REMINDER: BULL CONNOR WAS A MEMBER OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. Dems paying black staffers 30% less than white ones. “If you’re a person of color hoping to get hired by a political campaign, here’s the ugly truth: You’ll probably get paid less than your white counterparts, if you’re even hired at all. . . . For example, African-American staffers on Democratic campaigns were paid 70 cents for each dollar their white counterparts made. For Hispanic staffers in Democratic campaigns, the figure was 68 cents on the dollar.”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Carrying A Gun Worse Than Beating Your Wife? That’s The Loopy View Of One NJ Judge & Prosecutor. Plus, my suggestion for a new federal civil rights law.

ASHE SCHOW: Backlash: College men challenge ‘guilty until proven innocent’ standard for sex assault cases.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 459.

THEY COULDN’T BUILD THE BAY BRIDGE, but they want to build a bullet train.

A state senate report…charges that Caltrans bosses “gagged and banished” at least nine top bridge engineers, scientists, and other experts. In “closed-door meetings,” transportation department officials reportedly approved “extra millions” for “incentives,” “accelerations,” and “mitigations” to open the bridge by Labor Day last year. Their behavior, the report alleges, amounted to “an institutionalized, if not malicious, lack of transparency in the project. […]

Several storms in recent years exposed parts of the bridge to flooding, and corrosion was evident even before the span opened to motorists. A few months before the bridge was scheduled to open last year, dozens of long metal support rods snapped. Metallurgical engineer Lisa Thomas testified that this was due to “hydrogen embrittlement,” a problem Caltrans invited by opting to use Grade BD steel, rather than the more robust Grade BC. Thomas says that hydrogen is to this type of steel “as Kryptonite is to Superman.”

Top men.

ELECTIONS: A Look At The 2014 Gubernatorial Landscape. “Thirty-six statehouses are up for grabs, with a baker’s dozen very competitive.”

RELIGIOUS WARFARE: Jewish students ‘bullied’ out of class. “Jewish students are allegedly being assaulted and refused entry into lectures at universities around Melbourne. Student groups report anti-Israel protesters at RMIT, Monash and La Trobe campuses are profiling people and heckling Jews out of class lectures.”

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Carrying A Gun Worse Than Beating Your Wife? That’s The Loopy View Of One NJ Judge & Prosecutor. Plus, my suggestion for a new civil rights law.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Joel Kotkin: In the Future We’ll All Be Renters: America’s Disappearing Middle Class.

The Insta-Wife has been reading Kotkin’s new book, which comes out shortly, The New Class Conflict.

NICE POLLS, KID. DON’T GET COCKY: WaPo: Republican takeover of Senate appears more and more assured.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Whatever Happened To Cynthia McKinney?

THE HILL: Feinstein squares off with Obama.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is squaring off with President Obama again, this time over a long-awaited Senate report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s harsh interrogation practices.

Feinstein, the senior senator from California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has repeatedly battled the administration on a string of different issues.

An institutionalist who has repeatedly sought to defend congressional power, Feinstein takes her oversight role seriously. And while she is from a left-leaning state, the five-term senator frequently pushes Obama from a centrist point of view.

“She represents discontent form the center which doesn’t get as much coverage as the concern on the left,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at Stanford University.

I wonder why that is?

TIM CARNEY: In Iraq, Obama launches another drive-by war. Halfhearted, on the cheap, by committee. What could go wrong?

Related: Byron York: Obama’s ‘lid’ theory of conflict in Iraq.

STONEWALLER IN CHIEF: We’re transparent, but don’t ask for any documents, says the Obama White House.

GOOD NEWS: Yellowstone Not About To Explode, Apparently. “First, everyone should know that geological activity, including earthquakes and ground uplift/subsidence is well within historical norms and seismicity is actually a bit low at present.”

ROGER KIMBALL: Obama In Oz. “Crippling successors, of course, is precisely what Obama is trying to do. It’s all part of his strategy of fundamentally transforming the Untied States of America.”

CHANGE: “Sweden ever so quickly has gone from so-called anti-Zionism to open anti-Semitism.”

ROLL CALL: Feinstein Warns of Risk of ISIL Attack on America, Says Must Be Confronted.

“It has become clear that ISIL is recruiting fighters in Western countries, training them to fight its battles in the Middle East and possibly returning them to European and American cities to attack us in our backyard,” the California Democrat said in a statement backing military action authorized by President Barack Obama. “We simply cannot allow this to happen.”

Feinstein called for a broader military campaign against ISIL, not just the targeted missions authorized by the president.

“It takes an army to defeat an army, and I believe that we either confront ISIL now or we will be forced to deal with an even stronger enemy in the future. Inaction is no longer an option. I support actions by the administration to coordinate efforts with Iraq and other allies to use our military strength and targeting expertise to the fullest extent possible,” Feinstein said.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., warned of a similar possibility in an opinion piece for Time.com.

So there’s a bipartisan consensus, then.

LEFTISTS TO OBAMA: Bring Your Spies Under Control. “Activists on the left are demanding President Obama flex his muscle over the country’s spy agencies. The CIA’s admission that a handful of officials spied on Senate staffers is proof that the White House has lost control of the intelligence agencies, critics say. They are also discomforted by the continued support Obama has offered for agency Director John Brennan.”

Perhaps the spies are under control.

A LOT OF LAWYERS WILL MAKE GOOD MONEY OFF THE CURRENT MORAL PANIC: Expelled UMass Student Sues School for ‘Pre-Judgment’ In Assault Case. “Two months later, the university held a disciplinary hearing, the lawsuit said. But the male student had not been given copies of case documents beforehand, key pieces of evidence were not presented during the hearing, the male student was repeatedly interrupted, and questions he had were ignored, the suit said. Two days later, the student was told that he had been found ‘responsible’ for three violations: ‘sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and community living standards,’ and he would be expelled.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Fore! As Obama Golfs, Tanks Roll in Baghdad and A Country Unravels. “The fact that President Obama thought that the day of an Iraqi coup was a good time to hang on the Vineyard and get on the links is bad news. Either the President blew off warnings from his advisors, or the intel community got blindsided again. Both possibilities reflect badly on the management of the nation’s affairs.”

OUT: HOPE AND CHANGE. In: Pollsters: ‘Everything is terrible.’