Evidence shows that the Russians were INVITED to meddle in the election--by the man who wanted to be president

No, I'm not talking about Trump and the 2016 election. I'm talking about 1983, when Ted Kennedy--who hoped to be president--asked the Russians for help to undermine Ronald Reagan. Read about it here.

Never heard about it? I'm not surprised. Ted Kennedy was among the most powerful and popular Democrats of the past 50 years.

NPR publishes guide to spotting fake news--NPR should apply it to its own reporting about sexual assault

NPR, which  happily recites the fake news that one-in-five college women are sexually assaulted (and there is overwhelming evidence that this stat is fake news--see, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) has just published a handy guide on how to spot . . . fake news. And, no, I'm not making this up.

NPR should follow its own guidelines, but, of course, when it comes to sexual assault, it doesn't--because any assertion intended to prove "rape culture" is automatically worthy of unconditional acceptance.

A few of NPR's guides for spotting fake news expose the utter folly in accepting the one-in-five stat:

Is the story so outrageous you can't believe it? Maybe you shouldn't. Respect the voice inside you that says, "What?"

Hmm. Let's see. The one-in-five stat means that even the safest, most secure college campuses are the most dangerous places in the world for one class of our citizens--young women. The fact that this is not just outrageous but obviously false hasn't even sounded warning bells with the purveyors of "rape culture." They just keep on reporting it.

Is the story so outrageous you do believe it? That's also a warning sign. Many stories play on your existing beliefs. If the story perfectly confirms your worst suspicions, look for more information.

Hmm. Let's see. The one-in-five stat means that even the safest, most secure college campuses are the most dangerous places in the world for one class of our citizens--young women. That's so outrageous, why would anyone make it up? It also means that college men, as a class, are rapists-in-waiting--a factoid that merely confirms our worst stereotypes about toxic masculinity and "rape culture." 

Did the writer engage with anyone who disagrees? Did they call a senator whose legislation bugs them? Did they try to grasp what the president-elect was doing, or merely repeat one of his more outrageous statements? If it's a broadcast interview, was the guest presented with genuine opposing views and challenged to answer? Those who wrestle with opposing arguments do you a service and often improve their own arguments.

The one-in-five stat is routinely parroted without challenge, as if any contrary position is not just erroneous but hate speech. Apparently, the only fake news deserving of challenge is that which doesn't advance a far left narrative.

Broaden your palate. Make a point to check sites that do not agree with your politics. You may discover stories that are wrong — but you'll know what other people are consuming, which will sharpen your own thinking.

When it comes to the made-up college rape epidemic, the only time the sexual grievance industry checks opposing views is to demonize anyone who dares to speak up for due process and keeping an open mind about accusations of college rape.

Are you told, "Trust me"? Don't. It's the post-trust era! Expect everyone to show where their facts come from, link to underlying articles, and demonstrate that they've argued honestly. . . . .

The exception: anything that spews from the mouths of sexual grievance-mongers.

Be open to the idea that some falsehoods are sincerely held. In spite of all the warnings here, some inaccurate news stories grow out of haste or misinformation rather than pure cynicism. (But they're still false.)

Nuff said. The one-in-five is a embraced with cult-like devotion--not just by sexual grievance-mongers, but by so-called mainstream media outlets like NPR.

The one-in-five stat is not fact-based reporting, it's advocacy to raise awareness about college rape. Raising awareness about problems is usually a good thing. The problem with this particular advocacy is that it's used not just to raise awareness but as a sword to curtail the due process rights of college men--too many simply don't get fair hearings. This isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of a hell of a lot of liberal law professors and others concerned that the pendulum has swung too far. It is literally fake news that hurts one class of our citizens, sometimes egregiously, and outlets like NPR aren't concerned about it.

Ashe Schow has moved

Among the most astute voices exposing political correctness run amok, Ashe Schow, has moved--you can find her here and here. 

Trump likely to roll back the witch hunt on college men

Chances are, Trump will roll back the Obama administration's federally sanctioned witch hunt against college men: See here:

*https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/11/10/trump-and-gop-likely-try-scale-back-title-ix-enforcement-sexual-assault

*http://www.weeklystandard.com/can-trump-undo-obamas-title-ix-tyranny/article/2005499

*https://www.buzzfeed.com/tylerkingkade/trump-campus-rape-title-ix?utm_term=.wwPZ7LYOVr#.vpX4ANqZVJ

*http://www.vox.com/2016/11/23/13677056/sexual-assault-trump-policy)

Although we fear it will be much more difficult to end the hysteria that Obama, Biden, and their minions in the Department of Education have fomented, rolling back the Dept. of Education's April 4, 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter is a critical first step.

The "Dear Colleague" letter, and its enforcement by the Department of Education, have manifested unprecedented hostility for the rights of men on campus.

