TO BE FAIR, THERE’S A LOT TO HATE IN YEAR 8 OF THE LIGHTWORKER: Salena Zito: ‘The haters’ will pick our next president.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Rat Pack vs. the hippie: Trump and Hillary are from opposite ends of same decade.

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION raised by Scott Adams.

WELCOME TO THE ONE TRUE CHURCH OF VICTIMOLOGY: Kyle Smith notes that the gay pastor who claimed that he was sold a cake with the words “LOVE WINS FAG” by the Whole Foods in Austin — insert Spock eyebrow lift here — is “the latest in a line of hate-crime hucksters seeking to profit from imaginary victimization. This is fraud:”

Last June in Baltimore, resident Julie Baker said a neighbor had sent an anonymous note calling her yard decorations “relentlessly gay” and asking her to “tone it down” because “this is a Christian area.”

An outraged Baker quickly went to the GoFundMe site to monetize her feelings and asked donors to pitch in to make her yard decorations even more “relentlessly gay.” She quickly raised $43,000. As accusations that she was a hoaxer piled up she announced she was returning all donations in a vaguely worded semi-apology (“the truth is that this project went from an artistic snowball tossed in the face of hate to an avalanche”).

Last summer 21-year-old Rick Jones of Delta, Utah, claimed some thugs beat him up and carved “Die fag” into his arms while he was working at the family pizza shop. Jones’ family started a GoFundMe campaign to capitalize on the result and had already earned $12,000 when police announced that they believed Jones had fabricated the incident. Jones’ lawyer admitted as much but called the claims a “cry for help” instead of the cry for money and attention it looked like to everyone else.

Serious question: Why are none of these people in jail?

Read the whole thing.

STAIRWAY TO NINETY-SEVEN.

RUST NEVER SLEEPS:

The novelty of Brady’s new book on Hiss is that it looks like it takes the “evil Richard Nixon” bullshit narrative and combines it with the “anti-communism is delusional” bullshit narrative, mixes them together and the resulting brew is even more intoxicating, like whiskey to a thirsty Irishman. I predict that when this book is released, the reviews from left-wing media such as the Guardian, Salon, and the HuffPo will be snake-handling levels of ecstatic. The right has pretty much fought the left to a standstill on the Hiss case for a number of years now, since the publication of Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, written by left-wing author Allen Weinstein, who investigated the Hiss case with the intent of finding the reasons why Hiss was innocent, reasons he knew had to be there, but instead discovering that he was guilty as charged. With that, conservatives have pretty much moved on, but the left never does, never moves on, never sleeps, and is corrosive as rust. Brady’s new book will be potent balm to salve their wounded souls. With the combining of the two bullshit narratives, I can hear the Guardian reviewer cry out with joy, “Hallelujah! Finally, after all these years, it now all makes sense.”

Nixon did it! Yeah!

And with that, their ignorance will be nigh impregnable.

Hugh Hewitt has to have the author on his show for what will be the Greatest. Interview. Ever.

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT AS SELF-LICKING POPSICLE: Feds Divert MILLIONS To ‘Slush Fund’ That Fuels These Liberal Activist Groups.

JOEL KOTKIN’S THE HUMAN CITY gets a nice review in the Wall Street Journal: In Praise Of Urban Sprawl. Excerpt:

In essence, Mr. Kotkin argues, being anti-suburb is being anti-family. With this book he wants to shift the emphasis back to people, the derided suburban masses that he refers to as “the rest of us,” people who have become almost invisible to anti-sprawl adherents, especially those who raise an alarm about the destruction of natural habitats by expanding cities. In a way, Mr. Kotkin echoes Bruce Chatwin’s comment on Darwin: “He lapsed into the common failure of naturalists: to marvel at the intricate perfection of other creatures, and recoil from the squalor of man.”

