IF YOU’RE WONDERING WHY YOU’RE GETTING THE BROWSER-VERIFICATION PAGE FOR A FEW SECONDS, it’s because InstaPundit appears to be under attack. This is a CloudFlare thing to protect against DDOS attacks. Don’t worry about it, the attackers will be found and neutralized soon. (Bumped).

OH: POLICE REPORT DISPUTES GEORGIA LAWMAKER’S ACCOUNT OF PUBLIX INCIDENT. Witness: State Rep. Erica Thomas told Eric Sparkes, ‘Go back where you came from.’

A Publix employee told a Cobb County officer that she witnessed part of the conversation and heard Thomas “continuously tell Eric Sparkes to ‘Go back where you came from!’” but did not hear Sparkes utter those words to Thomas.

In a tearful video, Thomas accused Sparkes of using that phrase, which echoes a tweet by President Donald Trump that sparked a national uproar. Her account quickly went viral and triggered a wave of support and backlash.

Sparkes admitted to calling the Democrat an expletive during the run-in, saying he was upset she was at an express aisle in the grocery store with too many items, but he said he didn’t tell her to “go back” to where she came from.

* * * * * * * * *

The video caught the attention of liberal activists who amplified her message that “racism and hate is getting out of control.” Soon, it had tallied millions of views and sparked a media frenzy of competing headlines and hashtags.

A day later, Thomas’ story came under scrutiny when she arrived at the Publix to speak with television reporters — and Sparkes arrived too, eager to respond. He said he called her a “selfish little (expletive)” when he noticed she was skirting the express lane’s rules.

“I did say that. That’s all I said after that, and I walked out of Publix. Her words stating on Twitter, and her video, stating I told her she needs to go back where she came from are untrue,” said Sparkes, who said he was a Democrat of Cuban descent.

Megan McArdle dubs it “the greatest own-goal in political history.” No, there is another:

And then there’s this: LGBT-Leading Dem. Admits Lying About Pulling ’77 Bullets’ From Pulse Shooting Victims.

WHEN THE COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS LOSES THE WASHINGTON POST …: Even the Washington Post seems to understand that the report the Commission released yesterday on school discipline is not on the up and up. It writes: “[T]here was little, if any, evidence in the report to back up the conclusion that there are no racial disparities in behavior.” (Thank you, WaPo.  I would have said “zero evidence anywhere,” but I understand you have to be careful in dealing with issues you haven’t been studying for a long while.)

Here is my dissent. Please take a look if you have the time and the inclination. The report is not just on race. It is also on disability (or rather the intersection between race and disability) . One of the weirdest parts of the Commission report is its finding that disabled students are disciplined more often than non-disabled students. Well duh. These are students whose disability is defined in terms of misbehavior. We’re not talking about students in wheelchairs (who are disciplined less often than usual). The Commission’s finding is the equivalent of a finding that says “Students who misbehave a lot misbehave a lot.” Students who have meltdowns in class prevent other students form learning. From time to time, they must be removed.  Yet the Commission fails entirely to point this out. Readers are left to imagine that teachers have it out for the deaf and the blind.

WORST WARMONGERING PRESIDENT EVER: “I just don’t want to kill 10 million people”: Trump’s comments reverberate in Afghanistan.

CHANGE: Malls Are Filling Their Empty Spaces With Doctors’ Offices.

THIS SEEMS REASONABLE: Exercise Can Prevent Migraines, but Don’t Work Out If You Have One, Experts Say.

NOMENKLATURA: Bernie Sanders’ Staffers Have The Best Private Health Insurance Money Can Buy.

AS #MUELLERHEARINGS CONTINUE, JOE SCARBOROUGH SEEKS FORGIVENESS ‘FOR EVER BEING A REPUBLICAN.’

To be fair, Joe hasn’t been one for a very long time.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Chris Wallace: Mueller Hearing Has Been A “Disaster” For Democrats, Reputation Of Robert Mueller.

Plus: “On Twitter, David Axelrod called the hearing ‘painful.'”

But when you’ve lost Larry Tribe, you know it’s over.

MEANWHILE: The Drunkblog is catching up with this afternoon’s follow-on Intel hearing.

HEH: Twitter Reacts To Mueller Claim He’s ‘Not Familiar’ with Fusion GPS.

WHICH MAKES CONGRESS A BUNCH OF PERPETUAL ADOLESCENTS: Spending habits in college predict onset of adulthood.

GONE, LIKE TEARS IN RAIN: Rutger Hauer, ‘Blade Runner’ Co-Star, Dies at 75.

