YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Hate Speech Isn’t Free Speech. And Guess Who Decides What Is and Isn’t Hate Speech?

BRIDGE THAT COLLAPSED IN MIAMI was environmentally friendly and self-cleaning. “The university said the modular construction method reduces potential risks to workers, commuters and pedestrians and minimizes traffic interruptions. The bridge is also made of self-cleaning concrete. When exposed to sunlight, titanium dioxide in the concrete traps pollutants and turns them a bright white, the university said.”

THE LEFT IS ALWAYS THE SAME: “Ironically, the demonstrations in favor of school safety featured, in some instances, attacks on non-conforming students.” Plus: “I’m thinking: This is a campaign finance violation!”

WELL, GOOD: Three-in-one pill shows promise in beating high blood pressure.

JOHN HAWKINS: The 7 Lies That Will Keep You from Ever Reaching Your Potential.

INSURRECTION: Undocumented immigrant appointed to state post in California.

Lizbeth Mateo, a 33-year-old attorney and immigrant rights activist, will serve on the California Student Opportunity and Access Program Project Grant Advisory Committee. The committee advises the California Student Aid Commission on efforts to increase college access for California students from low-income or underserved communities.

“While Donald Trump fixates on walls, California will continue to concentrate on opportunities,” de León said in a news release. “Ms. Mateo is a courageous, determined and intelligent young woman who at great personal risk has dedicated herself to fight for those seeking their rightful place in this country.”

If Mateo is here illegally, her rightful place is at the back of the legal immigration line.

Given California’s official lawlessness, a case could be made for Congress to act under the Guarantee Clause.

#TIMESUP: ‘NO MORE’: Calif. Dem gubernatorial hopeful Amanda Renteria demands Gavin Newsom resign over ‘sexual misconduct.’

FRACK THAT: Crisis-hit Venezuela could soon tip the oil market ‘decisively into deficit,’ IEA says.

“Within the OPEC countries, the biggest risk factor is, and will likely remain, Venezuela,” the IEA said in its closely-watched report published Thursday.

“Without any compensatory change from other producers it is possible that the Latin American country could be the final element that tips the market decisively into deficit,” the Paris-based organization added.

While Venezuela boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves, crude production in the state has been steadily declining in recent years. The South American country continues to slog through an economic crisis precipitated by years of government mismanagement and exacerbated by a prolonged oil price slump.

Following years of sharp output losses, Venezuela’s crude output is projected to tumble to 1.38 million barrels per day (mb/d) by the end of 2018, according to the IEA. That would represent the oil-dependent state’s lowest level of output in approximately 70 years — with the exception of the 2002-2003 strike.

Oil has been holding steady slightly above the $60 ceiling I expected frackers to impose on the market — but that’s because of production cuts which OPEC and Russia have actually adhered to for once. However, that also means there’s plenty of slack on the production side for when the worst comes to Venezuela. Prices might go up again, but a ’70s-style oil shock seems unlikely at worst.

THANKS, OBAMA: The Justice Department under Barack Obama directed the FBI to drop more than 500,000 names of fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: The Bigger Battle Behind McCabe’s Secret, Potential $1.9M FBI Pension.

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has left the bureau under a cloud, but for him there’s a silver lining: his federal pension, which could provide him a lifetime payout of $1.9 million.

Yet taxpayers will never know for certain how big a pension McCabe gets, nor can they learn about pensions due any other federal employee, including members of Congress. The Office of Personnel Management keeps that information secret, exempting it even from freedom of information requests.

Adam Andrzejewski, president of the watchdog group Open the Books, said opening pension records to public scrutiny is “the next phase of the transparency revolution.”

“Citizens should not have to have a search warrant to see how their money is being spent,” Andrzejewski said. Besides, he added, “You can’t reform what you can’t see.”

Various organizations have tried for decades to force the personnel office to cough up the numbers. The National Taxpayers Union sought access to congressional pension data in 1993. In both 2013 and 2016, Andrzejewski tried again to get the pension data. The OPM declined, citing a 1989 federal appeals court ruling that releasing the names and addresses of federal annuitants “would result in a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy.”

Government watchdogs say this secrecy is troubling for many reasons.

If they don’t want you to know, it’s because they don’t think you’d be happy if you did.

WHY TOYOTA ADDED A FIRST GEAR TO ITS CVT: Continuously variable transmissions are great for efficiency, but for accelerating from a stop, its a solid gear you want.

