Good day to you and yours, and welcome to Thursday, June 4, 2026. Today is National Cheese Day. Blessed are the cheese makers. (Yeah, you’ve got to be a Python fan to understand the reference). It’s also National Hug Your Cat Day, International Corgi Day, with a nod to Queen Elizabeth II, National Cognac Day, but in the ultimate conflict of drinks, it’s also National Moonshine Day.
1876: The Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco via the First Transcontinental Railroad, only 83 hours and 39 minutes after having left New York City.
1896: Henry Ford drives his first Ford through the streets of Detroit.
1917: American men begin registering for the draft (WWI)
1940: British complete the “Miracle of Dunkirk” by evacuating 338,226 Allied troops from France via a flotilla of over 800 vessels, including Royal Navy destroyers, merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, and even lifeboats, the largest assemblage of Private craft in history, even today.
1940: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his famous “We shall fight on the seas and oceans” speech to the House of Commons.
1942: Battle of Midway begins; Japan’s 1st major defeat in WW II.
1944: U.S. 5th Army enters and liberates Rome – first European Fascist city to be liberated.
1990: New York Telephone Company announces that it wants the Bronx area code 917. It’s now an overlay code for all five boroughs.
2018: Former President Bill Clinton says in an interview with NBC that he has not apologized to Monica Lewinsky and does not believe he needs to.
Birthdays today include: George III, King of England; Henry Phillips, American inventor (Phillip’s head screw); Charles Collingwood, news commentator; Howard Metzenbaum, businessman and senator from Ohio; Dennis Weaver, actor; Michelle Phillips, singer, songwriter, and actress; Roger Ball, saxophonist for the Average White Band; And El Debarge, pop-rock keyboardist and singer-songwriter.
Your day too? Good for you. Have a happy one.
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So yesterday, I buried Tienanmen Square in the “Today in History” section like it was a cute little fun fact — right up there with “on this day, someone invented the spork.” I blew past one of the most significant state-sanctioned massacres of the 20th century with all the gravitas of a weather report. Why? I can assure you it was unintentional. It happened because I had my head buried in the California primaries and running the numbers therein. It actually took me a few hours.
The more I thought about it, though, the more it gnawed at me: Tiananmen Square deserved a lot better than the passing mention I gave it. We wave the freedom flag pretty hard here in the United States, so maybe let’s act like it.
I mean, sure, time — some 37 years, now — dulls everything, and the PRC has spent those decades working overtime to scrub this from living memory — throttling discussion domestically, disappearing the inconvenient details, running a masterclass in state-sponsored amnesia. I totally get why it fades from our radar. But here’s the thing: Xi’s China still treats this subject like a live grenade. That tells you everything you need to know about how much it matters.
Even today, the Tiananmen Square massacre remains one of the most sensitive topics in China. Virtually all mention of it has been scrubbed from physical and digital spaces within China’s borders. Those who participated in the protests or have tried to memorialize them have been harassed or imprisoned, sometimes for years at a time. Any material that counters the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) official historical narrative is likely to be a target for transnational repression.
Indeed, Tiananmen Square isn’t just sensitive in China — it’s a full-blown obsession. The CCP didn’t just sweep it under the rug; they burned the rug, buried the ashes, and built a parking lot on top of it. They’ve scrubbed virtually every trace of it from physical and digital spaces within China’s borders, and they’re not subtle about it. Protesters who had the audacity to show up? Harassed. People who tried to memorialize the dead? Imprisoned — often for years. The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t debate its official historical narrative. It hunts down anything that contradicts it, and that hunt doesn’t stop at China’s borders. Transnational repression is very much on the table.
As an example, take this from The Guardian, hardly a right-wing outlet, yesterday:
Just last week, a Chinese activist called Dong Guangping, who has previously attempted to commemorate the event, risked his life to sail more than 300km to South Korea in an attempt to flee China, where he has been imprisoned several times. He remains in custody in South Korea.
At bare minimum, treat Tiananmen as exactly what it is: a master class in where socialism ends up when it runs out of patience. The lesson is right there.
And here’s a fun footnote: Marco Rubio’s been saying essentially the same things I’m saying, and he’s been saying them longer. As a senator, he made no secret of his contempt for the PRC’s record — so much so that China responded with the diplomatic equivalent of a toddler tantrum and banned him from the country entirely. Which made things hilariously awkward when President Trump tapped Rubio to run the State Department. Suddenly, China had to do business with the guy they’d thrown off the premises.
China ultimately sidestepped the issue by changing a character in the Chinese rendering of Rubio’s name than the one listed in the sanctions, clearing the way for him to accompany Trump to Beijing for last month’s talks.
Funny how our own press didn’t mention that one.
That squabble continues, all credit to Rubio, whose State Dept issued this statement yesterday:
On June 4, the world marks 37 years since the Chinese Communist Party ordered its troops to attack thousands of peaceful demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square. Chinese students, workers, and other civilians who lost their lives had gathered to exercise their natural rights and demand democratic reforms and accountability for corruption. We remember their lives and honor their legacy. No amount of censorship can erase the past. Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.
Thanks to our Sarah Anderson for digging up that one.
Newsweek continues: “China maintains the world’s most sophisticated censorship apparatus. Mention of sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen Square crackdown—even perceived references are quickly scrubbed from social media.”
Gee — kinda like questions about why Joe Biden keeps falling up stairs, eh?
Beijing tightens security around Tiananmen Square each year to prevent public commemorations or protests.Local authorities are similarly vigilant in Hong Kong, where people have been arrested even for candlelight vigils since Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in the city in 2020. Hong Kong previously hosted the largest public memorials commemorating the victims of the crackdown.
Today, Taiwan hosts the only large-scale Tiananmen Square memorials held anywhere in the Chinese-speaking world.
If you’re of the notion that control of the narrative on such a scale can’t happen here, consider how long we dealt with bogus criminal investigations and assassination attempts against both Trump and his supporters, and how quickly the covers were ripped off once the Democrats were out of power. That’s why Tiananmen Square is, to this day, such an important reminder of an out-of-control socialist apparatus.
Catherine Salgado has a great piece on that aspect and its implications for us here at home. She makes a point I’ve made previously:
If a murderous tyranny openly hostile to America offers us investment, it is doing so because it believes that it will undermine our national security and transform our culture by doing so. In such a case, it is actually worse to accept the investment than not. It is no coincidence that an increasing number of Americans (39%), especially young people, have in recent years stated they have a positive view of socialism — and a negative view of capitalism. CCP money at U.S. universities, grade schools, and government institutions has done the trick.
Indeed so.
Thought for the day: When I see leftists protesting illegals killing citizens, I’ll take them seriously.
VIP members: Hit the heart and let me hear you in the comments.
Take care today. In other words, have a non-terrible continuation of your existence. See you here tomorrow.
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