FREEDOM: I Made an Untraceable AR-15 ‘Ghost Gun’ in My Office—And It Was Easy. “I did this mostly alone. I have virtually no technical understanding of firearms and a Cro-Magnon man’s mastery of power tools. Still, I made a fully metal, functional, and accurate AR-15. To be specific, I made the rifle’s lower receiver; that’s the body of the gun, the only part that US law defines and regulates as a ‘firearm.’ All I needed for my entirely legal DIY gunsmithing project was about six hours, a 12-year-old’s understanding of computer software, an $80 chunk of aluminum, and a nearly featureless black 1-cubic-foot desktop milling machine called the Ghost Gunner.”

OBAMA’S HOUSE PEDOPHILE? Despite Facing Felony Sex Abuse Charges, Terry Bean Surfaces in Connection With Obama’s Portland Visit: Aide to Democratic Party money man emails potential supporters.

AN OFFER THE GOP SHOULDN’T REFUSE: Black Chicago Pastor: Dems “Failing” Us.

“African-Americans have been loyal to the Democratic Party,” Pastor Corey Brooks said. “But there is a group of African-Americans that feel like the Democratic Party has not been loyal to us.”

Not far from O Block — named for a fallen gang member killed by a female assassin — is New Beginnings Church of Chicago, where Brooks sat in his office Wednesday morning laying out the case for Republican presidential candidates to visit the area.

So far, only Rand Paul already has taken him up on his offer – extended to all candidates of each party. The two walked through Parkway Gardens, an apartment complex along O Block, after Paul’s speech to his congregation.

Brooks isn’t the only person to believe a great change must occur for inner cities across the country to be able to break free from the poverty and crime that envelope them. But the pastor is looking to a different source than others for that change, one that doesn’t usually count O Block among its campaign stops: Republicans.

Every single GOP presidential contender should take Pastor Brooks up on this offer. This isn’t about pandering to identity politics; it’s about reaching out to a community that thinks the GOP doesn’t care about them, and showing them that isn’t true, and discussing alternative ways to fight poverty and black-on-black violence other than government handouts and blaming police.

TEST DRIVE: 2016 Nissan Maxima. I rented a Maxima the last time we were in LA. The Insta-Wife liked it a lot.

AT AMAZON, 70% off Sandals & More.

Plus, deals on knives from Chicago Cutlery.

And, deals in Lawn & Garden.

THAT WAS SEVERAL PHONY CRISES AGO: What the New York Times Didn’t Learn from Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb Fizzle.

HEALTH: More Labs Are Likely to Have Mistakenly Received Anthrax Samples, Military Says.

GOVERNMENT: DOT in the Dark: American headlight regs are dimwitted. While the agency delays life-saving technology, it allows automakers to sell cars that drive around in the dark. And that doesn’t seem bright at all.

FASTER, PLEASE: Hardware Startups Take on Lupus, Asthma, Infertility, Night Terrors.

I’D LIKE TO DO THAT TOO: The Air Force Wants to Go Hypersonic by 2023.

XENI JARDIN: Talking with stars of Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy: John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks.

ED MORRISSEY: Why College Professors Are Afraid to Teach Millennials.

OBAMA’S TRUST DEFICIT ON TRADE: House Democrats are balking at fast-track approval of President Obama’s Pacific Rim trade deal.

Trade promotion authority (TPA), also known as fast-track, passed the Senate last month but faces a tougher road in the House.

Sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the bill would grant Congress an up-or-down vote on Obama’s trade deals, but deny lawmakers the power to amend or filibuster those agreements. The additional power is seen as necessary to Obama finalizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a 12-nation behemoth that stands as a top priority in his second term. . . .

But the vast majority of House Democrats oppose the president’s trade agenda, naming a long list of concerns — from food safety to the environment, currency manipulation to labor rights and the loss of U.S. jobs.

They’re also accusing the administration of pushing trade agreements benefiting corporations and other well-heeled interests, while leaving working-class Americans out in the cold. . . .

Democratic support will be crucial to the TPA’s success, because GOP leaders are struggling to rally the votes to pass the measure on their own.

Yet Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday acknowledged in an interview on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends” that he doesn’t have the votes to pass fast-track.

As evidence of the trust deficit, all 6 House Democrats running for Senate seats in 2016 have come out against fast-tracking the deal.

I don’t blame them. Fast-tracking a trade deal of this magnitude–with no opportunity for amendments and limited debate–seems like a bad way to run the legislative railroad. There is a need for good and thoughtful trade deals, but I’m not a big fan of truncating the normal legislative process.  

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 756.

FUNDING FOR IMMIGRATION LAWSUIT DEFENSE BLOCKED: The House on Wednesday voted 222-204 to include an amendment to the Department of Justice appropriations bill that blocks any of the Act’s funds from being used to litigate the defense of President Obama’s unilateral lawmaking executive action on immigration in the 26 state lawsuit, Texas v. United States. Judge Andrew Hanen has issued a preliminary injunction in that lawsuit, preventing some of the actions from going forward, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently refused to stay that injunction, pending the trial on the merits.

The amendment was sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-IA). Nineteen House Republicans–in mostly Hispanic districts–broke with party ranks to oppose the amendment.

It’s a good example of the House flexing its “power of the purse” muscle for a change, although the question remains whether DOJ will be able to use other funds to continue the litigation. And of course, the Senate has yet to act, and the President has threatened a veto.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: The Tragedy of the Monet in the Basement.

In 2008 Eli and Edythe Broad, the most important art patrons in Los Angeles, shocked locals by deciding not to give their 2,000-piece contemporary art collection to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — even though they’d donated $60 million for the museum’s new contemporary art gallery. Instead, they’re building their own museum in downtown L.A., which is scheduled to open September 20.

