June 2, 2026
TREAT YOUR SKIN: First Aid Beauty KP Smoothing Body Lotion. #CommissionEarned
I JUST WANT TO KNOW IF THIS MEANS MORE (AND MORE AFFORDABLE) HOUSING: Berkshire Has $400 Billion in Cash and Just Put $6.8 Billion Into Housing. What That Means for Investors. “Wall Street has been practically holding its breath waiting for Berkshire Hathaway’s new CEO to make his first big move. It is important because Greg Abel only took over the top spot at the $1 trillion market cap conglomerate from Warren Buffett at the start of 2026. The day has finally come: Berkshire just announced it is paying $6.8 billion to acquire Taylor Morrison Home.”
IS BESSENT KILLING CHINA’S CURRENCY? The backstory of why Scott Bessent was President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary begins with the fact Bessent’s early career included time in 1992 with the Soros Fund Management team that broke the Bank of England.
The ever-observant Rod Martin sees the huge significance of that otherwise little-noted fact in the context of U.S.-China relations:
“Presidents hire people for a reason. Trump did not put Scott Bessent at Treasury because he needed another Wall Street résumé. Trump hired a man who had helped break a major currency from the inside, who understood the role of confidence, leverage, capital flows, interest rates, debt, and political denial, and who knew that governments do not lose control of currencies because traders are clever. They lose control because reality finally catches up with the lie. Bessent is not incidental to Trump’s China strategy. He is one of its central weapons.”
Click over and just keep scrolling.
OKAY, GROOMERS:
Happy #PrideMonth from Sesame Street! Join us in celebrating and uplifting the LGBTQIA+ members of our community. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 pic.twitter.com/kO9TAhnqDE
— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) June 1, 2026
Of course, sometimes the left hand inside the Muppet doesn’t know what the far left hand is doing:
I hope this doesn't mean rooftops for Bert and Ernie https://t.co/KRx16FMzZu
— Northern Barbarian (@xnoesbueno) April 17, 2026
THE HENRY NOWAK FALLOUT CONTINUES:
🚨POLICE OFFICERS HAVE BEGUN SHOVING THE CROWD IN SOUTHAMPTON
This is only going to get worse if cooler heads don’t prevail
The police are already on thin ice with the public pic.twitter.com/XJUYIDfii4
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) June 2, 2026
I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE: This creepy blob robot will keep going even if you break its legs.
HOW THE YOUTUBERS BEAT STAR WARS:
Last weekend saw the most unlikely battle between David and Goliath. The little film that could was none other than the psychological horror film Backrooms. It was made on a microscopic budget (in relative terms) of $10 million, yet went on to gross a staggering $81.4 million in the US alone in its opening weekend. And the big film that couldn’t was the not-so-eagerly awaited The Mandalorian and Grogu, which had a 70 percent drop at the box office from its (relatively) underwhelming opening weekend. Unless something wholly unexpected happens, it will conclude its run as the lowest-grossing Star Wars property, confirming the predictions of those who suggested that Disney have run the brand into the ground spectacularly.
Yet the unpredicted triumph of Backrooms might be the change that the Hollywood industry so desperately needs if mainstream cinema is to evolve and survive. It was directed by Kane Parsons, aka Kane Pixels, a 20-year-old YouTuber who has had a series of successful short films and web series, including a 2022 prototype for what became Backrooms. (And yes, this means that Parsons/Pixels was finding huge success online while he was still a teenager, if you want to feel old.) While there has been some chatter on social media about whether Parsons really was solely responsible for the film himself, given the starry list of producers – including The Conjuring’s James Wan and Deadpool & Wolverine’s Shawn Levy – he has set numerous records, including being the youngest director ever to have a number one hit at the box office.
At her Substack, Justine Bateman explores: The Horror! The Horror! Something new and exciting is happening in film. And it’s scaring the hell out of people.
Horror may be the most consistently profitable genre. Films are made for small budgets, with limited cast and locations. And Elevated Horror, although pricier, provides a reliable return. HEREDITARY, for instance, earned $80m with a $10m budget, and NOSFERATU earned $181m on $50m expenditure. Cregger’s WEAPONS earned $264 worldwide with only a $38m budget.
This is partially due to horror fans being loyal and dedicated. These fans show up. Damien Leone, known for the Terrifier franchise, says, “Horror fans are like drug addicts. We always need that fix.”
Backrooms is also Critical Drinker approved, incidentally:
WELL, THEY SAID THEY WERE UNINTERESTED IN ANY FURTHER TALKS: Time to Change the Islamic Regime in Iran.
EVERY RECORD HAS BEEN DESTROYED OR FALSIFIED, EVERY BOOK HAS BEEN REWRITTEN, EVERY PICTURE HAS BEEN REPAINTED, EVERY STATUE AND STREET AND BUILDING HAS BEEN RENAMED: Mamdani wants to remove former Mayor Ed Koch’s name from iconic NYC bridge — but critics say hands off.
