RON RADOSH: Brit Hume’s Strange and Heartless Prescription for Health Care.

GRID THREATS REQUIRE IMAGINING THE UNIMAGINABLE:

The U.S. electric power network is poorly equipped to restore electricity service to large areas blacked out by natural disasters or hostile attacks, a National Academy of Sciences panel warned yesterday in a report that looks into dark future scenarios that it says the nation and the public have not fully faced up to.

“The electricity system, and associated supporting infrastructure, is susceptible to widespread uncontrolled cascading failure, based on the interconnected and interdependent nature of the networks,” the panel concluded in a 297-page report ordered by Congress and funded by the Department of Energy. “Despite all best efforts, it is impossible to avoid occasional, potentially large outages caused by natural disasters or pernicious physical or cyber attacks.”

Seven or eight years ago I gave a talk to a local business group on this subject. During Q&A an audience member said he thought the threat of a cyber attack on the electrical grid was exaggerated. A moment later another audience member identified himself as having worked on control and security issues for a utility company. He said nope, the threat to the grid is real and, in an extensive network, spotting all the vulnerabilities is difficult.

DON SURBER: The Day the Press Lost Its Power.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: Now the speech police are going after small talk.

“What do you do?” is now considered impolite. The Huffington Post has called it a “conversation killer” and the Boston Globe’s Robin Abrahams called it “the lamest party question.”

Abrahams writes: “I’ve had people tell me straight up that they find the question rude. Many folks perceive it as a prestige contest — and when it’s preceded by, say, ‘I’m a spinal surgeon and run a private-equity fund in my spare time,’ it’s easy to feel that way.”

But why does everything have to be a competition? If you come across a spinal surgeon who runs a private-equity fund that should be the best conversation of your life. Why would anyone refuse to take the opportunity to learn something from someone so accomplished?

Also, if you’re hearing that answer, that means you’re the one who asked the question. If you don’t feel great about your professional life, small talk makes it easy to steer away from the topic or change the subject once it’s introduced. That’s the thing about small talk: It can go anywhere you’d like.

In the last few years, my go-to question — “Where are you from?” — has also become unacceptable. Apparently it’s racist or anti-immigrant or any number of problematics to ask someone where they grew up.

There’s nothing committed busybodies can’t ruin for everybody else.

THE INSTA-WIFE: Beets Are The New Kale.

K.C. JOHNSON: Campus kangaroo courts: How Betsy DeVos could take action with regard to Title IX.

Last week, Department of Education secretary Betsy DeVos did something extraordinary: after meeting with students who said that they were sexually assaulted in college, she spoke with seven others who claimed that their institutions had found them guilty of sexual assaults that they did not commit. She also met with a group of lawyers and education administrators, including two attorneys who have represented students accused of sexual assault in subsequent lawsuits against their colleges.

Hearing both sides of a controversial issue would seem routine for any policymaker, but that hasn’t been the case for campus sexual assault. Catherine Lhamon, who headed the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Obama administration, refused to meet with groups advocating on behalf of accused students. She even initially declined, in writing, to confer with representatives from FIRE, the nation’s preeminent campus civil-liberties organization. Lhamon’s approach reflected the Obama administration’s strategy of redefining Title IX—the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds—without soliciting public feedback. The administration made two important policy changes—one in 2011, the other in 2014—not as regulations, which require public notice and comment, but as “guidance” documents. Then, when asked whether the Education Department expected colleges to follow blindly the documents’ demands as if they were regulations, Lhamon said yes. . . .

George Mason University law professor David Bernstein recently noted that, despite the Obama administration’s reading of the statute, “Title IX itself doesn’t actually speak to specific procedural protections.” More broadly, according to Bernstein, it requires an “aggressive interpretation of Title IX to think it speaks to student-on-student sexual assault at all.” (The interpretation, which made sexual assaults the only felonies that colleges are legally required to adjudicate, dates from a Clinton-era OCR regulation.) But it has become an article of faith among accusers’-rights organizations—joined by Democratic and even some Republican legislators—that any shift in the Obama policies would suggest tolerance of campus rape.

