INFRASTRUCTURE: Clogged oil arteries slow U.S. shale rush to record output.

Pipeline construction often lags production booms by years – if proposed lines are built at all – because of opposition from environmentalists and landowners, topographic obstacles, and permitting and construction challenges. That forces drillers to limit output or ship oil domestically, usually by rail – which is more costly and arguably less safe.

The crimped production, in turn, costs the economy jobs, keeps prices higher for consumers and stymies the nation’s long-held geopolitical goal of reducing dependence on foreign oil.

Obstacles to pipeline construction are coming into sharp focus as resurgent shale firms, after a two-year downturn, are now on pace to take domestic crude oil output to a record in 2018, surpassing 10 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the U.S. Energy Department.

“Get the hell out of my way!” the wise man once said.

I HOPE TRUMP GETS AT LEAST THREE MORE APPOINTMENTS: Conservatives cheer Gorsuch amid flurry of decisions on final day of Supreme Court term.

Conservatives cheered the opinions of Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, as the high court’s term came to a close Monday.

Although Gorsuch joined the high court in April, with only two months left in its term, Judicial Crisis Network chief counsel Carrie Severino said his actions have demonstrated “an indication of good things to come.”

“[Gorsuch’s actions] show him to be what we believed him to be: a solid constitutionalist, a solid textualist,” Severino said.

On Monday, Gorsuch dissented from the high court’s striking down of an Arkansas birth certificate law for same-sex couples and sided with Justice Clarence Thomas that the block on Trump’s travel ban should not have been only partially lifted. He also joined Thomas’ dissent from the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a Second Amendment controversy regarding carrying guns for self-defense. Last week, he and Thomas dissented in a 7-2 ruling over the judicial review process for complaints filed by federal employees.

He also joined Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion on Monday that a Missouri law that forbade state funds from going to a church playground was unconstitutional. But Gorsuch, as well as Thomas, disagreed with a distinction Roberts made in a footnote to the opinion.

“The court leaves open the possibility a useful distinction might be drawn between laws that discriminate on the basis of religious status and religious use,” Gorsuch wrote. “Respectfully, I harbor doubts about the stability of such a line. Does a religious man say grace before dinner? Or does a man begin his meal in a religious manner?”

Maybe we should expand the Court to 15, so as to ease the workload on its older members. You’d only need a simple majority in both houses to do it. And there’s Democratic precedent. . . .

ADIOS, AMIGA! ‘Trumpcare’ would send her to Mexico for birth control.

All Ariana and Kevin Gonzalez want is birth control.

As far as health care needs go, that’s pretty simple.

But the California couple says that if the Republican alternative to Obamacare becomes law, they’ll be driving over the border to Mexico to get it.

It’s not that the Gonzalezes don’t have insurance; they have very good insurance through Ariana’s job as a high school teacher.

The problem is that “Trumpcare,” as Ariana calls it, would probably run her health clinic out of town. It’s Planned Parenthood, which the Republican health care proposal defunds because it performs abortions.

The Gonzalezes live in the Imperial Valley, an agricultural area two hours east of San Diego, with a severe doctor shortage.

A quick Yellow Pages search returns a number of Walmart pharmacies in her area where inexpensive birth control is available. And the inability to schedule an annual doctor’s appointment can probably be attributed either to poor planning or — and this does seem more likely — to grandstanding for the TV cameras.

In either case, Gonzalez’s plight could be easily remedied by making birth control available over the counter.

ANNALS OF HYPOCRISY: Lawmakers Want Trump’s Tax Returns, but Won’t Release Their Own.

It does, however, illustrate that the income tax is an invasion of privacy.

GOOD MORNING: Liz Sheld’s morning brief awaits you.

THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION: Despite tweet, McCaskill attended reception at Russian ambassador’s home.

In March, Sen. Claire McCaskill was unambiguous. The Missouri Democrat said she never once met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in her 10 years serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever,” McCaskill tweeted. “Ambassadors call members of Foreign [Relations Committee].”

Soon after that tweet, it was revealed she did interact with the Russian ambassador.

And now, CNN has learned, McCaskill spent an evening at a black-tie reception at the ambassador’s Washington residence in November 2015.

