THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: ‘Ebola Czar’ Absent from White House Ebola Strategy Meeting.

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OOPS: “The officials said that while the federal investigation was continuing, the evidence so far did not support civil rights charges against Officer Wilson.” Plus: “The officials briefed on the case said the forensic evidence gathered in the car lent credence to Officer Wilson’s version of events.”

FASTER, PLEASE: T-Cell Therapy Puts Leukemia Patients in Extended Remission.

KNIFE UPDATE: Following SayUncle’s recommendation from a few weeks ago, I’ve been carrying this Spyderco Endura. It’s unobtrusive, and it’s really easy to get it to flip open upon removing it from your pocket.

Perhaps one day I’ll strap on a Bowie just to see how it plays — it’s legal in Tennessee now, I believe — but today is not that day.

STUDY: Higher Levels Of Vitamin D Make Childbirth Less Painful.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Albany Law School Dean Steps Down Amidst 34% Enrollment Decline, Faculty Buyouts.

JERRY POURNELLE: A New Ebola Czar; Military deploys to plague zone. Competence in government. “God protects fools, drunks, and the United States of America. Of course we were a much more devout nation when Bismarck made that observation.”

Plus: “The rest of the article is worth your time. Five of the 58 medical professionals involved in the Science Magazine study died of Ebola before the paper was published. . . . Nine Doctors Without Borders physicians, all equipped with the best of isolation and prophylactic gear, have died of Ebola. Of the physicians and nurses who have died of Ebola in this epidemic, most (more than 60%) had what was considered more than adequate protective gear and were instructed in its use. The US Military being sent into the plague zone have had four hours of instruction.”

COMING OUT NEXT WEEK: Rush Limbaugh’s Rush Revere And The American Revolution: Time Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans.

WELL, I’VE BEEN NOTING SECRET SERVICE MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS SINCE 2002: Exclusive: German tourists breached White House security in 2008.

YEAH, IS THAT A BAD REFLECTION ON AIRBNB, OR ON THE LAW? 72 Percent of Airbnb’s NY Rentals Are Illegal, Report Says.

IF WE COULD DIVERT IT TO HIT MARS, IT WOULD BE A START AT TERRAFORMING: Once in million years: Super-sized comet to pass Mars. It would donate a considerable store of volatiles, and the impact would liberate a lot of frozen atmosphere at the surface.

However, if I recall correctly — it’s been a while since I read Martyn Fogg’s magisterial treatment — it takes rather a lot of comets to create a Martian atmosphere, and if you try to shortcut by using bigger ones (like in excess of a mile in diameter for the head) the impact becomes so big that it blows a lot of the new volatiles right out into space. So, maybe not.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Warrant sheds new details on Stamford High School sex case. “The 26-page affidavit paints a picture of a troubled and jealous teacher who, according to the student, let him cut school, took him off campus to smoke marijuana and have sex, and warned his female classmates to stay away from him. A married mother of two, Watkins, 32, of Norwalk, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a child and possession of marijuana.”

TOP. MEN. White House Doesn’t Really Know What The ‘Ebola Czar’ Knows About Ebola.

METAPHOR ALERT: Obama: ‘My Credit Card Was Rejected.’

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READ THIS STORY ON HUNTER BIDEN, to see how the nomenklatura fare these days.

Plus: “Connecticut legal authorities say the youngest son of Vice President Joe Biden does not face automatic review of his state law license following his discharge from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine use.”

SECRET TREATIES: Leaked TPP IP Chapter Would Lead To Much Greater Online Surveillance… Because Hollywood Still Hates The Internet. “Over the last few years, after Hollywood lost the SOPA fight and realized that legislation was more difficult, it’s now seeking these so-called ‘voluntary’ agreements — even when they’re really done by the government with the threat of regulations if an agreement isn’t reached. These kinds of campaigns are hardly ‘voluntary’ in reality, and are generally designed to get Hollywood everything it wants without having to through any sort of democratic process. Kind of like trade agreements. Is it any wonder why the USTR has been so adamant about keeping the details of this agreement a secret?”

If Republicans were smart, they’d make an issue of this. So they won’t. Smart people would see it as an opportunity to (1) stick it to Hollywood, one of the Dems’ biggest funders; (2) Look good to libertarian-leaning tech youth; and (3) do the right thing. Instead, the GOP will reflexively side with Hollywood because, hey, it’s a big business, right?

