WILL BAUDE: Could Obama Bypass the Supreme Court? I have to say, though, the transformation of Obama into President Orval Faubus is a delicious irony, and one in keeping with the Democratic Party’s history. . . ..

BLASPHEMY: Why Doesn’t Ireland Have Snakes? It ain’t because of Saint Patrick. This piece of Hibernophobic hate-science should be censored and the author punished. Because diversity. If the Irish feel that St. Patrick was responsible, who are we to criticize based purely on facts?

THE FERGUSON WINDOW HAS CLOSED: A Starbucks executive just deleted his Twitter account after backlash over the company’s new ‘race together’ campaign.

Starbucks is in hot water after launching a campaign that encourages baristas to talk about race relations with customers.

Critics have been lashing out at the company on social media, saying Starbucks is trying to capitalize on racial tension in the US.

Following the backlash, Starbucks’ senior vice president of communications, Corey duBrowa, deleted his Twitter account, which added to critics’ outrage.

I realize that a race-and-gender-studies degree tends to lead to a barista position, so at least they’re trained, but most of us don’t really care what they have to say.

CHICKEN WITHOUT THE CHICKEN: Cooking up lab-grown chicken meat.

ADVICE ON how to protect against doxxing.

HONESTLY, THEY SOUNDED STUPID TO ME FROM THE GET-GO: “Kitchen appliances with Wi-Fi capability are the sort of thing that sound really neat until you try to work out what you are actually going to do with them. Then it turns out that any feature you can imagine, such as telling it to stop cooking, is probably already well-handled with a timer.”

MEANWHILE, IN VOXLAND: Ezra Klein Calls on Al Gore to Run for President. Actually, I think this is a great idea. And Al, if the Dems are too controlled by the fossil fuels lobby to nominate you, I think you should definitely run on the Green Party ticket. Or maybe just start out on the Green Party ticket. I think with your gravitas and money — you’re richer than Mitt Romney! — you might be enough to send them over the top.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Race Baiting and Ferguson. “What the DOJ now has to do is to acknowledge that the killing of Michael Brown was a justifiable homicide. It must abandon its contrived legalisms and defend Wilson, by condemning unequivocally the entire misguided campaign against him, which resulted in threats against his life and forced his resignation from the police force. Eric Holder owes Wilson an apology for the unnecessary anguish that Wilson has suffered. As the Attorney General for all Americans, he must tell the protestors once and for all that their campaign has been thoroughly misguided from start to finish, and that their continued protests should stop in the interests of civic peace and racial harmony. In light of the past vilification of Wilson, it is not enough for the DOJ to publish the report, and not trumpet its conclusions. It is necessary to put that report front and center in the public debate so that everyone now understands that Wilson behaved properly throughout the entire incident.”

MITT ROMNEY’S POST-ELECTION LIFE IS MORE INTERESTING THAN OBAMA’S: Mitt Romney to Box Former Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 677.

THE WORSE THINGS ARE FOR THE PETRO-DICTATORS, THE BETTER: Irrepressible US Shale Defies OPEC.

When OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, chose not to cut production last November, it effectively consigned its members to a prolonged period of low prices and the financial strain, palliated only by the hope that the bear market would soon squeeze American shale producers. The petrostate cartel essentially abdicated its market-fixing role on a bet that the relatively high cost of hydraulic fracturing would make American firms the world’s new swing producers, but as the FT reports, that bet is looking more and more suspect. . . .

OPEC is now saying that it expects U.S. production to possibly taper off in late 2015, certainly later than most member countries would like. Every month that American output continues in the face of cheap pricing puts tremendous strain on petrostate regimes that rely so heavily on oil sales for budgetary revenue. The Saudis have a sovereign wealth fund big enough to allow them to weather these market conditions for another 20 years, but the rest of OPEC is not so well-prepared.

The cartel is next scheduled to meet in June, but all signs point to continued inaction as the group battles for its share of an oversupplied market. Meanwhile, U.S. companies will continue to find ways to bring down their own costs. We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: bet against American innovation at your own peril.

