VIGILANTISM IS THE NATURAL BYPRODUCT OF BAD GOVERNANCE:

Or in Spain’s case, criminal governance.

WELL, GOOD: Hoplophobe’s Hell: More Americans Are Rejecting Gun Control. “The decline wasn’t a landslide, but represents a consistent trend downward for America’s gun control industry. Sure, the right to keep and bear arms isn’t an 80/20 issue — yet — but it’s favorable enough that almost no one running for Congress outside a handful of crime-soaked blue cities wants to test voter support for more gun control laws.”

MAKE MERIT GREAT AGAIN:

SUMMARY EXECUTION WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR PIRATES, AND TERRORISTS ARE EVERY BIT HOSTIS HUMANI GENERIS:Why Is KSM Still Alive?

21ST CENTURY MEDICINE: AI Tool Mapped Nerves During Brain Surgery That Saved A Man’s Eyesight. “Doctors at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) in London operated on the patient, Rhys Hibbert, using an AI tool to analyze live surgical footage and highlight vital nerves and blood vessels to avoid while removing the tumor, the BBC reported Wednesday. This real-time AI video tool was designed in-house at University College London’s Hawkes Institute and runs on NVIDIA’s Clara IGX computer, according to a Thursday University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust announcement.”

LOTS OF SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY ON THE INTERNET. IT’S BEEN THAT WAY FOR A COUPLE OF DECADES.

PASS THIS BILL: America Strikes Back Against Foreign Censors With the Rulli GRANITE Act, HR 10174.

The GRANITE Act is a bill to stop foreign governments from censoring Americans on the Internet.

Per reporting in the Times, a federal GRANITE Act, the “Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion Act,” was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Michael Rulli of Ohio.

Representative Rulli’s GRANITE Act is the first federal foreign censorship shield bill in American history.

The bill text is available in full at congress.gov.

A GRANITE Act amends U.S. law to make foreign censorship threats against Americans toothless. The threat alone, even a threat that would be very difficult to enforce, is enough to chill speech and restrict the American marketplace of ideas.

Today, foreign governments threaten Americans for their online speech on a daily basis. Those threats must stop.

Read the whole thing.

IN THE ’80S, WE CALLED IT “BURDEN SHARING” WITH EUROPE:

OH MY: U.S. In Talks To Take Direct Ownership Of Venezuelan Oil Fields. “The Trump administration is reportedly in active discussions with Venezuela’s interim government to acquire a direct U.S. ownership stake in key Venezuelan oil fields. According to senior U.S. officials cited by Axios, the talks involve equity stakes in a select group of high-yield fields containing approximately 90 billion barrels of proven crude—a transaction that would significantly alter Washington’s foreign energy policy framework and expand U.S.-controlled global reserves.”

DISPATCHES FROM LAKE AMERICA:

As Bill Maher told NPR’s Steve Inskeep: ‘Genius’ Trump Is Making Them Look Foolish.

Speaking with NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Wednesday’s (July 15) episode of the Newsmakers podcast, Maher noted how news organizations such as NPR were falling for Trump’s ploy to create “distractions” for the media to report on and discuss rather than the bigger issues.

Maher labeled the president’s proposed 250-foot-tall arch in Washington, D.C., as “meaningless.” He told Inskeep, “These are the things I don’t care about. This is his genius getting you to care about…”

Inskeep interrupted to ask, “I shouldn’t care about that arch or whatever?”

“F*** no,” Maher responded. “Absolutely not. Not the arch, not the pool, not the ballroom. This is all meaningless stuff. Steve Bannon famously said, ‘The way we win is we flood the zone with s***,’ and you’re eating the s***. You don’t have to.”

But they will, every time.

GREAT MOMENTS IN MULTICULTURALISM: The Scandal of a Slave Market in Libya.

ROBERT SPENCER: Trump Says He’d ‘Absolutely’ Ban Sharia. “President Donald Trump jumped into the ongoing furor over Sharia on Thursday, telling Glenn Beck: ‘Number one on Sharia law, I would absolutely say that not — this country, there’s no Sharia law.’ This comes amid ongoing leftist efforts to portray Sharia as completely benign religious law that patriots only oppose because they’re racists, bigots, and ‘Islamophobes.’ Once again, however, the leftists are wrong and Trump is right.”