60 MINUTES IS BURNING. BRING MARSHMALLOWS:
Scott Pelley knows he’s on borrowed time and has been for quite a while. He’s making himself a pain in the ass so that he can claim to be a victim of “censorship” when he’s let go for a completely different reason — namely, that he’s a leftist hack whose journalistic product is middling at best, that he makes far too much money for the volume of content he produces and the number of eyes it draws, and that his undisciplined and irritating public outbursts are bad for the CBS News brand. Let’s not forget that a much more forgiving CBS News management than this one tried to make Pelley the next Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite back in 2017, and he didn’t last two years before his tenure as CBS News’ anchor collapsed in a heap. They didn’t fire him altogether then; they parked him at 60 Minutes, where he’s drawn a fat check and largely mailed it in ever since. (RELATED: The Agony Of 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley)
And now that the Ellisons own Paramount, the parent company of CBS, and would very much like to make the company somewhat profitable, they’ve brought in Weiss and a new breed of journalists who have a little less sycophantic relationship to elite leftist power politics. Which means Pelley and the rest of the hangers-on from the old regime are going to get evaluated from an objective perspective.
Which is not good news for Scott Pelley.
Would 60 Minutes still be on the air without the NFL?
If they didn’t put 60 Minutes on immediately after NFL games, how many people would watch? Almost none. Could any 60 Minutes employees make a living off the show independently in media? I don’t think so. It’s astounding to me how entitled & cocky these “journalists” are.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 1, 2026
Related:
Bari Weiss could try to prove she’s being evenhanded by firing a conservative employee from CBS. . . .except there are no conservative employees at CBS.
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) June 2, 2026
Leslie Stahl couldn’t name any conservatives at CBS 23 years ago when asked by Cal Thomas on a Fox News show. I doubt the situation has changed much in the decades since.
SPENCER PRATT’S FIRST BIG TEST: Will Voters Reject Karen Bass?
Despite a city budget of nearly $14 billion — more than the gross domestic product of NATO member Montenegro — city infrastructure is in terrible shape, blamed on pervasive under-investment for decades. The Los Angeles Times noted that the city hadn’t repaved a single street for a six-month stretch and declared that the city had “surrendered to the potholes.” (Hey, it’s not like Los Angelenos drive much, right?)
Where’s all the money going? In some cases, exceptionally well-paid city employees. In 2024, a fire battalion chief was paid $905,060, including $650,510 in overtime pay on a base salary of $135,306. Now, we all love firefighters, but that is more than quite a few players on the Los Angeles Rams football team will make this season.
As of 2024 — the most recent year available — at least 15 city employees were paid more than $600,000 in compensation, including the Chief Port Pilot of the city of Los Angeles, who was paid $704,027.
Eighty-seven city employees were paid more than $500,000 in a single year. The one-hundredth highest-compensated city employee was a port pilot in Los Angeles Harbor who was paid $495,022. (The league minimum annual salary in Major League Baseball is $780,000, so roughly one hundred city employees are making about two-thirds of what bottom-of-the-roster players on the Los Angeles Dodgers are making this year.)
Mayor Bass’s annual salary is about $301,000, but she said she has taken a pay cut, but has refused to disclose the amount.
The city’s Democratic tax-and-spend establishment has killed the geese that had been laying the golden eggs.
The 72-year-old Bass — apparently one of the finalists to be Joe Biden’s running mate back in 2020 — has failed her city so thoroughly that you half expect Oliver Queen to show up with a bow and arrow.
The options for the city of Los Angeles are to continue the current status quo, move even further to the left with Raman, or try something new with Pratt and his “Common Spence.” If the city does not choose the Pratt option, we’re left to wonder why anyone dissatisfied with the city’s direction would stick around.
Choose wisely, Los Angeles.
KEEP YOUR PET LOOKING GOOD: Patina Dog Cat Brush for Shedding, Natural Bamboo Boar Bristles. #CommissionEarned
A NEW VIDEO FROM F.I.R.E.:
RESIST: More Virginia Counties Announce They Won’t Enforce Spanberger’s ‘Assault Firearms’ Ban.
How quickly the courts will act on these challenges is anybody’s guess, and regardless of what decisions are handed down, it’s unlikely any of them will be resolved until every step of the appeals process in either the federal or state courts is exhausted. If the courts rule in favor of the Second Amendment or the Virginia arms guarantee, anti-gun Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones will surely appeal. And if any ruling goes the other way, NRA and others will appeal.
So, we could be looking at several years of court cases.
On the other hand, there’s the very real possibility that the bans will be neutered in other ways; at least in parts of Virginia.
The Washington Times reported that prosecutors in five Virginia counties have indicated there will be no prosecutions under the new law in their jurisdictions. Commonwealth’s Attorneys in Powhatan, Pulaski, Scott, Smyth, and Spotsylvania Counties have all signaled there will be no prosecutions for otherwise law-abiding Virginians simply possessing the items Governor Spanberger is trying to eradicate.
Of course, prosecutions for actual offenses committed by criminals while in possession of any firearms—irrespective of their status as “good” or “bad” guns as determined by anti-gun extremists—will continue in these counties.
