REVIEW: 2015 Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4. If I were in the market for a supercar, I’d buy an Audi R8.

CHARLIE MARTIN: It’s Never Too Late To Learn Code.

STEPHEN GREEN: Freedom Is (Still) The Best Medicine.

PIZZA. IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Hostage Uses Pizza Hut App to Order a Police Rescue.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Charleston Law School May Not Enroll Students In Fall; Owners Who Withdrew $25m In Profits Refuse To Pay $21k For Graduation Reception; Students With $147k Average Debt Take Up Collection.

3-D GUNS & THE CONSTITUTION:  An interesting lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the federal District Court for the Western District of Texas by well-known Second Amendment attorney Alan Gura on behalf of Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation.  The suit is filed against Secretary of State John Kerry and the State Department, alleging that the department’s letter warning Defense Distributed that it could not publish a 3-D printable file for its plastic pistol, the Liberator, violated the First and Second Amendments.

The inventor of the 3-D gun, Cody Wilson (a University of Texas law school dropout and founder of Defense Distributed) has said the 3-D gun,“will break gun control.”   Giving power to people will do that.

ASHE SCHOW: Carly Fiorina Is Doing It Right So Far. “The obvious comparison for Fiorina is to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, since they’re both women. But while Fiorina’s campaign has been all about introducing her to Americans, Clinton’s campaign has been all about hiding and damage control.”

SPYING: Court of Appeals Rules NSA Bulk Phone-Spying Illegal.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 728. “The Beltway media may be bored, but the IRS scandal is a long way from over.”

JOSEPH BOTTUM: Oba-‘meh’ heads to South Dakota: Don’t expect Midwesterners to get giddy over being a box to check. “To be fair, if Obama hasn’t much appreciated the state, the state hasn’t much appreciated him. Gallup polling showed him with only a 32.2% average approval rating for the entire year of 2014 — an unpopularity echoed in the thumping of his party in November’s local elections, leaving not a single Democrat as a statewide officeholder and the Republicans with an 84-20 advantage in the legislature. Nothing Obama does or says in Watertown is likely to bring the conservative population over to his liberal politics. Even among the state’s Democrats, most future office-seekers seem to be finding excuses not to be seen (and photographed) with him.”

YEAH, THAT’S NICE. BUT HE SHOULD TRY TO LEARN SOMETHING FROM THE EXPERIENCE: Mark Ruffalo on feminists attacking Joss Whedon: ‘It hurts him.’

Actor Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Incredible Hulk in the Avengers movies, defended Joss Whedon on Wednesday from attacks that the beloved director is anti-woman.

Ruffalo made the defense during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything,” when he was asked about the recent controversy over Whedon’s portrayal of Black Widow in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

“I think it’s sad,” Ruffalo said. “Because I know how Joss feels about women, and I know that he’s made it a point to create strong female characters.”

The issue came to a boil on Monday when Whedon suddenly quit Twitter. For hours people (including this writer) wondered whether it was due to the criticism — and death threats — Whedon received over his new film. On Tuesday, Whedon brushed off the notion, calling it “horses–t,” before also calling out feminists for attacking other feminists.

Ruffalo described Whedon as a “deeply committed feminist,” and noted that he believes the anger has more to do with a lack of strong female superheroes.

The anger isn’t the result of anything. The anger comes first, then comes the search for targets. And, Joss: If they’re attacking you unfairly, maybe . . . work with me here. . . they’re attacking other people unfairly, too.

MISCALCULATING: The Failures of Putin’s Ukraine Strategy: Russia is trapped in an unsatisfying holding pattern, hoping for oil prices to recover, for the West to fragment and for Ukraine to implode.

Russia failed to deliver the knockout blow last spring, allowing Kyiv to recover and establish firm control throughout most of the country, even its Russophone portions. Moscow retains the military upper hand as the two countries settle into a protracted stalemate in the Donbass, but the Kremlin’s strategy must take into account a number of factors that bode ill for Russia in the longer run.

Ukraine has stumbled upon a most improbable ally—Saudi Arabia. In a stark example of the law of unintended consequences, the Russian economy has sustained heavy collateral damage from the Saudi campaign against North American shale-oil production (and secondarily, against Iran). The war of attrition in the Donbass is in large measure hostage to the economic war of attrition in the Bakken formation. This situation, unanticipated by Russia (or anyone else, to be fair) when it invaded Ukraine, appears likely to depress energy prices for years to come, sapping the strength of Russia’s economy and hence the country’s ability to wage war. A major cataclysm in the Middle East could turn energy prices around, of course, but it is instructive that oil prices have plummeted even in the face of Islamist depredations in Iraq and chronic chaos in Libya—and the loosening of sanctions on Iran would bring even more oil and gas onto the market.

If the Saudi factor was unforeseeable, the Western response to the invasion of Ukraine appears to represent an actual miscalculation by Moscow. The Kremlin no doubt expected something akin to the reaction over Georgia in 2008—some harsh Western rhetoric, a few pro forma sanctions, and, six months later, a proffered reset button and the resumption of business as usual. Instead, Western governments have imposed fairly extensive sanctions and have thus far stuck to them. Sanctions against individuals are largely symbolic, but restrictions on lending are a genuine hardship to Russian companies, especially in the current economic downturn.

