FROM PROF. STEPHEN CALABRESI: Opinion on the Constitutionality of Robert Mueller’s Appointment. “I argue in this Legal Opinion that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller is unconstitutional both under the test for officer inferiority set forth in Justice Scalia’s opinion in Edmond v. United States, which is cited as good authority in Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB and also under the test for officer inferiority set forth in Chief Justice Rehnquist’s majority opinion in Morrison v. Olson. Under both tests, Mueller is acting as a principal officer even though he has not been nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Mueller’s appointment is therefore unconstitutional.”
THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: With death rate up, US life expectancy is likely down again.
STONEWALL — NOT JUST A GAY BAR IN THE VILLAGE: Byron York: FBI appears ready to miss another deadline in Trump-Russia probe.
Related: Grassley Demands DOJ Explain Redaction of Strzok Text Suggesting Obama White House Ran Probe.
REPEAT AFTER ME: “We do not have a right to not be offended.” An Oregon high school student is suing his school, saying it violated his First Amendment rights when it suspended him for wearing a Trump T-shirt. The very terrible and horrifically offensive T-shirt can be seen here. I warn you, sit down before viewing because you might faint.
This is why they need to start teaching civics in elementary schools again.
UNMANNED NAVY COAST WATCHER: A USN petty officer aboard a Mark VI patrol boat launches an unmanned aerial vehicle –somewhere in the Pacific.
MORE EVIDENCE RUSSIA SHOT DOWN FLIGHT MH-17 OVER UKRAINE: The attack occurred in July 17, 2014.
The missile that downed a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 belonged to a Russian brigade, international investigators say.
For the first time, the Dutch-led team said the missile had come from a unit based in western Russia.
All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 died when it broke apart in mid-air flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
It was hit by a missile fired from rebel-held territory in Ukraine. Russia says none of its weapons was used.
But on Thursday Wilbert Paulissen, a Dutch official from the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), told reporters: “All the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces.”
He restated the JIT’s conclusion that the plane had been destroyed by a Russian-made Buk missile, adding that it had been supplied by the country’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade in Kursk.
Everyone knew this was what happened. Forensic analysis in the immediate aftermath of the incident proved it was a Buk surface to air missile, but the Kremlin first said a Ukrainian aircraft downed the commercial jet then claimed the missile came from Ukrainian sources. Now investigators have traced the missile that shot down MH-17 to Russian military stocks.
Here’s what StrategyPage reported on July 23, 2014:
The Ukraine situation got a lot worse a week ago when pro-Russian rebels shot down a Malaysian airliner that was passing through. The official Russian line is that the destruction of the Malaysian airliner was all a CIA plot to discredit Russia and justify NATO expansion. Russia claims a Ukrainian fighter shot down the airliner, which may be why the rebels kept international investigators away from the crash site for so long. Russian aviation experts know that when the wreckage is carefully examined parts of the missile that brought down the airliner will probably be found and identified. Photos of the wreckage already show damage characteristic of what a BUK (SA-11) missile warhead would inflict. The missile has a 70 kg (154 kg) warhead and a proximity fuze that detonates the warhead close to the target and sprays the target with a unique form of metal fragments.
Like I said, the evidence was there, despite the Kremlin agitprop cover story. The StrategyPage report has more background.
ALEX GRISWOLD: Democrats Resurrect the Worst Talking Point in Politics.
JOHN HINDERAKER: James Comey In Panic Mode.
SPY GAMES: U.S. Government Can’t Get Controversial Kaspersky Lab Software Off Its Networks.
“It’s messy, and it’s going to take way longer than a year,” said one U.S. official. “Congress didn’t give anyone money to replace these devices, and the budget had no wiggle-room to begin with.”
At issue is a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enacted last December that requires the government to fully purge itself of “any hardware, software, or services developed or provided, in whole or in part,” by Kaspersky Lab. The law was a dramatic expansion of an earlier DHS directive that only outlawed “Kaspersky-branded” products. Both measures came after months of saber rattling by the U.S., which has grown increasingly anxious about Kaspersky’s presence in federal networks in the wake of Russia’s 2016 election interference campaign.
America’s intelligence chiefs have, too, issued public warnings about Kaspersky software. When asked by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at an intelligence committee hearing last year whether they would be comfortable using Kaspersky software on their computers, all six of the top intelligence leaders—from the Central Intelligence Agency chief to the director of National Intelligence—had the same answer: No.
