FINALLY! The FAA Says You Can Have Your Amphibious Folding Plane.

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CHANGE: More on treating appendicitis with antibiotics. “The study, published Tuesday in JAMA, involved 530 patients aged 18 to 60 who agreed to have their treatment — antibiotics or surgery — decided at random. Three out of four who took antibiotics recovered easily, the researchers found. And none who had surgery after taking antibiotics were worse off for having waited.”

PUNCHING BACK: Sen. Ted Cruz is introducing legislation to fine the State Department for its failure to release a report on Iran.

The Obama administration was legally obligated to release a full report outlining the state of Iranian human rights by Feb. 25 but has so far declined to do so.

Cruz and other senators petitioned the State Department in May to comply with federal law compelling the report’s public release.

“That report was due by law on February 25,” Cruz told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview. “The Obama State Department simply ignored the law. They refused to produce the report. Months have gone by and they continue to refuse to produce the report.”

Angered by this delay, Cruz is gearing up to file legislation this week that would fine the State Department 5 percent of its budget for every 30 days it postpones releasing the report, according to a copy of the bill viewed by the Free Beacon.

Obama would veto the bill if it ever passed both chambers. But it’s at least an attempt to use the power of the purse to punch back and gain some leverage with this recalcitrant Administration.

Sadly, this is just another example of the Obama Administration ignoring federal law, as it did with the Bowe Bergdahl swap for the Taliban 5, and a whole host of other instances. Ignoring Congress–including the laws it has passed–has become the defining characteristic of the Obama presidency.

ON THE OTHER HAND, A LOT OF ADS ARE ANNOYING: Ad Blockers Doom Many Publishers to Chase Clicks.

Here at InstaPundit, we’re trying to clean up the ads and make them less annoying.

VIDEO: Lockheed Martin: Hybrid Airships: The Next Leap in Transportation Technology.

CHARLIE HEBDO WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Obama on Charleston shooting: “Let’s be clear—this kind of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ ON undersea battlespace preparation in the Pacific. “China is probably not only enlarging its territorial claims in the South China Sea. It is also laying the groundwork for establishing its subsurface infrastructure. Since neither the US nor Japan can tolerate a Chinese domination of those waters, they will compete. We are probably witnessing the first post-Cold War naval competition in those waters for interests which are really far greater than conventional diplomacy would suppose.”

HUH. I FIGURED IT WAS ALL THOSE KARDASHIAN EPISODES. Sunscreen blamed for drop in sperm counts: Experts say chemicals in suncreen and cosmetics could be killing men’s sperm.

SO I WENT TO THE NEW YORK TIMES SCIENCE PAGE, and it was all about the Pope.

They told me if I voted Republican, America would wind up taking scientific dictation from religious leaders. And they were right!

OBAMA GALS LIVIN’ LARGE: An upcoming vacation to Italy and London by Michelle Obama and her two daughters is estimated to cost taxpayers about $600,000–for airfare and lodging alone.  The estimated tab does not include the costs of security, staff, other transportation and food. My, my–that is quite a trip. Is this what Obama meant when he said we ought to spread the wealth around?

NOTHING NUTTY ABOUT THIS: Martin O’Malley: Zero Out Fossil Fuels By 2050.

Word missing from O’Malley’s column: Nuclear.

TODAY IS THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF WATERLOO: Here’s something by Jules Crittenden.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 770.

ROBERT HEINLEIN CALLED IT: North Korea’s Propagandists Bemoan “Bad Luck.”

North Korea’s state news agencies are warning that the country is suffering from a severe drought that threatens crop production, raising fears of a repeat of the 1990s famine whose victims are estimated to have been in the millions. . . .

North Korea’s ills aren’t bad luck. When societies don’t govern themselves well, the conditions aren’t right for the people who could think through an issue like how to manage mass industrial farming. The Kim regime is so repressive that it makes the emergence of effective institutions and or individual problem solvers impossible. The North Korean would-be geniuses are mostly in gulags or starving or marching in a military parade.

Another hungry year for hard-pressed and often undernourished North Korean people will be a true disaster. Yet we predict that the suffering among ordinary people won’t slow down North Korea’s nuke program or force any cutbacks in Kim Jong-un’s lifestyle.

Heinlein was a very smart man. I’m glad to see that quote of his getting around.

CURRENCY GENDER PARITY?: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has confirmed that a woman will grace the $10 bill beginning in 2020. The $10 bill has heretofore exclusively displayed the portrait of Alexander Hamilton, and he is apparently going to continue to appear in some capacity, as yet to be determined. The identity of the woman has not yet been revealed but there are some clues:

The only criterion under law is that the chosen person must be dead, but the Treasury said Mr. Lew was looking for a woman “who was a champion for our inclusive democracy.” That would include the abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who was the top choice on social media of a campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill.

Other names being floated include Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rosa Parks. Lew will make the final decision on who will grace the currency, and the Treasury Department is continuing to solicit public input over social media with the hashtag #TheNew10.

I kind of feel sorry for Hamilton. He was a key founder–one of three authors of the Federalist Papers–the first Secretary of the US Treasury, and the most ardent proponent of the first National Bank. Now he’s being downgraded, in a sense, due to political correctness.

A DEBACLE OF THE FIRST ORDER: OPM tells lawmakers their information was likely stolen.

BECOMING A SUPPLE LEOPARD.

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I RECOMMEND GUN-TOTING REPUBLICAN WOMAN HARRIET TUBMAN: A woman will appear on redesigned $10 bill in 2020. Who will it be?

