At the Border: Despite predictions that migrants would swarm the southern border after expiration of the Trump-era Title 42 rules, border traffic has actually dwindled.

  The Border Patrol Border Patrol apprehended just over 4,200 undocumented migrants on Saturday, two days after Title 42 was lifted, much less than the 10,000 taken in on Thursday and the 11,000 apprehended on each of the two days before that.

  News outlets report that migrants tell them word circulated that it was going to be much harder to get into the US and stay there than it was under Title 42. 

Talkin’ Turkey: Three months after earthquakes levelled large portions of his country, Turkey’s President of 20 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, failed to win a majority in yesterday’s elections and is headed for a runoff in two weeks against  opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

  The unofficial tally is Erdogan 49.4 percent, and Kilicdaroglu, 44.8 percent, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. “Although the final results are not in yet, we are leading by far,” Erdogan told supporters gathered outside his party’s headquarters in Ankara. 

  Erdogan faces political anger after the earthquakes killed 50,000 people. The economy is doing poorly and voters are beginning to see Erdogan as a dictator.

  Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the country’s largest opposition party, has vowed to shore up the economy and restore Turkey’s democracy. Western leaders would be happy to see a change of leadership in Turkey, a member of NATO with one of the world’s 20 largest economies. Erdogan has maintained close ties with Russia even during the Ukraine war.

The War Room: Ukrainian forces are moving forward, capturing at least 10 Russian positions near the hotly contested city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said yesterday. 

  Also yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appearing in Berlin said that for Ukraine and its allies, “Now is the time for us to determine the end of this war this year. This year we can make the aggressor’s defeat irreversible.” 

  Meanwhile, a Russian media outlet says that at least two of the country’s fighter jets, and two attack helicopters were shot down over Russian territory. 

  The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that the “fighters were to carry out a missile-bombing strike on targets in the Chernihiv Region of Ukraine, while the helicopters were to back them up, including to pick up the Su (fighter jet) crews if they were shot down by enemy fire. All four machines did not return to the airfield. Their pilots were killed.”

State of Stupidity: In his effort to be the rightest of the far right, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a “medical freedom” bill that bans mask and vaccine mandates during a pandemic. 

  “A lot of people were harmed by what the federal government did and a lot of states did,” DeSantis said during an event in Destin, Florida last week. “Today there are still physicians out there trying to jab babies with mRNA shots.” 

  At least 1.12 million Americans died of Covid. Florida has had 88,000 deaths, second only to California with 101,000 which has nearly twice the population.

  But DeSantis will probably win the hearts of many voters unhappy in the wake of the pandemic, particularly parents angry about school closures. 

  The Florida freedom law also allows health care providers to provide or deny certain treatments based on their own religious beliefs. And it bans so called “gain of function” scientific research, which conspiracy-minded Republicans have blamed China for conducting and leading to the Covid pandemic. It has not been proved.

  Evidently preparing to declare himself a candidate for president, DeSantis has staked out ground on the most right-wing issues, condemning gender treatment for children, and standing against education on matters of race, civil rights history, gender, and sexual inclination.    

He Who Shall Not Be Named: President Biden was the graduation speaker at Harvard on Saturday. Without naming names, he said, “There are those who demonize and pit people against one another. And there are those who will do anything and everything, no matter how desperate or immoral, to hold onto power. That’s never going to be an easy battle. But I know this — the oldest, most sinister forces may believe they’ll determine America’s future. But they are wrong. We will determine America’s future. You will determine America’s future.”

The Spin Rack: North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on Saturday vetoed a 12-week abortion ban. The state legislature’s Republican supermajority probably has the votes to override. — MTV is closing its news operation which famously once asked President Bill Clinton whether he wears boxers or briefs. Paramount, which owns MTV, is cutting 25 percent of its employees. — The Memphis Grizzlies suspended guard Ja Morant for a second time after the release of a second social media video that appeared to show him brandishing a handgun.

Below the Fold: The Hollywood writers are still on strike over money and working conditions, like jamming a dozen writers into a closet called a “writers’ room.”  

  A big issue is low pay for streaming entertainment, which pays less than cable or over the air television. Writers have increasingly been hired at the union minimum, which barely pays a living, and from that they have to pay a lawyer, an agent, and maybe even a manager, totaling  as much as 25 percent. Writing jobs are often short-term, making it even harder. The strikers note that, for instance, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made $246 million in 2021. 

   The writers are clever for a living, so here’s a sample of messages on their picket signs.

“No Money, No Funny”

“This Space Intentionally left Blank”

“I’m On Strike. You Write the Damn Sign”

“Do the Write Thing!!”

“Don’t Pay Us Peanuts to Write ‘Billions’”

  And finally, you have to know your movie history to get this one:

“I Am Big, It’s the Streamers That Got Small”

-30-