SO AS PARENTS ARE GIVEN LESS AND LESS CONTROL OVER THEIR KIDS, THEY’RE HELD MORE AND MORE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT THEY DO: Parents face defamation trial over fake Facebook page their kid made.

LIKE IT’S ACTUALLY A DEATH STAR, MAYBE? WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!!!!! Saturn’s Death Star Moon Is Hiding Something.

SPYING: Your Driving History is Public, Unless You Want a Copy.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Wallingford woman gets 17 years for filmed sexual assault of child. “A Wallingford woman was sentenced to over 17 years in prison for filming herself sexually assaulting a 3-year-old female child, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Connecticut. Angela D. Martin, 30, filmed herself with a cell phone sexually abusing the child and sent it to another individual in California, according to court documents.”

EBOLA CZAR RON KLAIN: Obama’s New Ebola Czar Was Deeply Involved in Solyndra Scandal. Klain’s a competent political fixer. By naming a lawyer/political fixer as Ebola Czar, Obama’s demonstrating that he sees Ebola as a political problem first and foremost.

UPDATE: Paul Rahe: Damage Control. “The mainstream press in its wisdom tells us that Klain is a good manager. His accomplishment? He managed the allocation of stimulus funds. Take a moment to think about that. . . . Klain’s new job is not to protect thee and me from an outbreak of Ebola. It is to protect the President from an outbreak of criticism.”

Meanwhile, whatever happened to prior Ebola Czar Dr. Nicole Lurie?

BRUCE THORNTON: The Politics of Victimhood. “The trump card of suffering might be politically useful, but using it is a dishonest tactic that inhibits informed deliberation and debate. Relying on emotion and sentiment, no matter how understandable they are as a response to suffering, have since ancient Athens been the agents of bad policies and dangerous political decisions, and tactics for pursuing political advantage at the expense of the public good. They have no place in our already conflicted and divisive public political discourse.”

The proper response is to treat this as the emotional bullying it is, and make the process unpleasant for the bullies.

IN THE MAIL: From Russ Roberts, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness.

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 526.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Eric Holder’s Top Deputy Resigns Amid Revelation Fast and Furious Guns Used in Phoenix Crime.

METAPHOR ALERT: Kerry Flies Commercial After Jet Breaks Down in Vienna. “The Iranians had a laugh at the United States’ expense when Secretary of State John Kerry’s plane broke down on Thursday as he sought to return to Washington after high-level talks here on Tehran’s nuclear program.”

WILL FREEZING YOUR EGGS HELP YOUR CAREER?

What I haven’t seen anyone explain is when, exactly, you’ll be ready. For most people, your 40s and early 50s are your peak earning years — is that really going to be a good time to meet that special someone, or finally step back to invest some time in having kids? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m already noticing that I have a lot less energy than I used to. It’s not that I can’t get my work done or anything like that. But it used to be that if I had to travel for six days straight and then deliver a 2,500-word essay on the 7th, I could dial up my reserves and power through it — miserable and cranky, to be sure, but functioning. Then one day, around the time I turned 40, I dialed down for more power and there just … wasn’t any. My body informed me that it was tired, and my brain would not be doing any more work today, and we were going to sleep whether I liked it or not.

This is — as friends who have done it freely remark — a difficult age to be taking on your first newborn. I can’t even imagine trying the same feat 10 years from now, when my joints will be even creakier and my reserves even more depleted.

Well, my joints are a lot better than they were a decade ago, thanks to — you knew this was coming — the Rippetoe strength workout. But it’s true. And I was talking yesterday to a friend who used to run a lot, but who’s now switched almost entirely to weight training too (not exactly Rippetoe, but close) and he says all of his hip and knee pain has vanished. I believe it. A few months ago Helen and I thought he was walking like an old man. Now, he’s not.

Which is not a reason to put off having kids, just a reason not to accept all age-related decline as inevitable. Long-term, of course, it is inevitable barring new technologies I fervently hope to live to see. But there’s a lot of wiggle-room in the short- and medium-term.