Plus:
The company works so closely with Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, that agents are sometimes embedded in the firm’s Moscow headquarters. And like virtually all anti-virus products, Kaspersky’s has complete access to any computer on which it’s running, including the ability to riffle through files and, depending on the configuration, upload them to Kaspersky’s servers in Russia. It can also execute arbitrary instructions transmitted from the company’s headquarters.
What a mess.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! My weekly column is up at The Daily Caller. This week we take a look into the reporting out of Gaza, and find it’s much more complicated than you might think:
Many of the scenes propagated by mainstream media range from selective editing to outright falsity. It seems to me that the real question is whether such deception is a function of inherent bias, a conspiracy of sorts, or instead, the attention-grabbing motive best described as “if it bleeds, it leads.”
POWER PROJECTION: China’s first home-grown aircraft carrier finishes maiden sea trial amid speculation Asia’s most advanced destroyer will be next.
Launched in April last year, the Type 001 carrier sailed out of the northeastern port of Dalian on Sunday.
Xinhua said that the main purpose of the trial was to test its domestically developed propulsion systems.
Engineers from the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and PLA Navy will now assess the test results of the first sea trial, said Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military expert.
The next trial would focus on a number of systems, including the ship’s electronics and radars, and would involve much more detailed tests, he said.
Tests on the new carrier will continue for the next six to 12 months in different waters and varied ocean conditions before it is delivered to the PLA navy.
“Engineers from the builder will work together with the PLA Navy for the tests until it is handed over to the PLA Navy,” Song said.
Related: Chinese J-20 stealth fighter jets carry out first sea training mission.
COMPLICATING THE NARRATIVE: Moses Farrow defends Woody Allen, details Mia’s alleged abuse.
Full report here.
BLUE STATE BLUES: Checking the math on California’s cap and trade, some experts say it’s not adding up.
Far more troubling are red flags highlighted in reports from academia, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, independent market experts and other major carbon markets, all concluding that California has a serious problem with too many unused pollution credits.
In the cap-and-trade system, major polluters must either produce fewer greenhouse gases to comply with California’s emissions caps or buy credits to offset their excess emissions from companies that pollute less. Credits are traded at state-sanctioned auctions and on secondary markets. And the state gives some free to utilities, natural-gas suppliers and industries that are vulnerable to out-of-state competition.
Some companies have not yet needed to use up the allowances to stay within state emissions limits and probably won’t have to in the next couple of years, according to some analysts, who estimate there are hundreds of millions of unused credits in the system.
The result is a glut of credits that could allow businesses to keep polluting past state limits in later years, after the overall cap becomes more restrictive. Unless the oversupply is addressed, experts say, polluters will have no incentive to cut emissions to required levels by 2030; instead, industries could continue polluting and use banked allowances to offset their emissions and technically keep them under the cap.
The state Legislative Analyst’s Office foresees a reckoning, estimating that because of excess allowances, actual emissions could be as much as 30 percent over the statewide target by 2030.
Positive spin: Sacramento finally produced a surplus of something.
Think of them as Democratic Party operatives with bylines and the logic is plain.
CHANGE: Tunisians Protest For the Right to Eat in Public During Ramadan. “Tunisia is a civil state and not an Islamic state.”
YALE, USC, AND NOW MICHIGAN: ‘Girls Code Camp’ and other gender-specific programs under fire at University of Michigan for potential Title IX violations.
After receiving a complaint from an economics professor, University of Michigan school officials are currently reviewing 11 separate university programs that may be in violation of Title IX, the Michigan State Constitution, and UM’s own nondiscrimination policy by specifically favoring female students and female hospital patients over males.
According to professor Mark J. Perry, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and professor of economics at the UM-Flint campus, programs such as “Girls Code Camp” and “The Och Initiative for Women in Finance, Math and Sciences” may possibly be in violation of Title IX guidelines regarding gender discrimination because they appear to be “illegally granting preferential treatment for cis women and illegally discriminating against men and gender non-conforming students, faculty and patients.”
In his complaint, Perry highlighted 11 total campus programs or initiatives that appear to be in violation of the University of Michigan’s own guidelines of gender discrimination, as well as the “Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972, Section 681. Sex” policy that forbids gender discrimination “under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Perry also pointed out that the school may also be discriminating against their own medical patients as well by offering initiatives such as the “Women’s Respiratory Clinic” and the “Women’s Heart Program,” both of which are listed as offering medical treatments specifically tailored to “women.”