Mr. Kotkin, in his unabashed defense of the essential role that suburbs play in cities the world over, is clearly on the offensive. He does not pretend to present himself as an even-handed expert; he presents his arguments and leaves the opposition to argue its own case. All the same, and much to my delight, the book does not read as a diatribe or an anti-urban manifesto. Mr. Kotkin comes across as a relaxed, confident and experienced litigator standing in front of a jury of readers and making his case; and “The Human City” does provide a vision for a legitimate and pragmatic urbanism that could and should become mainstream.

I had some related thoughts here in response to Robert Bruegmann’s excellent book, Sprawl: A Compact History.

Also related: Obama’s War On The Suburbs.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED INDUSTRIES SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL PREDATION? Elijah Wood claims Hollywood paedophile ring is similar to Jimmy Savile abuse.

APOCALYPSE NOW:

● Shot: Panic Rooms Take Off as Buyers Prep for Trump, Hillary.

—Heat Street, Friday.

● Double-shot:

But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy.

* * * * * * * *

Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society. “National socialism” was a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposed; fascism in Italy was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical. Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Fuhrer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how. Today, there is Putinism, which also has nothing to do with belief or policy but is about the tough man who singlehandedly defends his people against all threats, foreign and domestic.

To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today.

—“This is how fascism comes to America,” Robert Kagan, the left-leaning Brookings Institute, yesterday.

● Chaser:

To listen to the manner in which our friends on the left now talk about Donald Trump is to suspect that it is not. Time and time again, Trump has been compared to Hitler, to Mussolini, to George Wallace, and to Bull Connor. Time and time again, self-described “liberals” have recoiled at the man’s praise for internment, at his disrespect for minorities and dissenters, and at his enthusiasm for torture and for war crimes. Time and time again, it has been predicted — not without merit — that, while Trump would almost certainly lose a general election, an ill-timed recession or devastating terrorist attack could throw all bets to the curb. If one were to take literally the chatter that one hears on MSNBC and the fear that one smells in the pages of the New York Times and of the Washington Post, one would have no choice but to conclude that the progressives have joined the conservatives in worrying aloud about the wholesale abuse of power.

Hence my initial question: Have they? And, if they have, what knock-on effects has that worrying had? Having watched the rise of Trumpism — and, now, having seen the beginning of violence in its name — who out there is having second thoughts as to the wisdom of imbuing our central state with massive power?

That’s a serious, not a rhetorical, question. I would genuinely love to know how many “liberals” have begun to suspect that there are some pretty meaningful downsides to the consolidation of state authority.

— “Is Trump’s Rise Giving Progressives Second Thoughts?”, Charles C. W. Cooke, NRO, March 16th.

CHANGE: In historic move, U.S. lifts arms sales embargo to Vietnam.

Smart move.

It isn’t often mentioned that Vietnam and China fought a war against each other more recently than the Vietnam and the United States did.

ISN’T EVERYTHING, THESE DAYS? Libertarian VP Candidate Likens Trump’s Immigration Policy to Kristallnacht.

I thought Al Gore and the New York Times had the lock on that codicil of Godwin’s Law, at least for radical environmental purposes, before Al tacitly declared Mission Accomplished on environmentalism by selling out to oil-rich Qatar.

Besides, as Kathy Shaidle quipped in March, once in office, Trump is far more likely to govern along the lines of a very different Austrian socialist than Hitler.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Justice rots from the top.

It is rare for a federal judge to lay into government attorneys this way. Or, rather, it was before President Obama took office. Now it is a lot more common.

Only a month ago, an appellate court judge in the Sixth Circuit similarly excoriated Justice Department attorneys for unethically dragging out the discovery process in another lawsuit, in which they were defending the Internal Revenue Service. In that case, the judge criticized the lawyers’ “studied obstruction,” and repeated use of transparently bogus arguments to drag their feet in the lower courts.

Judge Raymond Ketheledge wrote pointedly that “lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and enforcing its laws … in a manner worthy of the Department’s name. The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition.”

There is a pattern here. This incidents are characteristic of an administration willing to make any casuistical arguments to push ideological change that benefits their donors but for which they have secured no public approval or democratic legitimacy.

