When Cardinal Stritch University made its abrupt announcement in April that the school was shutting down at the end of the spring semester the effect was staggering.

Hundreds of workers out of jobs.

Many students scrambling to enroll somewhere else to complete their degrees.

I, too, felt the jolt.

Since the mid 1990’s I assigned the scorers, timers, and shot clock operators for every Stritch men’s and women’s basketball game played at Stritch’s home court.  When I was available I worked as the official timer.

During an early women’s games in the 2021-22 season one of the Stritch players came running to the scorer’s table to officially check in, but didn’t have her warmup shirt completely off to display to the table her jersey number, which is required for the player to get into the game. Quickly there was a dead ball so I hit the horn to get her onto the floor.

I made it a point to myself to talk to that young woman.

At halftime, after the teams came out of their locker rooms to begin the second half I spied the Stritch player and got her attention.

In my inimitable fashion, intending no harm, I barked. Everyone on the Stritch team heard and observed.

#14!

Her eyes were as big as saucers as she stared at me.

I wiggled my index finger summoning her that I wanted to talk. Her facial reaction resembled the genuine fear of a youngster in class being admonished.

I quietly, but nicely, explained how when she checked in to make sure we could see her game jersey with her official player number on it. That I didn’t want her (or me) to be embarrassed by one of the floor officials refusing to allow her entry into the game, sending her back to the table, etc.

She listened and respectfully took my instructions to heart.

From that game forward she checked in perfectly every time.

#14 was a junior that season. Gal Duhan. From Beit Yehoshua, Israel. Stritch has had a long reputation of players coming from foreign countries.

The past two seasons Dahan and I have enjoyed brief chats as she warmed up before games in addition to after games.

Here’s a shot of Dahan (#14) on the far right on Stritch Senior Night.

And here’s Dahan bringing the ball up against MSOE at MSOE this season. I was the public address announcer, 3rd from right at the table.

Naturally I assumed when basketball ended and Stritch announced their closing that I’d never see or hear from Dahan again.

But on May 21st, Wisconsin Public Radio reported on Stritch’s final graduation ceremony where Dahan gave a speech.

The next day I contacted longtime Stritch women’s coach John Pfaffl and Athletic Director Dan Kuklinski. If I send them a personal note form me to Dahan could they make ure she gets it?

The answer was an immediate and enthusiastic YES.

Hello Ms. Dahan!

I’m Kevin Fischer, the lead timer for Cardinal Stritch basketball games. I assigned the timers, scorers and shot clock operators since the mid-1990’s.

Recently I read on the WI Public Radio website that you gave a speech at the Cardinal Stritch graduation ceremony.  Given how impressed I was with you I’m not surprised you were chosen for such an honor.

Thank you for chatting with me at games and being so kind. I’ll never forget joking with you about how to properly check in at the scorer’s table and how you did it perfectly ever since.  And I recall you telling me how you always want to treat people the way you’d like to be treated. Excellent!

Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. Please continue to work hard. I wish you the very best and am confident you’ll be a success at whatever you take on.

If you’d like to keep in touch (my personal e-mail):

I’m so glad I met you.

Take care!

Kevin

If I get a response I’ll pass it along.

Meanwhile Dahan is continuing her studies. She’s be a graduate student at Marquette University.

Briefs are posted every weekday morning, M-F

NEWS

Ongoing negotiations over a debt limit deal between President Joe Biden and U.S. House Republicans could force states such as Wisconsin to return any unspent federal funds doled out during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday.

Speaking with reporters in Brown Deer, the Democratic governor said his office anticipates the possibility that a deal struck between Biden and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could include measures to claw back dollars provided during the pandemic that have not yet been spent or allocated.

“We haven’t heard anything because I don’t think that the actual written document exists, so we are planning all across our agencies,” Evers said in a video posted by WISN-TV. “We’re looking at what is known and seeing how much money we would have to send back, but at this point in time we’re not anywhere near because they aren’t anywhere near on soup yet.”

It’s unclear how much of the billions in federal funding provided to Wisconsin would be impacted under the potential agreement. Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said the governor’s office is monitoring the ongoing conversations at the federal level.

A report on the state’s Badger Bounceback website, which details how federal coronavirus funds have been spent, notes that more than $447 million in federal funds had not yet been spent or obligated as of March 31.

However, state Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said in an email it’s premature to say how much federal funding would be rescinded under the agreement. She noted most of the $447 million would not be impacted by the debt bill under discussion.

—Racine Journal Times

Lawmakers are set to consider a package of legislation that would tighten prohibitions on sexual assault within the Wisconsin National Guard after a scathing federal report found commanders had for years been flouting federal requirements for handling complaints.

A study committee made up of legislators, district attorneys and military veterans began working on legislation last summer to tighten oversight of sexual assault complaints within the Wisconsin National Guard. The state Assembly’s military affairs committee was set to start the process toward floor votes with a public hearing on the bills Wednesday morning.

The proposals come after the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C, released a blistering report in December 2019 that found Wisconsin National Guard commanders between 2009 and 2019 improperly kept sexual assault complaints to themselves rather than passing them along to the national bureau for investigation. The Wisconsin National Guard’s commander, Maj. Gen. Donald Dunbar, resigned just as the report was released.

Sexual misconduct has been a long-standing problem within the U.S. military. The Department of Defense received 8,942 reports of sexual assault in fiscal year 2022, up about 0.8% from the 8,866 reports it received in 2021 and 14% from the 7,816 reports tracked in 2020, according to the department’s reports tracking sexual assault.

—WI Associated Press

A California appeals court said Tuesday that Leslie Van Houten, who participated in two killings at the direction of cult leader Charles Manson in 1969, should be released from prison on parole.

The appellate court’s ruling reverses an earlier decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who rejected parole for Van Houten in 2020. She has been recommended for parole five times since 2016. All of those recommendations were rejected by either Newsom or former Gov. Jerry Brown.

Newsom could request that California Attorney General Rob Bonta petition the state Supreme Court to stop her release. Bonta’s office referred questions to Newsom’s office, which didn’t respond to queries about possible next steps.