In conducting his research, Perry also found that before benefits, University of Michigan spends an astonishing $8.4 million dollars each year employing a diversity staff of 93 individuals, 23 of whom earn more than $100,000 each year. The top paid diversity officer is Robert Sellers, who serves as the vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer and takes home an annual salary of $396,550 per year.
Well, on the other hand, such employees provide reliable votes and ground troops for Democrats.
And congrats to Mark Perry for speaking up. I think we need more of this.
May 23, 2018
WITH HURRICANE SEASON HERE, you may want to check out the WaterBob emergency water storage system. A number of InstaPundit readers swear by it.
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT EXPERTS? Pretending You’re in an Affair Can Spice Up Your Marriage, Relationship Expert Says.
ABOUT TIME: There’s Now A Drug That Prevents Migraines Instead Of Treating Them. That said, I’ve had very good luck with CoQ10, and so have quite a few members of my family.
WELL, THIS IS THE 58th CENTURY, YOU KNOW: The World’s First Kosher Cheeseburger Is Here.
(Classical reference in headline.)
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To See A Rocket Launch In Person This Summer.
AT AMAZON, summer savings in Sports and Outdoors.
IF HALF THE EFFORT CURRENTLY PUT INTO COMING UP WITH CUTE ACRONYMS WERE PUT INTO COMING UP WITH GOOD POLICIES INSTEAD, WE MIGHT BE IN MUCH BETTER SHAPE: The House Committee on the Judiciary recently approved the proposed “Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act” “FIRST STEP Act.” I’d really like to wring the neck of the folks who come up with these acronyms, but … well … if I did I’d end up in prison, so I guess I won’t.
Like most “nice sounding” stuff that comes out of Congress, this one should be looked at with a critical eye. Paul Mirengoff talks about some of the downsides.
Meanwhile, here’s an interesting statistic from the new Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report on prisoner recidivism: “An estimated 68% of released prisoners were arrested within 3 years, 79% within 6 years, and 83% within 9 years.” Yes, it’s a complicated subject. But make sure your eyes are wide open, before you start thinking that de-incarceration is the answer to our problems.
ISRAELI AIR FORCE BOMBS SEND AN UNAMBIGUOUS MESSAGE TO IRAN: My latest Creators Syndicate column. (bumped)
Tehran can no longer kill Israelis using proxy fighters; terrorists and criminal syndicates then deny responsibility and avoid reprisals.
Think of it as additional pressure on the ayatollah regime. Iranian special forces no longer have the privilege of “gray zone” deniability on the Israeli border.
VERY RELATED: Iran’s brittle regime confronts maximum pressure.
JORDAN PETERSON AND THE FAILURE OF THE LEFT:
I’ve read and listened to enough Peterson to make up my own mind and that’s not how I see him at all. Rather than being forthright about this, though, I’ve tended to cower silently in my alienated corner, fearful that revealing my rejection of the stock anti-Peterson narrative will cause my progressive friends to denounce me and the social media mobs to swarm.
It’s not that I’m an uncritical Peterson devotee. Although I find both his work and the furor surrounding him quite fascinating, I don’t share his way of thinking about the political issues (such as socio-economic inequality) that most concern me at all. That said, I would never look to someone like him, who I see as a classical conservative, to provide thought leadership on such matters. That’s the role of the Left. And in my view, the Left is doing an abysmal job on that front.
‘The Left’ is admittedly an overly broad and imprecise term. Still, it’s certainly possible to identify a dominant leftwing discourse in the U.S. and Canada today. And within that discourse, a stock anti-Peterson line indisputably exists. The Left faces many challenges, and the issues surrounding Peterson only represent one. Still, it’s important. The anti-Peterson crusade is an instructive example of a larger dynamic that needs to be named, discussed, and hopefully, addressed.
The hyperbolic uniformity of the leftist attack on Peterson is emblematic of the growing tendency to reduce left-of-center thought to the status of a rigidly simplistic ideology. Increasingly, what passes for progressive political thought today offers little more than a scripted set of weaponized hashtags (you must be pro- #metoo and anti-patriarchy, no further thought required). This narrowing of our public discourse is disturbing, and worrisome on multiple, mutually reinforcing levels.
Leftist politics is basically Mean Girls.
YOUR DAILY TREACHER: No, Don’t Throw Stuff at Tomi Lahren (Or Anybody Else). “If you don’t like Tomi Lahren, do what I do: Nothing. Leave her alone.”
