RETURN OF the angry renter.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Time for transparency in New Black Panther case.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has attempted to investigate the dismissal, only to meet resistance from Obama’s Department of Justice at every turn. J. Christian Adams, a career attorney in Justice’s voting rights section, testified before the commission last month, but only after resigning his position due to “the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements [by Obama appointees] falsely characterizing the case, and most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal.” Justice is now blocking another career attorney at Justice, Christopher Coates, from testifying on the case. Coates, who led the Justice Department’s voting rights section, reportedly objected to dismissal of the case, at which point he was removed from his post and transferred to South Carolina.

This case matters. What’s at stake is the fair and honest administration of justice, something the Obama administration seems to regard all too lightly. If, as Adams testified, Obama’s Justice Department consciously ignores voting rights violations allegedly committed by minorities, that is a big deal. We need transparency now, to restore faith in government.

Read the whole thing. Plus this: “Thomas Perez, Obama’s appointee to head the Civil Rights division at Justice, is apparently so busy suing Arizona law enforcement and blocking Ivy League colleges from using the Amazon Kindle that he doesn’t think flagrant violations of the laws protecting voters are worth his time.” Well, we’ve never faced a civil rights threat like the Kindle before . . . .

POLITICO: Obama Raises Money As Polls Sink. “His confidence that America is headed in the right direction is at odds with his approval rating.”

TOM DELAY TO GOP: Don’t Get Cocky. “Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) on Wednesday warned Republicans not to underestimate Democrats this fall. DeLay, fresh off having the Justice Department drop a federal investigation against him, said GOP wins in the midterm elections aren’t ‘a given’ due to the strength of the grassroots infrastructure Democrats built in 2006 and 2008.”

JIM TREACHER: Lefties pine for… George W. Bush??? Well, life was easier for them when he was around.

HAVING A TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE.

THIS SEEMS UNWISE: Jesse Kelly Disses Sarah Palin.

MORE ON THE MOSQUE, from Mr. Liberty Girl.

THE GULF OIL SPILL meets the Newspeak dictionary.

CELEBRATING Bad Poetry Day.

MARKDOWNS ON TAG HEUER WATCHES.

DENVER: A reader emails: “Note that the beating began right after the victim pulled out a camera . . .”

TIM CAVANAUGH: Obvious Failure of Stimulus Becomes Obvious Even To Economists. “Where do Keynesians go now that even public radio is talking about the failure of one of history’s costliest Keynesian stimulus efforts?”

DECLINED: OVER-LIMIT. Jon Stewart Uses Maxed-Out Race Card Against Ground Zero Mosque Opponents.

PROSECUTORIAL ACCOUNTABILITY: Wall Street Journal Calls For Patrick Fitzgerald To Resign. “This pattern points to a willful prosecutor who throws an exaggerated book at unpopular defendants and hopes at least one of the charges will stick, even as he flouts due process and the presumption of innocence when the political winds are high.” His record has been less than brilliant.

UPDATE: “He should be disbarred.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Discovery may aid search for anti-aging drugs. “In a study in the August issue of Aging Cell, U-M scientists found that a gene, drr-2, is an important component in a key cellular pathway, the TOR nutrient-sensing pathway, where many scientists are looking for potential drug targets. The U-M scientists then found that when they caused the drr-2 gene to be under- or over-expressed, they could lengthen or shorten lifespan in C. elegans, a worm widely used in research. Manipulating the drr-2 gene’s action produced the same effects as reducing or increasing caloric intake.”

AUSTIN BAY: China’s trouble with its neighbors should be focus of coverage. “A quick tour of China’s borders suggests friction with the United States is a symptom, not a cause. China faces numerous troubles with its neighbors — many of the problems exacerbated by Beijing’s muscle-flexing and claims of regional hegemony.”

IN THE LATEST INSTAVISION, I interview Arthur Brooks, author of The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future, about the ruling class vs. the rest, the future of the Tea Party movement, and what you can learn about political economy by playing the French Horn.

REPORTER ASKING PEOPLE FOR STORIES ON “GUN-CACHING.” If you’re hiding them, why would you talk about it? Especially to someone from Harper’s?

NEIL MCCLUSKEY: Why I Love, And Hate, American Higher Education.

L.A. TIMES: It’s unanimous, president’s visit leaves L.A. boiling.

We have one word for you, Mr. President, the next time you want to sweep into Los Angeles late on a weekday afternoon: Helicopter. That way, you can avoid the streets the rest of us mere residents must use to get around.

President Obama’s fundraising mission in Los Angeles on Monday evening may have been a whirlwind trip for him, but it was a tedious slog for the thousands who found themselves in gridlock from the Westside to downtown. . . . No matter their politics, Los Angeles residents found themselves united. “It was a beautiful thing,” said Brentwood resident Myles Berkowitz, commiserating with his neighbors on Montana Avenue. “Young, old, black, white — everyone was pissed off.”

Read the whole thing.

PETER SUDERMAN: Does Net Neutrality Promote Competition?

On a related note, here’s my FCC Testimony on Open Internet standards.

HAND-ME-DOWNS FROM YOUR KIDS? Reader Joseph Whitehall writes: “Spotted a new trend – hand-me-downs from your teenagers. Specifically, cell phones. My 18 y/o daughter bought herself an Apple iPhone 3g and gave her old phone to me, her dad. It is an upgrade for me as she and her friends mock my old-style flip phone. Other adults have noted the same dynamic.” Heh.

JACK LONDON: Racist Progressive. “The racist elements of Progressive ideology don’t prove that economic interventionism is racist by nature, or that the policies Progressives defended in large part on racist grounds can’t be justified in other ways. Still less do they prove that modern left-wingers are necessarily racist as well. But they do undercut claims that racism is primarily a product of the ‘right’ and that economic leftism and racial progress necessarily go together. Indeed, many of the early advocates of racial equality were mostly libertarian on economic issues, including Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and civil rights lawyer Moorfield Storey, one of the founders of the NAACP.”

A FRAT PARTY for cocktail geeks.