Sadly, too many college men aren't aware there's a witch hunt on campus--and that they are the witches--until they are wrongly accused. If you are not familiar with the "Dear Colleague" letter, you've likely never read our blog--we've written about it extensively since the spring of 2011: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/search?q=Dear+Colleague&updated-max=2014-01-15T10:28:00-05:00&max-results=20&start=30&by-date=true  And as you can imagine, we've come under attack from persons who are less than informed, to put it charitably, for standing up for due process--e.g., see here: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2013/12/penn-students-attack-this-blog-with.html

The goal of the "Dear Colleague" letter is to make it easier for colleges to expel and suspend young men charged with sexual misconduct. The decision makers behind this letter didn't bother to consider that it also made it easier to punish the innocent for offenses they didn't commit--the innocent were not a concern to President Obama or Vice President Biden.

The most famous feature of the "Dear Colleague" letter is its mandate that colleges lower the standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings about sexual misconduct to a mere "preponderance of the evidence." (In other words, a disciplinary hearing committee might have a reasonable doubt about the accused's student's guilt, but if it believes the evidence tilts ever so slightly in favor of the accuser, it must find the accused guilty.)

Although it is couched in gender-neutral terms, the overriding purpose of the letter is to remedy sexual violence against women--it was expressly adopted to protect women.

Among the letter's other mandates, at pages 15-16, is one that allows schools to, in effect, punish the accused on the basis of an accusation:

Title IX requires a school to take steps to protect the complainant as necessary, including taking interim steps before the final outcome of the investigation. The school should undertake these steps promptly once it has notice of a sexual harassment or violence allegation. . . . .  When taking steps to separate the complainant and alleged perpetrator, a school should minimize the burden on the complainant, and thus should not, as a matter of course, remove complainants from classes or housing while allowing alleged perpetrators to remain.

Not only does the "Dear Colleague" letter make it easier to punish young men accused of sex offenses, both the guilty and the innocent, this "interim steps" measure initiates the punishment process from the moment of the accusation.

Clinton lost because the left wasn't interested in debate but in name calling and reducing opponents to caricature

If Hillary Clinton's followers wonder why their candidate lost, they need to meditate on the following. Clinton lost because a lot of people on the fence--the folks in that vast, mushy gray center that drifts both left and right depending on the issue and that decides every election--resented, rebelled, and refused to march in lockstep to the preachy, sanctimonious, self-important, morally superior PC warriors on the left who aren't interested in debating issues but who seek to shut down debate with name-calling and by reducing everyone who doesn't share their worldview to grotesque caricature.

But don't listen to me--political satirist "Jonathan Pie" (Tom Walker) says it better than I ever could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs (WARNING: LANGUAGE IN THE VIDEO IS ROUGH)

To the college men protesting Trump's election: thank those fighting for your rights, and grow up

The Clinton campaign was so overconfident they would win the election, they planned to launch fireworks over the Hudson River on election night. When they cancelled the fireworks the weekend before the election, a lot of people suspected their internal polling showed they were in trouble.

Then, after the election, the media naturally looked for incidents of Trump supporters beating up minorities despite the absence of any evidence such misconduct was remotely likely. The media ran with hoaxes because that's all they had--hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good radical left narrative?

Then, when the markets plunged in the hours after the election, leftist economist Paul Krugman--a Nobel Prize winner, mind you--wrote that "a terrible thing"--Trump's election--"has just happened” and added something that might haunt him the rest of his life: "If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.” The markets recovered in a few hours, then went soaring. So much for the Nobel Prize.

A good friend reported that last Wednesday, pre-schoolers at a major university child care center were crying in fear over the outcome of the election--my friend said their parents were guilty of child abuse, terrorizing their own children with tales of the great orange boogeyman.

In days gone by, the newly elected president was afforded a "honeymoon period" to put his agenda in place before being subjected to severe criticism. President Obama's honeymoon period arguably never ended, but for all other presidents, this usually lasts several months. President-elect Trump's "honeymoon period" lasted several minutes after his election--it ended months before he even took office. Angry young leftists across America--especially on college campuses--took the streets, blocked roads, and even rioted. They weren't protesting Trump as much as our democratic system itself--they just don't like the outcome of this election and do not respect the will of the electorate.

Virtually none of the young protesters have any understanding of the issues in this election beyond the talking points of far left media outlets that trade in blatant bias, grotesque exaggeration, and outright lies. And, yes, that includes mainstream television networks and major U.S. dailies--Wikileaks proved what we've long suspected--some of the biggest names in news were in cahoots with the Democratic National Committee to defeat Trump. The delicate snowflakes on campus are happy to parrot the mantras of their moral superiors on the left and reduce Donald Trump and his supporters to vile caricature.

Trump doesn't want to curtail immigration but he wants to stop illegal immigration--so he must hate Mexicans, blacks, and the LGBTQ community. His supporters, too.  Trump made a comments about women 17 years ago--so he and his supporters must be misogynists who are not just "deplorables" but irredeemable--unlike, say, convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jama and former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, who get plenty of respect on the left. Trump borrowed a line from a Clinton supporter that Obama wasn't born in America and ran with it? He and his supporters must hate blacks because . . . Obama is black. (Trump also claimed that conservative Sen. Ted Cruz was not eligible to run for President because he was born in Canada--Trump and his supporters must hate Canadians, too.)

College students traditionally align themselves with the Democratic Party because most have at least a vague sense of their own vulnerabilities--most know that their college degree doesn't give them the skills to be in high demand for good paying jobs, so they gravitate to the party that brands itself the friend of the downtrodden. I completely understand.