WELL, HOW ABOUT COMING UP WITH ONE THAT WILL? I MEAN, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: A pill to protect you from the sun may not work, FDA Says.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Trump Administration Weighs New Tariffs on Imported Vehicles.
President Donald Trump has already used a legal provision known as Section 232 to impose global tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and now the administration is considering starting a probe of imported cars under the same law, possibly applying tariffs at the end, the people said.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of tariffs on auto imports in meetings. The plan remains in its early stages, and is likely to face significant opposition from a number of interest groups, from foreign trading partners to domestic dealers of imported cars.
Applying the tariffs under Section 232, meanwhile, would require a lengthy investigation and report from the U.S. Commerce Department. The administration is currently considering tariffs of up to 25%, according to those briefed on the plan.
Nothing official out of the White House so far, so who knows.
DISTRICT COURT HOLDS THAT IT’S A FIRST AMENDMENT VIOLATION FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BLOCK PEOPLE: Eugene Volokh comments. I assume this would apply to any other government official as well. Twitter should probably just disable the “block” function on their accounts.
HMM: Garrett in turmoil, might quit Congress.
Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.) has abruptly parted ways with his chief of staff and is considering not seeking reelection in November, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Garrett, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, split with his chief of staff Jimmy Keady on Tuesday evening, according to the sources.
That’s all we know so far.
AT AMAZON, summer savings in Car Care.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Texas Trooper falsely accused of rape by Shaun King cleared by body cam footage .
IT DROPPED THE BOMB IN SOME OLD MOVIE, BUT I FORGET WHICH ONE: The U.S. Air Force’s First Flying Wing Jet Flew Way Back in 1949.
TACKLING SCIENCE’S MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Could the Large Hadron Collider Collide a Sandwich?
Skip the rest of the sandwich and just aim the beam at the cheddar. I want my Cheddite projector, and I want it now!
J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Left Transforms America By Transforming the Rules.
Read the whole thing.
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE MAY SOON BE OVER: NFL Teams Will Be Fined If Players Kneel During National Anthem.
NFL owners agreed Wednesday to a new policy governing player’s behavior during the pre-game national anthem ceremony. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the owners voted to fine teams if their players are on the field or sideline during the national anthem but refuse to stand. Players will be allowed to remain in the locker room if they so choose.
“This season, all league and team personnel shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem,” Goodell said in a statement. “Personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room until after the anthem has been performed.”
Related: “The NFL players’ union is reviewing the policy to see if it violates the collective bargaining agreement, but they’re not happy about it… And as you might expect, SJW Twitter is not happy.”
The NFL Players’ Association is led by DeMaurice Smith, who served “as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team,” as the American Thinker reported in 2009, after Smith helped to blow up Rush Limbaugh’s effort to be part of the team purchasing the St. Louis Rams.
NEWSBUSTERS: What Changed? The Same Media Who Excuse Bob Mueller Abused Ken Starr.
I’m guessing the “What changed?” is purely rhetorical.
WEIRD, AND JUST A FEW YEARS AFTER THEY DE-EMPHASIZED PSA SCREENING: Cancer deaths in U.S. decline again, but prostate cancer death rate creeping up.
THIS IS NOT A GOOD LOOK FOR HOUSTON’S POLICE CHIEF: Remember Who Works for Whom, Chief Acevedo — Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo ‘Is Not Interested in Your Views’ on Gun Control.
After the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, Houston police chief Art Acevedo took to Facebook to share his thoughts.
“I know some have strong feelings about gun rights,” he wrote, “but I want you to know I’ve hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue.”
I’ve met Chief Acevedo, and he seems to me a good guy with a tough job, but he’s out of bounds here. Like a great many police chiefs and other civil servants in this ailing republic, he could stand being reminded of who works for whom.
Police chiefs are not lawmakers. It is not Chief Acevedo’s job to decide what kind of gun laws Texas—or the United States—has or does not have. Like any citizen, Chief Acevedo is entitled to his opinion, but he doesn’t have any special competence or standing to speak on the issue of gun control. What he has is only a point of view.
Of course, he doesn’t have to be interested in anybody’s views on the issue. That’s one of the nice things about being an appointed official rather than an elected one. But what Chief Acevedo is engaged in here isn’t law enforcement—it’s politics. He went on Face the Nation and insisted: “We need to start using the ballot box and ballot initiatives to take the matters out of the hands of people that are doing nothing that are elected into the hands of the people to see that the will of the people in this country is actually carried out.”
