DOING WHAT THE FEDS WON’T: Oklahoma gov orders arms for state military personnel.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) issued an executive order late Friday authorizing certain full-time military personnel in her state to be armed following a deadly shooting the previous day in Tennessee.

“Four unarmed Marines were killed in what appears to be a domestic terrorist attack,” Fallin said in a statement accompanying her executive order.

“It is painful enough when we lose members of our armed forces when they are sent in harm’s way, but it is unfathomable that they should be vulnerable for attack in our own communities,” she said.

Fallin’s order applies to those on military installations in Oklahoma, including recruiting offices like the one where a gunman opened fire in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Thursday, before killing four Marines.

Her order allows for weaponry deemed by Adjutant General for Oklahoma Maj. Gen. Robbie L. Asher “necessary to adequately provide for the security of the facilities and their occupants.”

This is also happening in Arkansas and in Louisiana.

RACISM IS EVERYWHERE: Garrett Epps determines that Clarence Thomas is “not a judge at all.”

DESPERATE: Andrea Mitchell to Chattanooga killer’s HS classmate: Was he into guns, or hunting maybe? “I bet there were some sweet deer-hunting opportunities during that mysterious months-long trip to Jordan that Abdulazeez took last year before he started writing cryptic blog posts about breaking free of one’s earthly prison and entering paradise.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: A Pack, Not a Herd. “As Glenn wrote long ago, in any mass shooting event, there is one group of people who, by definition, are already there–the ‘victims.’ Only, if they are armed and dangerous, they don’t have to be victims. They can be first responders. My weekends have been so busy lately that I haven’t been shooting much. But tomorrow, I’m going to the range.” I should note that the phrase “a pack, not a herd,” originally came from Jim Henley. Though he was quoting an unnamed citizen, which seems appropriate.

STACY MCCAIN: Gawker is to journalism what Pol Pot was to Cambodia.

CASS SUNSTEIN DEFENDS GONE WITH THE WIND against charges of racism.

SO, BASICALLY, WE’RE RECONSTITUTING THE MILITIA: Hiram residents hold watch at recruitment center.

The morning after a deadly attack on two military centers in Chattanooga, residents in Hiram are standing watch outside the local recruiting office with their personal firearms. It is their unique way of honoring the fallen Marines and they said to protect the lives of those who serve in the military.

“I teared up. I think any human being would be touched by what happened yesterday. Any U.S. citizen that has a heart and a soul to hear what had happened,” said Crystal Tewellow, who organized the watch.

Recruiting offices are designated as being “gun-free zones” which means officers working there cannot carry their sidearm into the building. Tewellow, whose son just enlisted and the army and has a brother who is a recruiter, felt compelled to organize the watch.

“To think the people who are supposed to protect and serve us are unable to protect and serve… protect themselves,” said Tewellow. “So if us, the citizens, who carry permits, are able to help protect them that’s, that’s what we’re gonna be able to do.”

News Radio 106.7’s Nathalie Pozo was at the recruitment center on Friday morning and reported that about 30 people answered the call to arms.

Good. And the idea of having lots of armed citizens everywhere makes sense. When you face a diffuse, widely-distributed threat, you need a diffuse, widely-distributed defense. You can’t do that with police and military because there aren’t enough of them. But you can do it with ordinary citizens. And there’s one group of responders that will always be on the scene of any attack — the citizens who are already there. If they’re able to respond, things are much better than if they’re not.

Related thoughts here. Because everything old is new again.

UPDATE: Also in Virginia:

Military members at a Virginia recruitment center noticed a man standing near their building Friday — and he was armed with a loaded AR-15.

But this man meant them no harm. Instead, following the attacks on military personnel in Chattanooga, he had come to stand guard and protect the servicemen who are prohibited from carrying firearms at the recruitment centers.

The man, who wished to remain anonymous, told WTTG-TV that he wanted to make a statement on his day off. . . .

The man said that while he has never served in the armed forces himself, he is “certainly thankful” for the men and women who have died in the past “to secure those freedoms.”

Nice to see people stepping up.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Chattanooga shooting reopens debate over military personnel regulations.

MORE: Randy Barnett: “Saved by the Militia”: My NRO Column After 9/11.

STILL MORE: From the comments: “Let’s hope for a nationwide movement. This would send an Excellent message to Capitol City.”

