THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, heavy-handed bureaucrats would be shutting down political speech. And they were right! Daring to display homemade signs could get you a visit from the FEC.

30 ISSUES IN 30 DAYS: Nominate a topic for the Brian Lehrer Show.

IN INSIDE HIGHER ED: “This month in an important victory for free speech on campus, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that Temple University’s former sexual harassment policy was unconstitutional. While free speech advocates from across the ideological spectrum cheered the Third Circuit’s ruling in DeJohn v. Temple University, some critics expressed dismay at what they deemed a “very ominous” example of “activist judging.” These critics are wrong — and it’s important for both students and university administrators to understand why. . . . The DeJohn opinion should come as no surprise to public universities. District courts have been striking down overbroad harassment policies for nearly 20 years. Rather than reaching unexpectedly ‘ominous’ or ‘activist’ legal conclusions, DeJohn simply provided a reaffirmation of clearly established law.”

POSTWAR EAST GERMANY was no safe place for Jews.

AMITY SHLAES: “Perverse monetary policy was the greatest cause of the Great Depression. But five non-monetary missteps were important in making the Depression great, and the same missteps damaged the global economy as well. While many are thinking about the Depression, few seem concerned about replicating these Foolish Five today.”

YOUR CONGRESS AT WORK ON THE HOUSING CRISIS:

First Rep. Laura Richardson was having problems making house payments, defaulting six times over eight years.

Then after a bank foreclosed on her Sacramento house and sold it at auction in May, the Long Beach Democrat made such a stink that Washington Mutual, in an unusual move, grabbed it back and returned it to her.

This week, in the latest chapter in the housing saga, the Code Enforcement Department in Sacramento declared her home a “public nuisance.” The city has threatened to fine her as much as $5,000 a month if she doesn’t fix it up.

Most people would be motivated by concern for their neighbors’ feelings, or simple shame. As a member of Congress, I suppose Ms. Richardson is beyond both . . . . And beyond accountability:

Richardson has few worries in the November election. The 37th District is so solidly Democratic that no Republican is running against her. Democrat Peter Mathews, who has sought the seat several times before, is mounting a write-in campaign.

Rotten.

MICKEY KAUS: “The story of the Edwards Coverup, which has only begun to trickle out, is certainly providing a useful civic education in how powerful pols actually go about attempting to influence the MSM.”

DAN RIEHL IS INCREDULOUS. Others are just plain credulous.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle: “The party that starts looking for implausible and unprovable conspiracy theories about the opposition candidate is in trouble.”

Plus this: “‘Obama insecurity’ hurts his electoral chances and hurts the intellectual future of the left as a corrective force in American politics. There’s not a convincing or credible path toward painting his enemies as immoral, even if that is what you believe.”

DAVID BARON, call your office (cont’d): Man’s Shoe Found in Bear’s Stomach. “Authorities cut open a slain bear and found a shoe lost by a Florida man while fighting off a bear that attacked his 8-year-old son in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

TELEGRAPH: Islamic terror cell ‘may have been plotting to attack Queen’.

OBAMA TO PICK BAYH? If this report is true, it bodes poorly for an Obama Administration’s ability to keep secrets. But maybe it’s disinformation, which would bode well . . . .

UPDATE: Consensus among readers, as expressed by Brendan Loy: “An obvious fake.” So, disinformation, or just somebody having fun?

MSNBC: Obama having a Jon Lovitz moment? “Is Obama having a Jon Lovitz-as-Dukakis SNL moment: ‘I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy’? Well, Obama isn’t losing — he still has a small single-digit lead in most national polls, and he’s ahead narrowly in current electoral-vote projections. But his tone changed a bit campaigning in Reno yesterday, his first full day on the campaign trail since his vacation.”

ED CONE ON CYBERWAR: “Glenn Reynolds titled his book about empowered individuals and web-assembled groups ‘An Army of Davids.’ It’s worth remembering that from certain perspectives, your country or your company might be the one that looks like Goliath.”

POLITICO: McCain to name VP on Aug. 29.