UPDATE: Quin Hillyer: The Decision to Replace Hamilton on the New $10 Bill Is Outrageous and Ignorant. Well, you see, we couldn’t replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill because, although he was a racist genocidaire who defied the Supreme Court, Jackson was also the founder of the modern Democratic Party, which still holds annual fundraising dinners in his name.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Bennett stands up for Hamilton: “I protest the blatant discrimination against Caribbean immigrants signaled by the removal of the only Founder born outside of the Thirteen Colonies.”

TO BE FAIR, HIS FOREIGN AFFAIRS TRACK RECORD IS BETTER THAN HILLARY’S: Andrew Malcolm: Donald Trump is laughable — and dangerous.

RAND PAUL: Blow up the tax code and start over. His oped in the WSJ today argues for a 14.5 percent flat income and corporate tax:

[T]he tax code has grown so corrupt, complicated, intrusive and antigrowth that I’ve concluded the system isn’t fixable.

So on Thursday I am announcing an over $2 trillion tax cut that would repeal the entire IRS tax code—more than 70,000 pages—and replace it with a low, broad-based tax of 14.5% on individuals and businesses. I would eliminate nearly every special-interest loophole. The plan also eliminates the payroll tax on workers and several federal taxes outright, including gift and estate taxes, telephone taxes, and all duties and tariffs. I call this “The Fair and Flat Tax.” . . .

Even Mr. Obama’s economic advisers tell him that the U.S. corporate tax code, which has the highest rates in the world (35%), is an economic drag. When an iconic American company like Burger King wants to renounce its citizenship for Canada because that country’s tax rates are so much lower, there’s a fundamental problem.

Another increasingly obvious danger of our current tax code is the empowerment of a rogue agency, the IRS, to examine the most private financial and lifestyle information of every American citizen. We now know that the IRS, through political hacks like former IRS official Lois Lerner, routinely abused its auditing power to build an enemies list and harass anyone who might be adversarial to President Obama’s policies. A convoluted tax code enables these corrupt tactics.

Read the whole thing; it’s worth the time.

NINE DEAD IN CHARLESTON CHURCH SHOOTING. Police are calling it a hate crime, though facts are scarce. I’m sure we’ll know more before the day is out.

UPDATE: What we know this morning on the #CharlestonShooting ‘hate crime.’

ANOTHER UPDATE: Charleston Church Shooter Identified, But Still On The Run. “Police have identified the Charleston shooting suspect at Dylann Storm Roof, 21, of Eastover, S.C. Officials said the shooter sat with church members in a Bible study meeting for an hour before opening fire. He reportedly said he wanted to kill black people before he started shooting, hence authorities investigating the massacre as a hate crime. Six women and three men were shot to death, including pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, 41. All but one died at the church. A federal law enforcement official told the Los Angeles Times that “it appeared from the surveillance images that the assailant may have worn a wig and a fake nose, and may even have dyed part of his skin.” The suspect’s nose isn’t the same shade as the rest of his face, and the hair is a heavy bowl cut. He was wearing layers even though it was a hot evening in Charleston and was carrying a backpack. He drove a dark sedan. He was driving a black Hyundai Elantra with South Carolina tag LGF-330.”

Photos, etc., at the link.

MORE: Suspect arrested in North Carolina. “Charleston church shooting suspect Dylann Roof has been taken into custody in North Carolina, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN’s Deborah Feyerick.”

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, LYING SEXIST DEMAGOGUE: Kirsten Gillibrand claims her bill gives equal rights to accusers and accused, but it doesn’t.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has been leading the charge against campus sexual assault, but her solutions would eviscerate due process rights and skew campus hearings in favor of accusers.

During a Washington Post symposium on campus sexual assault Wednesday (which included no speakers advocating for due process), Gillibrand was asked if the bill she has introduced — the Campus Accountability and Safety Act — takes into account the rights of accused students. Gillibrand responded with an emphatic “absolutely” before claiming that she and her Senate colleagues worked with accused students while crafting the bill.

“[We] made sure that they had the same rights of representation as someone who was alleging the crime,” Gillibrand said. “And so, all notice requirements are for both, all representational requirements — that you can have someone by your side representing you — are for both.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has been leading the charge against campus sexual assault, but her solutions would eviscerate due process rights and skew campus hearings in favor of accusers.

During a Washington Post symposium on campus sexual assault Wednesday (which included no speakers advocating for due process), Gillibrand was asked if the bill she has introduced — the Campus Accountability and Safety Act — takes into account the rights of accused students. Gillibrand responded with an emphatic “absolutely” before claiming that she and her Senate colleagues worked with accused students while crafting the bill.

This is not accurate. Gillibrand’s bill does not specifically lay out what rights accusers (the bill calls them “victims” throughout, except for once, illustrating a clear bias) and the accused have. It states only that schools must provide each student with written notice of the process to provide them “with the opportunity to meaningfully exercise the due process rights afforded to them under institutional policy.” . . .

One of the more baffling statements Gillibrand made was her supposedly hypothetical situation about a college professor dealing with a serial rapist.

“Just imagine you’re a college president, and you have four accusations against one student by four other students, and you have no way to get him off campus until there’s a conviction,” Gillibrand said. “That would make your head explode.”

Hmm, that sounds familiar — where do you think Gillibrand came up with the number four? That is not a random hypothetical. She was clearly alluding to her friend, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz, and her friends’ accusations against fellow student Paul Nungesser.

Sulkowicz accused Nungesser of raping her (though Facebook messages call that assertion into question), and then three of her friends each accused Nungesser of various offenses — from a forced kiss to a bad relationship — in order to bolster her claim. Nungesser was found not responsible in each case except one, which he won on appeal. The fourth accuser’s story was even less plausible than Sulkowicz’s.

Gilliband has called Nungesser a “rapist” in print, so it is no coincidence that she would come up with a hypothetical situation that perfectly mirrored her perception of the case.

She’s an execrable woman who has no business in the U.S. Senate.