Van Houten, now in her 70s, is serving a life sentence for helping Manson and other followers kill Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary.

Newsom has said that Van Houten still poses a danger to society. In rejecting her parole, he said she offered an inconsistent and inadequate explanation for her involvement with Manson at the time of the killings.

The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles ruled 2-1 to reverse Newsom’s decision, writing there is “no evidence to support the Governor’s conclusions” about Van Houten’s fitness for parole.

The judges took issue with Newsom’s claim that Van Houten did not adequately explain how she fell under Manson’s influence. At her parole hearings, she discussed at length how her parents’ divorce, her drug and alcohol abuse, and a forced illegal abortion led her down a path that left her vulnerable to him.

They also argued against Newsom’s suggestion that her past violent acts were a cause for future concern were she to be released.

Van Houten was 19 when she and other cult members stabbed the LaBiancas to death in August 1969. She said they carved up Leno LaBianca’s body and smeared the couple’s blood on the walls.

The slayings came the day after other Manson followers, not including Van Houten, killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in violence that spread fear across Los Angeles and captivated the nation.

Anthony DiMaria, whose uncle Jay Sebring was killed along with Tate, said the judges’ ruling is the latest painful twist that the victims’ families have endured over the decades.

—Associated Press

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia, her family announced Tuesday.

Carter, now 95, remains at home with former President Jimmy Carter, 98, who has been at home receiving hospice care since early this year.

“She continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones,” the family said via The Carter Center, the global humanitarian organization the couple founded in 1982, less than two years after Jimmy Carter’s landslide defeat.

Married nearly 77 years, the Carters are the longest-married first couple in U.S. history.

“Mrs. Carter often noted that there are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers; those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers,” the family statement reads. “We are experiencing the joy and the challenges of this journey.”

The Carters have been visiting only with family and close friends since the former president’s announcement in February that he would forgo further medical intervention after a series of short hospital stays.

The family has not disclosed any specific diagnosis for either the former president or the former first lady. The statement Tuesday said the Carter family would have no further comment.

—Associated Press

Some conservatives have suggested a boycott of Chick-fil-A after the fast-food chain was discovered to have a vice president of “diversity, equity, [and] inclusion,” or DEI.

In a previously issued Chick-fil-A news release, the company said that Erick McReynolds serves as its vice president of DEI, saying: “Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognized as a place where people know they will be treated well. Modeling care for others starts in the restaurant, and we are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding, and dignity everywhere we do business.”

DEI is a set of principles that large corporations, government agencies, and schools have increasingly incorporated into their work environments, often mandating employees receive such training. However, these principles are rooted in Marxism, according to prominent critics including Christopher Rufo and James Lindsay, that are essentially vehicles for “left-wing racialist ideology and partisan political activism.”

“They are designed to replace the system of academic merit with a system of race-based preferences and discrimination—which, in many cases, explicitly violates federal civil rights law,” wrote Rufo for his Substack page earlier this year.

According to McReynolds’s LinkedIn page, he was hired as Chick-fil-A’s vice president for “Diversity, Equity [and] Inclusion” in late 2021.

“We have a problem,” wrote Joey Mannarino, a conservative host, on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?”

“So Chick-fil-A has a diversity, equity and inclusion division,” added columnist Todd Starnes on Tuesday. “Well, that explains the fried cauliflower sandwiches and kale salad.”

The chicken-based fast-food chain has been generally well respected among conservatives due to the company’s religious values and its prior support for religious groups.

—–The Epoch Times

Travelers flying through several United States airports may want to pack extra patience in their carry-on luggage when heading to these airports.

A recent Forbes ranking found that John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California was the “angriest” when analyzing Twitter posts from travelers flying through major airports around the US. The tweets’ sentiment — including sadness, joy, love, anger, fear, and surprise — is what determined the ranking.

Despite being home to one of the happiest places on earth, Disneyland, the airport was unfavorably ranked due to noise, staff, TSA complaints, and delays.

In second are third place are Jacksonville International Airport in Jacksonville, Florida and Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.

While travelers had a negative experience at some airports, it wasn’t all bad news.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, travelers who flew through Indianapolis, Seattle-Tacoma and Kansas City were less likely to share an angry experience on Twitter, according to the report.

The Indianapolis Airport has previously been named the best airport in North America by the Airports Council International. The airport features a variety of shopping which keeps travelers entertained such as MAC Cosmetics, FAO Schwarz Toy Store, TUMI, and Vineyard Vines.

While passengers may be complaining about their experience on the ground at the airport in this Forbes data, passengers are lodging complaints against airlines, and even the TSA.

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently released an “Air Travel Consumer Report,” which revealed that Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and Jetblue Airways had the top three amounts of consumer complaints.

The TSA received over 14,000 complaints in the report.

—Travel + Leisure

After six years of flying, U.S.-based flight attendant Allyah McIntyre was used to dealing with difficult passengers.

During the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic, dealing with the few passengers who chose to fly was actually a pleasant experience. But as more people began to book airline tickets again, chaos reigned, she said.

“The passengers got more and more unruly. There’s no such thing as travel etiquette,” McIntyre, who shares travel tips on TikTok, told MarketWatch. “I mean, it’s a free-for-all when you travel these days.”

Earlier this month, an American Airlines passenger pleaded guilty to assault after attacking two flight attendants on a flight from Barbados to Miami. The passenger was also described in a court complaint as “belligerent and non-compliant.” He was arrested when the plane landed in Miami on March 8.

In April, Alaska Airlines ALK, -0.04% said a flight from San Francisco to Chicago O’Hare was diverted to Kansas City due to a disruptive guest on board who allegedly made “threatening comments against the crew.” A flight attendant and two passengers allegedly had to restrain her with zip ties. She was charged with one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants.

There are other incidents — from the unpleasant to the downright unbelievable — that don’t end up with arrests, or even getting reported by the media. McIntyre said people have been asking for nail clippers on board and even vaping on the plane. “The issues are endless,” McIntyre said. “People are just so irritable while traveling — the energy, it’s different.”