Meanwhile, if I were a young single guy, I’d at least think about banking a bunch of sperm and then getting a vasectomy. That way I’d have control over my own reproduction.

A DAMNING COMMENT: “Of course, you can’t expect our government to be as competent as Nigeria’s.”

WELL, DEBLASIO HASN’T BEEN IN ALL THAT LONG, YET: New York is Still Competent, Even if Ebola Comes.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Female teacher who had 2-year affair with 14-year-old student is spared jail. “Explaining his decision to issue a suspended sentence, Judge Austin Stotan stated that although the boy was underage, he was a ‘willing’ participant in the affair.” I’m sure a male teacher would get similar consideration.

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HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKING OUT? On outskirts of Baghdad, Islamic State’s advances raise tensions.

Related: Austin Bay: The Wages of Smart Diplomacy. “After a month of presidential bravado, Obama’s anti-Islamic State coalition is little more than a loose collection of promises, occasional airstrikes and jaw-dropping political errors.”

To be fair, it’s only meant to last until November. He’ll have more flexibility after the elections.

MARK STEYN: Protocol Theater:

The Centers for Disease Control is one of those elite federal agencies that people hitherto assumed was, so to speak, immune to the pathologies of less glamorous government bureaucracies. It turns out it’s the DMV with test tubes – just the usual “Sorry? Did we say you need two copies of the green form? We meant you need three copies of the pink form” routine with extra lethality. The Protocols of the Elders of Druid Hills have proved to be boundlessly mutable and mostly honored in the breach:

~Don’t worry, the Protocols are in place – except that Thomas Duncan, the original Ebola patient, was left in an open area of the Dallas emergency room for hours and the medical staff treating him did not have protective clothing for the first two days.

~Don’t worry, they did eventually get fully sealed, protective clothing – well, except for their necks, which remained exposed.

~Don’t worry, exposed medical staff aren’t supposed to fly – except that Nurse Amber Vinson got on a flight to Cleveland with a fever.

~Well, okay, but that was totally in breach of the Protocols – except that Nurse Vinson called the CDC to check and they said, “Sure, get on the plane. What’s the worst that can happen? And make sure you share the bag of mini-pretzels…”

~Well, okay, but the next time Nurse Vinson got a flight, everyone followed the Protocols and wore hazmat suits – except for the guy with the clipboard, who works for the CDC and so can’t be expected to know all this Protocol stuff…

As I said yesterday, the mortality rate for Ebola is 70 per cent – if you go nowhere near a hospital and just stay in your primitive disease-ridden village. If you go to a Liberian hospital, the mortality rate goes down a whopping three per cent to 67 per cent. One had assumed that western hospitals would be able to lower that significantly, but Hazmat Bob’s Ministry of Propaganda is not terribly reassuring on that front.

Yeah, if there’s a major epidemic, you might be better off locking yourself in a room with a bunch of pedialyte.

But also keep a copy of Mark Steyn’s brand-new book, The Undocumented Mark Steyn, so that you can at least die laughing.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Federal court in Idaho strikes down ban on possessing guns for self-defense on Army Corps of Engineers property. “The regulations govern over 700 dams — holding back more than 100 trillion gallons of water — built by the Corps, and the surrounding recreation areas that serve over 300 million visitors annually.”

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO MURDER! The Texas ‘Black Widow’ Case: Man Shot Dead in Bed by Own Wife.

MATT LEWIS: What Obama’s nakedly political moves say about our screwed-up polity. “More and more, the president seems uninterested in even trying to hide the fact that he is making policy moves based on political considerations — in confessing he has to act one way until after the next election, at which point he can act another way.”

PERHAPS PREHISTORIC PEOPLE SAVED US ALL FROM THE WALKING DEAD: In a 7,000-year-old town in Bulgaria, over 100 graves have been uncovered, revealing skeletons with stakes through their hearts and mutilated bones. Meet the vampires that almost were.

AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT, IT’S KIND OF A LONG ARTICLE: What Ezra Klein Gets Wrong About How Laws Work. But really, not knowing the difference between a preponderance of the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt? I’m not saying everyone should know that, but every journalist — or even “journolist” — should. And certainly any who choose to write about legal issues. . . .

IF YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT EBOLA, it’s because you’re a racist. “Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of ‘African-ness’, ‘blackness’, ‘foreign-ness’ and ‘infestation’ – poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies.”