But this generation is different--sure, there are exceptions, but for too many, it's not enough to wear buttons and go to the polls, then bemoan the outcome of the election. No, no. This is the generation of entitlement--coddled from birth in households where seldom was heard a discouraging word. When the evil Donald Trump was elected, they did what they've been programmed to do--they had a collective meltdown and threw the biggest temper tantrum of the 21st Century.

This is the result "safe spaces," of inventing microaggressions to punish traditional masculinity, of suspending fraternities when a few of their members have the audacity to dress up like Mexicans and Indians on Halloween, of criminalizing the game of tag, of being driven around all weekend to participate in sports where they don't keep score and everybody gets a trophy for showing up. This is the result of a culture where hard work is eschewed and "increasingly sophisticated video games are luring young men away from the workforce."

Most reprehensible of all are the young college males who have taken to the streets. A lot of concerned adults have have gone to bat for these fools over the past several years as the Democratic Party has manifested greater and greater hostility to their rights.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, educate yourself--see e.g., here. Do these ball-less wonders even know this is going on? Of course not. They're too busy practicing their groupthink to notice. Last Friday, conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh lamented: "It's a shame what liberalism has done to Millennial-aged men, way too many of them. They've demasculated them. They have neutered them in just incredible ways. That's the only way to describe this. . . . to listen to them talk, they have become full-fledged, walking robots of the indoctrination that they've had." Harsh, but at least close to the truth.

For the few readers pissed off by what I've written--yes, yes, I know there are other important issues aside from due process on campus--and, yes, I'm concerned about some of Trump's stances. For example, on the single issue most important to Trump, trade, Trump is closer to Bernie Sanders than Obama or the Ted Cruz wing of the Republican Party. (Are you aware that Obama gave up trying to get TPP passed in the wake of Trump's election?) In case you can't remember as far back as August, Bernie was the candidate of choice of young men on campus.

The generation of entitlement is transforming us into the culture of entitlement. The corrupt media is happy to lend a hand. The reaction to Donald Trump's election on college campuses across America is worse than over-the-top, it's worse than childish, its worse than uninformed. It's a sign of a culture in free-fall. 

Jessica Valenti: Donald Trump won millions of votes because he bragged about sexually assaulting women

Jessica Valenti, writing for The Guardian, declared that Donald Trump admitted to sexually assaulting women "and [won] millions of votes because, not in spite, of it."

Read that again: Trump was elected because he sexually assaults women. The fact that there is not a shred of evidence to support this unhinged epiphany is of no import.

This means that if Bill Cosby decides to run in 2012, he ought to be a shoe-in to win.

Valenti goes on: ". . . this shameful election result was backlash, pure and simple – a reaction to women’s growing rights, racial progress and a cultural shift that no longer centers straight white men. They were votes based on fear, bigotry and ugliness."

That's right, Jessica. As is true with every outcome that people like you don't like, Trump's election was a backlash of straight white men who are afraid of losing their vaunted positions of power. There's no other plausible explanation for why a disreputable Democrat lost to a brash outsider in 2016.

It couldn't possibly be what even Michael Moore--an ardent Trump opponent who believes Trump is a charlatan--said: "I know a lot of people . . . that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily like him that much, and they don't necessarily agree with him. They're . . . actually pretty decent people." Trump has been "saying the things to people who are hurting, and that's why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human molotov cocktail that they've been waiting for. The human hand grande that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them. . . . . Trump's election is going to be the biggest 'fuck you' ever recorded in human history and it will feel good."

Nah, that couldn't be it. It had to be that white men wanted a rapist in the White House, and they wanted to hold onto their exalted place in society. There's no other plausible explanation.

I mean, never mind that the signature achievement of the current Democratic administration--Obamacare--has turned out to be a mess. It was sold to the American people on promises ("if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," etc.) that turned out to be false, to put it charitably. Worse, health care premiums have skyrocketed to the point that even Bill Clinton—the man Mrs. Clinton said would be “in charge of revitalizing the economy” in her administration--just days before the election branded it "the craziest thing in the world." Some families have been forced to shell out $2,000 a month for insurance that comes with a whopping $13,000 deductible. An architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, famously admitted in a moment of smug candor that the promises were deceitful—because “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage” in this instance.

But, you're right, Jessica. That couldn't be it. Trump won the election because he's a rapist, and because white men wanted to hang onto their power. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Hillary Clinton has been the consummate Washington insider for 25 years--and it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that she would change nothing if elected. How do we know? Because she has no accomplishments to show for all her time in D.C. One of her most fervent supporters, Sen. Diane Feinstein, couldn't name a signature accomplishment of Clinton's while she was in the U.S. Senate. The State Department's own spokeswoman couldn't name one tangible achievement of Clinton's as Secretary of State. Clinton herself had difficulty mounting a coherent response to a question about her accomplishments when Diane Sawyer asked her about them in 2014. Carly Fiorina has actually done things--but feminists like Valenti didn't want her, they insisted on Hillary.

