SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY: General Atomics Introduces a Weapons-Grade Self-Contained Laser Cannon That Can Be Mounted On the Roof Of Your Car. “What we were able to find out about this thing is that it’s a laser weapon with output energies (that’s output, not total power in the system) ranging from 75 kilowatts all the way up to 300 kilowatts. To put that in perspective, about a year ago we wrote about how Lockheed was using a portable fiber laser to shoot down rockets at a range of 1.5 kilometers using just 10 kilowatts of power. Suffice it to say, 300 kilowatts is rather a lot.”

WATCH NASA’S PROTOTYPE MARS ROVER do some serious drifting. Video at the link.

HILLARY CLINTON: The Sarah Palin Of The Left?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 707.

I SAY, PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD:

Why has America gone lunatic on the subject of unattended children? Parents hover over their kids as if every step might be their last. If they don’t hover, strangers do, calling the police to report any parent who leaves their child to run into the store for a few minutes. What’s truly strange is that the parents who are doing this were themselves left to their own devices in cars, allowed to ride their bikes and walk to the store unsupervised, and otherwise given the (limited) freedom that they are now determined to deny their own kids. The police are making arrests that would have branded their own parents as criminals. To hear people my age talk about the dangers of unsupervised children, you would think that the attrition rate in our generation had been at least 30 percent.

Even people who haven’t gone crazy are afraid of the Pediatric Patrol. A mom of my acquaintance whose house backs up to a school playground, with a gate that lets her children walk straight into the schoolyard, is afraid to let them go through the gate without an adult, for fear that someone would call the same nutty CPS that has taken to impounding the Meitiv children. She compromises by letting them play alone in the playground only when she is in the backyard, so that she can intervene if the police arrive.

Think about that: Kids have the priceless boon of a playground right in their backyard, but they can’t use it unless Mom drops everything to accompany them. I am running out of synonyms for “insane” to describe the state we have worked ourselves into. What on earth has happened to us?

It’s not us. It’s them.

JOURNALISM: A Florida newspaper is along for the ride — and catches flak. “If a reporter and his newspaper know in advance — months in advance, as it turns out — that a man intended to undertake a stunt that could sow panic in the nation’s capital, are they obligated to alert law-enforcement authorities? And should they be faulted for not doing so until the last minute?”

JUST IGNORE ‘EM!:   What is it about progressives that makes them think it is good for society to ignore the rule of law?  The latest iteration comes in the form of explicit calls to ignore the Supreme Court whenever it rules the “wrong” (i.e., non-progressive) way.

Because the Supreme Court isn’t presently dominated by progressives and none of the 5 current, right-of-center Justices are likely to retire before the end of the Obama Administration, progressives are now trying to create acceptability for the idea of “ignoring” the Court.  A recent New York Times op-ed by William Baude, for example, asserted that if the Court’s King v. Burwell opinion ultimately denies Obamacare subsidies to individuals states without state-run health insurance exchanges, the Obama Administration should only enforce the decision against the 4 named plaintiffs in the case.

For everyone else, Baude suggests that the Administration pretend that the law hasn’t technically been decided.  The justification for such lawlessness?:  “If the administration believes that a Supreme Court loss would be egregious and disastrous, it ought to consider taking the political heat to limit it.”   Oh, okay– that makes sense.  If the President thinks the Supreme Court’s interpretation of a law is “egregious and disastrous,” he should just ignore it for everyone but the named plaintiffs who brought the suit.

Apparently, Baude is channeling the progressive mindset.  A Feb. 2015 Rasmussen poll revealed that only 35% of Democrats disagreed when asked: “Should the president have the right to ignore federal court rulings if they are standing in the way of actions he feels are important for the country?”  81% of Republicans and 67% of voters not affiliated with either major party disagreed– an astounding difference of 32 to 46 percentage points from the Democrat perspective.

RELATED:  The Obama Administration has been notoriously disrespectful of courts, having been threatened with contempt for perjury in the ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obama’s immigration executive orders and actually held the Department of Interior in contempt for its behavior ignoring the court’s preliminary injunction in a offshore drilling case.

