SHOCKED, SHOCKED. AT RICK’S? GAMBLING? SHOCKED: Former U.N. General Assembly president charged with bribery.

“THEY GONNA PUT Y’ALL BACK IN SOMBREROS!” Biden: Republicans ‘beating’ on Hispanics.

WELL, THAT’S NOT HER STRONGEST SUIT: If Joe Biden runs, it’ll be a “character campaign” against Hillary.

DON’T MAKE FUN OF HIM: Man Calls 911 Because His Girlfriend Won’t Have Sex With Him.

But according to the University of Michigan, withholding sex is “sexual violence.” You people shouldn’t be shaming a victim of sexual violence, you know.

FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF READING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT THE MARTIAN WAS BASED ON A TRUE STORY: Well, presumably it will be eventually, so perhaps they’re simply jumping the gun. (Cue the “I know it’s just a TV show.” “Stop for a second — it’s real.” “I knew it!” scene from Galaxy Quest.) But I wonder what the crossover is between those who simultaneously think we never landed on the moon and think The Martian was based on a true story.

IT’S KURT SCHLICHTER ON CNN, arguing guns with Marc Lamont Hill. I know which one I’d rather have at my back in a tight situation.

THIS CASS SUNSTEIN PIECE ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT is just embarrassing. When you rely on a retired Warren Burger — whom liberals considered a dim bulb when he was actually Chief Justice — recycling an argument he originally made in Parade Magazine, you don’t have much. But the notion that the post-Heller Second Amendment caselaw represents some sort of “right wing reinterpretation” of previously settled law is ridiculous. It will persuade no one who doesn’t already agree with Sunstein, and it diminishes his reputation with anyone who is at all familiar with the actual law.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Only 38% of recent college grads think college was worth the cost.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen.

MEDIA HAPPENS: Obama Gives His Marching Orders On Guns. And the press happily submits. “Before anything was known about the shooter, the guns or the victims, Barack Obama was once again yelling at everyone in the country not responsible for the crime. This was an angry, petulant, lecturing leftist straight out of the Occidental teacher’s lounge. It was also the first time this country saw the real Barack Obama. It was, if anything, refreshing. He is who we thought he was. . . . Media personalities and journalists have in years past usually fallen back on ‘Ha ha, don’t be so paranoid, silly gun nut! Nobody’s coming for your guns!’ It’s the same cliche response they’ve always whipped out when forced to defend their positions as credible reporters and not progressive activists. Except this time, because of Obama’s own words and actions, they now feel Narratively Empowered.”

THIS SOUNDS LIKE A BIG BANG THEORY PLOT: Antarctic scientists face breathalyser tests due to alcohol-fuelled fighting and ‘indecent exposure:’

Officials from the National Science Foundation told an audit of healthy and safety at the two US-run bases — McMurdo Station and the South Pole — that drinking has led to “unpredictable behaviour that has led to fights, indecent exposure, and employees arriving to work under the influence”, according to a report in Wired.

The agency is reportedly considering shipping several breathalysers to the isolated stations, which together house up to about 1,150 people, including scientists and support staff.

But such a move could potentially pose legal and administrative problems, as Antarctica is not US territory and it is not clear who would conduct the tests and what rights of appeal would be available.

Complicating matters further, the South Pole station is at a high altitude which could reportedly prevent the breathalyser tests from working properly.

The agency insisted that drinking was not out of control but it wanted to prevent alcohol-related problems.

Only one man could restore discipline to these out of control sub-zero scientific wastrels. Clearly, Capt. Stillman was shipped to the wrong edge of the world when the EM-50 urban assault vehicle project went pear-shaped.

POLITICS: Green Ideals Trump Science in Europe. “Maybe this was predictable: 19 of the EU’s 28 member nations have so far asked to “opt out” of scientist-approved genetically modified crops, exercising an option afforded to them by a compromise made by the European Commission earlier this spring. Under that deal, EU scientists are tasked with evaluating the safety of GMOs before their import into the trading bloc, but members are still given the option to eschew that expert analysis and reject GM crops on a case-by-case basis. Since then, the number of countries opting out has steadily risen, and a spokesperson confirmed earlier this week that the European Commission has received 19 such requests.”

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Why Frequent Sex Increases a Woman’s Pregnancy Odds.

PROGRESS: Four new Breakout Labs Startups funded by Peter Thiel.

HOWARD STERN ‘LOSES IT’ AT PINK FLOYD’S ROGER WATERS OVER ANTI-SEMITIC REMARKS, Jeff Dunetz writes at his blog, The Lid:

“He’s got to shut up, Roger Waters, If you take a look over there — Roger, genius, Mr. Pink Floyd — there are so many Arab countries and so much land around Israel, if you threw a pin in a pool, that’s what Israel is.  Israel was created in the middle of a desert in a portion of the world no one wanted, until Jews showed up there.

Where do you want the Jews to go, Roger? You want them just to go back to the concentration camps? What is it you want, f**head?”

Well, possibly. Watching the movie version of The Wall, Waters’ bitterness over his father’s death at Anzio leaves the distinct impression that he wishes England had stayed out of WWII entirely. Waters’ isolationism and hatred of Israel really makes him seem like the Pat Buchanan of British rock, as I wrote a decade ago.

Related: “Leftie yahoos consumed by their hatred​,” British conservative Daniel Hannan writes:

Actually, anyone who has dipped a toe into politics will know that the hate comes disproportionately from one end of the spectrum. It’s difficult to gauge these things empirically, of course. One test would be to compare the number of people who boast of their hatred. Twitter Lefties often declare in their self-descriptions “hates capitalism” or “hates Tories”; but there are very few bios proclaiming “hates socialism”.