The Broads have said LACMA can borrow anything it wants. But it can’t have the collection because, like most big art museums, it would inevitably keep the vast majority of the artworks in storage. “We were concerned that if we gave our collection to one or several museums, 90 percent or so would be in storage all the time,” Eli Broad told the Los Angeles Times.

It’s a valid concern. Untold thousands of pieces stay hidden in museum vaults. Scholars may visit them by appointment, but the art-loving general public gets a look only every few decades, if ever. Is that really the best use of collections subsidized by taxpayers?

Not to Michael O’Hare, a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley. In an iconoclastic recent article in the journal Democracy, he argues that the goal of art policy — which in the U.S. takes the form of tax breaks given to nonprofit arts institutions and their benefactors — should be “more, better engagement with art.” He acknowledges that “more” and “better” can be defined in different ways. But whatever the definition, he says in an interview, “you have to wonder about all that stuff in the basement.”

There’s certainly a lot of it. At any given time, most large museums display only 5 percent of their collections.

As public choice economics suggests, institutions are run for the benefit of those who run them.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: If College Is The Same As High School, We Can Cut One. “High school-college mashups are ineffective because they put college work in high school. Not high-school students in college.”

AS WHITE AS A HILLARY CLINTON FUNDRAISER? A BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCEMENT? THE VOX EDITORIAL BOARD? Human Rights Campaign Is Overwhelmingly Made Up Of White Men. But, I’m sure, much better dressed than any of those.

MORE EX-IM BANK HANKY PANKY: Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner reports that the controversial Export-Import Bank funneled $10.3 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra after the company had already manufactured, shipped and installed the solar panels to a solar farm in Belgium.  As Carney observes:

So why would Ex-Im agree to subsidize exports that had already been made, shipped, and installed? This seems odd if Ex-Im was trying to support U.S. jobs at Solyndra. It makes sense if Ex-Im was trying to change the financing of an existing export, so as to shore up Solyndra’s financing. In other words, Ex-Im may not have helped Solyndra make a sale (which is what it is supposed to do), but it may have slowed down Solyndra’s cash-flow trainwreck — a crucial objective for the Obama administration, which had stuck out its neck holding up Solyndra as the poster company for the new subsidized green economy.

“I’ll take crony capitalism for $100, Alex.” For the Obama Administration, Solyndra was too political to fail.

ASHE SCHOW: Sorry, Bernie Sanders, no inter-party primary debate for you.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wants more Democratic primary debates — and also inter-party debates with all the GOP presidential candidates.

He’ll get no such thing.

On Monday, Sanders sent a letter to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz requesting more than the six primary debates already sanctioned. He also asked for debates among Republican and Democratic hopefuls.

“I believe that these inter-party debates would put in dramatic focus the shallow and at times ridiculous policies and proposals being advocated by the Republican candidates and by their party’s platform,” Sanders wrote.

In response, DNC spokeswoman Holly Shulman told Politico’s Dylan Byers that the debate framework is already in place. She made no mention of Sanders’ request for inter-party debates.

No surprise.

HE’S AN UNQUALIFIED LIGHTWEIGHT, BUT HE’S ETHNICALLY USEFUL: The campaign to put Julian Castro on Hillary Clinton’s VP shortlist: It’s way too early, Clinton insiders say. But the Castro buzz is useful as Democrats court Hispanics.

VARAD MEHTA: Free Expression: Don’t Let The Wookie Win.

EXECUTIVE AMNESTY WITH BENEFITS: The IRS has confirmed to Congress that individuals granted amnesty by President Obama’s unilateral lawmaking “executive action” will indeed qualify for a refund of back taxes, even if they never filed a tax return:

IRS lawyers have ruled that once illegal immigrants get numbers, they can go back and re-file for up to three previous years’ taxes and claim refunds even for time they were working illegally.

The lawyers said since the EITC is a refundable credit, that’s allowed even when the illegal immigrants worked off-the-books and never paid taxes in the first place.

Terrific–so the President can take executive action that not only transforms individuals whom our law classifies as “deportable” into “not deportable,” he can simultaneously confer upon them multiple benefits, including work permits and now, tax refunds, which will be funded by law-abiding individuals who are present in the country legally.

The conferral of benefits–now even more significant than previously believed–is a key indicator that President Obama’s executive actions on illegal immigration are not, in fact, mere “prosecutorial discretion,” as he asserts.  Prosecutorial discretion allows the executive branch to prioritize enforcement given the reality of limited resources; it does not grant the executive branch authority to go further and grant benefits to lawbreakers.

WASHINGTON POST: Clinton rivals pounce as her ratings fall.

A once-sleepy Democratic presidential primary contest is fast coming alive as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s poll numbers fall and a diverse array of long-shot opponents step forward to challenge her.

The recent developments mark a dramatic evolution in the 2016 sweepstakes, which until now has been shaped by the large assortment of hopefuls on the Republican side, where there is no front-runner.

The latest Democrat to enter the race is Lincoln Chafee, a onetime Republican and former Rhode Island governor and senator, who launched his campaign Wednesday in Northern Virginia. Though his candidacy is quixotic, Chafee’s sharp attacks on Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy record — and in particular her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq — could nonetheless complicate her march to the nomination.

Chafee joins an underfunded and jumbled field of Clinton rivals who see the favorite’s coziness with Wall Street and political longevity as weaknesses and who think she is vulnerable to a grass-roots contender who better captures the party’s liberal soul.

It’s a diverse array of old, white, Marxists.