THE SHOCKING CONCLUSION: Mueller “was not about finding the truth.”

Related: Jordan to Mueller: Why wasn’t Joseph Mifsud charged with obstruction?

HOW’D THAT WORK OUT FOR YA?

SPACE: How Our Trip to the Moon Pushed Innovation Here on Earth.

VIDEO: My UT Law colleague Maurice Stucke on antitrust investigations of Google, etc.

I INVOKED MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO DRINK A FIFTH:

GETTING ILHAN OMAR AND THE REST OF THE SQUAD ELECTED WAS ROGER STONE’S GREATEST POLITICAL DIRTY TRICK EVER: Once A Democratic Bastion, Minnesota Trends Red Heading Into 2020.

MICHAEL YON ON FACEBOOK LAST NIGHT:

Hong Kong: This is going to get very serious.

I am one of the most experienced conflict correspondents alive. I am saying with high certainty that Hong Kong is a key battlefield with Communist China, and this will get bloody serious. This is still in the warm up stage.
All my long term readers know that when I say “mark my word,” you can safely bet your money.

This is just the beginning.

Important: Anyone who says this is about the Extradition Bill should be ignored. This is NOT about the Extradition Bill, despite thousands of signs saying this at the protests I am at.

Let’s put this in American terms. Remember the massive and bloody riot after the Rodney King case in Los Angeles?

‘Analysts’ who say that was about a court verdict should be ignored. The causes of the bloody rampage had little to do with the verdict other than that was a specific trigger.

Any flaming match will set a dry forest ablaze, and we don’t name matches. The rampage was based on historical and cultural issues. That was and is the dry forest.

Similarly with the information war coming from China and Korea heavily targeting Japan. (Especially Japan — but America is also heavily targeted and is the ultimate target. China is also targeting Korea and the Koreans are mostly blind to this.)

We will see increasing sparks of violence against Japanese. Mark my word. And then someone will blame this or that specific match that starts the fire. Meanwhile, China continues with a giant blow-drier prepping a giant forest to burn. Waiting for that match.

The conflict in Hong Kong is not about the Extradition Bill — and now many other issues are piling up almost weekly. The issue is that Communist China is trying to swallow and digest Hong Kongers who know the taste of freedom.

Humans are far more likely to fight to keep something they have than to fight for something they do not have. Mainland Chinese as a group never in their lives have tasted freedom. The communist cowboys in Beijing ride their broken slave horses daily and the broken horses just stare at the ground and go where they are told.

The British helped Hong Kongers taste freedom, and rule of law, and Hong Kongers love their freedom and legitimate judicial system. They will fight. The real fight is beginning.

Honk Kong is a key battle ground in a much larger war. Taiwan and others are watching.”

More to come, I’m afraid.

Related (From Ed): Green Activists With Ties to China Advised Obama State Department.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Reminder: After years of warnings, U.S. finally investigating secret foreign funding of American universities. “They can no longer expect to ignore the law with impunity.”

Related: China, not Russia, is the biggest threat.

Also Related: While Everyone Is Distracted By Russia, Chinese Spying And Influence Runs Wild. But it’s not just China.

WHEN DEMOCRATS ARE UPSET, I USUALLY ASSUME IT’S BECAUSE SOMETHING IS THREATENING THEIR POWER OR SELF-REGARD: Republicans are becoming more like Democrats. So why are Democrats so upset?

Related (From Ed): Senator Josh Hawley Has An Amazing Ally In Shooting Down Those Nonsense Charges Of Anti-Semitism.

THE TOW-HAIRED TORY SPEAKS: “The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts.”

EVERYTHING ELSE WAS FLUFF: Robert Mueller Confirms His Investigation Was Not Curtailed, Stopped, or Hindered.

BECAUSE THE LEFT IS ANTI-SEMITIC TRASH:

MUELLER SAYS HE IS ‘NOT FAMILIAR’ WITH FUSION GPS, THE FIRM BEHIND THE STEELE DOSSIER:

Mueller revealed his surprising lack of familiarity with the firm during an exchange with Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee.

“When you talk about the firm that produced the Steele reporting, the name of the firm that produced that was Fusion GPS, is that correct?” Chabot asked.

“I’m not familiar with that,” said Mueller, while scouring through his 448-page report of the Russia probe.

“Let me just help you. It was. It’s not a trick question or anything. It was Fusion GPS,” said Chabot.

And from Andrew McCarthy: With Collusion Collapse, Public Loses Interest in Mueller Theatrics.

Mueller seems to have lost interest as well: ‘The years have clearly taken a toll:’ Reporters from NBC, NYT question health of Robert Mueller.