So where are the biggest racists? In Africa! Africa stems Ebola via border closings, luck. “South Africa and Zambia slapped travel and entry restrictions on Ebola-stricken countries. Kenya Airways, the country’s main airline, stopped flying to the affected lands. In Zimbabwe, all travelers from West Africa are put under 21-day surveillance. Health officials regularly visit those travelers to check their condition.”

My presumption, now, is that anyone who goes on about racism is either a fool or a tool.

ANOTHER HORSEMAN: Famine Approaches To Add To West Africa’s Torment. As I’ve mentioned, my brother advised our Nigerian relatives to stockpile 3 months worth of food.

MICHAEL BARONE: Hispanics seem to be souring on Obama Democrats.

AS THE ACADEMY CONTINUES TO EAT ITSELF: Students: Transgender Woman Can’t Be Diversity Officer Because She’s a White Man Now.

Tip: When students go on about social justice, the proper response is to tell them you don’t care what they think, because they don’t know enough to have an intelligent opinion yet. If universities were run on this principle, the 3% of students responsible for 98% of the idiocy would no longer have their destructive impact. Also, it’s true: They don’t know enough to have an intelligent opinion, as demonstrated by the opinions they do have.

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WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE, CHAMP? Robert Reich: The Ivy League is ripping off America! Exclusive universities with giant endowments get big handouts from the government. And public colleges? Not so much.

SO I’VE HEARD SOME SPECULATION that the reason Obama jumped on this issue all of a sudden is that they now expect the Ebola outbreak to get worse in the U.S. Ebola in the Big Apple? CDC tells NYC to get ready.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Obama administration ‘days behind in coming to obvious conclusions’ about Ebola. They’ll ban travelers from Ebola countries right about the time it’s too late to do much good.

UPDATE: Poll: 82% want quarantine, 66% would block entry. “As the Ebola crisis surges to the top issue on the minds of Americans, a new poll finds that 82 percent of those following the issue closely want to quarantine anybody who has recently traveled to the virus-stricken nations. The Economist/YouGov poll found that women are more concerned than men and would refuse entry to anybody from those nations. Just 16 percent would allow them into the nation.”

Security Moms —> Quarantine Moms?

OUT: WHITE PRIVILEGE. In: Pathetic Privilege.

HMM: Nurse May Have Had Symptoms of Ebola Longer Than First Thought. ‘A nurse with Ebola may have shown symptoms of the virus as many as four days before authorities once indicated, meaning that she might have been contagious while flying on not just one, but two commercial flights, officials said Thursday. . . . The CDC announced later Thursday that is ‘expanding its outreach to airline passengers now to include those who flew from Dallas-Fort Worth to Cleveland on Frontier flight 1142′ last Friday — which is how Vinson got to Ohio, from Texas, originally.”

Plus: “’12 confirmed contacts of Amber Vinson in Ohio … are currently under quarantine,’ according to Summit County’s assistant health commissioner Donna Skoda. They include four people who worked at a bridal store, where the 29-year-old nurse went as part of her wedding planning.”

Related: Ebola outbreak ‘running much faster’ than response.

HMM. THAT’S CERTAINLY NOT THE POPULAR IMPRESSION: “Marriage results in women getting thinner, but men fatter.”

It turns out, though, that fatness is correlated with working longer hours, so men work more once they’re married, while women work less, and hence get thinner.

NEWS FROM OUR RULING CLASS: Joe Biden’s Son Hunter Discharged From Navy Reserve After Failing Cocaine Test.

Vice President Joe Biden ’s son Hunter was discharged from the Navy Reserve this year after testing positive for cocaine, according to people familiar with the matter.

Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training who is now a managing partner at an investment company, had been commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve, a part-time position. But after failing a drug test last year, his brief military career ended.

Mr. Biden, 44 years old, decided to pursue military service relatively late, beginning the direct-commission process to become a public-affairs officer in the Navy Reserve in 2012. Because of his age—43 when he was to be commissioned—he needed a waiver to join the Navy. He received a second Navy waiver because of a drug-related incident when he was a young man, according to people familiar with the matter. Military officials say such drug waivers aren’t uncommon.