Well, yes. Also, as my next USA Today column notes, of an administration that is setting a terrible example.

Plus: “Maybe it isn’t so surprising that Justice Department attorneys keep getting caught misbehaving when their boss, the president himself, puts undemocratic change ahead of everything else, including apparently ethical behavior in the practice of law.”

ISIS TESTING CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ: “One more consequence of President Obama’s premature abandonment of Iraq. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he wanted Iraq to be unsuccessful.”

Or as Glenn wrote in 2013, “Ideology required that the Iraq War be a failure, even if it needed a nunc pro tunc effort to make it so.”

DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY: The Gathering Storm In Philadelphia.

TWO EPA BUREAUCRAT PANELS MEET SECRETLY, SPEND BILLIONS: And no, you can’t have the names of the bureaucrats on either panel, minutes of their minutes or records of their spending decisions, reports Ethan Barton of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

“Congress appropriates about $1 billion annually for EPA’s Superfund program, and the agency has accumulated nearly $6.8 billion in more than 1,300 slush fund-like accounts since 1990,” according to Barton. “Two committees consisting entirely of EPA officials meet behind closed doors twice annually to decide how the agency spends those funds on highly polluted – and often dangerous – Superfund sites.”

Even though Superfund sites can involve significant risks to the public health, “all reports to and from the groups, as well as the minutes of their meetings and all other details, are kept behind closed doors,” Barton reports.

Secret meetings. Spending without accountability. No public records of who they are. Will Congress – the “First Branch” of the government established by the Constitution – do anything about it?

SUICIDE BY COP? Gunman shot outside White House ‘wanted to die.’

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Facebook Censors Conservative Lauren Southern for Mentioning Censorship. It’s going to take more than a meeting with Zuckerberg to fix this problem.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

LOU DOLINAR HAS BEEN LOOKING INTO THE MEDIA FAILURES DURING KATRINA:

Remember the dozens, maybe hundreds, of rapes, murders, stabbings and deaths resulting from official neglect at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? The ones that never happened, as even the national media later admitted?

Sure, we all remember the original reporting, if not the back-pedaling.

Here’s another one: Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?

Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media portrayed as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest places to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there. . . .

I initially heard about the Dome headquarters from Maj. John T. Dressler, who serves with the National Guard Bureau in Washington D.C, an organization that coordinates efforts of State Guard units which serve under their respective governors. Dressler was present in the command tent there and pulled together after-action reports for the Guard as a whole from its fifty-plus individual state commands. His account was so far at variance with the picture the media portrayed that I suspected a hoax, as did my RCP editor. As it turns out, various Guard documents, personal memories, and sworn testimony support his story, which in Louisiana is no great secret. It’s just the rest of the country that’s been kept in the dark.

Read the whole thing. The Katrina reporting represented a massive media failure, one that they’ve never really admitted.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Parker emails:

It’s only a failure if their goal was to report the news.

It was a raging success if you believe their goal was to diminish Bush.

Given how proud of their Katrina coverage the press remains to this day, it seems like the latter is the most likely.

It’s certainly true that they have nothing to be proud of. Indeed, their mis-reporting hampered rescue efforts and may well have cost lives.

A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION MASQUERADING AS A POLITICAL PARTY: The Obama Regime’s Criminal Syndicate.

Brought to you by Bill and Hillary, incidentally:

I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS OUT: Someone told me last week, and I assumed it was on pre-order, since the paperbook isn’t due till August and is not even on pre-order yet.  But hey, you can buy the ebook now, and there will be a prequel short story for free on my site on Wednesday!  (Yes, I’ll post a link then.)  Anyway — Through Fire.

I STILL DON’T THINK HIS EXPERIMENTS CAN OR SHOULD BE EXTRAPOLATED TO MORE COMPLEX PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTIONS IN HUMANS, BUT HEY, HE WAS AN ANTI-COMMUNIST! Pavlov’s dogs were happy campers.