And let’s not forget that President Obama’s own remarks bullying the Supreme Court prior to its big summer 201 Obamacare decision, NFIB v. Sebelius, triggered a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to order a DOJ lawyer to provide an explanation– of at least 3 pages, single-spaced– articulating the DOJ’s position on the propriety of judicial review of the constitutionality of laws.  Holder provided the letter— only 2 1/2 pages long, defiantly enough–and used wishy-washy language that only minimally acknowledged judicial review and lectured the court on its limited role.

SUZANNE VENKER: The truth about the so-called “Rape Culture.” “There is no rape culture on campus. (Note I didn’t say no one’s ever been raped on campus.) What there is is an awful lot of gray between the sheets.”

SHOCKER: “Surveys show that Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to agree that taxpaying is a moral responsibility.”

But if you like the idea of taxes as a moral responsibility, you probably shouldn’t corrupt the Internal Revenue Service.

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“THE BARBARIANS ARE BACK:” Ran across this post from 2002, which seems even more relevant in the era of ISIS.

FIRST YOU ELIMINATE DUE PROCESS, THEN YOU INSTITUTE MANDATORY MINIMUM PUNISHMENTS: Ashe Schow: California continuing its quest to brand all men as rapists.

Last year California passed a law that defined nearly all sex on college campuses as rape unless proven otherwise. Now, in addition to making it easier to label someone a rapist for just about every sexual encounter, state legislators want to go further to ensure that accused students’ lives are severely disrupted — if not ruined — by introducing mandatory minimums for their punishment.

The mandatory minimum would be a suspension of two years for students found responsible for sexual assault. But bear in mind that the burden of proof already lies with the accused, thanks to California’s “yes means yes” law. Accusers do not have to provide any proof that that they failed to give consent or were unable to consent due to incapacitation, and now a guilty finding would carry a minimum punishment under this new proposal.

First they made it easier to brand a student a rapist, and now they want to make it easier to ruin that student’s life.

I think that men should avoid California colleges.

WAIT, I THOUGHT FENCES DON’T WORK: White House expected to add steel spikes to fence.

The White House is expected to add half-inch steel spikes to its perimeter fence as a protective measure against potential jumpers, NBC Washington reports.

The report says the spikes would be attached to the existing fence for at least a year, before a permanent fence is built.

The National Parks Service is looking into that proposal, along with a permanent fix to either raise the height to 10 feet or to add a second interior fence, according to NBC, but the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and U.S. Capital Planning Commission must approve the final decisions.

“I want to see those spikes to make sure they don’t look so foreboding that people who visit the White House will figure they shouldn’t be there,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) told NBC.

Uh huh.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO, WELL, DO ANY OF THIS, REALLY: Horny Mom Threw Teen Daughter a Naked Twister Sex Party, AA Sponsor Says. “Lehnardt’s alleged story to her sober buddy only gets wilder from there. According to Augusta Crime: She initially joined in the teens’ naked game of Twister, but ended up f*cking an 18-year-old in the bathroom. Later, because she was still ‘horny,’ she brought out some sex toys and began using them on herself in the living room. The whole naked party eventually moved to the hot tub. . . . The night ended for Lehnardt around 3:30 a.m., when she woke up in her bed to find her daughter’s 16-year-old boyfriend having sex with her.”

And, of course, the piece de resistance: “Mrs. Lehnardt told [the sponsor] she and her daughter had spoken and that her daughter ‘felt guilty because the 16-year-old was 10 inches long and huge, and if she had just been able to take it, he wouldn’t have needed to rape her mother.'”

Sure, you’re saying, he initiated the sex with her. But reverse the genders and there would probably be charges. Well, maybe not: “The horny mom, arrested based on the sponsor’s story, won’t face any sex-related charges because 16 is Georgia’s age of consent.”

ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: Mass movement: US Christians don orange in church to honor ISIS victims.

I’LL BET IT WON’T MAKE THE COVER OF ROLLING STONE, OR SPARK EXTENSIVE CAMPUS DISCUSSION: Third Student Charged in Gang-Rape on Panama City, Florida, Beach.

Note that when white frat boys are (falsely) charged with gang rape, their race and accompanying presumed attitudes toward rape are front-and-center in all coverage. . . .

CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: A new, improved InstaPundit mobile site. And, as you may have already noticed, we got rid of the annoying popunder ads.