JAW DROP: NYT WRITER UNSURE ‘IF’ HUGE PHILLY SODA TAX WILL BE PASSED ON TO CONSUMERS.

Why, if only the desperately understaffed New York Times had a Nobel prize-winning economist on its payroll to fact check these sorts of stories…

A PACK, NOT A HERD: “In a Mass Shooting, Wait and Die? Or Fight Back?,” asks Michael Walsh.

IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD WARNED THEM: New Evidence of a Ferguson Effect.

For over a year, the Obama administration has vigorously denied the existence of a Ferguson Effect—the hypothesis, popularized by the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald, that the uptick in violent crime experienced in major cities was related to the high-profile controversies over police shootings. But now, a federally-funded study says that these episodes may indeed have undermined the legitimacy of police in the eyes of their communities, making witnesses less likely come forward, deterring officers from acting aggressively, and contributing to one of the biggest single-year murder rate increases in a quarter century. . . .

The existence of the Ferguson Effect shows that we need to think harder about how to make policing more effective and legitimate—but not necessarily more punitive. In fact, an overly-harsh campaign that some conservatives are calling for could further undermine trust and make the problem worse.

It’s possible to believe both that the police need more scrutiny, and that crime needs to be controlled.

REUTERS POLL: Hillary’s Lead On Trump Slipping After Orlando. “Reuters also reported rising enthusiasm for Trump’s temporary ban on Muslim emigration into the U.S. since June started.” She’s still got a substantial lead, though.

ROGER SIMON EXPLAINS “WHY THIS AMERICAN SUPPORTS ‘BREXIT.’”

CHARLES C.W. COOKE: Guns and the no-fly list: Whatever happened to due process? It became inconvenient to progressive domination.

HE’S GETTING THRASHED BY A JAYVEE TEAM: Obama’s Isis Failure: “President Obama’s foreign policy has been a crushing disappointment. Whereas his first term earned the U.S. precious breathing room in its pivot from the Bush years, wiping out the GOP’s storied electoral advantage on international affairs, Obama’s second term has been marked by failure after failure: chaos in Syria, Libya, and Yemen; the rise of ISIS; Russia on the march; and on and on.”

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DAN MARKEL UPDATE: Grand Jury Indicts Two Hit Men In Dan Markel’s Murder, State Attorney Expects More Indictments; Mother Of Hit Man’s Two Children And Girlfriend Of Ex-Brother-in-Law Denies Ex-Wife’s Family’s Involvement.

ILLUSTRATING ABSURDITY BY BEING ABSURD. Enough: After Orlando, We Must Defund Planned Parenthood and Rethink Gay Marriage Ruling.

ANYTHING THAT STANDS IN THE WAY OF PROGRESSIVE DOMINATION IS UNDER ASSAULT, BECAUSE PROGRESSIVES HAVE NO FIXED PRINCIPLE BEYOND THE WILL TO POWER: Due process is under assault in America.

Due process isn’t the sexiest part of the Constitution. It doesn’t get all the attention like the First or Second Amendments. But it is so incredibly important to the foundation of our country that it’s painful to see the hits it’s been taking these past few years.

The latest attempt has been incredibly direct, with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., declaring that “due process is what’s killing us right now.” Manchin’s comments came in response to the Orlando terrorist attack that killed 49 people and injured 53 more. Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Manchin said that due process was keeping legislators from banning those on the Terrorist Watch List from purchasing guns.

“The problem we have, and really the firewall we have right now, is due process,” Manchin said Thursday. “It’s all due process.”

Darn that pesky due process and its constitutional protections!

Manchin is just the latest Democrat to explicitly trample on Americans’ constitutional rights. On Wednesday, a number of Democrats told my colleague Joel Gehrke that the presumption of innocence was unnecessary when government seeks to deprive someone of a constitutional right.

Kneel to Zod! Or at least to the All-Powerful State.

WAIT, I THOUGHT OBAMA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE NEXT FDR. Morning Joe’s Sam Stein: Trump Is Close to ‘Talking About Internment Camps.’

Shades of the Huffington Post predicting in September of 2008 that Sarah ‘Evita’ Palin was going to usher in the Rovian Police State. Or the FEMA concentration camps other members of the fever swamp left imagined in 2006.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Protesters at university with 97 percent women blast its ‘toxic rape culture.’

REPUBLICANS SHOULD WORRY ABOUT LOSING THE HOUSE, Ramesh Ponnuru of NRO writes at Bloomberg.

Related: The Coming Political Catastrophe.

Flashback: Glenn’s pre-postmortem for the GOP in 2006.

HMMM: The Bursting Of Silicon Valley’s Real Estate Bubble Has Now Spread To San Francisco.