Read the whole thing.

VOX: VOTE FOR HILLARY BECAUSE SHE’S “CLEARLY MORE COMFORTABLE THAN THE AVERAGE PERSON WITH VIOLATING NORMS AND OPERATING IN LEGAL GRAY AREAS:”

Occasionally a member of the chattering classes writes something that is not just wrong, that is not just irritating, but that is genuinely dangerous. Matthew Yglesias’s latest essay at Vox is just such a piece. Writes Yglesias:

From her adventures in cattle trading to chairing a policymaking committee in her husband’s White House to running for Senate in a state she’d never lived in to her effort to use superdelegates to overturn 2008 primary results to her email servers, [Hillary] Clinton is clearly more comfortable than the average person with violating norms and operating in legal gray areas.

This is, for him, a point in her favor:

Committed Democrats and liberal-leaning interest groups are facing a reality in which any policy gains they achieve are going to come through the profligate use of executive authority, and Clinton is almost uniquely suited to deliver the goods. More than almost anyone else around, she knows where the levers of power lie, and she is comfortable pulling them, procedural niceties be damned.

Conclusion:

She truly is the perfect leader for America’s moment of permanent constitutional crisis: a person who cares more about results than process, who cares more about winning the battle than being well-liked, and a person who believes in asking what she can get away with rather than what would look best.

So Hillary’s ethics — or the lack thereof — are Vox-approved; that’s good to know. Or to put it another way:

Earlier: Politico’s “Glenn Thrush calls Hillary’s homebrew email system ‘badass.'”

Lord Acton, call your office.

GOSH, WHO KNEW? “Would-be killers target gun-free zones,” John R. Lott Jr. writes in the otherwise bluer-than-blue Philadelphia Inquirer.

Related: “Next time your lefty friends start nattering on about ‘gun violence’ (as in the meme above, which went viral the other day), point them to this analysis by Eugene Volokh in the Washington Post,” Michael Walsh adds.

LAWFARE: Doctors Without Borders cheapens its indignation when it puts U.S. military accident in same category as Nazi slaughter of Jews.

BECAUSE, NARRATIVE: Nets Hype Muslims Targeted in Chapel Hill Shootings 12 Times More Than Christians in Oregon.

CHANGE: iPhone Malware Is Hitting China. Let’s Not Be Next.

A TRAILER PARK CALLED CAMELOT: ‘My story about the collision is getting better all the time. Now I’ve got a Jew and a n****r…’ How John F. Kennedy revealed his father exploited the PT 109 incident to make his son a hero and pave the road to the White House.

SALON’S EMBARRASSING TRY AT REFUTING BEN CARSON AND SMEARING AMERICA, as spotted by Caleb Howe, who takes one for the team and reads Salon so that you don’t have to:

Salon ran an article over the weekend that is a supposed take-down of Dr. Carson’s recent comments about Islam and the Presidency. The article was written with the exactly precise amount of outrage and scorn liberal media requires at this point, and was tweeted with equal “in your FACE” churlishness. In that tweet a claim was made. I warn you, the claim is so monumentally, facially absurd that you will at first simply not believe it is a real tweet.

But it is real. It is really what a real website with a real brand really tweeted with their real Twitter account. I’m just trying to prepare you for the fact that the thing I am about to embed here in this post is an actual thing that was typed by human hands intentionally and then put onto the internet with aforethought. Put down your coffee, spit your chewing gum into your hand, and buckle up. This is going to be rough.

The tweet – and I just want to stress that this is a real thing that was done on purpose – is:

I don’t want to spoil it for you – click over and experience the astonishment for yourself. But I will add this as a preview:

WHY ARE CONSERVATIVES ANGRY? BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT WANTS TO ANGER THEM, Jim Geraghty writes:

Another big reason Republicans are angry is because they have a president who embraces a political strategy of deliberately and consistently enraging conservatives. Major Garrett detailed the White House’s calculated effort to be controversial and provocative in 2014:

This is the White House theory of “Stray Voltage.” It is the brainchild of former White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe, whose methods loom large long after his departure. The theory goes like this: Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness.

Mickey Kaus characterizes the approach as “gaslighting” — giving your opponent a legitimate reason to get angry, then turning around and pointing to their anger as evidence they’re unhinged, obsessed, incapable of governing responsibly, et cetera.

President Obama made clear he refuses to be a lame duck; instead, the passage of the 2014 midterms only liberated him from worrying about what the public thinks.

* * * * * * *

Many Republicans feel hated by their president, and they return the sentiment. Whether or not they believe in Obama’s Hawaiian birth, they increasingly agree with Rudy Giuliani’s sentiment, “[Obama] doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” In Trump, these voters finally have a candidate who expresses that disdain as directly and passionately as they feel it.

Time will tell whether the Obama strategy of relentless provocation worked by driving the GOP to extreme antagonism that repelled a majority of the electorate — or whether he will have just riled up his opposition to the state of victorious determination.

Read the whole thing.

WEIGHT GAIN TIED TO LATER BEDTIMES?

Researchers studied 3,342 adolescents starting in 1996, following them through 2009. At three points over the years, all reported their normal bedtimes, as well as information on fast food consumption, exercise and television time. The scientists calculated body mass index at each interview.

After controlling for age, sex, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, the researchers found that each hour later bedtime during the school or workweek was associated with about a two-point increase in B.M.I.

The effect was apparent even among people who got a full eight hours of sleep, and neither TV time nor exercise contributed to the effect. But fast food consumption did.

Hmm.