OBAMA UNDERPERFORMING KERRY on the electoral maps: “Today’s map shows Obama with a projected 275 votes to McCain’s 250, with 13 up for grabs. Four years ago — Kerry 317, Bush 202, and 19 tied. Interesting.” Indeed. You can certainly see why some Democrats are starting to sound worried. Of course, Kerry was hurt by an overly grandiose performance at the Convention, and by media bias that backfired. Obama should be safe from that, right ? . . .

CHILDHOOD’S END: “Britain is the worst country in the Western world in which to be a child, according to a recent UNICEF report. Ordinarily, I would not set much store by such a report; but in this case, I think it must be right—not because I know so much about childhood in all the other 20 countries examined but because the childhood that many British parents give to their offspring is so awful that it is hard to conceive of worse, at least on a mass scale. The two poles of contemporary British child rearing are neglect and overindulgence.”

VIDEO: Michael Phelps eats for the Gold.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE on news from Pakistan.

MORE CLARENCE THOMAS BLOWBACK FOR OBAMA:

So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court. Since his “elevation” to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.

Meanwhile, as he bids to be America’s Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a “community organizer” and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas’s judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s Presidential résumé by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas’s rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama’s story look like easy street.

Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat’s answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn’t expect at a rare unscripted event, the rookie candidate didn’t merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing cliché that the Court’s black conservative isn’t up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are.

Indeed.

OBAMA ON ABORTION: The thing is, I actually agree with his position here. And unlike him I’m willing to admit it!

UPDATE: Hey, I’ve never made any secret about being pro-choice, even if this picture is just a photoshop by Allah. (I’ve never actually had an abortion, though Andrea Mitchell may soon hint otherwise on some talking-head show, probably suggesting that it was McCain’s baby. . . .) I don’t actually know much about the bill in question, and knew even less after Obama started talking about it. Which is often the case when Obama starts talking.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sorry, people are still confused. I’m one of the relatively few constitutional law professors who believes that Roe was properly decided, though the rationale needs to be understood in terms of limits to legitimate government power rather than affirmative individual rights. (I have a truly marvelous proof for this, but it will not fit in the margin.) As for post-birth — well, that’s outside the Roe framework, and treating babies born alive as babies with the right to remain alive is fine with me.

THE CROSS — A FELLOW P.O.W. COMMENTS: “As for the people who are questioning McCain’s account, Swindle said, ‘That’s garbage. These people are desperate.'”

Related item here.

UPDATE: The McCain folks respond.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Morrissey Allah:

The dumbest part of all of this — aside from the fact that the nutroots is pushing it into the mainstream media, where it’ll redound to McCain’s advantage and dirty St. Barack’s hands by association — is that if he was going to make up stories to prove his devotion while in prison, surely he could do better than this. I remember some lefty (at TNR, I think) noting quite rightly after McCain’s Christmas ad came out that the specifics of it really are more a testament to his captor’s faith and humanity than to McCain’s. If Maverick wanted to dazzle believers with evidence of his own grace under pressure, he’s got material to work with. But then, this is a guy whose son was stationed in Iraq and yet who almost never mentions that fact on the trail even though it gives him moral cover in his push for a sustained troop presence. Anyway, rock on, netroots.

“Rock on,” indeed.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kurt Schlichter notes some people missing:

I recall how many – including John McCain – jumped to defend Kerry in 2004. I must have missed Kerry and the rest jumping in to defend the conservative.

Of course, McCain really doesn’t need to be defended. Unlike with Kerry, those serving with McCain all support his claims. And unlike the stories about Kerry – speaking as a guy with 20+ years military service in war and peace – the accusation that McCain was somehow fudging his record simply does not have the ring of truth.

Yes, and as I’ve noted before, blogs on the right have been debunking Obama smears for a while. So far I’m not seeing much favor-returning from the leftosphere.

A JETPACK DOGFIGHT: “The Martin Jetpack, like the three big rocket belts before it, took off this month in a surge of buzz and headlines. Now other pioneering rocketeers are speaking out for the first time, going so far as to call the new device a ‘widow maker.’ Could the new battle finally spell takeoff for this futuristic industry—or just more prolonged promise?”

SELLING GAS AT $1.99 to promote electric cars.

PEOPLE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT Chris Dodd’s sweetheart mortgage deal.

CAR LUST: Remembering the 1970 Camaro.