McCaskill was photographed at the event, honoring former Democratic Rep. James Symington, who hails from her state of Missouri and worked to promote US-Russia relations.

It’s almost as though Democrats are much more friendly with the Russians than Republicans are.

And kudos to CNN for digging into this. Maybe they’ve learned something recently.

HEY, BERNIE FANS, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SUPPORT A FRAUD? Sanders dodges question on FBI investigation into his wife.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday ignored questions about the FBI investigation into his wife from Fox News and the Associated Press, opting instead to give an answer about healthcare to a Fox News reporter who caught up with him outside the Capitol.

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about today,” Sanders told an Associated Press reporter who also attempted to ask about the FBI’s investigation into his wife.

The FBI is reportedly looking into whether Jane Sanders falsified loan documents while she served as the president of Burlington College. The small Vermont liberal arts school closed down in May 2016 after going bankrupt and failing to meet accreditation standards.

A family spokesperson confirmed to the AP on Monday that Jane Sanders has hired a lawyer to protect her interests.

A reporter for Fox News asked Sanders Monday if he still thought the probe into his wife was “politically motivated” now that other news outlets have reported on the investigation.

Heh.

IT’S MERELY PINING FOR THE FJORDS: California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelves single-payer healthcare bill.

“SB 562 was sent to the Assembly woefully incomplete,” Rendon said in a statement. “Even senators who voted for SB 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation.”

Under the measure, California would have paid the healthcare costs for all residents, eliminating premiums, copays and deductibles that are common fixtures in the current healthcare system.

Several key details were unresolved in the measure — most significantly how to pay for it. The program, which carried an estimated price tag of $330 billion to $400 billion, would have required new taxes to pay for it, but no sources of tax revenue were specified in the legislation.

If California can’t get single payer passed, it might just be dead.

But somebody ought to drive a stake through its heart, decapitate it, shoot it with a silver bullet, set it ablaze, and scatter the ashes — just to be sure.

ALL LIVES MATTER: City Pays Nearly $3M Settlement to Philando Castile’s Mother.

SO DON’T LISTEN TO THEM. BY DEFINITION, THEY’RE NOT EDUCATED YET. College panel: Free speech on campus under siege from students.

“For most of my career, we were usually running up against administrative overreach” — campus leaders “doing things that were a bad idea, or were sometimes well intentioned” but still flawed, Lukianoff said during a panel discussion about the tension between free speech and inclusivity on campuses at the association’s annual conference here.

Students, he said, were traditionally “the best constituents for freedom of speech.” But that’s no longer the case, with “many more students demanding that speakers be disinvited,” calling for the firing of professors or suspension of fellow students whose speech they deem hurtful, and the like.

To be fair, mostly these students — a tiny minority of the overall campus population — are just catspaws for “diversity” administrators and “studies” faculty. They’re no more intellectually independent than the Red Guards they resemble

CAUGHT ON TAPE: “CNN Producer Says Russia Narrative “bullsh*t”. If secretly made tapes of Trump’s “grab them by the p*ssy” gaffe are fair game, why is this not? Hint: Ratings.

AT AMAZON, deals in Men’s Underwear.

DEEP STATE UPDATE: Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching Russia probe?

SPYING: NSA’s use of ‘traffic shaping’ allows unrestrained spying on Americans.

PERHAPS WE NEED A FORMAL MECHANISM TO ALLOW STATES TO SPLIT: Eastern Washington state would like to secede, please.

EIGHT YEARS OF HOPE AND CHANGE, AND THEN THIS: Texas Boys State votes in favor of secession.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why the 2017 Honda Civic Type R Has Three Tailpipes.

TAKING MORE THAN THEIR SHARE: Newsflash, Wonder Woman: Women Already Use the Majority of Healthcare.

FEMINISM FOR ME, TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES FOR THEE: Harvard Study Shows the Main Reason Wives Divorce Husbands: A Harvard study examining income, work, and marital stability suggests that ‘bread-winning’ remains a central component of marital contracts.