When reminded of “who works for whom,” Acevedo lashed out on Twitter: Dana Loesch fires back at Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo after legal threat.
NO, BECAUSE SMOKERS WOULDN’T STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES BUT GUN OWNERS WILL: Petula Dvorak: Can Americans ditch guns the way we ditched cigarettes?
MICHAEL CAPUTO: Former Government Official Offered Me Hillary-Related Emails in May 2016. “It was frightening to me.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, GET-WOKE-GO-BROKE EDITION: Rough Social Justice at Evergreen State: The Washington college’s enrollment plummets as even the left sours on protest-mob politics.
Here’s the math behind an academic hemorrhage: Between 500 and 600 fewer students will attend Evergreen State College next fall than in 2017, according to internal estimates. That means projected full-time enrollment is down as much as 17% from 3,500 last fall. When President George Bridges saw an internal email outlining these numbers, his impulse was to get the public-relations department to finesse them. Otherwise, he wrote, they “might end up appearing elsewhere in ways that will be used against us.”
Mr. Bridges has himself to blame. Nationwide, after administrators have capitulated to disruptive student activists, colleges have lost the support of donors, alumni, parents and prospective students. If there was one school you’d expect to defy this trend, it would be Evergreen, in Olympia, Wash. Founded in 1967, the college is proudly to the left of Berkeley and Middlebury. Its motto is literally “let it all hang out”—omnia extares—and radical activism has always been part of the pitch. But new records show that Evergreen hasn’t been spared the backlash that has plagued schools like the University of Missouri. This time, it’s coming from the left.
Applications for fall 2018 are down 20%. Sandra Kaiser, Evergreen’s vice president for college relations, claims the low application and enrollment numbers may not be as bad as they look because many students commit to Evergreen “at the last moment.” She added that “we normally expect enrollment to decline in a full-employment economy,” given that working adults, veterans and community-college transfers account for about half the student body.
At least someone is sick of all the winning. But an independent report on the protests, commissioned by Evergreen last October, reached a different conclusion. Published in April, it said that the declines in applications and enrollment were indeed “understood to be at least in part the result of the disruptions of last spring.” Moreover, current students were fleeing. Retention rates had long been “relatively stable,” the report said, but after the protests, undergraduate retention “reached its lowest performance in over a decade.” Only 60% of first-time, first-year students who enrolled last fall stayed through the end of the school year, “a full 8 percentage points below the prior year,” the report said.
All of this to placate a small group of students and faculty and “student life” administrators who will never be placated. A few firings and expulsions early on, coupled with strong statements about free speech, would have prevented this debacle.
BLUE WAVE? 48 Hours Later, Media Still Keeps Dems’ Total Collapse in Reuters Poll a Secret.
Nice polls, kid. Don’t get cocky.™
HOPE: House overwhelmingly passes bipartisan prison reform bill. “The House by an overwhelming 360-59 vote passed a bipartisan reform bill Tuesday that provides more education for federal prisoners and gives them a second chance after their release. . . . The legislation is a priority for the White House, thanks to the advocacy of Jared Kushner, who saw how his father, Charles, was treated in federal prison. The president’s son-in-law worked closely with the bill’s authors and helped host a prison reform summit at the White House last week with President Trump.”
Change: “A new report shows that the median household income has climbed 3% since President Trump took office. It’s another sign of a strong economy, and at least one poll shows the public credits Trump for the good news. . . . This is a sharp turnaround from the Obama years. Sentier data show that median household income was the same when President Obama left office as when he arrived. Under Obama, household incomes continued to fall steeply for two full years after the recession officially ended, and then took four years to make up that lost ground. Incomes then flatlined again, posting no overall gain between August 2015 and December 2016.”
GORDON CHANG: Trump Blames China’s Xi Jinping for Sabotaging the Kim Jong Un Summit.
Last week, the North Koreans, who this year gave the impression they had turned over a new leaf, began acting like North Koreans again. They abruptly canceled high-level talks with Seoul, scheduled for last Wednesday, and cast doubt on their willingness to meet with Trump in Singapore on June 12. They cited their displeasure with long-scheduled joint military exercises and with John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser.
Moon has since tried to alleviate Kim Jong Un’s concerns, withdrawing, for instance, from the Blue Lightning air-training exercise with the United States and Japan this month. Seoul’s tactics have not worked to mollify the Kim regime, however.