For all the nastiness they deal with, flight attendants were paid a median salary of $62,000 in 2021, according to the latest data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A high-school degree or the equivalent is typically required for a job as a flight attendant; they receive on-the-job training and must be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the BLS.

Indeed.com, a jobs-listing website, said that flight attendants work on average between 12- to 14-hour days, and log around 65 to 85 flight hours each month, which doesn’t include overtime. “A flight attendant’s official duty time begins when the plane pushes from the gate until it arrives at its destination,” the site adds. “Preflight, boarding, post-flight, delays and layovers are not official duty time so attendants can use layover time as they wish.”

They also don’t always have set schedules, as their day-to-day depends on the route they’re flying. McIntyre, for instance, was about to embark on a six-day journey. Routes also depend on how senior the attendant is, the website said, as well as where they live, and what destinations they prefer. In other words, if some attendants — such as parents of young children — prefer short trips, they can work with the airline to take shorter routes, and more days off. Airlines pay for all their meals and accommodations where it is necessary.

Back on the job, McIntyre said she compartmentalizes incidents that happen on the aircraft, writing it off as part of her duties. “You just kind of have to roll with the punches, maybe even laugh at it if you can,” she said, “because otherwise, it will stress you out.”

She said she was ready — and prepared — for the surge in travel. “I’m expecting oversold flights, more unruly passengers — I’m ready for it,” McIntyre said.

—MarketWatch

OPINION

As nearly every standardized test is showing, our schools are doing an abysmal job teaching kids how to read or do math. In some cases, kids graduating from high school can barely read their diplomas.

But the schools are wildly succeeding with their climate change indoctrination program. When I speak to kids on high school and college campuses and ask what the greatest threat is to their generation, the answer isn’t China’s aggression. It isn’t a drug abuse problem that is becoming the leading killer of our children. It isn’t the failed schools or the corrupt government or the more routine violations of freedom of speech. It isn’t the $32 trillion national debt soon headed to $50 trillion.

No, they almost all raise their hands and moan that they are most worried about global warming or “climate change.” We are raising a generation with millions of Greta Thunbergs. A Daily Telegraph poll found that more than half of teenagers surveyed believe that the world “may end in their lifetime” because of climate change. No one has ever told them that the climate has been changing for as long as the planet has existed. They’ve apparently never heard of the ice ages. The earth has gone through centuries of warming — and that was before air conditioning, which the climate czars want to take away from us to combat warming. Figure that one out.

I’m not here to argue about “the science” of global warming. What I do know is it’s only “settled science” because anyone who dares question the “experts” is written off as crazy or a quack. Meanwhile, the people who warned us about “the population bomb,” nuclear winter, mass starvation, running out of energy, global cooling and a future so polluted that everyone would have to wear gas masks in cities, are telling us to just trust them as they are busy at work erecting a multitrillion-dollar climate change industrial complex that revolves around our planetary savior — the windmill.

But scaring the bejesus out of our kids to score political points is a reprehensible practice. Our school kids are being terrorized with misinformation. This, in turn, is leading to all sorts of maladies, including a rise in teen depression, suicide, lower productivity and drug addiction.

Worst of all, we are seeing the opposite of a population bomb. We are experiencing one of the most severe birth dearths in American history. The birth rate is plummeting and no surprise. Who wants to bring kids into a world that will be uninhabitable in 50 years.

The irony of all this is that today’s children and teens are inheriting a living standard, a cleaner planet, and a level of goods and services and technologies and medical care that is far superior to anything anyone in history — even the richest kings and queens — had access to even 100 years ago. If kids think climate change is worrisome, they should try dealing with the bubonic plague, which killed one-third of Europe’s population, or polio or tuberculosis — or fending off barbarians or working 60 hours a week in a coal mine.

We parents are the ones who have passively sat by as the Left turned our kids into neurotic Green New Dealers. Death to the machine. Turn the lights out. No more cars. No more flush toilets or washing machines. What’s next to save the planet? Euthanasia?

That’s what happens when you teach your children that they aren’t inheriting the earth, but a fiery hell.

—Stephen Moore is a Fox News contributor and author of “Who’s the Fairest of Them All? The Truth About Taxes, Income and Wealth in America”

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – In 1859 Big Ben, the world’s largest four-faced, chiming clock first started ticking

Briefs are posted every weekday morning, M-F

NEWS

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore is living it up on her leadership PAC.

Leadership PACs were created in the 1970s to allow top federal lawmakers to raise and contribute money to like-minded candidates, preferred political parties and allied political groups.

But Moore spent only 16.6% of her funds in her leadership PAC on political donations from January 2019 to December 2022 out of her overall outlay of $727,910 — the lowest percentage within the Wisconsin congressional delegation.

Instead, during the four-year period, Milwaukee Democrat’s leadership PAC — Giving Willingly Empowering Nationally (GWEN) — spent about $96,000 on travel, more than $48,000 on food and beverages, nearly $173,000 on fundraising and fundraising consultants, and $17,000 on tickets via StubHub, Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

But it’s the itemized expenditures that are the most eye-catching. A top aide to Moore said these expenses were part of the fundraising efforts by the leadership fund.

Federal Election Commission records show GWEN PAC:

• Spent more than $6,000 on 16 trips to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, an average of $376 per visit to the upscale eatery. The PAC also covered 13 dinners at Kobe Japanese Steakhouse at a total cost of $2,055.

• Paid out $4,623 to Blackline Limousines in Oak Creek.

• Dropped $1,017 for food and drinks at Luke’s Lobster in Chicago.

• Spent nearly $18,000 at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa, a luxury wine country resort in California.

• Paid more than $19,000 on 363 trips with Uber and 176 meals via Uber Eats. (That works out to one Uber trip every four days over four years and one Uber Eats dinner every eight days.)

Finally, the leadership PAC wrote seven checks to Moore’s sister, Brenda Moore, for a total of $22,200 for fundraising and consulting. Brenda Moore was paid another $232,000 in salary for work on her sister’s re-election campaign — which is separate from the leadership PAC — during the same four-year period.

In her 10th term, Moore, 72, is now the de facto dean of Wisconsin’s House delegation, representing the overwhelming blue 4th District. As a member of Congress Moore makes $174,000 a year.