The strongest evidence for the gendered institution perspective is that, for marriages begun in 1975 or later, divorce is more likely when husbands are not employed full-time. Consistent with my hypotheses, there is no evidence that this association is weaker for later than earlier marriage cohorts. Just as male breadwinning has remained important for marriage formation (Sweeney 2002), the results here demonstrate its enduring importance for marital stability. The results are consistent with claims that bread-winning remains a central component of the marital contract for husbands.

If it’s “rape culture” to expect wives to provide sex as part of the marriage, is it “slavery culture” to expect husbands to be the primary earners? Of course not!

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Devices – Introducing the All-New Fire Tablets Starting at $49.99.

Plus, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.

FAKE NEWS FALLOUT: Breaking: Three journalists leaving CNN after retracted article. “CNN said Monday that three journalists, including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted. Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: “It’s as if a hinge were turning. But what door will open?”

JUSTICES CLARENCE THOMAS AND NEIL GORSUCH:

For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it.

Well, in today’s Wall Street Journal, we have a Congressman who doesn’t feel safe without a gun after having colleagues gunned down by a crazed Bernie Sanders supporter:

When Republican lawmakers came under fire during a June 14 baseball practice in Virginia, they were trapped by a tall fence with one exit. Thanks to armed officers guarding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, only five people were wounded.

But although members of the congressional leadership are provided security details, the rest of us have to count on luck. “When congressmen and senators are off the Capitol Hill campus, we are still high-profile targets, but we have zero protection,” Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama told John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center. . . .

At least five congressmen at the baseball practice have concealed handgun permits in their home states. At least one aide also has a permit. Others may be reluctant to announce publicly that they do, since part of the benefit of carrying a concealed weapon is that potential attackers do not know who is armed. That’s why uniformed police have an almost impossible job stopping terrorist attacks. A uniform is like a neon sign flashing: “I have a gun. Shoot me first.”

In 2015 the Daily Caller surveyed 38 conservative members of Congress, asking whether they held a concealed-carry permit. Thirty declined to answer. Of the eight who did respond, six had permits. Jerry Henry, executive director of Georgia Carry, says that as of last year nine of the 10 Republican congressmen from his state had a concealed-carry permit.

An aide says that when Rep. Barry Loudermilk is speaking at public events in his district, “they always have someone with the congressman who is carrying.” Likewise, when I’m home in Kentucky, my staff and I carry weapons.

But the District of Columbia’s gun regulations meant no one had a permitted, concealed handgun at the congressional baseball practice. Virginia, where the attack occurred, honors permits from any other state. But as Mr. Brooks explained: “My residence is in the District of Columbia, which means that it would have been illegal for me to take my weapon with me to the ballpark—about a 9-mile bike ride—and it would have also been illegal for me to come from Virginia back into D.C. with my weapon.”

Both Rep. Brooks and the Loudermilk aide say they believe the attack could have been ended much earlier. The aide, who asked to be unnamed, has received active-shooter training and remained behind a car 15 to 20 yards from the attacker. He believes he could have shot the attacker from his position and ended the attack “probably four minutes earlier.”

It’s not just members of Congress who need this right, and I’m happy to see that this proposed legislation doesn’t just apply to Congressmen and their staffs: “That’s why I have introduced legislation to allow people with concealed handgun permits from any state to carry their permitted firearms into the District of Columbia. It’s a miracle that only five were wounded at the Republicans’ baseball practice. Next time the results might be even more devastating.”

SERIAL JOB KILLER STRIKES AGAIN: The minimum wage. It’s a serial killer.

Working from the absurd idea that if higher wages are good for individual workers, it must be socially beneficial to have government order all employers to pay their workers more, progressives and other leftists have had extraordinary success in forcing small businesses to pay higher minimum wages.

Big Mac’s stock is up 27% this year. Why? Pushed by concerns over a rising minimum wage, the fast-food chain is replacing human cashiers as fast as it can. But it really has no choice.

By the end of 2017, it plans to have digital cashiers in 2,500 restaurants; by 2018, another 3,000 restaurants will go digital. They’re also going to let you order via mobile device at 14,000 restaurants by year end. McDonald’s calls it the “Experience of the Future” strategy.

Somewhere out there in Beltway Land, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are saying “Unexpectedly!”