AT AMAZON, save in Handbags and Shoes.

Plus, deals on Musical Instruments and Gear.

DO IT AGAIN: Nearly 30 Percent of Gitmo Transfers Confirmed or Suspected of Returning to Terror.

FRACK THAT: Cold snap could trigger gas supply emergency in UK if Putin orders Russian gas giants turn off taps due to spy scandal.

The European Left — up to and including former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder — has worked long and hard at ensuring energy dependence on Russia.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN:) Richard Fernandez observes:

BREAKING: ‘Mass casualties’ reported after brand new pedestrian bridge at FIU in Miami collapses [photos, video].

JOE PAPPALARDO: Why Would We Need a U.S. Space Force, Anyway? An expert discussion about a new military branch becomes a master class on why things need to change.

The Air Force, which runs most of America’s space-related defense activities, is strongly opposed to the Space Force. And there are plenty of hurdles to clear, political and otherwise, before the United States comes close to realizing a real Space Force.

What’s more interesting is why America needs a space force in the first place. The answers to that question emerged from a House or Representatives meeting in the wake of Trump’s announcement, in which space war experts tore into the issue before the House Armed Services Committee. . . .

One reason that superiority may erode is that disparate space-related efforts are scattered across the Army, Air Force, and Navy, not to mention intelligence officers, National Reconnaissance Office and Space and Missile Systems Center. Doug Loverro, a former DoD Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, noted that fighting in space is different than fighting anywhere else, in the same way that the Navy prepares for unique combat at sea. “We lack that focus for space, one of our five main warfighting domains,” he said.

Read the whole thing.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Media Can’t Figure Out if Tillerson Proves Or Disproves Their Russia Conspiracy Theory.

Owning the Narrative is a powerful thing, but occasionally the power resides in purely opportunistic flexibility.

AMERICAN CARTEL: Here Are The Politicians That Took Opioid Tycoons’ ‘Dirty, Bloody Money.’

OxyContin’s manufacturer and its billionaire owners gave millions of dollars to political candidates — who often held powerful positions — and organizations, but the opioid profiteers’ tentacles of influence reach much farther, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.

The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, which is widely blamed for playing an essential role in starting the opioid epidemic, have given more than $1.3 million to U.S. candidates and another $1 million to political organizations since OxyContin’s creation, according to Center for Responsive Politics data, but that’s just the surface of how deep the pharmaceutical titans’ influence runs.

“It’s blood money, literally,” Public Citizen’s Health Research Group founder and senior adviser Sidney Wolfe told TheDCNF. “It’s money earned off people’s lives being spent. This is dirty, bloody money.”

It’s difficult to tell exactly how far Purdue’s influence reaches, because the pharmaceutical industry pays front organizations to do most of its lobbying and that often occurs at the state level.

Dig deep into this one — it’s worth your time.

This is the seventh article in Ethan Barton’s ongoing series, and yet you get the feeling that he’s just scratched the surface.

Much more to come, I’m sure.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? China now controls 10% of European port capacity.

UH-HUH: Mexican Ambassador to U.S. Says Mexico Doesn’t Have a Border Patrol.

Well, somebody in Mexico is arresting all those illegal immigrants heading north from Guatemala.

IT’S COME TO THIS: CNN out-stupids itself, pushes article comparing ICE officials doing their job to the Holocaust.

Why does CNN hate Bill Clinton so?

ED MORRISSEY: Settle down, Democrats.

Democrat Conor Lamb appears to have narrowly edged out Republican Rick Saccone in a district that went for Trump by 20 points, which certainly gives Republicans a headache they didn’t need and Democrats a reason to brag.

Does that translate to a blue wave in November, though? Almost certainly not. (Although that doesn’t mean a blue wave isn’t coming in November, either.) Using special elections as a harbinger for regularly scheduled contests ignores significant differences between the two, and the singular nature of most special elections.

Here are three key reasons to resist the urge to either pop champagne for Democrats or declare the GOP dead — at least on the basis of PA-18.

Read the whole thing.

THIS IS BIG: The Last Barrier To Ultra-Miniaturized Electronics Is Broken, Thanks To A New Type Of Inductor.

VOX DROPS THE MASK: We’ll Have to Confiscate Guns To Reach Those Low ‘European Levels Of Violence.’