The only other member of the state delegation who spent less than half of the money from a leadership PAC on political donations in recent years was Republican Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, who took office in 2021. His leadership PAC paid out a little more than a third of its tiny $39,006 total outlay on donations.

Today, more than 90% of the members of Congress have leadership PACs. (Former Wisconsin Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was one of the few who rejected the practice.) On average federal lawmakers spent about 70% of their total expenditures on political donations.

—Dan Bice, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Fallen Milwaukee Police Department Officer Peter Jerving was honored this Memorial Day with a special tribute at Wisconsin Memorial Park in Brookfield.

On Monday, Patty and Doug Jerving gave a speech in front of a crowd to honor their son, who was tragically killed in the line of duty on Feb. 7, 2023, while attempting to arrest a suspect involved in a robbery.

Family members were spotted wearing matching “End of Watch” shirts and buttons in Jerving’s honor. Many shed tears as they remembered one of their own who paid the ultimate sacrifice defending his community.

“They’re trained very well, they know what to do, but they have to love the people that they serve to protect, and Peter did; he had a lot of compassion,” said Patty Jerving, Peter Jerving’s mother.

Patty Jerving said support from the community has truly been unbelievable — a reminder that her son was loved by so many people.

Close to 500 American flags were placed around the cemetery in honor of veterans, first responders and police officers.

Peter Jerving’s 10-year-old niece, Caitlyn Twito, told CBS 58 that it’s been hard losing one of her favorite people.

“My uncle, he was very funny,” she said. “He was the best uncle I could ever have and now that he’s not here anymore…it’s very different now.”

—CBS 58 Milwaukee

The Homeland Security Department is warning communities nationwide about an increased risk of terror attacks on churches, schools, federal installations and law enforcement heading into the 2024 election, specifically cautioning that “legislative or judicial decisions pertaining to sociopolitical issues” could trigger violence in coming months.

In a bulletin issued just before Memorial Day, the agency cited a spate of violent acts this spring, including on a Christian school in Tennessee, a shopping mall in Texas and a plot on a church in Ohio by white supremacists as harbingers for future concern.

“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment,” the bulletin stated. “Lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland.

“Both domestic violent extremists (DVEs) and those associated with foreign terrorist organizations continue to attempt to motivate supporters to conduct attacks in the homeland, including through violent extremist messaging and online calls for violence.”

The agency said the start of the presidential election campaign season and expected controversial decisions by the courts and Congress and state legislatures could further activate people and groups seeking to commit violence.

“In the coming months, factors that could mobilize individuals to commit violence include their perceptions of the 2024 general election cycle and legislative or judicial decisions pertaining to sociopolitical issues,” the bulletin warned.

“Likely targets of potential violence include U.S. critical infrastructure, faith-based institutions, individuals or events associated with the LGBTQIA+ community, schools, racial and ethnic minorities, and government facilities and personnel, including law enforcement.”

—Just the News

The Trump campaign has announced that it is looking to beat Democrat ballot harvesting in states across the country, specifically taking aim at operations funded by billionaire George Soros.

“We recently alerted you that a Soros-linked Super PAC has begun targeting 6 battleground states with a $75 MILLION spending blitz to buy Crooked Joe the White House,” a Thursday campaign fundraising email read, according to the Washington Times.

“But there’s something important we want to add…some of those states have legalized BALLOT HARVESTING,” the email added, highlighting Soros-linked efforts in the battleground of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

“At the beginning of the year, President Trump made a major announcement that our campaign would ballot harvest in the states where it’s legal to counter the Left’s schemes,” the email added, asking for financial contributions to the Trump campaign’s Ballot Harvesting Fund.

Ballot harvesting refers to the act of a person other than the voter turning in a ballot, usually a mail-in ballot.

While Republicans have previously disavowed the practice and pushed for it to be eliminated, Trump earlier this year stated that he would embrace it in states where it’s legal in order to fight back against the Democrats. Many pundits have also called for the GOP to get on board and fight fire with fire, instead of letting the Democrats undertake the practice with no pushback.

—The Post Millennial

President Biden acknowledged Monday at a Memorial Day event that his late son Beau died from brain cancer and not while at war — 11 days after he wrongly told US troops in Japan that his son died “in Iraq.”

Biden told the grieving families of war dead at Arlington National Cemetery that his son didn’t die on the “battlefield” but that he believes his cancer may have been caused by exposure to toxic fumes from “burn pits” during a nearly yearlong deployment.

“Our losses are not the same. He didn’t perish in the battlefield. It was cancer that stole him from us a year after being deployed as a major in the US Army National Guard in Iraq,” Biden said, misstating by about five years the duration between his son’s return from deployment and death, though he later correctly stated the amount of time since Beau died.

The 80-year-old president has puzzled viewers by claiming at least three times since last year that his son died in Iraq.

—NY Post

Graduates booed and turned their chairs away from former U.S Rep. Liz Cheney as she delivered the commencement address at Colorado College on Sunday.

Cheney repeated her fierce criticisms of former President Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future.

The Wyoming Republican blasted her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat Trump’s lies

Cheney implored the new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth and blasted one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the election for allegedly telling a gathering of Republicans that ‘it is crucially important to make sure that college students don’t vote.’

While many students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheney’s remarks, some opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker booed and turned their chairs away from the stage when she spoke.

One graduate’s message to Cheney was splashed on her cap. It read: ‘Why listen to a racist, imperialist, transphobic, war monger?? Your hate is loud.’

—The Daily Mail

An analysis of primetime ratings shows that Fox News has seen an approximate decline of 1 million total viewers on average for its primetime lineup after the departure of Tucker Carlson in late April.

In the four weeks before Carlson left the network, Fox News’ primetime hours averaged some 2.6 million total viewers. But in the four weeks after his departure, those hours are down to just 1.6 million viewers, a decline in 39 percent, according to an analysis from Mediaite.

The 8 p.m. hour that Carlson used to have also declined significantly, according to ratings. Carlson had averaged some 3.2 million viewers in the weeks before he left, but the replacement show—”Fox News Tonight”—is down to 1.49 million viewers on average.

