POWERLINE: Will 2016 be a climate hysteria election? Hopefully, no, it will be a return-to-sanity election.

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TODAY: Fearful, and looking for a big brother to protect them. At least that's what the 'intelligensia' in charge of the higher education experience would like you to believe.

ASSURING WORDS -- if you don't know much about history.

When it comes to progressives and history, I tend to think of the old B-grade fright movies, where the priest is shown holding up a crucifix to ward off the evil zombies, or vampires, or whatever.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX) introduces NRA-supported background-check bill. Not a real surprise; though it's touted as a gun control bill, it's really a mental-health bill, which is in fact supported by the NRA, although there is some pushback from the fringes of the gun-rights movement.

My only wish is that the Cornyn bill addressed mental health generally, and not just within the context of weapons.

THE SHORT AND LONG OF IT:

Courtesy of Pardon My Planet.

HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT: NASA's Orion spacecraft conducts its critical design review (CDR), which is essentially the go-ahead for initial production.

KASICH: 'I don't read a Bible to figure out what I think'. And I don't need John Kasich to tell me what I should think.

CNN's bias is showing again....

REPORT: Fiorina viewed Hillary favorably in 2008. As the lesser evil?

AMAZING RED AURORA captured by Space Station astronaut Scott Kelly.

NOT OURS: Who's side is Obama on?

THE AGE GAP between the Democratic and Republican presidential fields. What's frightening (to me) is that I'm older than every presidential candidate but one: Bernie Sanders.

I'm also struck by the fact that on the Republican side, all the plausible candidates (to me) were born between 1950 and 1954. Except possibly Scott Walker, who is the junior candidate on my list.

ROGER SIMON: Fear and Loathing in Martha's Vineyard. If you like conspiracies ....

FORMER CIA SPY ON CLINTON EMAILS: ‘You and I would get fired and possibly jailed’ for this. But laws are for the little people, not 'us'.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Tragic and Complete Collapse of Racial Relations:

Polls show that racial relations have gotten much worse under Barack Obama. Why has that happened?

The answer is rather simple, actually. Without racism (more properly, 'victimism'), the Democrats have no party.

EVEN SOME CONSERVATIVES can be stupid.

I'm reminded of this quotation, attributed variously to Abraham Lincoln or P. T. Barnum: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." Unfortunately, the latter took over 6-1/2 years to accomplish.

WHY MARKETS WORK, and bureaucrats don't. Bureaucrats have no skin in the game.

SOCIALISM EXPLAINED in one T-shirt.