MORE ON THAT 80% CLAIM: Hi, I’m Barack Obama, and I Just Make Stats Up Out of Nothing.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Harlow writes: “I dare PolitiFact to rate that one!”

MARKDOWNS ON BESTSELLING 40 to 49 inch TVs.

ANDREW KLAVAN: Michelle Bachmann Makes A Gaffe!

MORE ON THAT ATF GUNRUNNING SCANDAL: More ‘Gunwalker’ Emails Suggest Gun-Control Conspiracy: Plus, Congressional investigators ask Eric Holder if there is any other evidence that Gunwalker was an anti-gun PR stunt. I’m sure he’ll be as forthcoming as always.

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ DUE PROCESS: Yes Means Yes—Except on Campus: The feds tip the scales against due process in sexual misconduct cases.

If you were trying to exacerbate the higher education gender imbalance, could you do better? And as universities are seen increasingly as finishing schools for girls, how will their reputations and funding do?

Related: University Finds Student Guilty of Sexual Assault While Police Charge Accuser for Lying About It.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Debt Fears Drive U.S. Youth Away From College. “The cost of higher education in the US has soared in recent decades while median incomes have stagnated, pushing college increasingly further from the grasp of many Americans and limiting social mobility. Three-quarters of US repondents to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center said college was now too expensive for most Americans. In the past decade, tuition rates at public universities have risen 5.6 per cent a year above inflation, while fees at private college have increased by 3 per cent a year, the College Board says.”

MORE ATF GUNRUNNING SCANDALS: “Several lawmakers are questioning the Obama administration about whether the controversial ‘Fast and Furious’ gunrunning probe may have had a cousin in Florida that resulted in guns being trafficked to Central America.”

CHANGE: Property Owner Can Now Protest Government Without Government’s Permission. “The case is a victory for a St. Louis housing activist who grew so fed up with the government’s abuse of eminent domain that he painted an enormous protest message on the side of one of his buildings facing the interstate calling for the end of eminent domain abuse. The city had required him to either remove the mural or get a permit to display his protest, but then it refused to issue him a permit when he applied.”

WELCOME BACK, CARTER? Inflation making a comeback?

SOONER THAN EXPECTED? iPhone 5 May Release In Mid-August.

FASTER, PLEASE: Harvard-MIT Team’s New Synthetic Vocal Cord Gel Gives Voice to the Voiceless.

WHAT TO EXPECT from the next Chevy Volt.

SHOCKER: NYT editorial on debt ceiling basically indisinguishable from a White House blog post.

PROGRESS: The Internet Is Filling Up with Dead People and There’s Nothing We Can Do About It. “Aside from the feeling that I’m giving up yet more of my privacy out of fear of becoming techno-socially irrelevant, the worst part of signing up for a new social network like Google+ is having the service recommend that I invite or classify a dead friend.”

CHANGE: Consumer Confidence Falls To Lowest Level In Over 2 Years.

JOURNALISM: BBC calls Hearst vow apocryphal, quotes it anyway.

I’M NOT SURE I BELIEVE THIS: Obama: 80% Of The American People Want Higher Taxes. But I’m happy to call your bluff, Mr. President: I challenge you to introduce legislation raising taxes on 80% of Americans. . . .

UPDATE: “Sounds like Obama will not call his own bluff.”

MORE: Don Surber: “80% want higher taxes,” he lied. “From the above chart only 4% of Americans want to close the deficit with taxes only. Only 11% want to close the deficit mostly with taxes. President Obama is one of the 4%.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: It isn’t the climate that is going globally weird: it’s the human world where the pace of change has outstripped the ability of politicians and intellectuals to manage or understand. Bloggers to the rescue!

Plus this key observation: “Except for some entrepreneurs, mavericks and renegades, our technocratic elites are mostly a bunch of rule followers and incrementalists. They got where they are by scoring well on tests, manipulating the platitudes of conventional wisdom a little better than the next guy and by pleasing their supervisors.” Yeah, you knew it already, but it can never be pointed out too often.

Also: “Not since the 1930s has the incompetence, incapacity and selfish shortsightedness of Europe’s governing class been so shockingly on display.” Let’s hope it doesn’t end as badly this time.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Call Obama’s Bluff. “Say it, Mr. President. Give us one single structural change in entitlements. In public.”

Plus this: “Right now, Obama owns the economy and its 9.2 percent unemployment, 1.9 percent GDP growth and exploding debt about which he’s done nothing. Why bail him out by sharing ownership?”

STAGFLATION UPDATE: Manufacturing Slumps As Core Inflation Gains.

DEBT-CEILING POLITICS: Time for another sophisticated, scientific, and informative Insta-Poll!

I DON’T THINK HE’LL BE VERY KEEN. HE’S ALREADY GOT ONE, YOU SEE: White House asks GOP to go for the ‘holy grail’ in deficit package.

“Now go away before I taunt you some more.” And is there any chance that Obama’s press conference will be half this amusing?

BYRON YORK: Obama bailout chief changes story: Maybe I did say, ‘I did this all for the unions.’