Despite the drop in the primetime viewership since Carlson’s departure, data shows that Fox News is still the No. 1 cable news channel in terms of overall ratings.

—The Epoch Times

Kohl’s has become the latest major retailer that shoppers have found selling LGBT pride clothing and products for infants and children.

Among the merchandise for LGBT pride month in June, the department store’s website includes a “Baby Sonoma Community Pride Bodysuit set” for young children from age 3 months to 2 years. The outfit includes a lesbian couple with a dog and three children, one of whom is in a wheelchair, and one of the women is holding an LGBT pride flag.

Additional merchandise includes the “Love Is Love” phrase on pillows, bibs, shorts, candles, a banner, and towels, Fox News reported. There are also shirts with phrases on them such as “Be Proud” and “Ask Me My Pronouns.”

Kohl’s became the latest major retailer criticized for LGBT merchandise for kids after calls for boycotting Target began for the same reason.

Kohl’s stock has sunk over 50% over the last year, according to Fox News.

—Just the News

The big cheese of extreme U.K. sports events is back.

Hundreds of spectators gathered Monday to watch dozens of reckless racers chase a 7-pound (3 kilogram) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down the near-vertical Cooper’s Hill, near Gloucester in southwest England.

The first racer to finish behind the fast-rolling cheese gets to keep it.

The cheese-rolling race has been held at Cooper’s Hill, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of London, since at least 1826, and the sport of cheese-rolling is believed to be much older.

The rough-and-tumble event often comes with safety concerns. Few competitors manage to stay on their feet all the way down the 200-yard (180 meter) hill, and this year several had to be helped, limping, from the course.

Canadian contestant Delaney Irving, 19, won the women’s race despite being briefly knocked unconscious.

“I just remember hitting my head, and now I have the cheese,” said Irving, who comes from Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Matt Crolla, 28, from Manchester in northwestern England, won the first of several men’s races. Asked how he had prepared, he told reporters: “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.”

—Associated Press

OPINION

I once heard an academic ask an elite soldier what distinguished the warrior’s mindset from that of an ordinary person. The soldier thought about it for a second and then asked the professor to imagine getting up in the middle of the night, half asleep, to grab a glass of milk. Now imagine, he said, that you have a cat or dog that comes out of nowhere in the dark and startles you completely. A normal person, he continued, will most likely toss the milk into the air, drop the glass in his hand, and maybe knock over half of the condiments in the fridge. A warrior, he said, has so prepared his mind for unexpected things to jump out in the dark that not only will he keep from spilling the milk in his hand, but also a little voice inside his head will say, “Oh good, game on, let’s go.”

The academic laughed and said something about never wanting to accidentally sneak up behind the soldier while he was distracted, and the elite warrior grinned and said, “Oh, I wasn’t talking about myself; my wife would tell you that my dogs regularly get the best of me at two in the morning.”

That lighthearted moment has always stuck with me for a number of reasons. For one, it was a charming and effective analogy from a well respected and admired combat veteran. What goes on around you is out of your control; what matters is that you have prepared yourself to remain calm and respond appropriately.

Second, his humorous story reflected a serious truth: service members engaging in combat are almost always “in the dark.” There are a hundred variables that are constantly changing in real time. Even familiar terrain can turn dangerous in a flash, and every move a person makes is done behind a veil of uncertainty as to how each action will affect the next.

Third, he made an important point that is not always easy for people to hear: the best warriors are those who — at some level — enjoy the fight. They don’t have to enjoy violence or death, but they do have to have a certain mentality that enables them to confidently engage against the unexpected.

Lastly, although nobody would have ever described him as anything other than an elite warrior, his self-deprecation implied that the work of being one never ends. It is a role without a destination that requires a committed individual to constantly confront new challenges along a tortuous path.

When military service is understood in these simple terms, it is clear that fleeting Memorial Day remembrances are insufficient for honoring the sacrifices of those we have laid to rest. Individuals who have pursued excellence in their lives and then offered those lives in service to others are the kinds of people who should be emulated every day. In an age suffering from a scarcity of role models, it is easy to see how our culture has gone astray when the best among us lie quietly in cemetery fields. If every schoolchild were tasked with learning about the lives and deaths of America’s fallen heroes, no generation would reach maturity without comprehending the magnificent price paid for their own existence. The “I-I-I, me-me-me” world of today flourishes only because too many of America’s unworthy “leaders” have chosen to bury national character in the same graves as those who possessed personal character in spades.

Memorial Day should be celebrated as a time for national rejuvenation, when the living can learn from the dead, honor their character, and find from their sacrifice enduring meaning. Instead, for too many, the holiday (is) used as yet another chance to celebrate the living, while tarnishing the past. Politicians who snicker at good manners and jeer at principle will find a way to make Americans alive today feel as if they are somehow “victims” and that the heroes who died on their behalf are somehow to blame. Many Hollywood celebrities will take “selfies” glorifying their indulgent lifestyles, but few, if any, will pause to remember the final minutes of life endured by those who gave all, so that the callous and ignorant could play.

It is maddening. So many Americans will let Memorial Day slip by without falling to their knees in thanks is an agonizing reminder that while many Americans today still supply the nation with its vital supply of character, the country is nonetheless bleeding.

You do not need to walk through a battlefield cemetery to see sacrifice. Look into the eyes of someone who has lost a loved one, and you will see that the cost of military service is never borne by the warriors alone. Losing someone in war is like losing a limb that no prosthetic can replace. People suffer in silence because the scars from their injuries are not visible to others. Their sacrifice continues unabated for all their days. Again, if the politicians and personalities truly cared about America’s survival, they would tell their voyeuristic “followers” to pay attention to the Americans who actually deserve their concern. Look at these parents and spouses who suffer, so that you can live carelessly, they should say. These are the ones you should honor. That they do not, and that so many Americans will fail to comfort those most in need of comforting, should be a source of great shame.

At the very least, we should honor the fallen by celebrating how they lived. We should remember that however daunting the path before us, it is our time to fight for those who rest.

That is the kind of monument the fallen deserve — to have their memories reflected in our daily actions. Surely that is not too much to ask.