But, hey, Hillary's lack of accomplishments couldn't possibly be the reason she wasn't elected--Hillary deserved to win because Jessica Valenti's six-year-old daughter wanted to see a woman in the White House. Those evil white men stomped on the little girl's dreams and elected Trump instead--and all because he's a rapist, and because white men are evil.

Valenti has a history of being unhinged when it comes to gender issues. She believes that rape is normal for even decent men: "Rape is part of our culture; it's normalized to the point where men who are otherwise decent guys will rape and not even think that it's wrong. And that's what terrifies me." Along those lines, Valenti tweeted agreement with Socialist Michael Laxer's epiphany that "all men" are responsible for the bad things that happen to women. Laxer clucked: "There are no 'good guys,'" and that men, as a class, "are responsible."

Given her world-view about men, it's little wonder that Valenti has suggested America follow the lead of Sweden, where "some activists and legal experts . . . want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused; the alleged rapist would have to show that he got consent, instead of the victim having to prove that she didn’t give it.” In other words, the act of lovemaking that has gone on around the world countless times a day since the beginning of time would be presumptively rape any time a woman cries rape -- guilty until proven innocent.

And remember when Valenti weighed in on the ancient debate about whether Woody Allen raped a woman? She implied that "we know" Woody Allen is guilty of rape because other women -- who have no relevance whatsoever to the facts of Woody's Allen's case or the parties involved -- have been abused by other men. A fortiori, this woman was abused by Woody Allen. The irrationality, the childishness, the sheer stupidity is jaw-dropping.

And we can't forget that Valenti mocked the efforts of the mothers who started FACE, the organization that seeks to raise awareness about the injustices faced by presumptively innocent college students accused of sexual misconduct.

Donald Trump is about to become your president, Jessica--your daughter's, too. He didn't win because he's a rapist, and you need to stop filling little girls' heads with nonsense. They might grow up to be like you.

It is good that Clinton lost last night--even if college men don't know it

The smarmy, arrogant, self-satisfied left that loathes and detests traditional America, and that loathes and detests Donald Trump and his followers even more, are having a difficult time today accepting what happened last night. See here. They are insisting that Trump is "not my president," even though he most certainly will be. These were the people purportedly concerned that Donald Trump wouldn't accept what they thought would be his inevitable defeat.

The motivating impulse of our moral superiors on the far left and their amoral enablers in the mainstream news media is the feeling that anyone who is not a white, heterosexual male is a victim of white, heterosexual male sexism and racism. They happily attribute any outcome they don't like to it, and they happily reduce Middle America that embraces traditional American values--including masculinity and Christianity--to vile caricature. They assume Middle America hates people who do not look like them for no reason other than the fact that they do not look like them. If this sounds irrational bordering on pathology, then you are catching on. Yet, our outgoing president harbors the mindset that Middle America clings to its guns and religion, and a now-vanquished Democratic Party presidential nominee who chortled about a "basket of deplorables" to the delight of her smug and self-satisfied devotees. The fact is, this is how most of the misguided souls on the far left think.

On college campuses--where students once worried about things like an unjust war in Southeast Asia but whose chief concern today is that a frat brother will don an "offensive" Halloween costume that includes a sombrero--last night's election was a "triggering" event.

At Columbia, professors are delaying midterms because of the despair over Trump's "threatening" election--"the elections results have left people feeling triggered, anxious, and unwell.” See here. The poor students at that vaunted institution greeted Trump's election with "shock, disgust, and sadness" and they responded the best way they know how: “Fuck Donald Trump,” they screamed. See here.

At Brown, the tearful and shaken students knew why Trump won: “It reflects a kind of discomfort that people have with women being in positions of power.” See here.

At Cornell, the students are "aghast." See here.

At Harvard, 87% percent of the privileged elite students were for Clinton--only 6% were for Trump. See here. Last night, the cream-of-the-crop of our young people "freaked out," according to the Harvard student newspaper.

At Penn, students greeted their alumni's victory with "dismay" and "sadness." See here.

So why is it good for college men that Trump won last night even if they don't know it?

The current administration has manifested an unprecedented hostility to due process for college men accused of sexual assault. We've written literally hundreds of posts about it since April 2011 when the the Department of Education issued its infamous "Dear Colleague" letter. For a long time, it was difficult to fathom that any administration could be worse on these issues, but we had every reason to believe that a Hillary Clinton administration would have been worse.

Hillary Clinton unequivocally expressed her hostility to college men accused of sexual assault: "I think that when someone makes the claim, they come forward, they should be believed . . . ."  She also said this: ". . . in our country and on every college campus . . . any woman who reports an assault should be heard and believed . . . ."  In a major address on the issue, she told survivors of sexual assault the following: "You have the right to be heard, You have the right to be believed. And we're with you as you go forward." Clinton made it clear she believes that men accused of sexual assault should be presumed guilty until they are proven innocent: ". . . everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence.” Clinton made that statement with a grin on her face, and the line drew applause.

Clinton has stated that the issue of college sexual assault is "deeply important" to her. She buys into the one-in-five canard. She has called campus sexual assault an epidemic, has pledged to "build on the progress" the Obama administration has made, and has made clear she wants a national conversation about it--as if the issue has been ignored until now. She plans to take the Obama administration's work to the next level: "The Obama administration has begun to shine a spotlight. I just want to make it a very broad and bright spotlight . . . ." She wants to "end" campus rape by broadening the war on sexual assault. She proudly admits that when she says this, she is "playing the gender card"  and "that's exactly where I want to be."

