IT’S ALL ABOUT MEEEEE! Obama Asks People Getting Married To Forgo Gifts, Ask Their Guests To Donate To His Campaign Instead.

UPDATE: Reader Eric Hardie writes: “I’d prefer a toaster — you know, something that can really deliver on the promise of change.” Ouch.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Kimberlin vs. Walker: Walker Fights Back.

FOUR PINOCCHIOS FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: Whopper: White House adviser David Plouffe on Romney’s jobs record and GOP strategy. “Neither of Plouffe’s claims were factually correct, so Team Obama earns four Pinocchios.” They’re sounding increasingly desperate.

UPDATE: Related: Running Scared, Democrats Resort to Hysteria.

ANN ALTHOUSE UNIMPRESSED BY FELLOW ACADEMIC: “Professor Amar, who is a political creature, with partisan and money-based preferences of his own, plays the role of the Yale law professor, applying political pressure to the Supreme Court and to the larger political mechanism (which includes the 2012 presidential election). Are you enjoying the theater?”

If the Supreme Court could decide that a “living constitution” reflected the failures of laissez-faire capitalism in the 1930s, which is what we’re told it did, then why can’t it decide that a living constitution must recognize the failures of big government in the 21st Century?

Plus, from the comments:

“The Founders intentionally politicized judicial appointments by vesting these appointments in elected executive and legislative officials.”
Akhil Reed Amar, 2005.

Those bastards.

Dead white males. They’re very tricky.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Also from the comments:

First there was that hilarious video of Harvard’s Roberto Unger. Now this piece of unintentional self-parody from Yale’s Akhil Reed Amar.

It’s as if Althouse is deliberately trying to make con law profs at higher-ranked law schools look bad!

All you have to do is let them talk.

HOW FEELING LONELY can shorten your life. “The association was especially marked by age: for the youngest participants, aged 45 to 65, living alone increased the risk of early death by 24%; in people aged 66 to 80, solitary living was associated with a 12% increased risk of death; among those over 80, there was no link between living arrangements and risk of heart-related death. Why the differences? It could be that for middle-aged people, for whom living alone is much less common than it is for the elderly, the single life may be a marker for other psychological or social problems that can affect health — a poor support system, depression, loneliness, job- or relationship-related stress. For the elderly, however, living alone may be a marker of strength; if you’re 80 and living solo, you might be healthier and more independent than your peers who can’t manage on their own.”

PROF. JACOBSON: Yes, Mia B. Love will need our help.

ON THE DEFENSIVE: Fisker Automotive Turns to Advertising in Wake of PR Woes.

WHAT HAPPENS IF NO ONE PAYS FOR MUSIC?

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Blacks Take It On The Chin In New York. “The New York Times is reporting that more than half of all black New Yorkers are now unemployed, and that they remain unemployed for a year on average after losing their jobs. . . . Numerous businesses have reported payroll increases, and important professional industries like law and accounting are beginning to recover. Blacks, however, have been largely left out of this recovery—including college-educated blacks, who in many cases have been forced to settle for jobs well below their qualifications.”

They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d see an economic catastrophe for African-Americans. And they were right!

ROGER KIMBALL: A Note on “Fast and Furious,” Executive Privilege, and the End of the Obama Administration. “Obama’s assertion of executive privilege will do little if anything to save Eric Holder. Its chief effect, I predict, will be to focus attention more sharply on the great questions that have not been sufficiently plumbed: Who is Barack Obama? What does he have to hide?” Something, obviously.

MEN: Defective, Or Just Unnecessary? “Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences.” Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

THREE MYTHS about working from home.

AT AMAZON, June Audio-Month Savings.

Also, the Kindle Daily Deal.

DUELING HEADLINES IN THE HILL: Obama looks to capitalize on shift in presidential race’s momentum.

But, right next to it: Romney closing the election gap with focus on the economy.

ANNALS OF THE HOPEY-CHANGEY: Panera Tries New Hard-Times Approach in Obama’s Hometown: “The once-again-sadly-sagging U.S. economy has been so hard on retailers and their customers the last two or three years that a sandwich shop in President Obama’s hometown has just switched from regular prices to a pay-what-you-can plan. A Panera sandwich shop on Chicago’s North Side removed its regular prices Thursday and now posts only suggested donations. People pay what they can, maybe a little more than suggested, maybe a little less. If some have no money, they can help clean the store for an hour to earn a meal.”

JENNIFER RUBIN: Economic Blues. “In case you are tempted to get caught up in the details of immigration policy or the VP gossip mill: Remember, it’s still the economy that matters most. And it’s still awful.”

WASHINGTON EXAMINER:

It’s been a difficult June for President Obama’s allies in organized labor. First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker easily beat back a union-funded recall election, ensuring the survival of his reforms to collective bargaining and other public-sector union privileges. In Virginia, the bureaucrats controlling the nation’s largest ongoing public works project — the Silver Line to Washington Dulles International Airport — were forced by political pressure to drop union contracting preferences that had threatened to exclude firms from Virginia, a right-to-work state.

And then this week, organized labor received yet another blow in the form of the Supreme Court decision Knox v. SEIU. The 7-2 ruling blocks public employee unions from padding their political coffers with contributions from unwilling non-members. It applies to closed-shop states, such as California, where the government deducts union representation fees even from the paychecks of nonmembers. . . . Labor unions provide a service to their members — a service that is worth whatever those members are willing to pay, but not a cent more. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms this valuation. It continues a welcome trend across America of plugging up and sealing off unfair revenue streams that public-sector unions, over the years, have managed to extract from the unwilling — from taxpayers, governments and nonmembers.

The money machine seems to be breaking down.

POLITICS AND PROFIT: Campus Money Heads Left: “Just this week, the Chronicle of Higher Education issued the current figures on contributions. It’s entitled ‘Academics Still Shell Out for Obama, but Times Have Changed’, and it tallies higher education donations at 81 percent for Obama. Harvard stands at 87 percent for Democrats, Berkeley at 91 percent. The ‘Change’ the reporters cite comes from the rise of for-profit institutions, which leaned heavily toward Romney, Full Sail University donating 93 percent to the Republican candidates. Chalk that up as another reason to consider for-profit institutions a disruptive force in higher education.”

I suppose this also explains the Obama Administration’s hostility to for-profits.

SLUSH FUND: Worldcom convict gets $7.5M loan guarantee from Obama’s stimulus. “David Myers, a former Worldcom executive who served 11 months in prison after being convicted of fraud, received a $7.5 million loan that was guaranteed by the federal government with money from the 2009 stimulus.”

FACULTY VIEWS of online learning: “The dubiousness among faculty members may be attributable, in part, to the makeup of the sample. About 75 percent of the respondents were full-time faculty members, many of whose teaching careers predate the online boom. And 61 percent of them were not teaching a fully online or blended course at the time of the survey. Those who were teaching online at the time of the survey, meanwhile, seemed to hold online education in higher esteem than their classroom-bound colleagues. And the greater the proportion of their teaching that occurs online, the more optimistic they are.”

HERE’S A REVIEW of my The Higher Education Bubble.

HMM: China’s Manufacturing Sector in Recession?

ROGER SIMON: When Leaders Lie.

OH, I’LL BE SPIKING IT IF THAT HAPPENS: Boehner: There will be no spiking of the ball if ObamaCare is overturned.