BLUE STATE BLUES CHAOS: Illinois House OKs income tax hike, spending plan; Rauner vows vetoes.

With the state on the cusp of a catastrophic credit downgrade, the Illinois House on Sunday voted to end the historic budget drought by passing a long-awaited spending plan and seeking to pay for it by hiking the income tax rate to 4.95 percent.

But nothing is ever easy when it comes to patching up a political feud between two of the state’s most powerful men: Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Rauner’s administration on Sunday night said he’d veto both measures as soon as they hit his desk, should the Illinois Senate concur with the House on Monday. The administration also advised that members of the General Assembly “shouldn’t go anywhere.”

You can’t tax your way to prosperity, and you can’t go on indefinitely spending money you don’t have — two simple facts which escape most legislators.

THIS SEEMS RIPE FOR FRAUD: Nearly 20% of Rhode Island Registered Voters Live Out of State.

SALENA ZITO: Why the generation after millennials will vote Republican.

Generation Z is also more religious than preceding generations — attending organized weekly church services at about twice the rate of millennials, Generation Xers and baby boomers.

They are interested in issues that involve themselves but that also impact the broader community — education, employment, security and the environment all concern them.

“Politically, Generation Z is liberal-moderate with social issues, like support for marriage equality and civil rights, and moderate-conservative with fiscal and security issues,” said Brauer.

“While many are not connected to the two major parties and lean independent, Gen Z’s inclinations generally fit moderate Republicans.”

The Republican Party, if it plays its cards right, could make lasting inroads with this generation, even at an early age — something the GOP has struggled with for decades.

Had he been able to vote last November, Bloomstine definitely would have picked Donald Trump for president.

“I was not old enough to vote for him, but I was very engaged and informed all throughout the election,” Bloomstine said. “I liked most his independence from the political parties and his willingness to challenge them when he felt they were not serving the American people.”

If Trump runs in four years would Bloomstine vote for him? “As long as he continues to be himself, absolutely.”

Last year was the first presidential election in which Generation Z voted, according to Brauer, “yet, there was virtually no attention paid to this demographic.”

Read the whole thing.

THANKS, OBAMA: UN agency expects rising migrant flow.

The U.N. refugee agency says people smuggling and migrant flows in Libya are on the rise, so Europe may face increased flows of migrants and refugees in the future.

UNHCR says 84,830 migrants and refugees have reached Italy’s shores so far this year from Libya, a 19-percent increase from a year earlier. Seven in 10 are economic migrants and the rest are “people in need of protection” like refugees and asylum-seekers.

In a new report on migration trends in Libya issued Monday, UNHCR noted that largely lawless Libya has become a major thoroughfare for migrants, but patterns of movement are changing.

I’m so old I can remember when Libya was a quiet ally in the Terror War.

RON RADOSH: The GOP’s Health-Care Debacle.

HMM: Oil, crushed in the first half of this year, is about to rebound, analyst says.

“You are going to see crude oil inventories globally and domestically begin to decline month after month. That will support crude oil prices, boosting the entire sector,” Thummel said.

Thummel also sees a lack of capital investment in U.S. production leading to an undersupply of crude oil, resulting in a rise in crude prices.

Oilfield services firm Baker Hughes reported on Friday that its weekly count of oil rigs operating in U.S. fields fell by two rigs, the first decline since January. Last week, U.S. crude output dropped 100,000 barrels per day to 9.3 million bpd, the steepest weekly fall since July 2016.

We’re still a long, long way off from $100 oil again.

FASTER, PLEASE: NASA’S First Asteroid Deflection Mission Enters Next Design Phase.

“A binary asteroid is the perfect natural laboratory for this test,” said Tom Statler, program scientist for DART at NASA Headquarters. “The fact that Didymos B is in orbit around Didymos A makes it easier to see the results of the impact, and ensures that the experiment doesn’t change the orbit of the pair around the sun.”

After launch, DART would fly to Didymos, and use an on-board autonomous targeting system to aim itself at Didymos B. Then the refrigerator-sized spacecraft would strike the smaller body at a speed about nine times faster than a bullet, approximately 3.7 miles per second (6 kilometers per second). Earth-based observatories would be able to see the impact and the resulting change in the orbit of Didymos B around Didymos A, allowing scientists to better determine the capabilities of kinetic impact as an asteroid mitigation strategy. The kinetic impact technique works by changing the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing it well before the predicted impact so that this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid’s path away from Earth.

“DART is a critical step in demonstrating we can protect our planet from a future asteroid impact,” said Andy Cheng of The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, the DART investigation co-lead. “Since we don’t know that much about their internal structure or composition, we need to perform this experiment on a real asteroid. With DART, we can show how to protect Earth from an asteroid strike with a kinetic impactor by knocking the hazardous object into a different flight path that would not threaten the planet.”

The clock is ticking.

CONGRESSMEN IN HIDING, PROTESTING FOR IMPEACHMENT, AND BODY-SLAMMING CNN: All that and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

BUT OF COURSE: College Hiring Director To Promote ‘Feminist Theories and Knowledge.’

And murder?

BLUE STATE BLUES: High-tax Connecticut fails to pass budget as fiscal situation worsens.

Despite having a per capita personal income that is more than 143% of the national average—according to Moody’s— the state’s economy continues to lag behind others. Revenue shortfalls in the state register around $450 million for the current fiscal year alone, while estimated deficit totals are projected to clock in near $5 billion for the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years combined, according to The Connecticut Business & Industry Association. Debt outstanding levels and unfunded pension liabilities relative to revenues are among the highest of any state in the country, Moody’s Investors Service said in May.