WHY IS IT THOSE WHO CLAIM TO HATE STEREOTYPES DEAL ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY IN STEREOTYPES? In Defense of the All-Male Book Club.  Oh, I guess Slate thinks it’s okay to stereotype MALES.  After only all females have that holy victimhood.  (Grumbles.)

A LOT OF ADULTS IN THE SAME BOAT: Today’s tech-addicted kids are stuck in a world of distraction.

FROM J.M. NEY-GRIMM:Resonant Bronze.

INCITING HATE AND DIVISION FOR MONEY: Welcome to the One True Church of Victimology.

THE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT: Why this man decided to become a goat.  And it’s reading stuff like this that causes my desk to have a head-shaped dent.

FAST AND FURIOUS IS NOT DONE AND OVER WITH: The scandal in Washington no one is talking about.  Apparently scandal is what we now call facilitating the murder of hundreds to make people give up their second amendment rights.  How … civilized we’ve become.

FROM BEN ZWICKY: Nobility Among Us.

KURT SCHLICHTER: The GOP Establishment Has Learned Nothing From Its Failure.

THE SELDOM-DISCUSSED PREJUDICE: “Colorism” Within The Black Community. “But calling someone a tragic mulatto? White chocolate? Accusing someone of betraying their race because they are not marrying a black person? That’s fair game in 2016. And it shouldn’t be. People should be held accountable for their hatred, no matter who they are.”

THE INSTAWIFE: Dude, the World’s Gonna Punch You in the Face.

LAWPROF NICHOLAS JOHNSON, on gun-toting Republican woman Harriet Tubman and the $20 bill.

I highly recommend his book, Negroes And The Gun: The Black Tradition Of Arms.

Also, Charles E. Cobb Jr.’s This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible.

AT AMAZON, deals on Men’s Underwear and socks. Also, athletic shoes.

Plus, Women’s Sleepwear, Loungewear, and Lingerie. I can’t decide if there’s some rule as to why they cut the models’ faces off in some pictures but not others.

AS YOU SOW, SO SHALL YOU REAP:

THE WAGES OF IDIOCY: After Caving To Race Protesters, Mizzou Is STILL Trolling For Students For This Fall.

After attracting national attention as the site of massive race-based protests back in November, the University of Missouri is still — still — seeking enough freshman and transfer students for the fall semester — which begins in August.

The school’s continuing scramble to find student bodies to fill taxpayer-funded classrooms comes six months after last semester’s eruption of Black Lives Matter protests rocked the Columbia, Mo. campus.

The November protests by the Concerned Student 1950 group centered largely on Jonathan Butler, the son of a millionaire railroad executive. Butler went on a hunger strike and convinced 32 black Mizzou football players to boycott all team activities.

There was a poop swastika. There were false reports of people wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods. . . .

arlier this month, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) published its annual list of all member schools that are still accepting applications for first-year or transfer students for next fall.

Mizzou is on NACAC’s 2016 college openings list. The school is still accepting freshman and transfer students, the organization says.

NACAC’s 2016 list of schools seeking students this late in the day is much longer than it has been in recent years. This year’s list contains well over 300 public and private schools. By way of comparison, notes Inside Higher Ed, NACAC’s 2015 list of colleges still seeking students in May contained only 225 colleges.

Life in the Education Apocalypse is tough. It’s tougher when you’re stupid.

MORE TROUBLES FOR MIZZOU: Mizzou Women’s Softball Team Says Title IX Is Killing the Sport: University of Missouri administrators forced the team to accept weak players, for equality. “Female athletes essentially claim that university administrators, citing Title IX, have forced the team to bring on under-qualified players. This has in turn reduced the amount of game time enjoyed by more skilled players. Why is Title IX the culprit? Administrators don’t want the federal government to accuse Mizzou of violating federal law, so they have to make sure the softball team is big enough. They don’t want it to look like the school is giving more support to the boys’ team than the girls’ team.”

