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SETH BARRETT TILLMAN ON Abraham Lincoln and Ex Parte Merryman. That’s where Lincoln authorized military commanders to suspend habeas corpus.

WELL, YES: John Lott: Gun-free zones an easy target for killers.

The horrible tragedy last night that left nine people dead at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., probably could have been avoided. Like so many other attacks, the massacre took place in a gun-free zone, a place where the general public was banned from having guns. The gun-free zone obviously didn’t stop the killer from bringing a gun into the church.

Indeed, the circumstantial evidence is strong that these killers don’t attack randomly; they keep picking the few gun-free zones to do virtually all their attacks.

For some reason, people who would never put up a “gun-free zone” sign in front of their own homes, put up such signs for other sensitive areas that we would like to protect.

Time after time, we see that these killers tell us they pick soft targets. With just two exceptions, from at least 1950, all the mass public shootings have occurred in these gun-free zones. From last summer’s mass public killers in Santa Barbara and Canada, to the Aurora movie theater shooter, these killers made it abundantly clear in their diaries or on Facebook how they avoided targets where people with guns could stop them.

It’s an inconvenient truth for gun control votaries. Predictably, President Obama immediately used the SC shooting tragedy as an excuse to trumpet gun control again.

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CORY BOOKER: Federal Government Is “Choking Innovation.”

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ASHE SCHOW: Title IX Needs Reform.

The anti-discrimination law known as Title IX is meant to protect students from gender-based discrimination, but it has been used over the years to perpetuate it.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” states the law’s preamble.

Originally passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX was mostly used to increase opportunities for women to participate in sports. It quickly became used as a tool not for gender equity but for gender parity. This has been done through bureaucratic “clarifications” issued by the Department of Education — which are not subject to congressional approval, even though they impose new requirements for federally funded higher learning institutions. . . .

That deficiency came to light at Amherst College recently, when an accused student was expelled, then later acquired text messages from the accuser showing their encounter had not been a sexual assault at all. He only saw those text messages after hiring a lawyer to sue the school for his expulsion. When the student presented Amherst with the newly-discovered text messages, the school refused to reopen his case, claiming they had a fair process.

That “fair” process did not allow the accused student to cross-examine his accuser except for pre-approved questions that he couldn’t follow up on. He was also assigned an “adviser” who was clearly not on his side.

This “fairness” prompted Fox News analyst Brit Hume to opine Tuesday night: “Why would Amherst say after this travesty … that the proceedings were fair under government regulations? Because under the government regulations, they may have been fair.”

And therein lies the problem. The process schools must follow under Title IX is fundamentally unfair and needs to be changed to provide students with the same due process rights they would have in a criminal trial. After all, sexual assault is a crime.

It is more realistic to reform Title IX than it is to repeal it, or even — at this point, anyway — to require schools to hand such investigations over to the police. Sexual assault is a serious matter, and it needs to be treated as such — that means treating it like the crime that it is, and that means both taking accusers seriously and providing protections for accused students who stand to have their lives ruined by a process that is currently designed to do just that.

We could just repeal it. It’s not as if colleges are old boys’ clubs these days.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Investor’s Business Daily: IRS’ Latest Email Excuse Draws It Closer To Rogue Agency Status.

FACT-CHECKING Alice Goffman.

TENNESSEE: Fleischmann Prepares for Fighting Off Another Primary Challenge.

Tennessee Republican Rep. Chuck Fleischmann knows a thing or two — or three — about tough primaries; and he’s stockpiling money for a fourth.

Fleischmann’s primaries have never really been about ideology. His district went for Mitt Romney by 28 points in 2012, and he’s dished out plenty of red meat rhetoric to them. Earlier this month at a GOP gathering in Chattanooga, he said of his guest, conservative South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, “Whether you are Hillary Clinton or any other lefty out there, you better beware because Trey Gowdy is out there and he is going to get you.”

But Fleischmann’s string of close calls in primaries begs the question why a three-term congressman in a solidly red district who has voted with his party 97 percent of the time, according to CQ Vote Watch, consistently faces competitive primaries.

Hmm.

SCIENCE: Did Ebola Strike Ancient Athens? “In the new paper, Kazanjian suggests that an Ebola virus may have been the culprit in the infamous Plague of Athens, a five-year epidemic that began in 430 B.C., whose cause has long been a matter of conjecture among physicians and historians.”

I’M SO OLD, I REMEMBER WHEN FILIBUSTERS COUNTED AS “TERRORISM:” Demanding budget talks, Senate Dems block spending bill for military.

Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked spending legislation for the Pentagon, part of a broader strategy aimed at forcing Republicans to the table for budget negotiations.

Senators voted 50-45 to end debate on a motion to proceed to the legislation, short of the 60 votes needed to move forward. Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.) was the only Democrat to vote yes.

Democratic leaders were open about their intention to block the bill, having made the threat repeatedly in the days before the vote.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday morning that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) knew “full well” that Democrats wouldn’t support the defense bill, or any other spending bill, until lawmakers reach a budget deal.

“Instead of working with us to forge a solution that can pass both houses and be signed into law, Republicans are plowing ahead with an appropriations process that is designed to fail,” Reid said.

Reid, as well as Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), sent a letter Thursday to McConnell and other members of the Republican leadership urging them to start budget negotiations “immediately” next week.

Republican leadership has largely brushed off Democrats’ threats while accusing Reid of pursuing a “filibuster summer” aimed at grinding the upper chamber to a halt.

Maybe it’s just me, but the Dems seem more assertive when in the minority than the GOP.

KEN WHITE: Did The Department of Justice Get A Gag Order Silencing Reason About The Grand Jury Subpoena?