Additionally Connecticut has yet to recover many of the jobs it lost during the financial crisis, according to Moody’s, and, as previously reported by FOX Business, income-tax collections are projected to fall in fiscal year 2017 for the first time since the recession.

The three major rating firms have downgraded the state’s credit rating in response to the ongoing budget crisis. In its most recent downgrade, which landed Connecticut with the third-lowest rating out of every state behind only New Jersey and Illinois. Moody’s said “the downgrades reflect continuing erosion of Connecticut’s finances, evidenced by the pending elimination of its rainy day fund, growing budget gaps and rising debt levels.”

Connecticut’s financial despair comes despite the state government’s approval of one of its largest tax rate increases ever in 2015, which has had a negative impact on some business investment.

Unexpectedly.

THIS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM AT BERKELEY: Berkeley Journalism Student Reveals Her Generation’s Entitled Arrogance.

SHUT UP, HE EXPLAINED: China’s Xi says there’s no tolerance for subversion in Hong Kong.

Nobody really believed in “One country, two systems,” did they?

THIS SEEMS LIKE A NON-STARTER: Democrats Propose Cutting Funding for ICE, Border Patrol.

ENERGY: This Paint May Pick Up Where Solar Panels Leave Off.

A team of researchers in Australia have created an experimental paint that attracts water molecules from the air and chops them up to produce hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that can be used to generate electricity.

“Our new development has a big range of advantages,” Dr. Torben Daeneke, a research fellow at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology School of Engineering in Melbourne and leader of the team, said in a written statement. “There’s no need for clean or filtered water to feed the system. Any place that has water vapor in the air, even remote areas far from water, can produce fuel.”

Anyone else reminded of Galt’s generator from Atlas Shrugged?

SARAH HOYT: Becoming American.

As a friend of Sarah’s I can tell you that she’s really, really good at it.

FEMINIST AUTHOR: ‘Have You Killed Any Men Today? And if Not, Why Not?’

NO SHOCKED FACES WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF THIS COLUMN: I’m shocked, shocked to find that Trump tweeting is going on in here!

DIG, BABY, DIG: Elon Musk’s first tunnel should be up and running next week.

Elon Musk recently announced that his tunnel-digging operation, The Boring Company, is done carving out its first segment. He bundled the announcement with a declaration of love for tunnels — which he totally loves more than floors, by the way — but didn’t talk about the first tunnel portion’s location. Musk’s latest tweets, however, are rife with clues about its location, and by the looks of things, The Boring Company’s Godot machine has begun digging right across from the SpaceX building in Hawthorne, LA County.

The location makes sense, considering the company transported Godot to SpaceX’s Hawthorne offices in April. Musk even submitted plans to local officials, asking permission to build a pedestrian tunnel from the SpaceX building to its parking lot across the road. By that time, The Boring Company was already done digging a vertical shaft for it.

Musk’s main goal is to dig tunnels under all of LA that can be used to transport cars, bikes and even people in order to reduce traffic congestion above ground.

The smartest minds agree that you can’t just dig your way to lower traffic congestion.

WHAT IS FAKE NEWS? Andrew Klavan explains for PragerU.

SURVEY: Pain patients overwhelmingly prefer medical marijuana over opioids.

Though the survey, involving 2,897 medical cannabis patients, didn’t track actual drug use or efficacy, the findings fits with previous data. Decades of research suggest marijuana is effective for pain treatment. And recent studies have found that in states with medical marijuana availability, there are fewer opioid overdose deaths and doctors fill fewer opioid prescriptions.

The authors of the new survey, led by Amanda Reiman of the University of California, Berkeley, say the data furthers the need to examine marijuana as a “viable substitute for pain treatment,” particularly in light of the devastating opioid epidemic now gripping the country.

It’s only one study, but THC would seem to be less harmful longterm than opioids, particularly if ingested orally rather than smoked.

LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS: New York Times staffers stage walkout in support of copy editors.

DOCTOR: Most Opioid Overdoses Not a Result of Addicted Patients.

Though the U.S. recorded 33,000 opioid-related overdose deaths (including heroin) in 2015, Singer said that the vast majority of those deaths can be attributed to people mixing narcotics with other substances. New York City reported in 2013 that 94 percent of its residents who died from heroin or opioid abuse had multiple drugs in their system.

“It’s not like doctors are prescribing a painkiller for a patient in pain, who then gets hooked and becomes a heroin addict. That’s not the usual way,” Singer said.

While lawmakers like Sens. Joe Mancin (D-W.Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) grapple with skyrocketing overdose rates in their states and potential policies to address the issue, Singer had a piece of advice: Let doctors prescribe pain medication at their discretion, without strict oversight from regulators.

“We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: Robot furniture wants to make your apartment feel bigger.

ASHE SCHOW: Trump Administration Signals End To Campus Star Chambers.

For years, college campuses across the country have been conducting witch hunts to expel or punish men accused of sexual assault. Those may soon be coming to an end, thanks to the Trump administration.

Colleges and universities have conducted these witch hunts at the order of the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which during the Obama administration issued a “Dear Colleague” letter and additional guidance that all but assured students accused of sexual assault would not get a fair hearing.

These campus star chambers, conducted behind closed doors and hidden by federal privacy laws, have resulted in an unknown number of expulsions. More than 100 of these punished students have sued or are now suing their universities for violating their due process rights and discriminating against them because of their sex.

At a National Association of College and University Attorneys conference in Chicago this week, acting assistant secretary of OCR, Candice Jackson, said the Trump administration would take a less confrontational approach to the way the department handles accusations that schools do not properly address sexual assault complaints.

Matters for the police and the courts should be left to the police and the courts.

HMM: 10 Republican AGs Threaten To Sue Trump Admin If DACA Isn’t Rescinded.