HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Massive (50%-70%?) Faculty Layoffs at Cooley Law School.

UPDATE: Nothing says “academia” like confidentiality agreements and non-disparagement clauses.

PHILIP KLEIN: Washington is divided because it has abandoned federalism.

There has been a lot of handwringing in recent years about how divided Washington is, and how it’s difficult for the parties to come together on anything. But the reality is that the states are divided among themselves.

The architecture of the Constitution offers a natural solution to this problem. Instead of trying to solve every issue at the national level, power should be shifted back to the states. Those states whose residents are willing to pay higher taxes for more government services should be free to do so, as should states whose residents are willing to forgo government benefits in favor of lower taxes. Under such a system, instead of bitterly hashing out every issue in Washington, Congress could be focusing on a limited range of issues.

It’s clear that liberals don’t see things this way. But it should be no surprise that their efforts to impose one-size-fits-all solutions across the nation encounter so much resistance.

They rediscover federalism whenever the GOP controls the White House and Congress, but they quickly forget it upon regaining power at the national level. The GOP is only moderately better.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Looking For The Attractor.

There’s a crisis in punditry. Disasters have become altogether too predictable. . . .

Nobody really believes that the leaders of the nation or the West in general can find their way out of the mess they’ve created. Not after all that huffing and puffing about climate change, transgender initiatives, Obamaphones, “getting engaged with your disease” and other varieties of trivial pursuit.

The Big Ticket problems they’ve pooh-poohed for so long are here. Food, energy, security and demography. In a short, the world of things. Boo. Your design margin has been canceled. Politicians are running for cover. . . .

That the current system is in flux is no longer in doubt. What everyone wants to know is where the attractor is. “In dynamical systems, an attractor is a set of physical properties toward which a system tends to evolve.” Where is the world going? Who is going to lead it? The conventional wisdom is that it was Barack or Hillary who would do the leading. But it looks more like no mas!

What punditry needs now is not someone who can interpret the past — that’s easy — but someone who can glimpse the further future. But even the greatest minds have no crystal ball. The mists of uncertainty shroud all. One can only repeat what Winston Churchill said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Like the folks in Europe 100 years ago, I think we’re going to miss the Gay 90s.

“CHOKE POINT” ROWBACK: Federal Agency Blames ‘Confusion’ for Choking Business Owners’ Access to Banks.

Federal regulators have backed away from pressuring banks to stop doing business with legal enterprises that the Obama administration labeled “high risk” — including selling guns, making payday loans, and trading in rare coins.

Late last month, the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation told banks that it had removed a list of 30 examples of “high risk” activities from the agency’s website, stating its list had “led to misunderstandings.”

By “misunderstandings,” FDIC apparently meant that its guidance led to sudden decisions by banks across America to close accounts with customers that fell under any of the listed categories.

If they didn’t close the accounts, bank officers thought, they could be subject to federal audits or other investigations.

Yeah, I don’t think there was confusion at all. I think they just got caught.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE EVERYONE SPIES ON EVERYONE ELSE: German agents secretly recorded Hillary Clinton conversation. “German security agents recorded a conversation involving Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state, German media reported Friday, a potential embarrassment for Berlin, which has lambasted Washington for its widespread surveillance. Clinton’s words were intercepted while she was on a U.S. government plane, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and German regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR said, without giving details of where she was or when the recording was made.” It’s kind of embarrassing to the US, though, that they were able to do so.

DELETE THIS EMAIL: Republicans question HHS official’s instruction to ‘delete’ internal ObamaCare email.

A key official overseeing the ObamaCare launch last fall asked a subordinate to “delete” an email exchange on the matter, according to newly released records, fueling Republican concerns that the administration may be hiding internal discussions from Congress.

“Time and again, the self-proclaimed ‘most transparent administration’ has been anything but,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement. “And now we know that when HealthCare.gov was crashing, those in charge were hitting the delete button behind the scenes.”

Upton and other GOP committee leaders on Friday released an email exchange from Oct. 5, 2013, shortly after HealthCare.gov launched to widespread problems. It showed Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, telling an employee in the public affairs office to “please delete this email.”

But somehow, this time the hard drive didn’t crash. Go figure. What are the chances?

SHADES OF TOM DELAY: Travis County’s Politicized DA Gets Perry Indicted (Updates: Perry Responds) – Obama’s Henchman Cackles. Even many of the Dems on my Twitter feed think this indictment is a reach. But, as with Scott Walker, the Democratic Deep State is trying a spoiling attack aimed at clearing the 2016 field.

