WE’VE FOUND SOMETHING SCARIER THAN A GIANT DISEMBODIED BERNIE SANDERS HEAD WITH ROBIN HOOD HAT: Behold, the giant papier-mâché Bernie puppet!

You know the socialism just got real the moment the giant papier-mâché puppets make their cameo appearance.

A CASE STUDY IN HOW MEDIA PROTECT HILLARY CLINTON: Hillary Clinton’s on board with strangling the burgeoning gig economy, such as Uber. You wouldn’t know that by reading news reports on that very topic, though.

DAVE KOPEL: A survey of legislation on Second Amendment issues in 2015.

WHY DOES DE BLASIO HATE WOMEN? Mayor De Blasio, Don’t Set Women Back By Shackling Uber: Politicians should welcome Uber, a creative ride-sharing service that enables women to be more safe and self-reliant.

Uber is the best thing to happen to women since the invention of birth control. It allows us to leave when we want without relying on a man to get us home. To understand how empowering this notion is, de Blasio might consider walking in our red stilettos one Saturday night.

Of course, not every woman needs an app to escape a bad date, but Uber provides a safety net for those that do. With Uber, women don’t need a permission slip to leave the dinner table. We don’t need to stay for “one more drink,” and we certainly don’t need to deal with the anxiety of hailing for a cab that might never come. No. With Uber, we just click a button, and our car arrives.

Politicians should welcome this creative service that enables women to be more safe and self-reliant—not stand in its way.

They don’t want you self-reliant. They want you dependent.

SAY, WHAT IF IRAN REJECTS THE DEAL?

KURT SCHLICHTER: Europe Is Partying Like It’s 1939: The world is preparing for war, but not in Europe, where Daft Punk’s beat goes on.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: In Love And In Debt: How Student Loans Put Pressure On Young Couples.

Disproportionate student debt can make that already-challenging conversation all the more complicated. A survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling found that 57 percent of respondents had reservations about being in a relationship with someone with a large amount of debt, with 37 percent saying that they’d wait to get married until the debts were repaid, and slightly more—46 percent—saying they’d be open to getting married and jointly paying off the debt.

Those reservations result in real—and documented—difficulties for people with large amounts of debt when it comes to getting married. Dora Gicheva, an assistant professor in economics at the University of North Carolina, studies how debt affects education and relationships. She recently published a study on how people with large debt burdens fare when trying to settle down.

“There are a couple of previous economic studies that find student loans to affect other areas of graduates’ lives, for example their career choices, so it seemed reasonable to expect marriage decisions to be affected as well,” says Gicheva. Her research found a negative relationship: $10,000 of student-loan debt decreased the probability of marriage by 3 to 4 percent, with the effect diminishing with age for women but not men.

While there’s little legal ramification of marrying someone with a massive amount of student-loan debt (debt incurred before marriage is not joint debt), Karen Carr, a certified financial planner who teaches and advises at the Society of Grownups, says that differing amounts of loans can be stressful for couples—particularly if the amounts are extreme.

Indeed.

FEAR AND LOATHING AT NETROOTS NATION: “Look, our government doesn’t treat people equally. Our police don’t. Our courts don’t. Our civil servants don’t. But equal treatment for everyone has to be our goal. O’Malley was ready to talk about solutions, yet his party’s vanguard won’t let him. They make him apologize for trying,” David Marcus writes at the Federalist, adding a futile reminder to the professional left in with a Hunter-esque “dig it,” that “mansplaining privilege theory to some young woman who is on your team is not going to create the supportive atmosphere in the room that wins elections.”

THE MEDIA ANSWER IS, ONLY IF THEY’RE A REPUBLICAN. DUH. Heather Havrilesky: Are Broken Marriage Vows Grounds for Blowing Up Someone’s Life?

IT’S ABOUT TIME: Enough! Entire Entertainment Industry Says ‘No More’ to Social Justice Warriors. They’re poisonous, tedious, and unprofitable.

A READER MESSAGES “DID YOU SEE GAWKER ON THIS? ME NEITHER:” Top Obama Donor Charged With Sodomizing Teenage Boy, Judge Gives Him Some Bad News…

NOT ALL LIVES MATTER: Obama’s silence on Kathryn Steinle killing is deafening. Note that this WaPo column from Marc Thiessen is a week old, and Obama still hasn’t said anything.

KURT SCHLICHTER: The Real Reason Our Troops at Chattanooga Were Unarmed Is Absolutely Infuriating.

So, the idea that military leaders have their hands tied is nonsense – the governing directives and regulations expressly allow senior leaders to arm their troops when there is a threat. And there is a threat – as we saw in Chattanooga, as we saw at Fort Hood. These freaks are not picking military personnel at random. They are continuing the radical Islamic war against America here on our soil, and our warriors remain stubbornly disarmed and defenseless.

So why would a commander not order troops who have qualified on their M9 pistols to draw sidearms and ammo and carry them during their duties, at least until this crisis passes? Perhaps their discretion has been withdrawn from higher command – that’s possible, especially with this toxic administration. But more likely it’s because of fear.

It’s the fear that some solider is going to have an “incident” carrying a weapon, and that that incident is going to lead to questions, and in an environment where the Armed Forces are shrinking, the mention of an incident on an officer’s annual evaluation report can mean the difference between a career and a pink slip. It’s the same zero defects mentality that is keeping our military leadership from being an audacious, aggressive band of warriors and morphing it instead into a timid, passive pack of timeservers.

