the goal of the villain in almost every Batman movie? https://t.co/DjayUJ2wQZ

— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) July 1, 2026

Underneath the mask, Bane smiles:

HMM: Oh, So Dr. Fauci’s Pardon From Joe Biden Is Not ‘Bulletproof’?

ICYMI: This Scrappy Little Rocket Company Just Made a Big Play Against Elon Musk. “Maybe you’ve heard of Rocket Lab, the scrappy New Zealand-based launch company whose innovative Electron small-lift rocket quickly became one of the most popular in U.S. service, thanks to its high success rate and rapid launch cadence. Except for nerds like me paying close attention to the launch industry, Rocket Lab gets a little lost in SpaceX’s shadow. But that might be about to change with the company’s multibillion-dollar acquisition.”

HYPOCRISY: ‘Ro’ Me the Money! How Progressive Class Warrior Ro Khanna Lives Like the Oligarchs He ‘Fights,’ With In-Home Elevator, $190K Range Rover, and Family-Owned Golf Courses.

COME NBC THE SNOWFLAKES:

Before reporting on the transgender case, NBC actually gave an effective trigger warning that it would be quoting the court in the use of terms like "biological male" and "biological female." https://t.co/bN4NImmroF This is how the press becomes a parody of itself.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) July 1, 2026

Then again, I guess they understand their audience.

2026: A LUDDITE ODYSSEY.

Reminder that there are two types of anti-data center activists:

– Supporters of the Chinese Communist Party
– Stooges of the Chinese Communist Party

Anti-data center activism helps America's enemies and facilitates America's downfall. https://t.co/MzIqeXXU7M

— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) July 1, 2026