ROBERT TRACINSKI: Jim Webb: The Democrat Who Could Win, But Won’t. “I happen to think the most terrifying prospect for Republicans would be a challenge to Hillary from the right: the candidacy of Jim Webb, an old-fashioned, truly moderate ‘Reagan Democrat’ with military credentials—Vietnam veteran and former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan—and a lot of appeal in places like Appalachia, and among blue-collar types. That’s a large part of the reason Webb managed to win a term as Senator from Virginia in 2006.”

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Riots Force Orioles, White Sox Game to be Played in Empty Stadium.

IT’S POTEMKIN RIOTS ALL THE WAY DOWN: Social media analysis suggests links between Baltimore and Ferguson violence.

An analysis of social media traffic in downtown Baltimore Monday has unearthed striking connections to the protests in Ferguson, Mo. last year, according to a leading data mining firm that shared its findings exclusively with Fox News.

The firm, which asked to remain anonymous because of its government work, found between 20 and 50 social media accounts in Baltimore that were also tied to the peak period of violence in Ferguson. While further analysis is being conducted on the data, it suggests the presence of “professional protesters” or anarchists taking advantage of Freddie Gray’s death to incite more violence.

Probably Worker’s World or Revolutionary Communist Party types rather than “anarchists.”

THIS SHOULD HELP REDUCE INFECTIONS LIKE MRSA AND C. DIFICILE: Admitted to Your Bedroom: Some Hospitals Try Treating Patients at Home. Plus: “Hospitals help you, but there’s so much noise that you can’t sleep and you’re lonely.” That’s the truth; I wrote about it here.

I remember in some science fiction story or other — I think it was Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach — the doctor recoiled in horror at the outdated practice of putting sick people in hospitals, where they were surrounded by other sick people and germs would tend to accumulate.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Ohio State Law Grad Has $328,000 Of Student Loan Debt. Actually, I had a student graduate with more debt than that, though the vast majority of it had been run up in a very expensive undergraduate and graduate program before ever coming to law school.

JAMES BOVARD: Baltimore Riot: Remember O’Malley’s Anti-Gun Law. “After Baltimore descended into chaos, remember that Gov. Martin O’Malley was so proud of the anti-gun law he got enacted into 2013. We have seen that Baltimore police did not or could not defend people – and O’Malley’s law makes it far more difficult for citizens to acquire the means to defend themselves.”

ERICK ERICKSON: If Only President Obama Weren’t Black.

It must be comfortable and convenient for President Obama to assume the opposition to him is because of his race. He can negotiate a bad deal with Iran and conclude the public hates it because he is black. He can tell people they can keep their doctors then take their doctors away from them and console himself that the anger of the public is just racist. He can see a solid position in Iraq and Afghanistan squandered as ISIS overruns us and, when people point it out, conclude it’s just because of his skin color. People can drop out of the workforce because they can’t find jobs and when their stomachs rumble and their mouths grumble, President Obama can look himself in the mirror and think it’d all be different if he were not a black man.

If only President Obama weren’t black, maybe he would realize that people don’t dislike him because he is black, they dislike him because he is a self-absorbed ass.

If he weren’t black, he never would have been elected, of course. That’s the only reason people voted for him. And even that didn’t work out as hoped.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Peoria High School teacher Bethany Newsome arrested on sex abuse charges involving two students. “A Peoria High School teacher and former varsity volleyball coach who ranked positive attitude above physical ability for her players has been arrested on multiple sexual abuse charges involving two students. Bethany Newsome, 29, of 2916 N. St. Philomena Court was booked into the Peoria County Jail on three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse Tuesday afternoon. The charges specify victims 13 to 17 years old.”

MOE LANE ON TODAY’S PERVASIVE MEDIA: “I mean, keep in mind that the Right has an inherent structural advantage in this regard: the Media hates us and wants us all to die in a grease fire, so we’re all familiar with the basic defense mechanisms already. The Democrats, on the other hand… yeah, they’re only now realizing that everybody has cameras now, not just the reporters who are largely sympathetic to them.”

I’M SURPRISED IRS GOT ANYTHING BACK AT ALL:  Two-thirds of Obamacare subsidy recipients had to pay money back to IRS.  The average payback to IRS was $729.  What government giveth, government may taketh away.

ROGER SIMON: Why Baltimore: An American Tragedy.

Commentators were repeatedly asking – where are the parents? Ben Carson – the neurosurgeon, potential Republican presidential candidate and onetime Baltimore resident – urged the city’s parents “Please, take care of your children.”