I assume Hunter was trying to burnish his resume for some sort of political office. I don’t suppose this will help.

UPDATE: From the comments:

I had the misfortune of spending some time in USAREC (US Army Recruiting Command). We could get a waiver for a dude over forty if he had a really important skill….like doctor or Arabic linguist. Not PR dudes. We could also get a waiver for a dude with a drug issue…if it was really old and he’d never need a security clearance. An officer? No way.

I guess there was a waiver I wasn’t familiar with…the Vice President’s son waiver that covers a multitude of reasons why the average recruiter would tell a 42 year old drug addled lawyer to get the hell out of his office and leave the pens and stickers.

Indeed.

SULTAN KNISH: The Savage Lands of Islam.

ELI LAKE: Insiders Blame Rove for Covering Up Iraq’s Real WMD. “Starting in 2004, some members of the George W. Bush administration and Republican lawmakers began to find evidence of discarded chemical weapons in Iraq. But when the information was brought up with the White House, senior adviser Karl Rove told them to ‘let these sleeping dogs lie.’”

Yeah, that was bad advice.

WHY NOT? THE REST OF US HAVE: Is Wall Street Tuning Out CBS?

A LEAP IN LIFESPAN: “The annual report on mortality rates by the National Center for Health Statistics, released this week, tells a now-familiar story: In 2012, life expectancy for older Americans continued to climb. People who reached age 65 could look ahead to an average additional 19.3 years on the planet, an all-time high. Men could anticipate another 17.9 years, on average, and women another 20.5. The numbers inched up only slightly from 2011 — seniors gained an extra five weeks or so, on average. But the longer-term trend has been dramatic, said Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics.” So the gains have slowed in the last few years? What could account for that?

THIS IS EITHER JUST GOOD LUCK, OR IT’S MORE SUBSTANTIVE GOOD NEWS: Dallas Ebola Conundrum: Duncan Family Members and Emergency Room Staff Not Ill.

The onset of Duncan’s symptoms was September 24, which means that it has been 22 days since the folks in the apartment and the emergency room personnel could have been first exposed to the virus. The people from the apartment are currently quarantined and, if they show no symptoms, are expected to be released on Sunday, October 19.

Is there a signficant difference in the infectivity of early stage Ebola patients compared to later stages when symptoms are more severe? If so, this could bode well for the folks whose contacts with Duncan and the ill nurses were early and fleeting. Here’s hoping.

Indeed. And what about Duncan’s ambulance crew? Plus, from the comments: “I hate to say it, but things like this make me wish we had a, wait for it, government agency that could really land on infectious disease outbreaks with expertise and authority. Perhaps a Disease Control Center, something like that?” Yeah, like in the movies.

Plus, it appears that we may need to wait longer, according to WHO: “The period of 42 days, with active case-finding in place, is twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola virus disease and is considered by WHO as sufficient to generate confidence in a declaration that an Ebola outbreak has ended. Recent studies conducted in West Africa have demonstrated that 95% of confirmed cases have an incubation period in the range of 1 to 21 days; 98% have an incubation period that falls within the 1 to 42 day interval.” Of course that means 2% take longer than 42 days. That’s not a lot, but at 1 in 50 it’s not a little, either.

UPDATE: Tom Frieden Admits Officials Don’t Know How Ebola Transmission Occurred. “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden admitted to a House panel on Thursday that officials still don’t know exactly how two nurses contracted Ebola from Thomas Eric Duncan, the first man to be diagnosed with the virus in the U.S.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yale student at Connecticut hospital being tested for Ebola. “The patient is one of two Yale University graduate epidemiology students who traveled to Liberia last month to advise the health ministry on using computers to track Ebola, according to Laurence Grotheer, a spokesman for New Haven Mayor Toni Harp. . . . Yale University said the students had not traveled into areas in Liberia where Ebola was present.”

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Yale-New Haven Patient Tests Negative For Ebola.

SO HE’S KINDA LIKE AN ELIZA PROGRAM IN BLACKFACE: Al Sharpton Repeats Whatever a Conservative Said In the Form of a Question.

THANKS TO THE LOSS OF CREDIBILITY THAT COMES WITH POLITICIZATION, NOBODY MUCH CARES WHAT THE FBI THINKS ANYMORE: The FBI’s set to complain again of tech companies’ encryption.