House members who purport to worry about civil liberties in all other contexts fault DeVos for talking not only to advocates of campus accusers but also to advocates for the accused.

To a lot of these people, 1984 wasn’t a cautionary tale, but an instruction manual.

A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION MASQUERADING AS A POLITICAL PARTY. Report: FBI Seized Smashed Hard Drives From Debbie Wasserman Schultz IT Aide’s Home:

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case and a high level congressional source.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

Earlier: Shocking video shows former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatening the Chief of Capitol Police to ‘expect consequences’ if he didn’t return a laptop taken during a criminal investigation:

The laptop was taken by police following a report into data breaches inside congressional offices in Washington. Politico first reported that one staffer under investigation for the theft had worked for multiple Democrats in Washington, but had been fired after the alleged IT breaches. . . . The Capitol Police and other agencies are investigating Imran Awan, who has run technology for Wasserman Schultz since 2005. He was banned from the House network in February on suspicion of data breaches and theft. Wasserman Schultz’s representatives denied the lawmaker was using her position on the committee that sets the police force’s budget to press its chief on the matter of the laptop.

As Glenn noted at time, “Well, that was clearly a lie. The Democrats really don’t seem to want people investigating this hacking case for some reason.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

(Bumped, by Glenn).

OH: North Korea is Able to Launch a ‘Limited Missile Attack,’ Warns Top U.S. General.

At dinner last night I was speaking to someone deeply involved in our missile defense program, and half-jokingly suggested we place North Korea under a “missile quarantine” by stationing an Aegis-equipped destroyer or two in international waters — with instructions to shoot down anything that goes up.

His response was, “The crews would love that.”

UPDATE: Credit where it’s due, before I forget again.

RELOCATING ELEPHANTS IN MALAWI: Check out the video — the technical requirements are immense.

PROGRESS? Female Athletes Are Closing The Gender Gap When It Comes To Concussions.

“We classically have always known the male response to brain injury,” says Mark Burns, at Georgetown University. But there have been remarkably few studies of females. The bias runs throughout the scientific literature, even in studies of mice.

“Male mice have been used historically in research and not really been compared to female mice,” he says.

That’s changing now. The National Institutes of Health recently began to require scientists to include female animals.

Burns’ lab has begun using both sexes in research on head injuries. And they’re finding some differences. This summer, Burns published a study in the journal Glia that looked at mice with severe brain injuries. He says the brains of male mice showed a massive immune response within a day, but the female response was much slower — up to seven days.

Given traditional roles, unlike men there was probably little evolutionary advantage for women to rapidly heal from concussions.

ANGELO CODEVILLA: Restoring The Republic Means Reimposing “Regular Order.”

The Republican congressional leadership’s failure to repeal Obamacare has led to suggestions that, perhaps, they should have approached their task through “regular order.” Since Congress has not operated under “regular order” at all since 2006, and with decreasing frequency in the decades before that, younger readers, especially, may be excused for not knowing what these procedures are. Far from being arcane ephemera, they are the indispensable catalyst that makes American government responsible to the people. Casting aside “regular order” was essential to the rise of the unaccountable administrative state and the near-sovereignty of party leaders, lobbyists, and bureaucrats.

Indeed.

BYRON YORK: If Trump’s in trouble, why are Republicans trouncing Democrats in fundraising?

The numbers are striking. In June, the RNC raised $13.5 million to the DNC’s $5.5 million.

For 2017 so far, the RNC has raised $75.4 million to the DNC’s $38.2 million.

The RNC started the year with $25.3 million in cash-on-hand. Now it has $44.7 million. The DNC started the year with $10.5 in cash-on-hand. Now, that has fallen to $7.5 million.

