The Border.

The pardon list.

1. Arrests of migrants illegally crossing the U.S. border with Mexico hit a record high in May, according to new data released by the Department of Homeland Security. U.S. Border Patrol agents made 222,656 arrests of people crossing the border illegally, a nearly 10% increase compared with April. The agency said about 25% of arrests in May involved repeated border crossers, with agents arresting 177,793 unique people. Border Patrol agents have been dealing with record numbers of illegal border crossings for almost two years, with drastic increases recorded in the past several months as pandemic-era travel restrictions have eased. Officials have projected that crossings will continue to rise through the summer, with warmer weather, and political instability and economic hardship across parts of Latin America, contributing to the surge. Border Patrol agents have made about 1.44 million arrests of border crossers since the start of the government’s budget year in October, continuing a record-setting pace of illegal border crossings. (Source: wsj.com)

2. This from an Ed Luce column in the Financial Times:

As Ruy Teixeira, a veteran political scientist, says: the Democratic brand is “somewhere between uncompelling and toxic to wide swaths of American voters, who might potentially be their allies”. The fact that Teixeira is saying this ought to make Democrats take notice. He was co-author of the seminal book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, which argued that racial trends would make Democratic rule inevitable. This remains an article of faith among election consultants. Yet Texieira has changed his mind. How could Democrats be alienating the people it needs to win?

A big part of the answer is that they have stopped listening to ordinary voters.
This would be less of a problem were the party’s leadership a cross-section of US society. But its upper echelons are dominated by a white college-educated activist class that is used to talking with itself. The days of knocking on the doors of potential new voters are largely over. Since Barack Obama’s time, Democrats have been wedded to a digital model that downplays old-fashioned engagement. This detaches the party from reality. (Source: ft.com, amazon.com)

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3. Mark Leibovich says out loud what everyone thinks:

Let me put this bluntly: Joe Biden should not run for reelection in 2024. He is too old.

Biden will turn 80 on November 20. He will be 82 if and when he begins a second term. The numbers just keep getting more ridiculous from there. “It’s not the 82 that’s the problem. It’s the 86,” one swing voter said in a recent focus group, referring to the hypothetical age Biden would be at the end of that (very) hypothetical second term. (Source: theatlantic.com)