Yeah, even Obama hasn’t been able to kill it off entirely.

EITHER THAT, OR BUY GUNS: Is It Time For The Jews To Leave Europe?

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BUBBLE, BUBBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE: The Federal Housing Administration, the next housing crisis?

When queried by members of the committee about the January 2015 premium reduction as well as the FHA’s precarious financial status, Castro was at pains to provide even basic information about the current value of the FHA portfolio. He also refused to admit that the FHA was operating outside of the law, could not say when it would achieve the 2 percent capital reserve benchmark and repeatedly delivered a series of meaningless platitudes about the benefits of homeownership. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) pointed out that the FHA has offered “pricing gimmicks” while lowering its credit standards, down payment requirements and premiums, which are tactics that have been criticized elsewhere as “predatory lending.”

Ironically, on the same day that Castro testified, the FHA was once again included on the Government Accountability Office’s High Risk List due to the agency’s “substantial growth in its insurance portfolio and significant financial difficulties.” The FHA has been on the list since 2009.

On the other hand, there have been excellent opportunities for graft.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: What Happened to the Class of 2010? Empirical Evidence of Structural Change in the Legal Profession. “Job outcomes have improved only marginally for the Class of 2010, those outcomes contrast sharply with results for earlier classes, and law firm jobs have dropped markedly. In addition to discussing these results, the Article examines correlations between job outcomes and gender, law school prestige, and geography. In a concluding section, it offers four predictions about the future of the legal market and the economics of legal education.”

WELL, OF COURSE: The American Studies Association doubles down on anti-Israel lunacy.

IN THE FUTURE, EVERYTHING LEFTIES DON’T LIKE WILL BE RAPE. OH, WAIT, WE’RE THERE: US WARMAKING IS RAPE.

Amusing to see this in the Boston Globe, which ran fake photos purporting to show American soldiers raping Iraqi women that were actually from a porn site. And then muffed the apology.

JOHN MCWHORTER: When students are compelled to have “White Privilege 101” classes, we have every right to ask: Why, and for whose benefit?

HEY, HERE’S A NOVEL IDEA: HOW ABOUT LETTING THE POLICE INVESTIGATE CRIMES? Brown U. Botched a Rape Case So Badly That Both Sides Called Bullshit: None of the four students involved in this investigation believe it was handled fairly and with respect for due process.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard Professor Sues Over Tenure Denial.

TRANSPARENCY: Federal agencies stiff-arm FOIA requests.

THE ECONOMIST: Tu casa es mi casa. “America is a country built by immigration, but nothing in its history compares to the rise in its Hispanic population. Changes to immigration law in the 1960s triggered a decades-long surge in arrivals, taking the Hispanic population from just 7m in 1970 to 57m today, a number that is set to double by mid-century.”

UH OH: Did President Obama Admit the US is Controlled by Space Aliens? Obama UFO joke on Jimmy Kimmel Live throws conspiracy theorists into a frenzy.

Well, given how his “jokes” about auditing his political enemies turned out, I can see why people are worried.

YES, WELL, SOME OF US WERE POINTING THIS OUT AT THE TIME: Jonathan Capehart: ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ was built on a lie. And we were called racists, etc., by lefty journos for doing it. I guess just like some people were “premature anti-Fascists” in the 1930s, we were “premature noticers” re Ferguson.

But now, after the media fanned the flames of riots that wrecked a town and polarized a nation, we get this:

What DOJ found made me ill. Wilson knew about the theft of the cigarillos from the convenience store and had a description of the suspects. Brown fought with the officer and tried to take his gun. And the popular hands-up storyline, which isn’t corroborated by ballistic and DNA evidence and multiple witness statements, was perpetuated by Witness 101. In fact, just about everything said to the media by Witness 101, whom we all know as Dorian Johnson, the friend with Brown that day, was not supported by the evidence and other witness statements.

Nice job, guys.