KIND OF LIKE UNIVERSITIES AND POLICE USE “PRIVACY” LAWS TO AVOID ACCOUNTABILITY: Hipaa’s Use as Code of Silence Often Misinterprets the Law.

TWEET OF THE DAY…GOOD HEAVENS. THE AP PUBLISHED THAT PICTURE OF HILLARY? EDITION:

http://t.co/ruF5kMhwcP pic.twitter.com/376PiTcQVh

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) July 17, 2015

Perhaps AP is trying to make amends for their “hey, somebody shoot Ted Cruz please!” photo last month.

DELIVERED AT LAST: America’s Drone Debut.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Back To School and Off To College sales.

Plus, take up to 25% off on Groceries.

GOOD: Sen. Mike Lee Added a Free-Range Kids Clause to Major Federal Legislation: Gives kids the right to walk to school.

Libertarian-leaning Republican Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a supporter of the Free-Range Kids movement, has proposed groundbreaking federal legislation to protect the rights of kids who want to walk to school on their own.

That’s right: a Free-Range Kids provision made its way into the Every Child Achieves Act, a reauthorization of major federal law that governs funding and regulation of elementary education in the United States. The Free-Range Kids portion of the law would permit kids to walk or ride their bikes to school at an age their parents deem appropriate, without the threat of civil or criminal action.

Laws like this one could prevent—or at least deter—local officials from waging harassment campaigns against parents who want give their kids some autonomy. If this had been the law of the land when the Meitivs allowed their kids to walk home by themselves in Maryland, it might have forestalled the whole shebang. (Though, admittedly, the kids were coming back from the park, not school.)

The U.S. Senate passed the Every Child Achieves Act on Thursday. The next step is for the House of Representatives and the Senate to hammer out any discrepancies between their respective education bills before revoting and sending the legislation on to President Obama.

At the moment, the major threats to Free-Range parenting come at the state and local level. But Lee’s office told me in an email that he had been looking for a way to generate federal support for the movement, and his efforts are certainly welcome.

What’s sad is that such efforts are needed.

ACTRESS FRANCES MCDORMAND ON AGING:

“We are on red alert when it comes to how we are perceiving ourselves as a species,” she said. “There’s no desire to be an adult. Adulthood is not a goal. It’s not seen as a gift. Something happened culturally: No one is supposed to age past 45 — sartorially, cosmetically, attitudinally. Everybody dresses like a teenager. Everybody dyes their hair. Everybody is concerned about a smooth face.”

As the Chicks on the Right blog notes, “Just ignore the fact that she’s talking to Katie Couric, and enjoy what she SAYS, y’all.  It’s a great listen.” Both McDormand and Couric are 58; what’s fascinating is that Katie doesn’t seem to get that McDormand is essentially talking about her. Katie’s worked very hard at looking like she still in her early 30s, when she originally landed the Today Show gig all those years ago. Or as Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals adds, this interview “Brought To You By Botox®.”

Heh, indeed.™

But didn’t Diana West write an entire book on what McDormand is saying – and beyond that, the potential dead end of culture’s obsession with youthful aesthetics – seven years ago?

BOSTON GLOBE: Bringing An End To Film Tax Credits.

Justice Louis Brandeis famously characterized the states as “laboratories of democracy,” in which policy makers are free to try “novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” When those experiments succeed, they provide a model for other states to emulate. Even when they fail, other states can benefit from the lessons learned.

One such experiment — lucrative tax credits for the film industry — has been tried out in many state laboratories over the past decade and a half. As many as 44 states have offered the subsidies, among them Massachusetts, which is currently spending $80 million yearly in givebacks to Hollywood producers. The tax credits have their ardent defenders; what corporate-welfare program doesn’t? But the results haven’t lived up to the hype. Almost nowhere have the lavish subsidies led to a robust, homegrown movie industry, or sparked the level of economic growth and job-creation that would justify so much sacrificed revenue.

This page applauded Governor Charlie Baker’s proposal to end the tax subsidies. The Legislature’s refusal to do so amounts to nothing less than throwing tens of millions of dollars’ worth of good money after bad. According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, the film program has generated only 430 net jobs each year for Massachusetts residents. Those jobs paid an average salary of $70,000, yet each one cost the state more than $119,000. Similarly, the subsidies have returned only about 14 cents in new revenue to the Commonwealth for every taxpayer dollar forgone.

