U.S. Spy Agencies Buy Vast Quantities of Americans’ Personal Data, U.S. Says . . . Commercially available data from cars, phones and web browsers rivals results from wiretaps, cyber espionage and physical surveillance. The vast amount of Americans’ personal data available for sale has provided a rich stream of intelligence for the U.S. government but created significant threats to privacy, according to a newly released report by the U.S.’s top spy agency. Commercially available information, or CAI, has grown in such scale that it has begun to replicate the results of intrusive surveillance techniques once used on a more targeted and limited basis, the report found.

“In a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, CAI includes information on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity that historically could have been obtained” through targeted collection methods such as wiretaps, cyber espionage or physical surveillance, the report concluded. Wall Street Journal

Russia-Ukraine conflict is driving a strategic transformation of our world order . . . The world order that has protected US national security for years is now under threat as the risk of a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S. is rapidly rising. But

even if Moscow and Washington manage to avoid such a catastrophic clash, their proxy war over Ukraine will transform the world in the long term, nevertheless. Here are top three strategic changes to watch. Analysis by Rebekah Koffler | Fox News

Topless trans model goes to White House Pride party after meeting Biden . . . A transgender model and activist has fired back at criticism for popping off her top at the White House and cupping her breasts moments after shaking hands with President Biden — saying that going topless is legal and she was “living my truth.” Rose Montoya, 27, who was among the lengthy list of guests invited to celebrate Pride, was recorded pulling down her dress and cupping her exposed breasts in front of the Truman Balcony with the Pride flag hanging in the background. “Are we topless at the White House?” the person recording said in the video posted on Montoya’s Instagram. White House Dossier

Seriously? Should this creature really be allowed in the White House? This is what Biden and his immoral radicals have turned our beautiful country into.

Biden root canal forces postponement of meeting with NATO chief . . . President Joe Biden got a root canal Monday and it left something of a cavity in his daily schedule, forcing him to bow out of a public event with college athletes and postpone his meeting with NATO’s general secretary by a day. Of course, the White House won’t say what’s going on. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed she couldn’t say what caused the problem because she is not a dentist. White House Dossier

Turns out she's actually an orthodontist, so of course she can't comment.

Did Joe Biden sell out America? 4 things to know about Democrats' claims . . . The FBI has been dragging its feet on the investigation into Joe Biden and his family's possible influence peddling. Here's what we're doing to get the facts. For the past year, the House Oversight Committee, where I serve as chairman, has been investigating the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes that generated millions of dollars for the Biden family. We are following the facts. We need to know whether these deals threaten national security and if President Joe Biden is compromised. The Oversight Committee has already obtained thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family and has traced millions of dollars from China and Romania to the Biden family and their associates. Fox News

Let's apply the Jack Smith standard to Biden and Hillary Clinton - Analysis | Washington Examiner

Emily’s List, an abortion-focused political action committee (PAC), said it would fund an effort to boost Harris’ public standing, according to Politico. The group will spend “tens of millions” of dollars to assist Harris in the 2024 campaign. Daily Caller

Might take more than $10 million.

Biden family business needs its own special counsel - Analysis | Washington Examiner

Fox News’s Turley: Trump could face ‘terminal sentence’ if DOJ proves even one count . . . Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley says former President Trump could die in prison if convicted on just one count after being indicted by the Justice Department last week on dozens of charges related to his handling of classified documents. “The problem is, he’s got to run the table — he’s 76 years old,” Turley, a former opinion contributor for The Hill, said of Trump during an appearance on Fox News. “All the government has to do is stick the landing on one count, and he could have a terminal sentence. You’re talking about crimes that have a 10- or 20-year period as a maximum.”
Turley said the evidence laid out against Trump in the indictment revealed last week is “quite strong.” The Hill

Russia, China and Iran in America’s Backyard . . . These adversaries threaten the U.S. with their moves into Latin America. Well, the White House conceded, perhaps there is such a facility, and perhaps China and Cuba are collaborating to upgrade it. But Cuba is the tip of the iceberg. From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, American interests are under threat as virtually every country in Latin America suffers from major and growing social, political and economic distress. Narcotrafficking cartels have tightened their grip across much of Central America and into the Caribbean. Wall Street Journal

Watchdog: Nuclear States Modernize Their Weapons, Chinese Arsenal Is Growing . . . The nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their arsenals and several deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapon systems in 2022, a Swedish think tank said Monday. “We are drifting into one of the most dangerous periods in human history,” said Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI. RealClearDefense

We are apparently planning on fighting the next war with windmills and solar panels.

US & Israel stunned: Iran offers to help Saudis develop nuclear program – with China’s backing . . . Iran has swiftly followed up on its thaw with Saudi Arabia by offering to help the oil kingdom develop a nuclear program. Beijing which brokered the reconcililatilon is again stepping forward with backing. Acceptance of the offer by Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman would be a strategic poke in the eye for Washington, boost China’s Middle East footholds and upset the 2020 Abraham accords that normalized Israel’s relations with the Arab world. DEBKAFile

How the US is pushing China out of the internet’s plumbing . . . Experts say the subsea cable market is in danger of dividing into eastern and western blocs amid fears of espionage and geopolitical tensions. Nearly 1.4mn kilometres of metal-encased fibre criss-crosses the world’s oceans, speeding internet traffic seamlessly around the globe. The supply and installation of these cables has been dominated by companies from France, the US and Japan. The Chinese government started successfully penetrating the global market, but consecutive US administrations have since managed to freeze China out of large swathes of it. This was ostensibly because of concerns of espionage and worries about what Beijing might do to disrupt strategic assets operated by Chinese companies in the event of a conflict. Financial Times