—J.B. Shurk

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Having led the French army in a momentous victory over England at Orléans during the Hundred Years’ War, Joan of Arc was charged with heresy and witchcraft and, on this day in 1431, was burned at the stake.

AND in 1806 Andrew Jackson, who later served as president of the United States (1829–37), fatally shot Charles Dickinson in a duel; during his life Jackson was involved in numerous duels—some accounts estimate 100—and many of them were in defense of his wife, Rachel.

Let us then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of springtime. Let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor. Let us, in this solemn presence, renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the nation’s gratitude—the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.

— Maj. Gen. John Logan In his 1868 call to celebrate Decoration Day as a national holiday,

 War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

—19th century libertarian philosopher John Stuart Mill in his essay “The Contest In America

Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures — not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.

His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.

But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.

In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.

From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the glee club, in memory’s eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.

I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.

— On May 12, 1962, Gen. Douglas MacArthur addressed the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, delivering his farewell speech

I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them. Yet, we must try to honor them not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice.

Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we — in a less final, less heroic way — be willing to give of ourselves.

It is this, beyond the controversy and the congressional debate, beyond the blizzard of budget numbers and the complexity of modern weapons systems, that motivates us in our search for security and peace. … The willingness of some to give their lives so that others might live never fails to evoke in us a sense of wonder and mystery.

As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. … I can’t claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don’t know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: “O! say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” That is what we must all ask.

—On Memorial Day of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke in honor of 270,000 Patriots interred at Arlington National Cemetery

Memorial Day is a time to take stock of the present, reflect on the past, and renew our commitment to the future of America. Today, as in the past, there are problems that must be solved and challenges that must be met. We can tackle them with our full strength and creativity only because we are free to work them out in our own way. We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.

I don’t have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch, or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world. This Memorial Day of 1983, we honor those brave Americans who died in the service of their country. I think an ancient scholar put it well when he wrote: “Let us now praise famous men … All these were honored in their generation, and were the glory of their times. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.” As a tribute to their sacrifice, let us renew our resolve to remain strong enough to deter aggression, wise enough to preserve and protect our freedom, and thoughtful enough to promote lasting peace throughout the world.

—President Ronald Reagan, 1983

Memorial Day is the day that makes possible all other American days. Without the sacrifice we honor at patriots’ graves in churchyards and national cemeteries across the country, there would be no America.

Their duty was to serve. Our duty is to remember.

But our duty must go far beyond remembrance — it must include a commitment to ensuring that our military remains the best trained, best equipped and most prepared fighting force in world history. 

As evil grows around the world, only a renewed America is capable of keeping evil in check. If America isn’t leading the free world, the free world isn’t being led.

The United States military is the greatest fighting force ever assembled on the face of the earth, the greatest force for peace in the history of mankind, made up of the greatest patriots in the history of our country. We will be forever grateful for their service and their sacrifice.

—Mike Pence is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. He wrote in the Washington Times on May 28, 2023

Few know that we are facing a national security crisis whose remedy lies in reinvigorating a dedication to duty among our youth. The Army missed its recruiting goals last year by about 15,000 soldiers. That’s roughly the size of one division. They’ll miss the recruiting goal again this year. Let that sink in – we’re running short one division a year when we only have ten. How many more years until our Army is too small to be effective? This major security threat is emerging just as an era of geopolitical power struggle intensifies with a totalitarian Chinese Communist foe explicitly dedicated to dominating the world order.

America’s youth must step forward to serve our nation in uniform. All Americans can be part of the solution by using our voices and influence to encourage a renewed sense of duty to country across this great land. Advocate for military service to your communities, to your schools, and especially to your children. From those to whom much has been entrusted, much is expected. And all Americans have been abundantly blessed. Let’s rekindle our nation’s sense of duty – it’s our honor and privilege to do so.

—David Kim, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation, is a combat veteran, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and father of a son and a daughter in the U.S. Army

On this Memorial Day, we remember all the fallen — and we remember those whom they left behind. We have a sacred obligation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan” — and that obligation increases a hundredfold because the battle was borne, and the wife was widowed, and the child was orphaned, for us. “Freedom is not free” is an overused phrase, almost cliche, which does not mean it should not be said. But this Memorial Day, when you say it, think of what it means on the most human level. You live in the greatest nation, among the greatest people, in the history of the world.

You have that privilege because, across three centuries, unnumbered Americans laid down everything for it.  

—Brooke Rollins is the president and CEO of America First Policy Institute, and previously served as the director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Trump administration, writing in Real Clear Politics

AND…

Today’s highly interesting read (06/03/17): Did Someone Say, ‘Have a Happy Memorial Day?’

Briefs are posted every weekday morning, M-F

NEWS

More than 1.3 million soldiers have died fighting for America. These images pay tribute to the enormity of their sacrifice.

This weekend honors those who served our country but whom we never could thank with a handshake, applause or a ticker-tape parade − because we never had the chance.

They are the people who fought and gave their lives for America and our allies. In most cases, they never knew the outcome of their ultimate sacrifice – whether it was on a beach in Normandy, a Middle Eastern desert, a jungle in Asia, or a field in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

It has been 155 years since soldiers from both sides of the Civil War joined in remembering their lost comrades in America’s bloodiest war on what was once called Decoration Day. An act of Congress in 1971 created the Memorial Day holiday we now observe.

—USA TODAY

The Department of Veterans Affairs has expanded its Veterans Legacy Memorial project to include former service members interred at 27 cemeteries managed by the Air Force, Navy and Army, including Arlington National Cemetery.

VA officials said the expansion adds more than 300,000 veterans to the online memorial, which now contains landing pages for roughly 4.8 million veterans.

Each memorial page includes a veteran’s dates of birth and death, dates or eras of military service, grave location and photo of grave, as available. The site is fully interactive, allowing family members, friends and colleagues to share photos, documents and memories.

Since the site went fully interactive on Memorial Day weekend in 2021, more than 58,000 items have been uploaded to veterans’ pages, according to James LaPaglia, digital services officer for the National Cemetery Administration.

For example, LaPaglia said, on Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Robert Monroe’s page, family and friends have uploaded photos and added information about the Vietnam veteran’s service, awards and career.