Now, analysts want to know what caused the North’s return to the dark side, which took senior Trump officials by complete surprise. But the new hostility should have been anticipated. It was evident that Xi Jinping, whom Trump called a “friend” yesterday, put the North Koreans up to their new bristling posture.
Just last month it appeared as thought Xi had yanked Kim’s chain hard enough to force him to the negotiating table. But now this:
Xi obviously has been up to no good. In addition to openly violating U.N. sanctions in recent months, Xi has undoubtedly been schooling Kim in the art of defiance of the international community, especially the United States. That second Xi-Kim meeting—held May 7 and 8 in the Chinese city of Dalian—preceded North Korea’s return to bad behavior.
Stay tuned…
BRE PAYTON: James Clapper Just Lied Again About His Previous Lies About NSA Spying.
Meghan McCain confronted Clapper about a statement he made while testifying before Congress five years ago, when he was asked whether or not the NSA was spying on Americans.
“In 2013 when you were asked about it, you said ‘no,’” McCain said. “So that is a lie.”
“I made a mistake,” Clapper said. “I didn’t lie. I was thinking about something else, another program.”
Clapper then proceeded to prattle on about two different surveillance programs in an attempt to obfuscate his answer.
Our intel and counterintel chiefs can’t seem to remember which side they’re supposed to lie to.
MOGADISHU, MINNESOTA: Powerline’s Scott Johnson is your tour guide.
FEEL LUCKY TODAY? BOY, DO THE CLINTONS HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU! Got a spare $100K lying around? Buy tickets to Thursday’s Clinton Foundation Gala. Sure, it won’t buy you influence in a future Clinton presidency, but, not to worry because, hey, Bill and Hillary are never without new angles to monetize their public “service.”
On the other hand, over at LifeZette, Charles Ortel lays out the other side to keep in mind with any gamble on the Clintons, including the prospect of being fitted with an orange jump suit. Trust me, folks, that’s not a long shot.
BUT OF COURSE: After Santa Fe Shooting, Houston’s Police Chief Plays Politics.
Jack Dunphy has the story.
MCCARTHY ON THE CHARLES: Harvard professes to be so concerned about discrimination that it has literally set up a blacklist for students found “guilty” of joining off-campus single-sex social groups such as sororities, fraternities, and “final clubs,” making a mockery of freedom of association. The Harvard Crimson today reports on efforts in Congress to preserve this freedom, and Harvard’s counter-effort. This after Harvard blacklisted gays in the 1920s (driving one student to suicide) and Communists in the 50s. Now that institution, whose wealth would embarrass Scrooge McDuck, demands the right to continue to receiving federal funding while persecuting sorority girls. Have you no sense of decency, Harvard, at long last?
POSTMODERN PARENTING: Parents win suit to kick 30-year-old deadbeat son out of their house.
Mark and Christina Rotondo were forced to the extreme-parenting measure after giving their layabout millennial boy Michael cash for moving expenses, pleading with him to get on with his life and finally sending written legal notices demanding he grow up and move out.
“Michael, After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided that you must leave this house immediately,” reads the first letter, dated Feb. 2.
It concludes: “You have 14 days to vacate. . . We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision.”
When my boys are finished with school, I probably won’t change the locks… but we’ll see.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sociology prof convicted for smearing fake blood on NRA lobbyist’s home. “A professor of sociology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was convicted of vandalizing the home of a National Rifle Association lobbyist this week, with the judge ordering her to pay $500 in fines and stay away from the home in question.” Her name is Patricia Hill. And what gives with the University of Nebraska at Lincoln? It’s been one crazed-PC thing after another lately.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Kent State Admits Grad’s Open AR-10 Carry On Campus Was Perfectly Legal. “The statement strongly implied, however, that Kent State would prohibit all firearms if it could, noting that state law only allows it to regulate the ‘privileges’ of those affiliated with the university.”
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE? Wynton Marsalis: Rap Is More Damaging Than Confederate Statues. A friend of mine from the Bahamas says that youth culture there fell apart when MTV came in and brought rap/hip hop with it.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Election Results, ZTE, NorK Summit and Much, Much More. “The documents in question have to do with the origination of the investigation into Trump. When did it start? The story keeps changing. Early spring? July? What evidence was presented to the FISA court FOUR TIMES to continue surveillance on the campaign, even after Trump was elected and serving as president? It’s obvious the DOJ and the FBI don’t want you or me to know. Why?”