On June 8 — ably assisted, as I am now, by my co-blogger Patrick — I reported on a federal grand jury subpoena issued to Reason.com in an effort to unmask commenters who used obnoxious hyperbole about Judge Katherine Forrest, who sentenced Ross “Dread Pirate Roberts” Ulbricht to life imprisonment in the Silk Road case.

In that post, I reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney Niketh Velamoor indicated that he “believed” that there was a gag order prohibiting Reason.com from disclosing the existence of the subpoena. I expressed skepticism about that claim because Mr. Velamoor had just two days before signed a letter telling Reason.com that the Department of Justice asked, but did not require, that the subpoena be kept secret.

Since then, additional factors lead me to believe that there is, in fact, an under-seal gag order purporting to prohibit Reason.com from disclosing or discussing the grand jury subpoena.

This post discusses why I think that, and why such a gag order would be an abuse of the law and a grave abuse of power. . . .

Reason has now gone ten days without commenting on the story. This story — the federal government using grand jury subpoenas to uncover anonymous commenters — is squarely in Reason’s wheelhouse, and would normally provoke justifiable outrage from them. A slight delay in commenting was consistent with them waiting until their lawyers figured out what was going on; this prolonged silence strongly suggests compulsion.

Reason declined to comment on this post. So did the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The whole thing looks like a gross abuse of power.

DUMB AS “THE VIEW” IS, THE GOP NEEDS PEOPLE WHO CAN DO THIS: Carly Fiorina Owns It on “The View.” “She was poised, well spoken, to the point, answered ALL the questions directly, and showed she is a force, and not just a female force, to be reckoned with.” Video at the link.

CHANGE: Obama’s Favorite Prime Minister Concedes To Center-Right Bloc: “From handing out red roses, to driving about in tractors. From tiresome Borgen references, to wooing fishermen on islands. From clashing on TV debates, to red and blue blocs. Yet in the end, after what has been a tightly fought contest in the Scandinavian nation, the centre-right has been voted in to govern the Folketing. Danish voters have ousted the centre-left government of Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and have today voted for an opposition in which the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party has emerged as the biggest force.”

SARAH HOYT: Of Pigs, Fights and Life. “It wears on me, not so much because they’re insults, but because they’re crazy insults.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Nationally recognized teacher removed from class after allegations of misconduct.

Attorneys for a nationally recognized Los Angeles Unified teacher, who was removed from his classroom after allegations of misconduct, are issuing an ultimatum to district administrators: publicly apologize and let him return to work, or get sued.

Rafe Esquith, a longtime educator at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School who has written several books on teaching and received multiple awards for his work, has not been allowed to return to school since district officials launched an investigation in March.

Three months later, L.A. Unified officials have not clearly outlined the allegations against the popular teacher, said his attorney Mark Geragos. But Geragos said he learned that the investigation stemmed from a complaint by another teacher after Esquith read to a class a passage from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.

Obvious badthink. You should have to be 21 and have permission from the proper authorities to read this.

EVEN THE BBC NOTES THAT Obama’s Gun-Control Posturing Got Harsh Pushback.

Related: Bobby Jindal: Obama’s Reaction to Charleston Shooting ‘Completely Shameful.’ “‘Within 24 hours of this awful tragedy, nine people killed at a Bible study in a church, now, let’s stop and think about that. Nine people coming into the church who are saying — to praise God, to study’s God’s scripture, gunned down,’ the governor said. ‘This monster then says he is going leave some victims alive so they can go tell the world what he has done. Within 24 hours, we have got the president trying to score cheap political points.’ . . . ‘The president could have asked the country. He could have said, instead of talking about politics today, we’re not Democrats, Republicans, independents, blacks, whites. We’re Americans, and we all need to worship together. We need to — what would have been great sign is to call for people to fill those churches, because don’t let anybody be scared from going to church. We’re not going to deterred from lifting our prayers,’ Jindal said. ‘…Government is not going to eradicate evil. And that’s why it would be also a good time to call America to prayer. That president doesn’t seem to like to do that, but it’s an important, important part of our country’s tradition.'”

Also: Obama Surrenders On Gun Control. He hasn’t surrendered. He’ll still try weasely under-the table regulatory and diplomatic stuff.

UPDATE: Ex-Obama Advisor Blasted for Tying Nikki Haley to Charleston Shooting. Never let an opportunity to slime a minority, female Republican go to waste.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Someone Tell The Pope: Environmentalism Crushes The Poor. The Church has never been opposed to poverty as such.

DAVID FRENCH: Here’s What Tattoo Artists Can Teach Republican Governors.

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BULLETS & BOURBON: THE VIDEO. Produced by Ed Driscoll, narrated by Stephen Green. More on Bullets & Bourbon here.

WELL, THAT’S NICE: My Third Amendment Penumbras piece has debuted on the recent papers SSRN Top Ten overall list at #1. Thanks to everyone who downloaded it! (Bumped).

CHANGE: Male Birth Control Pill Is Coming, And It’s Going To Change Everything. “One injection would last for years. Research tells us that at least half of men would use it. . . . Vasalgel is essentially a polymer that’s injected under local anesthetic into the man’s sperm-carrying tubes, accessible through the scrotum — not in his penis or testicles as some authors have erred. It works by blocking sperm and is expected to be reversible through a second injection that dissolves the polymer.” Hmm. Expected to be reversible. I’d bank some sperm first, just in case.

RAYMOND IBRAHIM ON Islamic hate for the Christian cross. “The reason for this animosity is that the cross symbolizes the fundamental disagreement between Christians and Muslims.” It didn’t start with ISIS.