FASTER, PLEASE: Protein discovery may lead to gonorrhea vaccine, new antibiotic.

IS ANYONE SURPRISED? VIDEO: Students hate Trump’s SCOTUS pick… before he made it.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 10 Best Summer Blockbusters Over the Years.

BETTER DEAD THAN RUDE: Attorneys Claim LAPD Detective’s Use of N-Word Tainted Gang Murder Investigation, Jack Dunphy writes.

(Classical reference in headline.)

WEIRD, BASED ON PRESS ACCOUNTS I’D THINK THEY WERE AN EMBATTLED CHOICE OF A BIGOTED FRINGE: Chick-fil-A named Americans’ favorite fast-food restaurant.

It’s almost as if the tenor of media coverage doesn’t give you a true sense of what’s going on in America.

MADE A SHORT TRIP TO CINCINNATI OVER THE WEEKEND. Usually when I go up there I visit my brother in the burbs, but I actually spent some time downtown, and it’s really come a long way.

QUESTIONS FROM 1913, 1933, 1966, and 2009: What might a socialist American government do?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: STUDY: Fossil fuels contribute to ‘petro-masculinity.’ And this is at Virginia Tech. Remember, when taxpayers tire of paying for stuff like this, we’ll be told it’s due to “anti-intellectualism.”

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THIS WOULD HURT OUR CURRENT ALLIES THE SAUDIS, BUT IT WOULD PROBABLY BENEFIT THE BOOMING U.S. OIL-EXPORT INDUSTRY: Iran Threatens To Shut The Strait of Hormuz. And honestly, it’s a pretty hollow threat given the damage it would do to Iran.

But as I’ve noted before, the U.S. Navy’s mission for decades was to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Now, with the U.S. as #1 oil producer, we really only need to be able to keep it closed.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. San Francisco: Poster-Child For The Failure Of U.S. Cities’ Blue Model.

WHY DEMOCRATS ARE WORRIED: Investors’ Business Daily: The U.S.’ Colorblind Jobs Boom Under Trump Continues.

It may be a surprise, but President Trump is nowhere near as unpopular among minority voters as the biased mainstream media suggest. Why is that? In a word, jobs.

Trump, it turns out, has been the most consequential president in history when it comes to minority employment. In June, for instance, the unemployment rate for Hispanics and Latinos 16 years and older fell to 4.6%, its lowest level ever, from 4.9% in May. The previous all-time low was 4.8%.

African-American unemployment bounced up from its all-time low of 5.9% in May to 6.5% in June. But that 6.5% still represents the second-lowest unemployment reading ever for Black Americans.

As for Asian-Americans, unemployment similarly bounced off its all-time low of 2.1% in May, rising to 3.2%. And that’s still 0.6 percentage point lower than when Trump entered office.

Consider all the good news about minority employment when you hear reports of June’s “disappointing” jobs data.

The truth is, the ripping jobs growth that began when Trump entered office and picked up steam after his tax cuts has been good for everyone in America — even liberal media pundits.

And it’s also been good for Trump. Because quietly, he is winning over those who have benefited most from his policies: Minorities. On average, minority unemployment has dropped 18% since Trump entered office in January of 2017. More than 2 million people have dropped off food stamps and returned to work.

This doesn’t advance the preferred narrative.

GOOD LUCK: Thailand cave rescue: Mission to save boys under way.

UPDATE: First two boys brought out.

IF THEY CAN’T KEEP PEOPLE ON THE PLANTATION WITH PERSUASION, THEY’LL DO IT WITH SOCIAL INTIMIDATION: Founder Of Movement For Disillusioned Democrats Refused Service At New York Electronics Store.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: “Portland State University is offering a course this fall on ‘Ecofeminist Spirituality,’ which combines ‘feminist biblical interpretation’ with the idea that ‘the oppression of women and the exploitation of the earth are related.’”

RADICAL INACTION AT THE ‘FAMILIES BELONG TOGETHER MARCH’ IN NEW YORK:

The Brooklyn rally is almost indistinguishable from the Manhattan one. We chant more about resisting. Local politicians champion minority communities in the Bronx and Queens. I miss Al Sharpton’s speech by a few minutes—but I hear he said the sorts of things Al Sharpton says.

Rise up. Resist.

I find a park bench after gulping from a park water fountain. Soon a woman sits down next to me. Her name is Maria, and she tells me she’s been an activist for a long time. Her graying hair her tells me that could mean decades.

“But I’m not a revolutionary by any means,” Maria tells me. “I made my own sign, see?”

It reads: “Walk in another’s shoes.”

Maria explains that she comes from a family of Trump voters, but isn’t one herself. She just wants to love people. She’s talkative and kind—in my sunstroked haze, I feel like I’m making a friend.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, beckoning me with a whisper.

“Yeah of course.”

She gestures at the loudspeakers on the lawn and sighs.

“None of this is new. This is just the same old stuff they told us to chant in the sixties—and nothing changed then either.”

Heh. Read the whole thing.

NEVER TRUMP, ANALYZED: Trump Derangement, Not Principles, Drives the Jump-Ship Crowd.

Related: Max Boot joins George Will in saying that Democrats must win in order to purify the GOP, or something like that.

Think Trump’s a suboptimal GOP president? Fine. Think Hillary would be preferable? You’re crazy.

NEW YORK TIMES’ EDITORIAL BOARD: LET’S HAVE A GANG WAR! “Remember the good old days when the Left pretended to worry about ‘eliminationist rhetoric’? Now, they don’t even pretend to worry about a Bernie Sanders volunteer trying to murder Republican Congressmen…Perhaps the politest thing we can say about the New York Times editorialists is that they talk like people who have lost the argument.”

Read the whole thing.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The College Bubble Begins To Deflate.

If only someone had provided some sort of warning.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: History’s Bad Ideas Are an Inspiration for Progressives.

HEH: NRSC Trolls ‘Air Claire’ McCaskill With Ground Crew Outside Campaign Event.

DON’T GET COCKY, KIDS: Beware The Red Wave.

But however skewed Rasmussen’s poll sample might be, that 74 percent number indicates the Democrats are in serious trouble if they actually believe a far-left push is the key to winning those mid-term elections. It isn’t. It is a complete invitation to disaster. The Rasmussen poll isn’t the only one recently offering an indication the Democrats are on the absolute wrong track this year. In another, this one from Reuters/Ipsos, the Dems are cratering among the millennials they’re trying to build their party around — dropping from 55 percent support over Republicans two years ago to 46 percent now. And among white millennials the numbers are catastrophic. Two years ago with white voters between 18 and 34, Democrats held a 47-33 edge over Republicans; now it’s 39-39. And with white male millennials it’s an almost unimaginable swing; what was a 48-36 Democrat advantage is now a 46-37 GOP edge.

Dems are underperforming among Hispanics this year, too. But November is still a long way away, and if you want to have an impact, you should get involved in a campaign — not necessarily where you live, but where it will make the most difference.