But if threatening a veto is indictable, well, how many vetoes has Obama threatened?

Meanwhile, some Travis County DA Drunk-Driving Video.

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THAT’S RACIST: “Graduates in non-graduate occupations” are such a clear trend in Britain that they now have their own acronym: “gringos.”

POLL: “The American public appears to be open to a series of constitutional amendments that have been proposed. Eighty-four percent of Americans favor requiring members of Congress to be subject to all of the laws they pass. Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 74 percent, support an amendment requiring the federal budget to be balanced. And 57 percent favor the so-called Citizens United amendment that would allow Congress and states to regulate campaign contributions and spending. However just 26 percent of those who support a campaign finance amendment would still favor it if it gave Congress or states the power to regulate activities such as publishing books or blog posts that support or oppose political candidates.”

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THOUGHTS ON suicide and contagion.

AMY OTTO: “Sex” Isn’t What It Used To Be.

First, there are pretty reasonable explanations for why “normative sexual expectations” still dominate female preferences.

They’re straight. That’s right, straight women may in fact have different sexual interests than their lesbian counterparts. This should go without saying.

Mutually beneficial exchange works out well generally for the human race. See capitalism, trade, sex… I can understand how Salon would struggle with this and prefer that sex, like everything else, have a distinct give and take they can regulate instead of a market-driven pace of mutual exchange and benefit.

Evolution likely favors activities that aid in propagating the species.

Intimacy and close physical contact during sex are often pleasurable. I mean, “theoretically,” but I’m comfortable stating this without a scientific poll.

That’s a completely unscientific list of polite things that can be said in the defense of sex. Besides that, it’s called “sex,” Salon. Without it there would be no writers at Salon. Wait… that’s one strike against it.

Good point.

#SHREWCULTURE: James Delingpole: The World needs Whingeing, Neo-Feminist Harpies like Fish Need Bicycles.

REALLY? HOW MANY JEWS DO THEY HAVE? Forbes: “As a crossroads of humanity, Dubai is unparalleled among global cities for its diversity.”

TIM BLAIR: Civilization vs. Barbarians.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Be Polite.

SPOTTING CANCER IN A VIAL OF BLOOD.

21ST CENTURY LITIGATION: Lawyers in Texas case not allowed to tweet deposition of ex-sheriff.

In a deposition on August 1, Caples’ attorney, Javier Peña, questioned Treviño, and members of Peña’s law firm tweeted Treviño’s responses. Although the session was supposed to last six hours, Treviño’s defense attorney, Preston Henrichson, shut down the session after a little more than four hours, objecting to the questioning and the tweeting. On Wednesday, Judge Rudy Delgado of the Texas State District Court said that the deposition would be allowed to continue on Friday for the one hour and 48 minutes left to Peña’s firm, but that tweeting details would be out of the question.

During the deposition, Peña’s firm asked Treviño about his ties to certain people and about the internal workings of the department he oversaw. One tweet read, “Did you ever instruct your deputies to alter crime statistics? (Instructed not to answer.) Who was in charge of stats? ‘Cmdr. Montemayor.’”

Another read, “Would you be able to overrule the findings of an internal affairs investigation? ‘Absolutely.’ – LT #rgv.”

A transcript of the August 1 deposition was also leaked after the session ended, and on Wednesday the judge said Peña’s firm would not be allowed to release a transcript of the remaining deposition time until the court permitted it.

Judge Delgado reportedly told the two sides, “Our technology is far outpacing [the] ability to formulate rules.”

Yeah, I’m not really seeing the problem here.

I DUNNO, THE SEXBOTS MAY TURN OUT TO BE MORE REVOLUTIONARY: This Thousand-Bot Swarm is the Future of Robotics.

SCIENCE MARCHES ON: Japan’s creepy sex doll industry ‘reaches next level’ in creation of perfect artificial £1,000 ‘Dutch Wife’ which comes with ‘realistic feeling skin.’

Put this together with the do-anything-you-ask version of Siri and it’s going to be a lot easier for men to go on strike.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Off to College? Avoid Herpes 101.

THE SCIENCE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SETTLED! Remember when they said salt was bad for you? Yeah, not so much. “So the takeaway is that Mayor Bloomberg ought to be leading Kazakstan. Works for me.”

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 463.