THIS SEEMS SILLY: When physical exams stop at the navel.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: GREETINGS, SLAVES.

Read the whole thing.

AT AMAZON, Father’s Day Deals in Tools & Home Improvement.

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TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

A “HATEFUL ANTI-WAR SPEECH” by Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) at a University of Missouri graduation provokes a near-riot, according to Gateway Pundit, who has a report and audio. Seems to illustrate the point made in this WSJ editorial about the Democrats’ penchant for self-marginalization and self-destruction: “We doubt all of this will help Democrats with the larger electorate, which whatever its doubts about Iraq does not want a precipitous surrender. Americans haven’t trusted a liberal Democrat with the White House during wartime since Vietnam, which is when the seeds of the current antiwar rage were planted. The great mistake that leading Democrats and anti-Communist liberals made during Vietnam was not speaking up against a left that was demanding retreat and sneering at our war heroes. Will any Democrat speak up now?”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: So, you want to be a shitlord?

AT AMAZON, Buy 2 Fire Kids Tablets for $149.99.

A COOL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS of the Bicycle Menace.

NEWS YOUR DM CAN USE: Dealing With Class in RPGs.

DON SURBER: For the first time, Trump now leads the average of national polls.

PRIME MINISTER ZOOLANDER: Trudeau has further to fall. Much further. “I wrote back in the fall that voters might want to think twice before handing over the keys to a G8 nation to someone whose pre-Parliament resume consists mostly of dropping out of grad school multiple times. But the Liberal campaign convinced the people – and the people clearly wanted to be convinced – that their ‘JFK does reality TV’ leader was going to transcend politics as we knew it. Good luck delivering on that commitment.”

GEORGE WILL: Canned patriotism: Behind Bud’s ‘America’ shtick. “A beer bottle metaphysician at the brewer of soon-to-be America says, ‘We are embarking on what should be the most patriotic summer that this generation has ever seen.’ This refers to the once-in-a-generation, light-the-sparklers opportunity to choose between two presidential candidates roundly disliked by American majorities. It is enough to drive one to drink something stronger than beer. . . . Nothing says ‘It’s morning in an America that is back and standing tall’ quite like beer cans festooned with Americana by Anheuser-Busch InBev, a firm based in Leuven, Belgium, and run by a Brazilian.”

A LOOK BACK AT THE DAYS BEFORE THE GREAT PC CLEANUP: Nine Vintage Ads That Are So Ridiculously Racist and Sexist They’d Be Banned Today.

REFLECTIONS ON the anniversary of Joplin’s destruction.

IS THIS EVEN…POSSIBLE? Gym tells Ottawa woman breasts ‘too large’ for tank top.

IF YOU HAVE TO TAKE A RACE-AND-GENDER-STUDIES CLASS TO IDENTIFY THE RACISM, IT’S NOT RACISM: “I like getting some scholarly analysis, but when you’re examining American culture and find yourself going back to ‘F Troop’ and ‘Davy Crockett’ to exemplify the cultural stereotype, you should be questioning your data. ‘Davy Crockett’ was on TV from 1954-1955.”

WHAT ABOUT US BRAIN-DEAD SLOBS? YOU’LL BE GIVEN CUSHY JOBS! Beyond Boondoggle: California High Speed Rail Delayed 4 Years.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED INDUSTRIES SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL PREDATION? Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood says Hollywood is gripped by a powerful pedophile ring and Tinseltown is covering up a ‘seedy’ underbelly full of predatory ‘vipers.’

MANNERS MAKYTH WHIT STILLMAN.

JIM FIXX, CALL YOUR OFFICE: “Woman climbs Mount Everest to prove vegans aren’t weak, dies.”

Related: “The Crazy Crash of New York’s Hottest Vegan:” “When Melngailis asked for a vegan diet at Rikers, her request was denied. She says she makes do with peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, apples and fresh-sliced cucumber.”