Russia’s problem is that although Putin is bold, he leads a country that is fundamentally weak. Putin’s boldness — especially in the face of Obama’s post-election “flexibility” — can make up for that to a degree, but only so much. And Poland, the Baltics, Finland, etc. are all toughening up in response to the threat that Russia poses. I wouldn’t be shocked if Poland somehow obtained some nuclear weapons from somewhere.

ANOTHER OBAMACARE LIE:  Along with “if you like your doctor/health plan, you can keep your doctor/health plan,” and “premiums will fall by $2500 per year,” one of the biggest lies promulgated by Obamacare supporters was that expanding health insurance will reduce costs by reducing expensive emergency care use.

According to a new survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians, three in four emergency room doctors said patient visits have increased since the Affordable Care Act went into effect.

The notion that expanding health insurance would reduce ER visits was always silly, as evidenced by RomneyCare.

JAMES FRANCO: McDonald’s was there for me when no one else was.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Murfreesboro mom sentenced to 40 years for raping own children.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: White House dodges human rights questions about Nike visit.

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FEMINISM’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE SPACE PROGRAM: “The first woman to be raped in space has probably already been born.”

FEMINIST “HORSESHIT.” Why Joss Whedon Left Twitter:

Whedon did at one point say that he has been attacked by online feminists before, and scolded the Left for infighting.

“Every breed of feminism is attacking every other breed, and every subsection of liberalism is always busy attacking another subsection of liberalism, because god forbid they should all band together and actually fight for the cause,” Whedon said.

Maybe now that the noise is quieting down, Whedon can get some writing done. Whatever it takes to keep his creativity going.

Whedon’s writing is better than his politics anyway. He should stick to that.

I DON’T REALLY SEE THIS RESONATING WITH THE VOTERS: WaPo: Uncle Sam had better start treating his employees right.

The Office of Personnel Management recently released SES Exit Survey Results, reflecting the responses of 221 senior executives, from 24 agencies, who participated in the survey from April 2013 through July 2014.

One of the most troubling lines in the report said: “Work environment issues are the highest contributing factors in an executive’s decision to leave.”

The single largest factor for leaving cited by these top federal employees was the “political environment.” It was blamed as a contributing factor “to a great extent” or “to a very great extent” by 42 percent of those surveyed. There was a three-way tie for second place, among “senior leadership,” “organizational culture” and a “desire to enjoy life without work commitments.”

Every organization might have issues with these last three factors, but it is federal employees who have to contend with a political environment that has become partisan, poisonous and barely productive.

Listen to Arthur H. Barber, Trip to his friends, who spent 12 years as a Navy SES civilian, after 28 years in a Navy uniform.

“My job involved doing deliberate planning and analysis for the Navy’s long-term budget and investment plans,” he said by e-mail. “The entire federal government has departed from any path of rational behavior in budgeting, so the work I was doing was increasingly irrelevant as a result of the annual budget crisis and confrontation between Administration and Congress.”

In the wake of scandals at the IRS, DOJ, DHS, Secret Service, CDC, etc., I say, abolish the Civil Service laws. The bureaucracy isn’t professional enough to be trusted, so let’s make the Executive completely responsible for its actions.

THE PROBLEM IS, THEY’RE A BUNCH OF CROOKS: Roll Call: Clinton Foundation’s Missteps Point to Broader Problem:

Conservative author Peter Schweizer says in his forthcoming book, “Clinton Cash,” that the foundation pocketed millions from foreign interests that won favorable treatment from the State Department. The foundation also repeatedly flouted an agreement with the Obama administration to seek approval from State Department ethics officials before accepting new donations from foreign governments.

Clinton, who is running for president, may find it hard to shake her reputation as ethically tone deaf. The foundation’s disregard for public warnings and foreign donor guidelines evoke the scandal-plagued Bill Clinton presidency.

But the controversy is just the worst and most recent example of a problem that goes beyond the Clintons: the habit of public officials to establish, raise money for and cultivate cozy ties with charitable and other tax-exempt groups. The groups may receive unlimited contributions, don’t disclose donors and provide an avenue for moneyed interests to win favor with office holders.

We have the worst political class ever, but the Clintons are the worst of the worst.

THE HILL: Tax cheats kept jobs at IRS, audit finds.

The IRS fired just two out of every five employees found to be tax cheats over a decade-long span, according to a new federal audit.

Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration found that 1,580 employees willfully violated tax law from October 2003 to September 2013. The IRS was supposed to fire all of those staffers, under a 1998 law.

But the inspector general found that the IRS commissioner saved 960 of them — 61 percent in all — who were instead given counseling, reprimands or suspensions.

“Given its critical role in federal tax administration, the IRS must ensure that its employees comply with the tax law in order to maintain the public’s confidence,” Russell George, the tax administration inspector general, said in a statement.

“Willful violation of the law by IRS employees should not be taken lightly, and the IRS commissioner should fully document decisions made to retain employees whom management has proposed be terminated,” George added.
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The audit comes at an awkward time for the IRS. John Koskinen, the IRS chief, has been saying for months that more than $1 billion in budget cuts have amounted to “tax cuts for tax cheats,” by hurting the agency’s ability to investigate crimes.

Now that it’s been transformed into a political assault team, the IRS is no longer required to comply with the law.

MORE MORAL ROT IN THE NGO WORLD: Online Jihadist Who Supported Garland, Texas Attacks Used To Work For Amnesty International.

ED DRISCOLL: The Secret Masonic Policeman’s Ball.