Clinton hired Zerlina Maxwell  to work for her. Maxwell has written this: “Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.” Maxwell said that false accusations "can be undone by an investigation that clears the accused, especially if it is done quickly."

As Secretary of State, Clinton made one of the most heinous false rape claims imaginable. In 2011, Clinton was trying to justify regime change in Libya–a goal not authorized by either the U.S. Congress or the UN. "Clinton told the press that Gaddafi was passing out Viagra to his troops so they could go out and rape dissidents en masse, and that the troops were indeed engaging in mass rapes." The problem? Amnesty International later reported "that there was absolutely no factual support for these accusations. As Amnesty International reported, 'Not only have we not met any victims, but we have not even met any persons who have met victims.'”

It is ironic that Hillary Clinton has not always exhibited fidelity to the decidedly unAmerican principles she now espouses. Much has been written about Mrs. Clinton's two-facedness on this issue--she did not automatically believe her husband’s sexual assault accusers, and, in fact, she actively worked to destroy their credibility. We won't repeat those arguments as they could fill a book.

Mrs. Clinton is, sadly, a product of the modern Democratic Party, which foments division by playing a nasty game of group identity politics that trumps fidelity to due process.

It is good that they lost last night--even if college men don't know it.

Clinton unfairly maligned regarding her defense of a man accused of rape

Hillary Clinton once defended an accused rapist when she was a public defender. Clinton eventually had him plead to a lesser offense.

Throughout this campaign, pro-Trump supporters have been saying that the accused was, in fact, a rapist, that Clinton knew he was a rapist, and that Clinton laughed about the "rapist's" twelve-year-old alleged victim.

Clinton is being unfairly maligned.

First, the suggestion that a criminal defendant is not worthy of a defense just because he was accused of rape is repulsive. Sometimes--more often than most people would like to think--men and boys accused of rape are innocent. If you need examples, spend a few weeks rummaging through this blog. You can start here and here.

Second, Clinton later gave an interview where she said: "Of course he claimed he didn’t. All this stuff. He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs. [laughs]" See here: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/clintons-1975-rape-case/

Clinton wasn't laughing at the alleged victim. Nor was she suggesting that the man was not entitled to a defense.

Third, the man pled to a lesser offense, something that happens all too often even when the man happens to be innocent. See here. I have no idea if this particular defendant was innocent, but plea bargains are scarcely iron-clad barometers of the truth. It would be helpful if we stopped buying into this notion that the man had to be guilty just because he was charged.

We are stranded in a political culture where, when it comes to college men accused of rape, hostility to due process is the norm. It is unfortunate that some on the right feel the need to score points any way they can--even by suggesting it was somehow wrong to defend a man accused of rape and by assuming that the accused had to be guilty merely because he was accused.

Off-topic: Americans are stupid

No one should complain about the outcome of this election, whatever it might be. Americans don’t deserve a good president because they don’t demand one.

Mrs. Clinton and her news media allies (pretty much the entire mainstream media) are only interested in talking about Donald Trump’s idiocy du jour. For his part, Donald Trump is primarily interested in attacking leaders of his own party who aren’t supporting him. The rest of the GOP and its media outlet, Fox News, are more interested in catching Clinton in lies about old emails or maybe even hoping she faints again.

The American people are even worse. We just witnessed the most dramatic presidential debate in history--and the most talked-about thing is what? A guy in a red sweater who asked a question that wasn’t important.

So what's so important that we should be discussing, you ask?

For one thing, Americans ought to be talking about Obamacare. Barack Obama considers it his signature accomplishment, and Mrs. Clinton is running as an Obama acolyte. Obama sold it to Americans with his Pajama Boy ad campaign and promises that it would “reduce the costs of most Americans” and that “no matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor . . . .” In fact, Obama made those claims repeatedly.

The Pajama Boy campaign turned out to be a dud—akin to trying to peddle New Coke (younger readers may not know--in the mid-1980s, Coke changed the formula of its iconic drink--it didn’t last). And the promises turned out to be wrong, to put it charitably. An architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, later admitted in a moment of arrogant candor that the promises were deceitful—because “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage” in this instance. Health care premiums have skyrocketed to the point that Bill Clinton—the man Mrs. Clinton said would be “in charge of revitalizing the economy” in her administration--last week said this: "So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world."

At this week’s debate, a questioner asked: “Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, it is not affordable. Premiums have gone up. Deductibles have gone up. Copays have gone up. Prescriptions have gone up. And the coverage has gone down. What will you do to bring the cost down and make coverage better?” Even Mrs. Clinton agreed with the questioner. “. . . I agree with you. Premiums have gotten too high. Copays, deductibles, prescription drug costs . . . .” And: “. . . we've got to get costs down. We've got to provide additional help to small businesses so that they can afford to provide health insurance.”

