BETTER DEAD THAN RUDE: “The lesson learned from the Texas ‘It’s not a bomb, it’s a clock’ episode: If you see something — don’t say something.”

(Headline via this 2002 John Derbyshire post.)

WHY YES, YES HE DOES: Donald J. Boudreaux: Pope Francis Misses The Sizable Moral Dimensions To Capitalism. “This hostility toward capitalism springs from ignorance of the facts and a deep misunderstanding of the logic of markets.”

The Pope’s economic views are informed by Peronism. So, yes.

BARRY LATZER: Holder’s Hatchet Job: Another look at the Justice Department’s misguided Ferguson report, which caps the former attorney general’s legacy of racial divisiveness.

One lesson should have been driven home from the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in August 2014: racial interpretations of complex events are dangerous. The media and Eric Holder’s Justice Department initially cast Wilson as a racist who shot an innocent black youth. They were, as we now know, flat wrong. Not only did a state grand jury decline to prosecute Wilson last fall, but the Justice Department itself backtracked and recommended against federal prosecution. The evidence confirmed that Wilson acted in self-defense and didn’t provide a whiff of support for allegations of anti-black bias.

Nevertheless, it bears recalling that the racial narrative did serious damage. It sowed mistrust of police around the nation, especially among African-Americans. The antipolice protests and the shootings of police officers, in Brooklyn last year, in Ferguson this year, and most recently in Houston, were byproducts of the poisoned atmosphere created by the campaign against allegedly racist law enforcement. Perhaps unsurprisingly, shooting deaths of law enforcers spiked 52 percent in 2014, declining in 2015 as tensions eased. (Forty-seven on-duty officers died from intentional gunfire in 2014, compared with 31 the previous year. Twenty-four died as of the end of August 2015, which at the same rate would result in 36 deaths for the year.) . . .

Well-established research on police has shown that, contrary to what we see in television cop shows, a small part of police officers’ duties involves actually fighting crime. This is even truer for departments in places like Ferguson, where serious crimes are uncommon. Police officers in small cities spend most of their time answering calls for assistance—such as for fires, accidents, illness, or injuries—handling minor disturbances, and controlling traffic. How well does the Ferguson Police Department (FPD) do these things? For that matter, what exactly is the crime situation in Ferguson? Readers will get no earthly idea from reading the Justice Department report, which devotes none of its 102 pages to the everyday work of the FPD or to crime conditions in the city. Indeed, at least one-quarter of the report has little to do with the FPD, focusing instead on the city’s municipal court.

Read the whole thing.

THEY’VE FORGOTTEN WHO IS BOSS: Interior Secretary Refuses To Testify On EPA Toxic Mine Spill.

SHOCKED, SHOCKED, I TELL YOU: Oswald visited embassies in Cuba and Soviet Union to plot his escape before assassinating John F Kennedy.

THE COALITION TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE ALSO JUMPS THE SHARK: Code Blue at CSGV HQ: They are having a collective stroke.

TEH GRAUNIAD AT WORK AGAIN: The Left Jumps the Shark — in a Rocketship.

WHY BOTHER NOT WASTING OUR SEED CORN: Why Bother Educating Smart Kids?

WHEN YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, LIE ABOUT THEM: Carmen Fariña’s ugly lie about which kids charters help.

IT’S ALWAYS NICE to make Twitchy.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Do Feminists Hate Sex Robots?

HMM: Clinton lawyer balked at first effort to delete classified email.

Hillary Clinton’s personal attorney balked at the State Department’s first effort to erase a newly-classified email from the thumb drive containing about 30,000 messages she turned over to her former agency, according to just-released correspondence.

Clinton lawyer David Kendall said deleting the now-secret message could run afoul of promises he previously made to the House Benghazi committee and two inspectors general to preserve electronic copies of all Clinton’s work-related message from her tenure as secretary of state.

“I have responded to each preservation request by confirming to the requestor that I would take reasonable steps to preserve the 55,000 pages of former Secretary Clinton’s emails in their present electronic form,” Kendall wrote to Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy on June 15. “I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete, as you request, the above-referenced email from the master copies of the [Microsoft Outlook] PST file that we are preserving.”

The letters shed more light on the unusual arrangement State eventually set up to allow Kendall to hold classified information in his law office. The set-up — which has been questioned by Senate Republicans and private attorneys who’ve not received similar approval — involved installing a safe in the office of one of Kendall’s colleagues at D.C. law firm Williams and Connolly.

Shady.

MEGAN MCARDLE: How HealthCare.gov Went So, So Wrong. “1. The architects of the law were incredibly naïve. 2. Federal contracting rules are crazy.”

AT AMAZON, 20% Off On Tumi Luggage & Travel Accessories.

Plus, Fall Deals in Yoga Clothing & Gear.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: On campus political correctness, Obama gets it right: Even our Democratic president understands blacklisting conservative speakers doesn’t promote learning.

OBAMACARE HEALTH CO-OPS: DOING ONLY MARGINALLY BETTER THAN OBAMA’S SYRIA POLICY.

Late last month, the Nevada Health Co-op became the third casualty among 23 insurance start-ups created under the federal health care law to inject competition for coverage in certain parts of the country.

Set up as nonprofits with consumer-led boards, the co-ops were designed to provide affordable insurance coverage to individuals and small businesses. They were intended under the law to offer alternatives — and hopefully cheaper prices — to the plans sold by large established insurance companies in some regions.

But as the new co-ops begin failing just a year into the effort to remake the health care industry with more competition and lower costs, the marketplace is proving hostile to newcomers trying to break into an industry dominated by powerfully entrenched businesses.

Hey, the demise of competition and the shoring-up of powerfully entrenched businesses was always what ObamaCare was about. The rest was just for the rubes.

REP. POLIS: ‘SORRY I’M NOT SORRY’ FOR BELITTLING STUDENT DUE PROCESS RIGHTS – Glenn posted this morning about Colorado Rep. Jared Polis’ so-called “apology” for suggesting that college students accused of sexual assault should be expelled even if they are innocent.

Although FIRE appreciates his “apology,” we found that Polis’ Daily Camera mea culpa misses the mark since he continues to defend misguided principles about how to best handle campus sexual assault allegations. FIRE has published a response explaining why these allegations should be dealt with by law enforcement. This opinion is not only shared by the vast majority of the American public, but also leading victim-advocacy groups and some of Polis’ fellow congressional Democrats.

You can check out FIRE’s full response to Polis’ statement over at The Torch. You can also watch the video of Polis’ now-infamous remarks in the video below or over at the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training’s YouTube channel, which has the full hearing.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY: Bruce McCamish’s Facebook-Famous Photos Give a New Perspective on Knoxville.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: More Bar Exam Carnage.