Related: Absolute dump on the market for $5MILLION in Palo Alto shows just how outrageous property prices are in Silicon Valley.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON BREXIT: Britain’s Elites Can’t Ignore the Masses.

The folks I talked to were from all over Britain, but they had middle age in common as well as, mostly, membership in the petit bourgeoisie. What did they think about leaving the EU?

“I still don’t know how I’m going to vote,” said an adult-education teacher from the Midlands, who then proceeded to deliver a long and earnest speech about the cost of providing social services to immigrants, which suggested that she wasn’t really so unsure. Her sentiments were echoed by other people I talked to during that endless layover.

These weren’t racist diatribes; no one mentioned race or nationality, and, in fact, they were very sympathetic to the plight of immigrants. They just didn’t want to have to accept them into their country — operative words “have to.” The dominant tone was what is often called compassion fatigue, and their arguments were not unreasonable.

Riding a refugee-crowded ferry back from the Greek island of Lesvos last fall, my heart broke for every one of the families I saw. But I couldn’t help but ask myself just how many such people Europe could absorb in a short period of time. The people in the airport were asking themselves the same question, and the answer they were getting was “no more, please.”

Around 1:30 Monday morning, a budget jet brought me to Luton, where I stayed overnight. The next leg of my travel did not begin until late afternoon, and so I took the opportunity to walk around the area near the Mall Luton, which turned out to be a very good place to think about Brexit.

Luton is a city of about 200,000 people on the outskirts of London. It was once known for its manufacture of hats, and in 1905, Vauxhall Motors opened a manufacturing plant in Luton. The company stopped making passenger cars there in 2002, and the town is now — like so many places in Europe and America — looking for its post-industrial future. EasyJet, a budget airline, is based there, but as you so often find in similar cities in the U.S., the biggest employers are the local government and the local hospital. It has also had a dramatic shift in population. The Luton council estimates that “between 50% and 75% of the population would not have lived in Luton or not have been born at the time of the 2001 Census.” It is now minority white British, and only barely majority white.

You can see it in the area around the mall. It’s not a notably prosperous place: multiple dollar stores, not much in the way of upscale retail. The Duke of Clarence pub is closed, having apparently run afoul of the local constabulary; one Polish food store appeared to be doing a land-office business. I wandered into several off-license shops in search of batteries and found that all of them appeared to cater to a significant foreign-born clientele. I bought some Polish sausage and pastry at an off-license, some Indian dumplings and Thai noodles at a couple of food trucks, and I sat on a bench in the mall, listening to people from three continents chat with each other in more than half a dozen languages, none of which I spoke.

As an American, this did not strike me as odd; this is what our cities have been like for centuries, particularly on the coasts. One group of immigrants moves in, creates an enclave, then gets rich, assimilates and moves out, making way for the next group that will throw a little of their food, their language and their customs into our vast melting pot. But this is not normal in most of the world. Nor is it necessarily welcome.

Read the whole thing. Or as Ace says, The Transnationalists/Globalists/Universalists of the GOP Capital Class Ought to Read this Megan McArdle Piece Before It’s Too Late.

FLORIDA: AMERICA’S JIHAD PLAYGROUND.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: As Law Grads Seethe With ‘Atavistic Rage’ At Their Financial Plight, Many Law Schools Confront Stark Choice: Continue To Admit Marginal Students, Or Shut Down.

All is proceeding, alas, as I have foretold.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Protesters at university with 97 percent women blast its ‘toxic rape culture.’

Related: Columbia Student on The Damage Done By ‘Mattress Girl.’

GREAT MOMENTS IN PALLYWOOD PROPAGANDA: “Water Apartheid” Was Really Just a Burst Pipe, But the Media Don’t Care.

Richard Landes nailed the media on their love of Palestinian propaganda over a decade ago.

WHEN POLITICIANS TAKE YOUR MONEY, IT’S NEVER BECAUSE THEY HAVE YOUR INTERESTS AT HEART: Philadelphia’s New Soda Tax Has Nothing to Do With Obesity: The city council rejected regressive paternalism in favor of a simple money grab.

KEVIN IKENBERRY: Who is at the Wordfire booth with me this comicon, is having a sale on Sleeper Protocol.

THE QUESTION IS, FROM WHOM DOES HE THINK HE NEEDS PROTECTION? Federal Agency Approves New, Higher Fence Surrounding White House.

SORRY FOR BEING MOSTLY ABSENT THIS WEEKEND: Still at Denver Comicon, in the wordfire booth.  Which is very tiring for this introvert.  On the other hand, come by and say hi if you’re attending. It’s always fun.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Oroville P.E. teacher sentenced to probation for sex with students. One guesses that a male teacher wouldn’t have gotten off so light.