Great idea, but here’s the problem. They don’t have ‘em. According to liberal CNN’s Don Lemon, 72 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock. His stats were born out by the Center for Disease Control. One can only imagine what the stats would be broken down for those Baltimore neighborhoods that were rioting. The presence of a father in the home would be a rarity indeed. And a lot of the moms are probably holding their fatherless homes together for dear life, desperately trying to make a living when their kids are pouring out of school. No one was home.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. The black family was the bulwark of that community. So what happened? I’ll be blunt, since I was once part of the problem and equally culpable – liberal racism. Ever since the days of Lyndon Johnson, social welfare programs aimed at making the lives of “colored people” better actually made them worse. The assumption behind these programs is that African-Americans – always, constantly, forever unequal and not up to the task – needed a leg up. They got the message. Wouldn’t you?

And wouldn’t it make you pretty angry too? Not that that’s an excuse for violence, not even faintly. The whole system is corrupt, top to bottom.

No wonder the mayor of Baltimore made the inane comment (and then pretended she didn’t) about giving the rioters space to wreak their havoc. That’s the logical extension of the Great Society, this time given forth by a black woman graduate of Oberlin. She didn’t even comprehend at the time the insult to her own people inherent in her comment. When I heard her welcoming Al Sharpton in the press conference, I cringed.

On the other hand, the opportunities for graft over the past 50 years have been splendid.

UPDATE: Well, some parents were still disciplining their kids.

UM: CNN Anchor Brooke Baldwin Blames Military Veterans for Baltimore Riots. “Essentially, what Baldwin said to the world was, ‘Don’t hire veterans! They’re crazy! They will destroy everything!'”

I THINK THE “FAMILY TRUCKSTER” DESERVED A HIGHER RANKING: Every Family Sedan Ranked from Worst to Best.

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And shop the Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals. When bad things happen, it’s good to have food.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. Just remember, when winter storms are over, spring and summer storms are on the way.

SAN FRAN DIVERSITY LOSS IS “CONCERNING”:  A new report finds that San Francisco’s racial and ethnic diversity is declining, as affluent whites flock back to the city, while minorities move out to the suburbs due to ever-increasing rent and other costs.  The report, “An Equity Profile of the San Francisco Bay Area,” by a group called PolicyLink, reads like a liberal/progressives’ dream, lamenting various inequalities between whites and non-whites, and concluding:

Wow! So all we have to do is just pay minorities more, and the economy will improve! It’s magic!

ORGANIZED CRIMINALITY: Vox: 181 Clinton Foundation donors who lobbied Hillary’s State Department. Funny, a lot of lefty outlets are happy to dish dirt on Hillary all of a sudden.

HEH: 10 Worst Journalist Tweets About The Baltimore Riots.

CHANGE: A Smartphone Eye Exam Service Launches in New York. “A service called Blink is launching today in New York that will bring an eye exam to your home or office for $75, administered by a technician who uses a trio of handheld devices that take the place of the bulky autorefractor, lensmeter, and phoropter you may have seen in an eye doctor’s office. The technician will send the results to an optometrist, who will write a prescription if necessary and e-mail it to you (in the U.S., only ophthalmologists and optometrists can legally write eyeglass prescriptions).”

JOHN CHISHOLM DOUBLES DOWN ON THUGGERY: “Is Milwaukee County DA interested in pursuing criminal libel prosecutions of his political critics?” Hollow threats. He’ll be lucky to escape jail time himself, even with the Democratic Deep State on his side. But he’s a putz who seems to have no qualms about abusing his office for political reasons.

I’LL BE ON SIRIUS/XM’S POTUS CHANNEL IN A FEW MINUTES, talking about Hillary Clinton’s scandals and the Democratic primary field.

SEXISM IN ACADEMIA: Faculty may prefer female applicants for STEM professorships. “The researchers found that, when presented with applications for an assistant professorship, both male and female faculty overwhelmingly preferred female applicants over male applicants with identical qualifications and family situations.”

Female privilege.

FASTER, PLEASE: A Cheap, Ubiquitous Earthquake Warning System. “When an earthquake hit California’s Napa Valley in 2014, ShakeAlert, a demonstration earthquake warning system under development by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), gave a 5 to 10 second warning. Had such a system been in place in Nepal this month, residents of Kathmandu would have had about 15 to 20 seconds to get out of the most dangerous buildings or take cover where possible. Though it doesn’t seem like much, that’s also enough time to trigger automated shutdown systems for rapid transit (the experimental system is already tied to the BART transportation network), nuclear power facilities, or semiconductor manufacturing plants.”

DESIGN THAT IS TOO PLEASED WITH ITS OWN CLEVERNESS IS SELDOM GOOD DESIGN: A Harrowing Test Drive of Buckminster Fuller’s 1933 Dymaxion Car: Art That’s Scary to Ride. You may think that you are a monstrously clever fellow, bur remember that cleverness is not on top, and never has been.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: The EPA’s clean-coal dustup.

POINTS AND FIGURES: Everything Is A Class War.