IN THE MAIL: The Wolf of Sarajevo.

Plus, today only at Amazon: Sport-Brella Umbrella – Portable Sun and Weather Shelter, $35.99 (40% off).

And, also today only: Save Up To 52% on Backpacking Essentials. I didn’t know they made backpacks for dogs.

Plus: Save on Select Dream Chairs by Vivere.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1109.

TO SOME, THAT’S A FEATURE, NOT A BUG: John Walsh: ‘The Border Is as Porous as the Ocean.’

“BEGRUDGING” IS THE KEY WORD HERE: Begrudging WaPo poll: Trump 46%, Clinton 44%. “It’s not the headline, and it takes 219 words to get there, but a new Washington Post poll on the presidential race reveals that Republican Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton among registered voters 46 percent to 44 percent. . . . But instead of focusing on Trump’s surge, the Post highlighted the feeling among the unfavorable view voters have of both candidates, and that Clinton is more qualified.”

It’s almost as if they’re in the tank for Hillary.

GREEN FANTASIES: Wind and Solar Can’t Replace French Nuclear Reactors.

Three quarters of France’s energy comes from its fleet of nuclear power plants, but many of those reactors are aging, forcing a reevaluation of the country’s energy mix. Renewables are en vogue in Europe these days, with Germany’s energiewende supposedly setting some kind of “green” precedent (despite the fact that Berlin’s massive subsidization of wind and solar energy has perversely led to a sizable increase in consumption of dirty lignite coal), and there’s a push to replace France’s nuclear reactors with renewables. But, as Reuters reports, the head of the French utility EDF is pouring cold water on that approach. . . .

Environmentalists have never taken kindly to nuclear power, despite the fact that it’s one of the only energy sources capable of contributing zero-emissions baseload electricity. The legacy of meltdowns has been enough for greens to discount nuclear’s eco-merits, but the fact remains that anyone looking to craft a 100 percent zero-emissions energy mix needs nuclear power—wind and solar can’t do it on their own. Those renewable energy sources aren’t just expensive (ask a German household for more on that), they’re intermittent, and lacking commercially viable energy storage options that means they can’t provide power on the consistent basis society demands.

In many ways, France provides a better model of a viable and green energy mix than Germany, and the EDF chief is absolutely right—wind and solar can’t replace nuclear power, no matter what clueless environmentalists might have you believe.

If you’re worried about carbon emissions, you need to support nuclear power. If you don’t, you’re not serious.

FASTER, PLEASE: Did U.S. Drone Strike Take Out Taliban Leader?

DAN MITCHELL: Paul Krugman Beclowns Himself…Again.

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THAT’S ODD. I UNDERSTAND HE USED TO BE AN ECONOMIST OR SOMETHING. Krugman Flunks Basic Labor Economics.

YEAH, I’M WITH THE MEDIA. SCREW YOU:

Shot: This is how the strongman wins: Donald Trump’s single greatest weapon is America’s hatred for its press.

—Neal Gabler, Salon.com, yesterday.

Chaser:

“My reaction to that button [`Rather Biased'] and others, in part, is a button I bought yesterday that says `Yeah, I’m In The Media, Screw You!’….I do understand why a lot of people are upset with us, why we rank somewhere between terrorists and bank robbers on the approval scale. We do criticize. That’s part of our role. Our role is not just to parrot what people say, it’s to make people think. I think that sometimes I want to say to the electorate `Grow up!’”

—The late Ginny Carroll, bureau chief in first Detroit and then Houston of the then-Washington Post-owned Newsweek, on C-Span after admitting she wore a button labeled “Yeah, I’m In The Media, Screw You!” at the 1992 Republican convention.

BUT TRUMP IS THE DUMB ONE: Clinton Advisor Says Heller was “Wrongly Decided,” Has No Idea What Case is About.

SPORTS “JOURNALISTS” ARE THE SORRIEST BUNCH OF PC-WHIPPED WUSSES AROUND: Redskins name offensive to sports journalists, but not to 90 percent of Native Americans.