Yeah, troops do dumb things sometimes. During my 27 years leading soldiers, I was consistently amazed by their creativity both in solving problems and in getting into trouble. But while real issues are rare – negligent discharges, lost weapons – they do happen. I dealt with them myself. But that risk is the price of doing business, and when our men and women are being shot down in the street without even a chance to defend themselves, it’s not too high a price to pay.

You train your troops and then you trust them. You punish the knucklehead who screwed up and then you drive on. You don’t turn everyone in uniform into a sitting duck because you don’t want to have to explain to the two-star why Private Snuffy misplaced his Beretta.

In a politicized military, under a politicized administration, this is how things work. Luckily, American civilians are up to the job of defending our military.

UPDATE: Citizen Militia stands guard in front of Tyler military recruiting offices.

Also: ARMED CITIZENS IN TN STAND UP TO GOVERNOR AND GUARD RECRUITING FACILITY.

Plus: Armed volunteers guard Colerain Twp. recruitment center.

Doing the jobs American soldiers and Marines aren’t allowed to do.

THE ARROGANCE OF OFFICE: Mayor De Blasio To Uber: “I Don’t Debate With Private Corporations.”

MORE ON THE UVA DEBACLE: Rolling Stone responds to lawsuit by university dean defamed in article.

Perhaps even more chilling is the fact that Rolling Stone editors cut important disclosures from the final article. Disclosures like the fact that the sociopathic statement from one of Jackie’s friends about not wanting to participate in the article due to fraternity loyalty actually came from Jackie. Erdely had written that section to make it clear that she had not spoken to the friend and that Jackie had told her that’s what he said. Her editors reworded the section to make it seem as though Rolling Stone had actually spoken to him.

There’s also the fact that Erdely claimed she had doubts about the veracity of the story shortly after it was published, but continued to appear on news programs claiming it was accurate.

Eramo alleged in her lawsuit that the statements made about her were not the result of an innocent mistake. “They were the result of a wanton journalist who was more concerned with writing an article that fulfilled her preconceived narrative about the victimization of women on American college campuses, and a malicious publisher who was more concerned about selling magazines to boost the economic bottom line for its faltering magazine, than they were about discovering the truth or actual facts,” Eramo’s lawsuit states.

Among the claims in the Rolling Stone article was a quote from Eramo calling the university that employs her a “rape school.”

Eramo’s attorney, Libby Locke, responded to Rolling Stone in a statement to the Washington Post.

“It is unfortunate, however, that Rolling Stone continues to deny wrongdoing and seeks to avoid all responsibility for their malicious and reckless journalism that has caused Dean Eramo and the entire U.Va. community so much harm,” she said.

Part of that denial of wrongdoing comes from the fact that neither Erdely nor her editors nor the fact-checkers have been fired, or even reprimanded publicly, for their involvement.

This suggests that Rolling Stone doesn’t want them talking.

JON GABRIEL: Some Lives Matter: The Bizarre Politics of the Modern Democratic Party.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY — WELL, OKAY, NO, NOBODY PREDICTED THIS: Black Mississippi flag supporter dies in car crash after argument: Anthony Hervey was killed when his car spun out of control after an argument with a group of black men in another car.

ROGER SIMON: Jeb Bungles On Iran.

MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Dear Feminists, I’m Sorry, I Was Wrong, I Take It All Back.

“SOCIAL JUSTICE” LOOKS A LOT LIKE A CANCER: Progressive Fascists Devour Tim Hunt, and Themselves: A “baying lynch mob” feasts on a politically incorrect joke by one of the world’s treasured minds.

RETHINKING EXERCISE as a source of immediate rewards. I know I’ll feel better after exercise, but when you’re just starting an exercise program after a period of inactivity (1) you don’t know that; and (2) it’s often not true, as you’re much more prone to soreness and fatigue at the beginning.

ON THE ONE HAND, IT’S BAD FOR SOCIETY. ON THE OTHER, IT PROVIDES SUPERB OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRAFT: The Follies Of Income Redistribution.

LAST WEEK, THE INTERNET OUTRAGE MACHINE ATE ITSELF: “The fact that Gawker was seen as acceptable in polite liberal society until now says a lot about the climate on the cultural left,” Cathy Young writes at Real Clear Politics on “Gawker & the Left’s Selective Outrage:”

So why do people like [recently fired ex-staffer Adam Weinstein] think those were the good days when Gawker was a “special” place to work?

The obvious answer is: for the left, Gawker was “our son of a bitch.”

Read the whole thing.

THE SECRET WORLD OF RUSSIA’S COLD WAR MAPS:

The maps were part of one of the most ambitious cartographic enterprises ever undertaken. During the Cold War, the Soviet military mapped the entire world, parts of it down to the level of individual buildings. The Soviet maps of US and European cities have details that aren’t on domestic maps made around the same time, things like the precise width of roads, the load-bearing capacity of bridges, and the types of factories. They’re the kinds of things that would come in handy if you’re planning a tank invasion. Or an occupation. Things that would be virtually impossible to find out without eyes on the ground.

They had spies everywhere. Still do.