ISRAELI BOMBS SEND AN UNAMBIGUOUS MESSAGE TO IRAN: “Tehran can no longer kill Israelis using proxy fighters; terrorists and criminal syndicates then deny responsibility and avoid reprisals.”
It’s additional pressure on the ayatollah regime. No more “gray zone” deniability on the Israeli border.
VERY RELATED: Iran’s brittle regime confronts maximum pressure.
RIDING INTO A FINNISH SUNSET: A USMC M1A1 tank in Finland drills with Finnish military forces. The tank crew is participating in “a low-light live-fire exercise.” Yes, the Finns saw Russia invade Crimea, and they remain alarmed.
RENT-SEEKERS GOTTA SEEK RENTS: Occupational Licensing Reform Is Bipartisan. California Didn’t Get the Message.
A party-line vote in a California legislative committee derailed a promising licensing bill proposed by state Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin). The bill would not have made any immediate changes to California’s licensing laws; it merely would have created a petition process to allow individuals to ask a board to review and rescind its own regulations—with an eye towards reducing lawsuits challenging particularly onerous rules.
Additionally, the bill would have prohibited licensing boards from denying a license solely because an applicant had unpaid student loans or a criminal record.
But even those relatively mild reforms were deemed too dangerous by Golden State Democrats, who uniformly opposed the measure.
Those Democrats were backed by the special interests that benefit from keeping barriers to employment high.
But of course.
ART OF THE DEAL: “In a break from past administrations, President Trump is using brass knuckles to personally cut deals on trade, military burden sharing, diplomacy, domestic energy production and regulations that aides describe as unprecedented and propelling an economic boom. In several [cases] detailed to Secrets, Trump has confronted world leaders in Oval Office meetings to demand better treatment and pushed his Cabinet secretaries to weigh decisions in favor of taxpayers, according to officials.”
WELL, I THINK CONGRESS SHOULD OBLIGE THEM POSTHASTE: FBI Agents Want Congress To Issue Them Subpoenas So They Can Reveal The Bureau’s Dirt.
SMALL WARS JOURNAL: Turkey’s Triangular Quagmire.
This is a dense piece, but worth a read. I’d just add that Erdogan has spent the last decade or more alienating Turkey’s old (and quite powerful) allies, without making any new ones — all the while stoking Arab fears of a neo-Ottoman resurgence.
DON’T MINCE WORDS, TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK: James Clapper: Leaker, Liar, Sleazeball.
In Clapper and Brennan, the deep state could hardly have chosen worse defenders.
NICE POLLS KID. DON’T GET COCKY. From Blue Wave to Blue Trickle to Blue Gurgle.
AT AMAZON, Nature Made Vitamin D3 2000 IU Softgels 250 Ct Value Size.
Plus, Lightning Deal, Slim Minimalist Leather Wallets for Men & Women.
BLUE CITY BLUES: Seattle created its homelessness crisis; now it’s trying to make it worse.
So now that we know Seattle’s own laws created a shortage of housing in the city while at the same time reducing the amount of take-home pay for lower-income residents, what is the City Council’s solution? More government.
In 2017, King County and Seattle spent over $195 million to combat homelessness, which included city, county, state, federal and charity spending. Surely the massive amount of spending had an impact on the problem? No, homelessness actually increased last year.
But don’t worry, the City Council has a plan. It had the great idea to institute another tax, known as a “head tax.” The city is going to tax its largest business $500 for every employee. This money would then be used to build “affordable housing.” It is hard to see how that could be done with the current zoning laws, which helped start the crisis in the first place, still in place.
After the City Council voted 9-0 for the ordinance, business leaders spoke out, and Amazon paused construction on a project, pitting hard-working construction workers against do-nothing, full-time protesters. After some negotiating between the City Council and Mayor Jenny Durkan, the head tax was reduced to $275 for every employee.
This may seem like a win, but like everything in Seattle, all is not as it seems. Along with the lower rate, so far the allocation of the funds is non-binding. Meaning there is no plan to spend the money. It could easily be spent on non-homeless issues.
What Seattle has done is so poorly planned, even some of the homeless are calling out the city for its excessive spending.
“Get the hell out of my way!” the wise man once said.
IF YOU PAY MORE, THE SHORTAGE WILL GRADUALLY VANISH: The U.S. Doesn’t Have Enough Truckers.
OUCH: Law firm of Stormy Daniels’ attorney hit with $10-million judgment.
Judge Catherine Bauer of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana ordered the Eagan Avenatti law firm to pay the $10 million to Jason Frank, a lawyer who used to work at the Newport Beach firm.