As of June 30, the RNC reported $0 in debt. The DNC reported $3.3 million in debt.

A look inside the numbers is even worse for the DNC. Looking at collections from small donors — that is, those who contributed less than $200 — the RNC raised $10.5 million in the months of May and June. The DNC raised $5.3 million from small donors in the same time period.

The RNC’s money total is a record — more than was raised in any previous non-presidential election year. That is true for June, and for all of 2017 as well. The $75.4 million raised this year compares to $55.4 million for the same period in 2015; to $51.2 for the same period in 2014; to $41.1 million for the same period in 2013, and so on going back.

“It’s definitely a reflection of support for President Trump,” said RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney. “Our small-dollar donors are giving at a record pace because they believe the RNC is supporting President Trump, and they like that.”

Well, and the Dems have a lot of bad blood over the way Hillary rigged the primaries.

DONALD TRUMP’S PLAN to save Western Civilization.

SCARAMUCCI’S SUNDAY TOUR, PELOSI’S REBRANDING, AND KUSHNER’S GOING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: All that and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

REPORT: De Blasio Ordered Police to Clear Homeless Out of Subways Before His Ride.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio reportedly ordered the police to clear out homeless people from two subway stations ahead of his four-stop press event on Sunday so that the stations “looked nice.”

Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that the police had until 11 A.M. on Sunday to eject those who were “hanging out” at the Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street and Jay Street/MetroTech F train stations.

Another source put it this way: de Blasio’s office let the police know ahead of time about his schedule “with the expectation that the subway stations would be free and clear of homeless people.”

#Caring.

RISE OF THE MACHINES: Professionals and Managers: You’re Next. Automation may replace skilled workers sooner than you expect. “Here’s the dirty little secret about automation: it’s easier to build a robot to replace a junior attorney than to replace a journeyman electrician.”

Prediction: With members of the professional classes at risk, automation will suddenly become much more problematic. You know, kind of like how gerrymandering went from “amusing political shenanigans” to “threat to the Republic” when it stopped helping Democrats and started helping Republicans instead.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Violinist symbolic of Venezuela protest bloodied.

A young violinist who became a symbol of anti-government protest in Venezuela has apparently been injured at a demonstration.

Images broadcast on local television show emergency response workers tending to Wuilly Arteaga as he bleeds from his nose. His shirt and baseball cap with the colors of the Venezuelan flag are also stained with blood.

Arteaga posted a brief video of himself Saturday on Twitter with a swollen lip and bandaged face, vowing to be back on the streets tomorrow.

It was not immediately clear what happened to him.

Arteaga has been a fixture at demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro, playing the national anthem on his violin as authorities launch tear gas in his direction.

Maduro’s opposition is calling for a two-day general strike to protest his July 30 vote to “elect a new national assembly and rewrite the constitution” in order to bypass the existing, opposition-held assembly. Because socialism will work this time, if they just put the right people in charge.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Terror Group Uses CNN ‘Body-Slam’ Tweet to Declare Trump ‘Most Stupid President… Ever.’

TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL: Wisconsin Lawmakers Introduce Firearm Education Curriculum Bill for Schools.

CHANGE IS COMING: Freedom of movement in Europe will end. But will it be orderly or chaotic? Merkel wrecked things. The longer Europe waits to start repairs, the worse it will be.

THE WHEELS TURN SLOWLY: Third suspect in Dan Markel murder to face jury in 2018.

THAT ALL THE PANTY-TWISTING HYSTERIA WAS JUST PANTY-TWISTING HYSTERIA: Campus carry: No problems so far at UT-Austin. What does that prove?

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Forget Russia. I’d fire Jeff Sessions over civil forfeiture.

THE “DEEP STATE” ISN’T THE “ESPECIALLY BRIGHT STATE,” AS THIS LATEST DEVELOPMENT PROVES:

People who want to undermine Trump should try looking more sober and responsible than he is. So far, they’ve done the opposite.