Pulaski County Commonwealth’s Attorney Justin L. Griffith stated, “I am not going to take law-abiding citizens as of June 30th, 2026, and criminalize that same behavior on July 1st, 2026, solely on the basis of this new law.”
These are the Left’s rules. The Right is just playing by them.
BRENDAN O’NEILL: Henry Nowak and the savagery of state wokeness.
The case of Henry Nowak has shocked the nation. He was a Polish-Briton in his first year at university. During a night out in Southampton in England in December last year, he had a fatal encounter with a Sikh man named Vickrum Digwa. Some kind of altercation took place. Digwa then stabbed Nowak five times with his kirpan, the ceremonial curved sword that Sikhs carry. Nowak was gored in his chest, his face and his legs. He scrambled over a fence, leaving a blood trail in his wake. ‘I’m dying’, local residents heard him say. He was right.
As savage as the knifing was, it was what happened next that has shaken Britain’s soul. Digwa’s mother arrived and spirited away the murder weapon – it was later found hidden in the family home with 20 other Sikh swords and knives. Digwa then accused Nowak of having racially abused him. He said Nowak used a racist slur against him, punched him and knocked off his turban. These were ‘wicked lies’, the court heard during his murder trial. Yet there was a group of people on the scene of this atrocity who believed Digwa’s vile libels against the youth he had just fatally lacerated: the police.
The police’s behaviour that night defies all logic and humanity. They bowed to Digwa’s defamatory slurs and arrested and handcuffed young Henry. The Telegraph’s report captures the barbarism of the police’s credulous ineptitude that grim evening: ‘As the teenager lay there, unable to breathe as his lungs filled with blood, begging officers for help, they ignored his pleas and placed him under arrest. He died less than an hour later.’ If anything will cause decent Britons to lose faith in the police, it’s this: the haunting vision of a boy being manhandled by the state as he drowned in his own blood.
As Bertold Brecht asked, “Would it not in that case be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?”
The British government exists to eliminate the English
That’s it
That’s the truth https://t.co/pASePZnLND
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) June 2, 2026
MORE OF THIS PLEASE: “HHS Probes Complaint of Racial Preferences in Biden-Era Health Training Grants.“
BUBBLE OR NOT? Anthropic Joins the IPO Stampede — Profits Still Optional. “But then there’s the sharpest business analyst I know of, Stratechery’s Ben Thompson, who argued earlier this year that AI’s ‘economic imperatives are going to be impossible to resist, and will fuel demand for even more compute over time, further supporting the case that this is no bubble.'”
CANADA NEEDS A REAL RECKONING FOR THE ‘MASS GRAVES’ HOAX:
So far, The Globe and Mail is the only media outlet that has owned up to its role in perpetrating what amounted to a blood libel against the Catholic Church. In 2024, I wrote about how no human remains had ever been exhumed from the sites of the purported mass graves, despite millions of dollars spent looking for them. Two years later, that’s still the case.
Read the whole thing.
OUT: THE VOICES IN MY HEAD. IN: THE VOICE ON MY SCREEN. Florida sues OpenAI, Sam Altman after multiple ChatGPT-linked murders.
The civil lawsuit comes after Florida opened an unrelated criminal probe into OpenAI, following a ChatGPT-linked mass shooting where two people were killed at Florida State University. In statements, OpenAI has insisted that ChatGPT isn’t responsible for the FSU shooting, merely providing factual information, but Uthmeier does not seem to agree. In his complaint, Uthmeier noted that Florida has now been blindsided by two violent events where suspects used ChatGPT to assist in planning.
“Horrifically, ChatGPT has aided and abetted in more than one multiple murder in the State of Florida,” Uthmeier’s complaint said. “The 2026 deaths of University of South Florida graduate students Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon were also plotted using ChatGPT, which advised Hisham Abugharbieh on how to dispose of bodies, change VIN numbers on a car, and whether cars were checked at the crime scene.”
Uthmeier then went on to list all the ways ChatGPT has allegedly fueled violence. In 2025, ChatGPT was blamed for encouraging several users to commit suicide, including teenager Adam Raine and a 56-year-old bodybuilder who murdered his mother based on a ChatGPT-hallucinated conspiracy.
More recently, in February, a man with mental health struggles killed his wife and attacked his mother “after talking with ChatGPT several hours a day and coming to believe robots were taking over the world, ” Uthmeier said. And a small mining town in Canada was shocked by a school shooting that claimed nine lives the same month. Altman later apologized for not alerting law enforcement about the shooter’s ChatGPT logs, which some believe could have averted the shooting.
Developing…
ANOTHER WIN FOR INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: Seattle Public Library hosted the first of what was expected to be a regular series of training sessions at branch facilities, entitled the People’s Hard Reduction Alliance workshops.
One attendee just happened to be independent journo Jonathan Choe, dutifully reported the details of the session, including the fact free Narcan was being made available with easy access by children. End of workshops.