BECAUSE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IS A CERVINE RIGHT: Cornell Gives Deer Tubal Ligations; Everything Goes Wrong. “No, this is not The Onion. This is my world. Deer get tubal ligations at a cost of $1200 per pop, and I can’t even get good coffee in the faculty lounge.”

STONEWALLING UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION: USDA Raleigh Office Blocks Access To Hagan Grant Records; Head of N.C. office was recommended by Hagan for current job.

IT’S HYPOCRISY ALL THE WAY DOWN: Seattle Socialist Group Pushing $20/hr Min. Wage Offers $13/hr for Web Developer.

THERE SHOULD BE STRICT LIABILITY FOR THIS KIND OF THING: Microsoft Serves Takedown Notices to Videos Not Infringing on Anything.

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DO TELL: Lawmakers: Gov’t credibility waning on Ebola.

UPDATE: Noah Rothman: Ebola has revealed that the CDC is a disaster. “The United States is fortunate that Ebola is the first of the major foreign disease outbreaks meriting global warnings over the last 10 years to reach American shores. It is clear that the institutions tasked with keeping Americans safe amid a health crisis are incapable of meeting their expectations. . . . Incompetence and excuse making are fundamental traits which the public has become accustomed to seeing in federal agencies and the bureaucrats who manage them, but first responders addressing an acute crisis are supposed to behave differently.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Is the White House Behind the CDC’s Travel Ban Stubbornness? CDC Director Frieden Won’t Say. So that’s a yes, then.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I Wore A Vibrator Around Town—And Let My Husband Control It.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: Irritable Scowl Syndrome.

PROBABLY ANOTHER FALSE ALARM, BUT ALSO JUST ANOTHER COST OF LETTING HER TRAVEL: California school evacuated amid Ebola scare after student who may have shared flight with Texas nurse vomits in class.

Related: Report: 7 quarantined in Ohio after contact with Ebola-infected nurse.

UPDATE: Okay, now this is going through my head: Rubber suits and Ebola’s coming/Seven quarantined in Ohio. . . .

EFF TO NAACP: Trademark Isn’t For Censoring Your Critics.

BOTH BARRELS: Gov. Bobby Jindal Unloads on Obama, Calls Ebola Crisis ‘Latest Nightmare’ Caused by President’s ‘Incompetence.’

THE WAPO GAVE THAT CLAIM FOUR PINOCCHIOS. PINOCCHIO GOT TURNED INTO A DONKEY FOR LYING. THE DONKEY IS THE DEMOCRATS’ SYMBOL. SO IT ALL MAKES SENSE: As Expected, Dems Push Debunked Ebola Funding Cuts Talking Points At House Hearing.

NO. Mother Jones Claims the Rate of Mass Shootings Has Tripled Since 2011. Is That True?

YOU KNOW WHAT PROMOTES HYSTERIA? WHEN THE AUTHORITIES AREN’T TRUSTWORTHY OR COMPETENT: Ebola’s Other Contagious Threat: Hysteria.

WELL, THAT’S CERTAINLY A FEATURE I LOOK FOR: The secure smartphone that won’t get you beaten with rubber hoses.

JOE BIDEN, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Scientists Make An Old Brain Act Young.

SO FAR, THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: “Holy War” Erupts In Hamburg. “Some analysts believe that rival Muslim groups in Germany are deliberately exploiting the ethnic and religious tensions in the Middle East to stir up trouble on the streets of Europe.”

IN THE MAIL: When Mystical Creatures Attack!

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 525.

SMARTEST PRESIDENT EVER: Told in 2008: Obama administration ignored the CDC’s advice to prevent an Ebola outbreak.

ASHE SCHOW: ‘Yes means yes’ laws also hurt women. “Studies have shown that men are far less likely to report sexual assault than women, but with a law like this, where the choice could be between seeing their futures ruined by an accusation or coming forward with an accusation — young men would likely choose the latter option. If the law remains as it is written, then women would become just as disadvantaged. If, as opponents predict, the law leads to an increase of accusations, anyone accused — man or woman — would be hurt by the lack of basic due process rights.” Since in our culture, women generally feel privileged to touch men without prior consent, one would actually expect more women to be guilty.