“At this point, that’s what’s appropriate,” Bauer said at a brief hearing.
To settle his law firm’s bankruptcy, Avenatti had personally guaranteed that the $2 million would be paid to Frank last week, but both he and his firm failed to turn over the money.At the hearing, the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Avenatti has also defaulted on just over $440,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest that he had personally promised to pay the Internal Revenue Service under another bankruptcy settlement for his law firm.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Najah Shariff told the judge that the federal government would soon file a motion demanding payment.
To be fair, Avenatti has been too busy helping out CNN to keep track of such trivialities.
21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Poll: More than 9 in 10 in key states concerned about driverless cars.
Prediction: As Silicon Valley’s reputation sinks, so will the prospects for driverless cars, which require immense trust on all sorts of levels.
CYA: SpaceX’s New Rocket Studied by Air Force, Delaying GPS Upgrades.
The GPS III satellites being built by Lockheed Martin Corp. promise increased accuracy for navigation, a signal compatible with similar European satellites and improved security against cyberattacks. But the satellites meant to upgrade the Global Positioning System, which is widely used for military and civilian applications, are already years behind schedule.
The planned GPS III launch “has slipped due to ongoing SpaceX qualification testing and final engineering reviews by both SpaceX and the Air Force of Falcon 9 design changes,” the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center said in a statement to Bloomberg News. The service is “working closely” with SpaceX to complete the reviews and issue a “Flight Worthiness Certification just prior to launch,” it said.
The rockets are fine; it’s the paperwork that’s slow.
SHOT: Democrats Shouldn’t Start with ‘Impeachment Trials’ if Party Wins Majority.
-Former Hillary Clinton advisor Jennifer Palmieri.
CHASER: We will impeach Trump if we retake the House.
-Democratic Congressman Al Green.
HANGOVER: GOP Surges to 2018 Generic Ballot Lead in New Reuters Poll.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Sweden distributes ‘be prepared for war’ leaflet to all 4.8m homes.
The Swedish government has begun sending all 4.8m of the country’s households a public information leaflet telling the population, for the first time in more than half a century, what to do in the event of a war.
Om krisen eller kriget kommer (If crisis or war comes) explains how people can secure basic needs such as food, water and heat, what warning signals mean, where to find bomb shelters and how to contribute to Sweden’s “total defence”.
The 20-page pamphlet, illustrated with pictures of sirens, warplanes and families fleeing their homes, also prepares the population for dangers such as cyber and terror attacks and climate change, and includes a page on identifying fake news.
One of these things is not like the others. Plus: “The leaflet advises people to think about how to cope if there was no heating, food became difficult to buy, prepare and store, there was no water in the taps or toilet, and cash machines, mobile phones and the internet stopped working.”
Remember when it was only paranoid preppers who worried about such things?
BUT THEY’LL NEVER BE CONVICTED BY A JURY OF THEIR PEERS: More evidence of deep state collaboration with CNN on the Steele dossier.
LIFE OUTSTRIPS THE ONION: Women’s March defends rapists…
HEADS SHOULD ROLL, OR AT LEAST ORNAMENT PIKES BECAUSE OF THIS: Jonathan Turley on the “spy”.
MORE LIKE MONEY PRIVILEGE: Black Man Beats Up Jimmy Kimmel Over His ‘White Privilege’ On Gun Control.
IT’S TIME TO TAKE THE GLOVES OFF: The Niceness Effect.
A DIFFERENT ANSWER TO WHY SCHOOL SHOOTINGS HAPPEN: The Values We Lost.
PRIVILEGE, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND: A fair go.
NEED A ROUND-UP OF TUESDAY’S PRIMARY RESULTS? PJM’s Hot Mic has you covered.
ASSAULT AND BATTERY: Opinion: Free Speech Under Assault on College Campuses.
TRUST ME ON THIS, THE FOOD IS AMAZING: Tourists are flooding to Portugal for the food and wine.
May 22, 2018
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “Today’s higher education implosion news comes from my graduate alma mater, Claremont Graduate University, which emailed everyone yesterday about the imminent closure of its graduate program in philosophy. I’ll update this if I get any better inside information, but I suspect declining enrollment is the main cause, though I hear many programs at CGU are running deeply in the red, so this may be just the first program to go under. . . . Maybe the university is indeed committed to the humanities, but somehow we never hear of business or computer science programs being shrunk or discontinued.”