The most important accomplishment of the Obama administration is a mess, and you'd think this would be the principal issue in this campaign. So why aren’t we holding both candidates’ feet to the fire and insisting that they lay out detailed plans about how they’re going to fix Obamacare, or replace it?

Because we're too busy talking about a guy in a red sweater.

And . . . maybe we’re stupid?

Donald Trump's repulsive comments

[Edit: During the October 9, 2016 presidential debate, Donald Trump stated that his comments in 2005 were "locker room talk" and that he did not sexually assault women.]

Back in 2005, Donald Trump bragged, "I just start kissing [beautiful women] . . . . Just kiss. Don't even wait. And when you're a star, let you do it. You can do anything. Whatever you wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

Should we believe Donald Trump was telling the truth--that he would kiss women, and grab women "by the p**ssy," without waiting for anything, including the women's consent? Because that sure sounds an awful lot like sexual assault, doesn't it? Or maybe Trump thinks that the women's after-the-fact consent--because he's a "star" and all--could undo sexual assault?

If Trump grabbed women before the women manifested consent, that's sexual assault. The fact that the women didn't complain doesn't undo the sexual assault.

Should we take Donald Trump at his word? Because if we do, it sure sounds like he was bragging about committing sexual assault.

And I'm wondering when the women will come forward, a la Bill Cosby?  Perhaps this disclosure will trigger women coming forward.

Airline changes woman's seat to accommodate Pakistani Monks: discrimination. Muslim women get men kicked out of gyms: a reasonable request

When Pakistani monks--who are men--had United Airlines move a female passenger because their cultural beliefs forbade them from sitting next to her on a flight, the media gave voice to the woman, who felt she'd been discriminated. “We can’t discriminate against half the population,” the woman said, “for a belief from another nation.” The woman has demanded that United Airlines apologize to every female on that plane, including United employees, and change their policy. The woman said she was intent on protecting women’s rights. United said it regretted that the woman was unhappy and that it has "zero tolerance" for discrimination. See here

But when Muslim women insist that they can't exercise with men around at Harvard and a lot of other places, the men are often banned from the gym for hours each week. The women find it "awkward" working out in a co-ed gym--it makes them "uncomfortable." The communications director of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences called it a "reasonable request."

When Muslim men asked for a religious accommodation that, in truth, did not inconvenience a woman at all, the media gives voice to the woman who insists she was discriminated against. When women ask for a religious accommodation that indisputably does cause some inconvenience to men, it's a reasonable request.

Brown University--where hostility to the rights of accused men is routine

Innocence Project guru Prof. Mark A Godsey has explained that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases."

A federal judge has ruled that Brown University violated a student's rights when it expelled him for alleged sexual assault. The judge did not take sides as to the truth of the accusation, he merely took issue with the unfair process used to expel the young man. According to the Washington Post:

. . . at the time of the incident, in November 2014, the judge said the university’s code governing sexual misconduct contained no definition of consent. Brown formulated one after the fact, in 2015, and a decided the man had violated it, suspending him and barring him from campus until the woman graduates.

The retroactive punishment was sufficiently significant to have possibly made the difference between the man being found responsible or not.

The court found other flaws in the process as well, including the university’s failure to allow the man to introduce evidence that he believed was exculpatory.

The court also took issue with Brown students who tried to influence the judiciary:

After the preliminary injunction, this Court was deluged with emails resulting from an organized campaign to influence the outcome. These tactics, while perhaps appropriate and effective in influencing legislators or officials in the executive branch, have no place in the judicial process. This is basic civics, and one would think students and others affiliated with a prestigious Ivy League institution would know this. Moreover, having read a few of the emails, it is abundantly clear that the writers, while passionate, were woefully ignorant about the issues before the Court.

This isn't Brown's first brush with a controversial rape case. Do you remember the Adam Lack case? As Kathleen Parker wrote: "Despite any substantiating evidence, a disciplinary council at Brown University, where [Lack and his accuser, Sara Klein] were enrolled, found Lack guilty of sexual misconduct and suspended him for one semester."

Libertarian media gadfly John Stossel was sent to Brown University to cover the Lack case for 20/20. Stossel was surprised to discover that debate on the issue was not welcomed. At a rally against Mr. Lack, Mr. Stossel sought to question to protest leaders about their definition of "rape." Stossel described the scene in words that are a stinging indictment on the intoleance of activists who have politicized rape: "I've covered race riots in Portland, a birth-control riot in Mexico City, yet these privileged students at an Ivy League university were louder, and more intense." They shouted Stossel down, began chanting at him, and made it clear that there was only one side to the issue. In their world, Stossel explained, "any challenge to their thinking must automatically be hate-filled and sexist (or racist, classist, or homophobic)." J. Stossel, How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media at 275-77.

Several years before that at Brown, a ''rape list'' was famously scrawled on the wall of a library women's room -- it identified 30 ''men who have sexually assaulted me or a woman I know.'' As soon as janitors scrubbed the wall clean, someone would rewrite the ''rape list'' on it again. Women's groups defended the list and reacted angrily when the school's administration said it would no more tolerate anti-male graffiti than it allows misogynistic, homophobic or racist graffiti.

Another time, a Brown alumni famously applauded the fact that "[t]he woman's version of what happened will always be accepted over the man's account."