And they can post messages, much like a social media page. Linda Monroe, Robert’s wife, visits the page often and leaves messages to him across the ether, even as she frequently visits his graveside at Riverside National Cemetery in California.

“Good morning,” she wrote to her husband in April. “Brought you some roses. It’s raining again but off and on after a week of sunshine.”

“Instead of what you see at a cemetery, with someone standing at a headstone talking to their late husband or late son, late daughter or spouse, this is happening virtually,” LaPaglia said. “We see people grieve, we see people telling funny stories. We see just the gamut of emotion.”

The addition this year of four Air Force, five Navy and 18 Army-run cemeteries includes the most requested location, Arlington National Cemetery — “something our users have been asking for from the beginning,” LaPaglia said.

LaPaglia urged Americans this Memorial Day to go to a veteran’s page to honor them.

“After the barbecues and kayaking, take some time to go to [the Veterans Legacy Memorial]. Find your veterans. Show their memories,” he said.

—Military.com

For too many Americans, Memorial Day is little more than a three-day weekend, a holiday in May marking the unofficial beginning of summer. The long weekend is filled with pool parties, first-of-the-year barbecues, and, of course, retail bargains. This, not to put too fine a point on it, is wrong.

Memorial Day was created as a remembrance to honor the fallen by decorating graves — a holiday meant to provide a pause so we could remember those who have given the most they could give in the name of freedom.

Sometimes it feels like we didn’t just get out of a 20-year war that heavily impacted so many service members and their families. The significance and original purpose of the day are lost to most average Americans, many of whom don’t know the difference between Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Veterans Day.

It doesn’t help that Memorial Day comes right at the kickoff to summer, a time for warmth and parades and the return of the sun after the bleakness of winter.

But the general population isn’t entirely to blame for not recognizing the day’s significance. They’ve been conditioned by decades of advertising and deep discounts for everything you can imagine, especially big-ticket items like home appliances. Memorial Day has essentially been rebranded by companies to cash in on any and every holiday to boost sales.

That’s something that Black Rifle Coffee Company has never done, and — according to company founder and CEO Evan Hafer — will never do.

“This isn’t about a 30% off mattress sale,” Hafer said. “BRCC never has and never will profit from Memorial Day, and it’s immoral for any company even to make a dollar off this day of remembrance.”

—Coffee or die

The Milwaukee Bucks are finalizing a deal to make Adrian Griffin their head coach after he spent the last five seasons as a Toronto Raptors assistant, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Saturday because the deal was still being completed.

Griffin would replace Mike Budenholzer, who was fired earlier this month after the top-seeded Bucks’ stunning loss to the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.

Griffin had been an assistant on a Toronto staff headed by Nick Nurse, who was fired last month after the end of the Raptors’ season. Griffin was an assistant on the Raptors’ 2019 NBA championship team that beat the Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals.

—Associated Press

A manufacturer with a 100-year history in Milwaukee will exit the city, leaving over 400 workers out of a job.

Master Lock will shutter its Milwaukee plant by next March and move production elsewhere in North America, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“This decision is not a reflection of the skills, performance or commitment of the Milwaukee workforce, and it was not made lightly,” the company said in a statement to WTMJ-TV. “Rather, this is an opportunity to continue to enhance our supply chain resilience, maximize potential growth of the business and maintain our competitiveness into the future.”

But the decision has drawn criticism from the United Auto Workers union and city leaders alike.

“I am enormously disappointed by the impending closure of the Master Lock facility,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in a statement. “It is a slap in the face to the hardworking Milwaukee employees. They certainly deserve greater respect and appreciation from their company.”

In a Facebook post, UAW Region 4 said the union is disgusted to see “another profitable corporation” choose to “close the doors of a manufacturing icon in America’s never-ending quest for profit, without any regard for the people amassing their wealth.”

—WI Public Radio

For more than 100 years, Wisconsin’s official highway maps have helped motorists, and likely a few horse-drawn wagons, get from Westfield to Florence, Brodhead to La Crosse and Montello to Bayfield.

Some of the earliest maps indicated surface type, like concrete, gravel, all weather earth roads, heavy clay earth roads and unsurfaced sandy roads.

The 1935 map had a handy guide to explain stop signs and had six paragraphs on the “rules of the road.” They included tips on passing a slower motorist and reminded drivers that their vehicles needed to have a rear view mirror, at least one windshield wiper, horn, legal lights and “efficient brakes.”

As for the speed limit?

“There is no speed limit on rural highways,” the state Highway Commission wrote 88 years ago. “Be reasonable and drive carefully.”

Clearly this was the early days of motoring.

But with smartphones loaded with GPS and vehicles armed with display screens and a voice that guides every turn, merge and crossing, the need for a folded, paper map would seem to be in its final days.

Only that’s not the case.

The state Department of Transportation has released, for the first time since 2019, its newest state highway map. And while there is a digital version, the state has also printed 310,000 copies and expects to print another 340,000 to meet demand before the next map comes out in 2025.

“The printed map doesn’t require batteries, it can always be there,” said David Layton, the DOT’s section chief of surveying and mapping. “There’s more points of interest, and you can see the whole state in one shot. Not only is it a map for travel purposes but for tourism and marketing the state as well.”

So as the travel season kicks off, the DOT has stocked up its welcome centers and rest stops with the new maps and has also created a database that holds each official state highway map since the program’s inception in 1918. It includes a 1916 road map produced by Rand McNally.

—Racine Journal Times

House Republicans reached a tentative deal with the White House on Saturday night to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and avoid a catastrophic default on U.S. sovereign debt.

“We have come to an agreement in principle,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said. “We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle that’s worthy of the American people.”

The deal, he said, “has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty and into the workforce, and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes and no new government programs.”

Biden called the deal “an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone.”

He also offered a preview of the White House’s argument for House Democrats reluctant to support a bill that appears on its face to be a Republican victory: In short, it could have been a lot worse.

“The agreement protects my and Congressional Democrats’ key priorities and legislative accomplishments,” said Biden, adding that it “represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want.”

