Good morning and welcome to Monday, June 1, 2026. Today is National Say Something Nice Day, National Olive Day, National Pen Pal Day, and National Heimlich Maneuver Day. Oh, and remember to substitute your “No Kings” flag for your “Pride Month” flag on your home pages (snicker).
1638: First earthquake recorded in the U.S. occurs in Plymouth, Mass.
1774: Boston Port Act: Following the passage of the act, the British government orders the Port of Boston closed to punish the colonists for the Boston Tea Party.
1848: Revolutionary newspaper “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” is founded in Cologne by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and the Communist League.
1869: Thomas Edison received his first patent for the Electric Vote Recorder (U.S. Patent 90,646).
1880: The first pay telephone service in the United States is installed in New Haven, Conn.
1886: The railroads of the Southern United States convert 11,000 miles of track from a five-foot rail gauge to standard gauge (4’8.5”).
1927: Peace Bridge between the U.S. and Canada opens.
1936: Queen Mary completes its maiden voyage, arriving in New York.
1967: EMI releases The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the UK.
Birthdays today include: Brigham Young, religious leader (Latter-day Saints); Robert Newton, British actor (Treasure Island, Henry V, Around the World in 80 Days); Nelson Riddle, Grammy Award-winning bandleader, conductor, and orchestrator for Capitol and Reprise; Andy Griffith; Marilyn Monroe; Edward Woodward, British actor (Breaker Morant; The Equalizer; A Christmas Carol), and pop singer; Pat Boone; Morgan Freeman); Cleavon Little, actor (Blazing Saddles; Toy Soldiers); Rene Auberjonois, actor and voice artist (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Patriot); Ronnie Wood, guitarist (Faces; Jeff Beck Group; The Rolling Stones); David Berkowitz, serial killer “Son of Sam”; Jeffrey Hawkins, inventor (PalmPilot, Treo); Heidi Klum, supermodel; and Alanis Morissette, singer-songwriter.
If today’s your day as well, hope it’s a great one.
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Charlie Martin deserves some kudos for this one, having mentioned it in some internal PJ Media communications this morning.
🚨 UPDATE: Police have just arrested DEMOCRAT Congressional candidate Kirill Basin in Hawaii for pulling a FIREARM on officials after storming a government building
He’s been charged with terrorist threatening in the first degree.
Democrats are filled with utter psychos! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/zrRY3wdSOk
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 1, 2026
Now, understand me clearly, gang — I’m not exactly nominating that X post for a Pulitzer. And frankly, I’m not nearly as interested in the particulars of this case as I am in the story lying underneath it, which I believe explains why we see so much craziness on the left these days.
One does have to marvel at the stunning timing of all these “incidents” suddenly flooding the news cycles for the last 18 months or so. That surge in what Sky News Australia’s brilliant Rita Panahi has dubbed “Lefties Losing It” is, shall we say, difficult to ignore. Funny how the explosion in reported incidents tracks almost perfectly with the left’s increasingly tenuous grip on, well, everything — the media, the narrative, the whole carefully-tended garden of approved opinions. Purely coincidental, I’m sure.
Now, before anyone clutches their pearls — no, this isn’t a defense of the behavior. Not even close. You know me better than that.
Here’s the thing: watch someone, or indeed a group of someones, systematically lose control of institutions they’d quietly assumed were theirs by divine right, and then watch the behavior that follows. That’s not principled resistance. That’s someone white-knuckling through a very public meltdown while insisting they’re totally fine. That’s what we have here, right up to the moment they flip out.
Now, I won’t pretend I have a medical degree framed on my wall. But even a card-carrying layman can spot a group of people who’ve been running on ideological fumes for years — and who are now coming spectacularly and dangerously unglued when reality finally sends its invoice. What we’re watching in these events is a textbook stress response. Losing political standing among people who have so much of their personal identity wrapped up in leftist politics triggers fight-or-flight in people who were already wound tighter than a cheap watch. Shocking? Not remotely.
Here’s what makes it genuinely interesting, though: stress responses feed themselves. The more a person — or an entire ideological movement — feels their identity, control, or status slipping away, the more extreme their reaction gets. That extreme reaction then generates more backlash. That backlash then confirms the original sense of threat. Lather, rinse, repeat — and proceed, as I describe in the headline, straight over the cliff.
And stress responses hit hardest when the threat feels existential. Not garden-variety “I lost a debate” bad. We’re talking “everything I smugly believed about the world might be catastrophically wrong” bad. That particular flavor of panic? You can spot it in incident after incident right now and every bit of it on the left, as in this case.
Funny how well all that explains the current political moment. Almost like human psychology doesn’t really care much about your politics.
The question that arises from this, though, is enough to give me pause: Is this group of malcontents a serious danger to our society, as this joker Kirill Basin certainly became? Does this account for the several attempts on the life of President Trump and the other acts of violence I’ve talked about in past columns?
I believe that, yes, it is in fact a serious danger, and that it does account for the acts of violence from the Sweetness-and-Light Party. I’m afraid we’ll see more of it soon. Let’s face it, the prospects for the Democrats are not good, for at least the next two cycles.
There will be some, I suppose, who will suggest that the Democrat Party is attracting psychos lately. I’m sympathetic, but I’m not so sure that’s spot on. I’m thinking instead that the people who have been active on the left for a long time, and have been close to the edge, if you will, the whole time, are now seeing their entire belief structure undermined by a reality in a way they simply cannot cope with. Next stop, Crazytown.
What that says about our immediate future is a serious concern.
Thought for the Day: I think I figured out why Jill Biden decided to do a book tour. People were starting to forget how wildly unpopular Democrats have become. Thanks for the reminder, Jill.
VIP members: Hit that heart on the lower left, and let’s hear your thoughts on today’s topic in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
Take care today, my friends. Remember: if you can’t be a shining example, at least remain a terrible warning. I’ll see you tomorrow.
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