But while lawmakers in this state haven’t been willing turn off the spigot, those in other states have.

I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal back in 2013.

It’s time to repeal the Hollywood tax cuts, at both the state and federal level. Why are we taxing working people to subsidize people with yachts and private jets?

THE TOTAL FAILURE OF GUN CONTROL CAPTURED IN ONE PHOTO: “‘Federal Installation,’ the top of the sign reads in black letters atop a yellow background. ‘Firearms Are Prohibited In This Facility.’ The bullets that shattered the glass in more than a dozen places around the gun-free zone sign did not heed its commands.”

And right on cue: Washington Post: New Gun Laws Needed Even if They Won’t Work.

Meanwhile, shorter Andrea Mitchell: There’s got to be some way we can portray Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez as a Tea Partier!

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ (D-Il) CALLS MURDER OF KATE STEINLE A ‘LITTLE THING’ ON TELEMUNDO: “Every time a little thing like this happens, they use the most extreme example to say it must be eliminated.”

INVESTIFARTED: Layers and layers of fact-checkers and editors:

As policy we does not delete typographical errors on Twitter, but do correct #investifarted https://t.co/lT5Bz7WP6f https://t.co/x4UGGA3RSE

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) July 17, 2015

Yes, we’ll all be completely sick of this word in a day or two. But for now, enjoy the fun.

THAT’S THE CHICAGO WAY: Illegal Immigrant Tells PJM They Should Have Voting Rights ‘to Get More Votes’ (Video).

ENVIRONMENTALISM HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT: Anti-Fracking Activism Sacrifices Nature for Ideology.

THERE WAS A SIGNIFICANT TERRORIST ATTACK IN FRANCE THIS WEEK AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA HASN’T EVEN BOTHERED TELLING YOU: Three deliberate, simultaneous explosions rocked a major petrochemical plant in France on Bastille Day, but as usual it is still ‘too early to talk about terrorism’.

ACTUALLY, IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN AIDING BLACKMAILERS: “If Gawker is given a choice between aiding someone intent on blackmailing a private figure and not getting clicks, then goddammit, Gawker is going to take the clicks every time!”

Publisher Nick Denton can dissemble after the fact all he wants, but as Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review tweeted, “You can’t take back the bullets Gawker.”

RELATED:

Breaking: Everyone at Gawker updating their résumés
Breaking: None of the updated résumés contain the word 'Gawker'

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 17, 2015

UPDATE: (From Glenn): A reader emails:

What Gawker just did in very publicly pulling the Geithner blackmail post is VINTAGE Gawker.

Step 1: Post irresponsible article, watch it accumulate 500K visits amid massive backlash that helps drive even more visits.

Step 2: Publish retraction note by Denton on his own “blog” (on Gawker’s content platform), which is itself pulling huge traffic now.

Step 3: Publish another retraction notice on Gawker.com itself (which links to Nick’s post) that will, again, pull massive traffic to Gawker as the retraction becomes its own news story that everyone links to, driving traffic to Gawker.

Step 4: Make sure none of this is really an apology and that you still manage to come across as insufferable, tone-deaf, traffic-mining douchebags above all else.

Mission accomplished! I note, though, that there’d be less outrage elsewhere in the media if the object of Gawker’s misbehavior were a Republican, instead of Tim Geithner’s brother who’s a bigshot at the heavyweight media outfit Conde Nast.

IF YOU LIKE YOUR COUNTRY, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR COUNTRY: “What’s happening in Greece and what’s happening in Puerto Rico is going to happen in the United States,” says investment guru and radio host Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital in a new Reason TV video and accompanying article.

HEH: Uber Adds A Feature Deriding Hostile Regulators. “Uber has added a fake “de Blasio” feature to its app, which is visible only to New York City Uber users. Cars are plentiful in UberPOOL and UberX mode, but on de Blasio mode, the map simply says ‘No cars available.’ Users who click on that message are greeted with another: ‘This is what Uber will look like in NYC if Mayor de Blasio’s Uber cap bill passes.'”

AT AMAZON, deals galore in Training & Fitness.

And shop the Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals. When bad things happen, it’s good to have food.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. It’s hurricane and tornado season, you know.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Conference video: Conformational and compositional dynamics of a molecular machine.