Ukrainian forces say chunk of Donetsk has been liberated . . . Zelenskyy's hometown hit in massive attack. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's counteroffensive is proving tough for its forces but progress is being made, with Ukraine retaking a number of settlements in Donetsk. CNBC

Russia Redeploying Most Capable Units to Meet Ukraine Push: Kyiv . . . Russia is transferring its "most combat-capable" troops from the southern Ukrainian Kherson region—parts of which have been devastated by last week's destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam—to meet nascent Ukrainian counteroffensive operations along the 800-mile front, according to a defense minister in Kyiv. Newsweek

VIDEO | Rebekah Koffler: Biden completely failed at deterring Russia

Chinese Parts Help Iran Supply Drones to Russia Quickly, Investigators Say . . . When Western researchers examined an Iranian drone brought down over Ukraine this spring, they said they made an important discovery: One Chinese-made part was manufactured this year. The revelation shows that Chinese parts have continued to flow to Iran, providing the building blocks for its drone program, despite increasing pressure from the U.S. to choke off the global supply chain. And it demonstrates how quickly Iran is able to help Russia with its war in Ukraine, needing just three months to make and supply Moscow with weapons. Wall Street Journal

Money

Feds blew $3 trillion on ‘improper’ payments over the last 20 years . . . The federal government has made nearly $3 trillion in “improper” payments over the last two decades, including a quarter-trillion in bogus payments last year alone. OpenTheBooks.com, a watchdog group, tracked the government’s reports dating back to 2004 and tallied up the damage, adjusting for inflation. They found that things grew worse during the pandemic, with massive rates of improper payments in 2021 and 2022, but it’s been a persistent problem for years. Washington Times

Renters Are About to Get the Upper Hand . . . New-lease rents are poised to fall on an annual basis for only the second time since 2008 financial crisis. Apartment rent growth is declining fast, shifting the rental market to the tenant’s favor for the first time in years. The average of six national rental-price measures from rental-listing and property data companies shows new-lease asking rents rose just under 2% over the 12 months ending in May. That is down from the double-digit increases of a year ago and represents the largest deceleration over any year in recent history, according to data firm CoStar Group and rental software company RealPage. Wall Street Journal

Goldman Sachs slashes oil price forecast . . . ‘Previously constrained oil production has been unlocked,’ Goldman Sachs reports. Goldman Sachs lowered its 2023 outlook on the price of Brent Crude as oil supply strengthens and demand weakens, putting it at just $86 a barrel by the end of 2023. After initially predicting $95 a barrel, the investment firm said in a note on Monday, "Significant supply beats from Iran and Russia have driven speculative positioning to near record lows." Prices of both Brent and U.S. oil fell on Monday. Fox Business

More demand for internal combustion fueled engines? Great news for the child laborers mining for materials to make our EV batteries. 

Fox sends Tucker Carlson cease-and-desist letter . . . Fox News has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tucker Carlson as he ramps up a competing series on Twitter that drew a combined 169 million views for its first two episodes. The contract battle between Fox and its former top host — who was taken off the air in April, after the network's historic Dominion settlement — has mighty repercussions for the conservative media ecosystem.

With "Tucker on Twitter," Carlson and his growing production team are working to elevate Elon Musk's social media site as a news platform. Axios

Tide Turning Against Biological Men Competing in Women’s Sports, Even Among Democrats . . . A new Gallup poll, released Monday, showed a marked shift in how Americans view transgender issues, especially in regard to sports. “A larger majority of Americans now (69%) than in 2021 (62%) say transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender,” Gallup noted. “Likewise, fewer endorse transgender athletes being able to play on teams that match their current gender identity, 26%, down from 34%.” Daily Signal

Liberal mainline United Methodists see more than 5,000 congregations leave amid arguments over sex, gender . . . The number of congregations departing the United Methodist Church (UMC) exceeded 5,000 last week as the second-largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. continues to fracture over theological disagreements, mostly pertaining to human sexuality. The number of churches that have been given the green light by their annual conferences to disaffiliate increased from approximately 4,600 early last week to 5,321 as of Friday. Fox News

The Left’s Reaction To Pat Robertson’s Death Reveals Their Visceral Hatred Of Christians . . . Pat Robertson, the televangelist known for founding the Christian Broadcast Network and for his involvement in Republican politics, died Thursday at the age of 93. As is now custom with the death of a prominent conservative, the left took absolute joy in the news of his passing.

Of course, the corporate media took the opportunity to run obituaries that reduced Robertson’s life’s work to simple bigotry. Twitter users slammed him as well, quickly bringing his name into the platform’s top trends. Four days later — the torrent of hate is still pouring in, if you search “Pat Robertson” on Twitter. While the usual celebrity firebrands have already moved on, your average leftist seems to have stored up a special reserve of hatred for the man. Daily Caller

Three reasons why the CIA will not order Putin’s assassination . . . As a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer specializing in Russia, I often am asked why the United States doesn’t just take out Vladimir Putin. Russia’s president is clearly a bad dude. So far, in his barbaric war against Ukraine, Putin’s forces have bombed maternity wards, tortured civilians and abducted their children, shipping them to Russia by force. US leaders watch the conflict nervously, worried it could spiral into World War III.

For many, getting rid of Putin seems like an easy fix. But while the United States maintains a doctrine — albeit a secret one — that permits, in exceptional cases, targeted killings of foreigners, Washington will almost certainly not order the assassination of Russia’s strongman. Here are three reasons why. NY Post