ED DRISCOLL ON THE DAILY NEWS’ OBAMA DISAPPOINTMENT: If only the New York Daily News had taken its own advice in 2008. “The 2008 covers above, just a small example of the daily hagiography pumped out by the MSM back then, reflect a very different, but similarly self-destructive contagion that rapidly enveloped the MSM starting in early 2007. The virus began to subside around mid-2009, when it slowly became obvious that the MSM had sacrificed their credibility to elect a false messiah. But as a dangerous aftereffect to Obama fever, the MSM quickly turned viciously on its readers, in the form of their unceasing racialist attacks on the Tea Party and anyone who dared oppose The One. . . . After November, it will be fascinating to watch the MSM similarly go all-in to aid Hillary, and act as if 2008 never happened, and pretend that they had no role to play whatsoever in electing a president about to go as deep into the memory hole as Woodrow Wilson, and for similar reasons. It isn’t just that the MSM got things so wrong, it’s that they permanently shattered their credibility to make it happen. Don’t let them forget what they’d like the world to forget.”

STEPHEN GREEN: Wargaming the 2014 Midterms: With three weeks to go, stuff just got real.

AT CNN, another call for CDC Chief Thomas Frieden to resign.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Turkey Bombs The Kurds. The Turks are not our friends.

THE EBOLA CRISIS AS A CRISIS OF PUBLIC TRUST:

Underscoring the difficulties faced by CDC and other state and local agencies to contain the threat of Ebola is the largely reactive, rather than anticipatory, nature of the public health measures taken, such as screenings at a small number of ports of entry. The case of Thomas Duncan, the disease’s first victim in the United States, has undermined confidence in self-reporting by travelers as an effective measure. Further, it appears that the government is having a difficult time persuading citizens to follow the public health protocols most likely to save lives. Contacts of Thomas Duncan are reported to have resisted public health officials’ recommendations to self-quarantine. The nurse who treated Duncan also contracted the disease because of a breach in protocol. Asking people to avoid contact with others for as long as three weeks, the disease’s incubation period, is a tall order, especially since relatively few of the people asked to quarantine will actually have the disease. The public may also be confused by the seemingly contradictory nature of the simplest caricatures of public health messages: On the one hand, Ebola is difficult to contract, so don’t worry; On the other hand, if you are suspected to have been exposed to the virus, you could be placed under house arrest for three weeks. . . .

The United States faces a crisis of trust in government less severe than in Liberia, but it is still important to address this problem if we are to be prepared for pandemics. A Pew Research Center survey shows that trust in government is near its all time low. Other major institutions, from schools to unions to business and religion, do not fare much better. Specific federal agencies, however, such as the CDC and even the Department of Homeland Security, show much more favorable views among the public. Just as Americans hate Congress but love their congressmen and women, Americans distrust government to do the right thing most of the time, but they have more faith in some specific agencies to get the job done.

Well, I doubt the CDC will poll as well next time.

UPDATE: Um, what? ‘Who’s the idiot with the clipboard?’ Disbelief and panic as mystery man WITHOUT a hazmat suit helps second Ebola nurse board her plane to Atlanta, disposes waste and then climbs aboard.

The photos are disturbing.

CHANGE: Hong Kong Leader Now Ready To Talk With Protesters.

A LIBERTARIAN SOLUTION TO THE CAMPUS RAPE “CRISIS:” Lower the drinking age. “What does the drinking age have to do with campus rape? Much. Most college undergraduates are under 21 and therefore unable to legally drink. And yet heavy alcohol consumption on the part of one or both students is a significant factor in nearly all sexual assault allegations. That’s because the current drinking age doesn’t actually stop teens from drinking. It merely changes where, and how much, they drink.”

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ED MORRISSEY: To Contain Ebola, Obama Must Impose a West-African Travel Ban.

A CIVIL WAR among California Democrats?

SO FAR, SO GOOD: Family that lived with Texas Ebola victim showing no symptoms. If they remain uninfected — which at this point seems likely — then perhaps Ebola is mostly a danger for health workers. That’s still troubling, but probably makes the risk of a wider outbreak lower.