Maybe there's something in the water at Brown.

'Will the Left Survive the Millennials?'

By LIONEL SHRIVER
NEW YORK TIMES
SEPT. 23, 2016

Midway through my opening address for the Brisbane Writers Festival earlier this month, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a Sudanese-born Australian engineer and 25-year-old memoirist, walked out. Her indignant comments about the event might have sunk into obscurity, along with my speech, had they not been republished by The Guardian. Twenty minutes in, this audience member apparently turned to her mother: “ ‘Mama, I can’t sit here,’ I said, the corners of my mouth dragging downwards. ‘I cannot legitimize this.’ ” She continued: “The faces around me blurred. As my heels thudded against the grey plastic of the flooring, harmonizing with the beat of the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my mind was blank save for one question. ‘How is this happening?’ ”

I’m asking the same thing.

Briefly, my address maintained that fiction writers should be allowed to write fiction — thus should not let concerns about “cultural appropriation” constrain our creation of characters from different backgrounds than our own. I defended fiction as a vital vehicle for empathy. If we have permission to write only about our own personal experience, there is no fiction, but only memoir. Honestly, my thesis seemed so self-evident that I’d worried the speech would be bland.

Nope — not in the topsy-turvy universe of identity politics. The festival immediately disavowed the address, though the organizers had approved the thrust of the talk in advance. A “Right of Reply” session was hastily organized. When, days later, The Guardian ran the speech, social media went ballistic. Mainstream articles followed suit. I plan on printing out The New Republic’s “Lionel Shriver Shouldn’t Write About Minorities” and taping it above my desk as a chiding reminder.

Viewing the world and the self through the prism of advantaged and disadvantaged groups, the identity-politics movement — in which behavior like huffing out of speeches and stirring up online mobs is par for the course — is an assertion of generational power. Among millennials and those coming of age behind them, the race is on to see who can be more righteous and aggrieved — who can replace the boring old civil rights generation with a spikier brand.

When I was growing up in the ’60s and early ’70s, conservatives were the enforcers of conformity. It was the right that was suspicious, sniffing out Communists and scrutinizing public figures for signs of sedition.

Now the role of oppressor has passed to the left. In Australia, where I spoke, Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to do or say anything likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate,” providing alarming latitude in the restriction of free speech. It is Australia’s conservatives arguing for the amendment of this law.

As a lifelong Democratic voter, I’m dismayed by the radical left’s ever-growing list of dos and don’ts — by its impulse to control, to instill self-censorship as well as to promote real censorship, and to deploy sensitivity as an excuse to be brutally insensitive to any perceived enemy. There are many people who see these frenzies about cultural appropriation, trigger warnings, micro-aggressions and safe spaces as overtly crazy. The shrill tyranny of the left helps to push them toward Donald Trump.

Ironically, only fellow liberals will be cowed by terror of being branded a racist (a pejorative lobbed at me in recent days — one that, however groundless, tends to stick). But there’s still such a thing as a real bigot, and a real misogynist. In obsessing over micro-aggressions like the sin of uttering the commonplace Americanism “you guys” to mean “you all,” activists persecute fellow travelers who already care about equal rights.

Moreover, people who would hamper free speech always assume that they’re designing a world in which only their enemies will have to shut up. But free speech is fragile. Left-wing activists are just as dependent on permission to speak their minds as their detractors.

In an era of weaponized sensitivity, participation in public discourse is growing so perilous, so fraught with the danger of being caught out for using the wrong word or failing to uphold the latest orthodoxy in relation to disability, sexual orientation, economic class, race or ethnicity, that many are apt to bow out. Perhaps intimidating their elders into silence is the intention of the identity-politics cabal — and maybe my generation should retreat to our living rooms and let the young people tear one another apart over who seemed to imply that Asians are good at math.

But do we really want every intellectual conversation to be scrupulously cleansed of any whiff of controversy? Will people, so worried about inadvertently giving offense, avoid those with different backgrounds altogether? Is that the kind of fiction we want — in which the novels of white writers all depict John Cheever’s homogeneous Connecticut suburbs of the 1950s, while the real world outside their covers becomes ever more diverse?

Ms. Abdel-Magied got the question right: How is this happening? How did the left in the West come to embrace restriction, censorship and the imposition of an orthodoxy at least as tyrannical as the anti-Communist, pro-Christian conformism I grew up with? Liberals have ominously relabeled themselves “progressives,” forsaking a noun that had its roots in “liber,” meaning free. To progress is merely to go forward, and you can go forward into a pit.

Protecting freedom of speech involves protecting the voices of people with whom you may violently disagree. In my youth, liberals would defend the right of neo-Nazis to march down Main Street. I cannot imagine anyone on the left making that case today.

Man banished from college due to woman's claim of incapacitated sex--even though the school said there was no evidence of incapacity

A male student at the University of Michigan was accused of sexual assault by a female student who claimed that when they had sex, she was too intoxicated to consent.

A university investigator interviewed 23 witnesses and concluded that "there is no evidence of the complainant's outward signs of incapacitation that the respondent would have observed prior to initiating the sexual activity."