—CNBC

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott is sounding the alarm about Democrat’s plan to break Republican candidates and use it against them in the 2024 race.

Scott argued that Democrats could “weaponize” the words of Republican candidates against each other, adding that the road to socialism runs right through a divided Republican Party.

“Everything we say about each other, the Democrats will weaponize against all of us, no matter who the nominee is,” the South Carolina senator said.

Scott suggested the ongoing feud between newly announced GOP presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla) and former President Trump could spark mayhem for the Republican Party as they frequently fire shots at each other.

Instead of trying to smear his GOP rivals as they fight for the 2024 tickets, Scott said he would focus on America and destroying the “leadership” of President Joe Biden.

“I’m going to focus on the real problem in America. The real problem in America is the feckless leadership of Joe Biden,” Scott said. “It is time for America to take a stand and elect a president who understands how it feels to be on both sides of the tracks. Who understands that broken pieces become a whole opportunity in America.”

He called for his Republican colleagues to stop dividing the conservative movement and instead focus on fixing the economy, military, and foreign policy.

—Townhall

Bud Light sales fell for the sixth straight week, industry data shows, amid a boycott that has retailers desperate to unload the unwanted beer.

Since Anheuser-Busch’s ill-fated team-up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the beer giant’s sales have tanked, its stock price is down, and stores have begun marking down Bud Light and other Anheuser-Busch products to get them off their shelves.

In at least one store, according to the report, a Bud Light 24-pack was priced as low as $3.49.

Competitors are benefiting from the controversy, with Coors Light sales up 16.9% and Miller Lite up 15.1%, according to Beer Business Daily.

—FOX News

A man was arrested for allegedly opening an emergency exit door during a South Korean flight, and he faces up to 10 years in prison, officials said.

The suspect, described as a 33-year-old man with the surname Lee, told investigators in preliminary questioning that he felt suffocated and tried to quickly escape the plane, police said, according to The Associated Press. The man also reportedly said he felt stressed since he lost his job recently.

Twelve people suffered slight injuries after he opened the emergency exit of the Asiana Airlines Airbus on Friday.

Normally, emergency exit doors are unable to be opened mid-flight due to the air pressure inside and outside of the aircraft, but the man was likely able to open the door Friday because the plane was at a low altitude and preparing to land.

Video from the flight shows air blowing through the jet cabin as 200 people were on board.

If convicted, Lee faces up to 10 years in prison for violating an aviation safety law.

—Just the News

What was initially a scary moment for spectators at the Indianapolis 500 turned out to be a story to remember for one attendee.

With less than 20 laps to go at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, Felix Rosenqvist hit the outside wall before spinning back onto the track and slamming into Kyle Kirkwood, who lost a back tire. Not only was the crash scary for Kirkwood, as his car went upside down, but it became a suspenseful moment for the crowd as the back tire flew toward fans.

Broadcast cameras showed the tire appear to be headed toward people in the stands before missing and landing elsewhere on the grounds. Videos on social media then showed a white car in the parking lot with some damage on its front, apparently from the tire.

The IndyStar, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported Robin Matthews, a racing fan from Indianapolis, was the owner of the car that was hit by the loose tire.

“I didn’t see it come down,” Matthews told Indy Star. “I came down and they said ‘Robin, it’s your car!’ I thought, ‘No.’ I thought somebody was pranking me.

“It’s a car. It’s fine.”

—USA TODAY

OPINION

The Left has sided with transgender “women” over natural ones in every facet of life, including sports, where the advantages are enormous. The question is why?

The Supreme Court’s newest justice could not define the word “woman” under sworn testimony in front of a Senate committee. In the 1970’s, she would have defined it and defended it with pride; today, her calculation is that she has no political benefit in going head-to-head with the trans movement and its supporters on the Left. So after years of college, law school, and service as a lawyer and judge, she realized that the best play was to say that the subject belongs to biologists and not to offer her own thoughts on such an important question.

Every week, we read of another guy claiming to be a woman winning some sporting event. The number and types of such events is growing: poker, cycling, volleyball, running, swimming, weight-lifting. The obvious solution if people don’t have the stomach to tell an XY guy that he is no gal is to set up a separate competitive division for trans and let them fight it out there, but not with the girls or women. But there is little movement in this direction, and girls and women who have dedicated years of hard work are being beaten by guys who are bigger and stronger than they are.

Why are so few women standing up for women, and when they do, they are attacked or threatened with bodily harm? When did the feminist movement give up on defending women and instead cave to the ludicrous idea that a man can be a woman by simply saying that he is?

The Left tolerates no opinion that does not fit with the program, so climate activists must also support trans rights and BLM. If they do not, they will be called bigots and removed from the program. So the best policy is either to shut up or support the required opinions, however far from the field of interest.

Why do feminists support the guy with a ponytail and not the woman with the XX chromosomes? The trans movement is the latest gadget to be absorbed into the Left blob, and as all opinions must be completely acceptable across the issues, there is no room to come out in favor of the girls or young women. To do so is to repudiate the trans movement, which is a full card-carrying member of the Left. Just as BLM had to come out against Israel because the Palestinians are a favorite of the Left, so too feminists must now dance to the trans music, and J. K. Rowling is the poster child of anyone who gets out of line.

Thus, the women swimmers at Penn were afraid to speak out against their male teammate who would shower with them. They understood that if they crossed the line of acceptable opinions, their career futures were in serious jeopardy. The feminists who paved the way for Title IX are laying low and are too scared to say the obvious: guys should not be competing in women’s sports.

Joe Biden was for most of his career considered a moderate on the issues. Yet, his administration is to the far left on virtually every subject, from the border to energy to requiring pronouns over at the State Department. His staff understand how the game is played and will not hold or put forth an opinion that is not accepted by the Left. There is virtually no moderate wing in today’s Democratic party. It will be a great irony when a Republican president is the one who saves women’s sports for women. There is no one left on the Democrats’ team willing to do the same.

— Alan Joseph Bauer received a Bachelors in Biochemistry from Harvard and a Ph.D. in the same from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bauer lives with his family in Jerusalem and is the Chief Scientist of a local technology company.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – In 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union.