TRANSPARENCY: Obama administration has secured 526 months of jail time for leakers. “Up until Obama’s ‘most transparent administration’, and throughout the entire history of the USA, national security leakers had received a total of 24 months of jail time. There are many more cases pending.”

UPDATE: Sharyl Attkisson: 19 Times the Government Withheld Documents It Didn’t Want You to See.

RAND PAUL ON BUDGET COMPLAINTS: “Have You Seen What The NIH Spends Money On?”

ROLL CALL: As Ebola Crisis Escalates, Lawmakers on Both Sides Turn Up Heat. “Ebola is quickly becoming the dominant issue in Congress, even as the United States conducts airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, and as Congress isn’t even in town.”

ACCOUNTABILITY: GOP Lawmakers Call For CDC Director To Resign.

Related: White House: ‘Shortcomings’ In Ebola Response. Ya think?

TIM CARNEY: Party Of The Rich.

President Obama is sometimes beyond parody — especially when he plays the populist.

Last week, Obama headlined a $32,000-a-plate fundraiser at the $26 million Greenwich, Conn., estate of a real estate mogul. During that dinner I noticed an email from Obama in my inbox warning me that “If Republicans win, we know who they’ll be fighting for. Once again, the interests of billionaires will come before the needs of the middle class.”

Obama has played this populist game unceasingly since he began his presidential run in 2007. He spoke as if he were being outspent while demolishing John McCain in fundraising. He declared war on lobbyists before hiring more than 100 of them and recruiting many as his top fundraisers. His top adviser at the White House — millionaire Valerie Jarrett — proclaimed that their administration was busy “speaking truth to power.” . . .

The richest county in America, according to IRS data on mean household income, is Teton County, Wyo., home of Jackson Hole. It’s the only Wyoming county Obama won in 2012. And Obama won it big — by 12 points, while losing the rest of the state by more than 40 points.

Seven of the 10 richest counties in America voted for Obama, from Manhattan to Marin. Three sparsely populated counties in Texas made the top 10, and all three voted for Mitt Romney. . . .

Here’s another measure: Ten members of Congress have a net worth more than $40 million — and seven of them are Democrats.

While the people of Northern Virginia get rich off of stimulus, and the people of Greenwich bank their bailouts and government loan guarantees, they can sleep well at night knowing they contributed to Obama. They may still be rich, but they’re different rich.

This thought can comfort Obama, too.

So who can comfort me?

JONATHAN CHAIT: Liberals Get Illiberal on Campus Rape [Updated].

Read that passage again. He is not merely arguing that, to make an omelette, one must break some eggs. He is arguing for false convictions as a conscious strategy in order to strike fear into the innocent. This is a conception of justice totally removed from the liberal tradition.

Ezra Klein is not a nut; he is the polar opposite of one, which is what makes it so important that he is arguing in such expressly illiberal terms. Of course, campus justice need not contain all the safeguards of a criminal proceeding. But since they are a quasi-judicial procedure, and often held explicitly in lieu of formal police charges, we might expect them to at least broadly reflect our expectations of justice.

Plus, an appropriately dismissive response to bogus charges of sexism from Salon.

JOSEPH CURL: Obama’s spectacular incompetence turns deadly.

ETHICS: How Companies Cheat on H1B Visas.

#WARONWOMEN: Breast Cancer Survivor Responds To Bossy Lacto-Moms About Why She Doesn’t Breastfeed.

On Jan. 29, I gave birth to a 7 1/ 2-pound baby boy who had a head full of light brown hair and whose ravenous appetite and old-man snore we instantly found mesmerizing, maybe in a way only parents could.

“You never gave up,” my husband said, laughing as he watched Lincoln gulp down his first 2-ounce serving of formula, which my husband fed to him.

As the two of them cuddled afterward, I was in a mood that I can describe only as postpartum elation.

That is, until those I jokingly call the “breast-feeding Nazis” came marching in to my room.

“You really should breast-feed,” the hospital’s lactation consultants, aka “lactivists,” said.

When I simply said, “I’m going to do formula,” they didn’t want to leave it at that.

So holding my day-old newborn on what was one of the most blissful days of my life, I had to tell the aggressive band of well-intentioned strangers my whole cancer saga.

Maybe their aggressiveness belies a lack of truly good intentions. Remember: Most woman-shaming has always been at the hands of other women.