End of case--based on that finding of fact, there is no evidence to find the male student responsible for sexual assault. She reasonably appeared to him to have capacity, so her claim must be rejected. The accused cannot be expected to read his sex partner's inner thoughts--if she agrees to have sex and her outward manifestations reasonably suggest she has capacity, he's not guilty of sexual assault. Period.

The woman appealed. And somehow, the administrative appeal board overturned the investigator's findings and found the man had violated the sexual conduct code. In late June, he signed a resolution agreement agreeing to leave U-M.

He's changed his mind, and he's suing now. So is she. He's alleging that his due process rights have been violated. The same old-same old.

This case is not difficult. It doesn't present unique issues, nor does it raise matters worthy of any debate whatsoever. What the University of Michigan did here was grossly unjust to the male student, and its unconscionable decision appears to have been motivated by the accused's gender. All persons of goodwill should outraged--and alumni at U-M ought to demand justice for the young man.

End of story.

Colleges are nuthouses

More evidence: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439999/vanderbilt-share-and-ask-pronouns-when-making-introductions-even-familiar-colleagues

We are not allowed to offer support for our friends who've been accused of sexual assault

When it comes to sexual assault accusations, our moral superiors in the sexual grievance cartel tell us we must assume guilt based on an accusation, but that it is okay to automatically take the side of an accuser, even if we know absolutely nothing about the case or the parties involved.

We are not allowed to automatically support people accused of sexual assault, even if we know them and can vouch for their characters. Here's an example of the latter: http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/college-sports/collegesports/2016/09/21/baylor-qb-seth-russell-clarifies-previous-comments-regarding-ex-teammate-awaiting-trial 

If this is typical of college students, then college students . . . are nuts

Really scary: http://thefederalist.com/2016/09/15/watch-a-mob-of-yale-students-bully-a-professor-who-hurt-their-feelings/

"Colleges have 'created an environment where these male students ... are treated as guilty before innocent'"

Read the article here.

Feminists want to get rid of statutes of limitations for rape

Gloria Allred supports the sexual grievance industry's efforts to end the statute of limitations in California for rape. Her rationale underscores the injustice in this effort. Allred writes:

Those who represent defendants often oppose eliminating the statutes of limitations. The theory goes that the fairness of a trial is compromised by the passage of time, so prosecutors shouldn’t sit on evidence of a crime and wait to charge a person once memories have faded, documents have been thrown out and alibis get hard to prove. This is why other criminal charges — with rare exception — have time limits, they argue, and rape and sexual assault should not be treated differently.

Rape and sexual assault are different, however. Other crimes are much more likely to be reported quickly, but we know that victims of sexual violence often take years to come forward because they may feel ashamed, mistakenly blame themselves for what happened or fear they will not be believed. Police and prosecutors aren’t holding onto evidence; they haven’t been informed that there was a crime.

For constitutional reasons, the Justice for Victims Act would not be retroactive; it can’t re-open the door to criminal courts that statutes of limitations already have slammed shut. But it will help victims of rape and sexual assault in the future.

If Gov. Brown signs this bill into law, statutes of limitations no longer will be a sexual predator’s best friend and a victim’s worst enemy.

Statutes of limitations aren't designed to protect the guilty--though sometimes they do--they are designed to protect the innocent, the wrongly accused. Allred doesn't even bother to say how the wrongly accused should be protected against old claims they can't possibly defend against. By refusing to acknowledge that the wrongly accused are deserving of any such protections whatsoever, Allred underscores the injustice of the position she advocates.

If someone is accused today of committing rape 20, 30, or 40 years ago, there is no realistic way he will be able to defend against it. I can think of few things more frightening. It is almost certain he will not be able to establish an alibi. All witnesses, all documents showing, for example, he was somewhere else when the alleged crime occurred, will have been lost to the mists of time.

None of that is a concern to Allred or her ilk. All that matters is that it will be easier for women to get convictions many years after the rape.

“The statute of limitations is there for a reason,” said Natasha Minsker, director of the ACLU of California Center for Advocacy and Policy “When a case is prosecuted literally decades after the event, it becomes much more ... difficult to prove that you are wrongfully accused." See here.

The longer an accuser waits to bring a charge from the date it allegedly occurred, the more difficult it is to fairly defend against it. The horror stories of the repressed memories witch hunts are examples of what can occur. In rape cases, there is a national trend to lengthen or eliminate statutes of limitations entirely. This is a concern to the criminal defense bar, the ACLU, and many others. We write about it from time to time -- see e.g.: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/12/assholez-who-despise-falsely-accused.html;  http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2008/07/alarming-trend-states-extend-statutes.html; http://www.cotwa.info/2011/12/feminist-legal-scholar-explains-need.html.

It is painful to see that so many in the progressive camp have become so terribly hostile to due process and basic notions of fairness. They've hitched their wagons to group identity politics and don't think that defendants accused of crimes involving a penis are entitled to any protections. I can't think of any other issue where self-professing liberals are happy to see due process rolled back for a particular group. For what other crime have liberals applauded eliminating statutes of limitations? A friend of mine recently said that he didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him. Thank goodness for the ACLU and the defense bar, but the rest of the party seems to have forgotten how they once revered fundamental notions of justice.