A SELFIE FOR COEXISTENCE — EXCEPT WITH THE JEWS.

JUST THINK OF HIM AS YET ANOTHER “JUSTICE-INVOLVED INDIVIDUAL:” Black Lives Matter ‘Activist’ Was Invited To White House AFTER His Arrest For Allegedly Pimping 17 Yr Old Girl. 

While President Ash Carter has been simultaneously fighting ISIS and “fundamentally transforming” the military SJW-style, our semi-retired POTUS has been on quite a streak this year:

● Obama Hosts Vile Thugs To Discuss Criminal Justice Reform.

● Rapper Rick Ross’s Ankle Monitor Goes Off During Minorty Youth Empowerment Program at White House.

● Before his final State of the Union address, Obama met in the White House with rapper Kendrick Lamar, whose cover artwork to his album To Pimp a Butterfly features a dead judge and his murders posing in front of the White House.

● Yuri Kochiyama, admirer of Osama bin Laden, honored this past week with a Google splash page despite(?) being an admirer of Osama bin Laden, was also “honored during March — which is Women’s History Month — by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. So the Obama administration has as many questions to answer about this as Google.”

Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” — a warning for the rest of us, a how-to guide for the Obama White House.

Earlier: Obama doesn’t think rapists, armed robbers, drug dealers are criminals.

THE HILL: GOP Hispanic leaders open to reconciling with Trump.

Alfonso Aguilar, a former White House official under President George W. Bush who now leads the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said he’d be open to a conversation.

Aguilar has criticized Trump in the past, but he praised the presumptive nominee’s decision to send a video to this weekend’s National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC). Trump’s video aired Friday night, along with one from Clinton.

“If in the process of unification, he were to seek my support and show he’s willing to change his tone and be open to some form of legalization, I would be willing to reconsider my position,” he said.

“He’s done with the Latino community, he’s done with the Latino conservatives,” Aguilar said on Fox News in October. “If Donald Trump is the GOP candidate, we won’t work to support him and we are sure he will lose the general election because there’s no way a GOP candidate can win the White House if they don’t get more support from Latino voters.”

There are signs that Trump is seeking to change his image with Hispanics.

Besides the video address to the Christian conference, he met at Trump Tower earlier this month with Rev. Mario Bramnick, a member of the group’s board.

Bramnick told Time Magazine that Trump “showed a tremendous understanding and concern for the undocumented immigrants.”

While Trump would not commit to any specific policy changes, Bramnick told Time the general takeaway was one of inclusion.

“We all came out really sensing his genuineness,” he said.

So stay tuned.

FIGHTING NOT GOOD. BUT IF MUST FIGHT, WIN: it’s Time for the Miyagi Doctrine.

TEXAS’ TWEETER LAUREATE: Justice Don Willett, the boy from Talty, takes Twitter by storm, and maybe SCOTUS, too.

CATHY YOUNG: UVA’s Jackie Made Up Her “Rapist.” Will Fauxminists ‘StandWithJackie’?

In the department of news that will surprise exactly no one, the latest reports from a University of Virginia dean’s lawsuit against Rolling Stone over its 2014 “Rape on Campus” article have revealed new evidence that the story’s main source, Jackie, fabricated not only her brutal frat-house gang rape but the handsome date who set it up, Haven Monahan.

In this latest twist, it appears someone accessed “Haven’s” email account, [email protected], from the office of Jackie’s lawyers on March 18.

No need to page Perry Mason: even without this final clue, the case of the fictional gang rape was basically wrapped up by the end of 2014, a few weeks after the Rolling Stone cover story first rocked the nation.

First, press investigations showed that there was no party at the fraternity named by Jackie anywhere near the date she gave; that her account changed (according to friends) from forced oral sex to vaginal rape and from five assailants to seven; and that she had looked uninjured after a violent attack that she claimed left her bruised and bloodied.

Then, it turned out that the alleged rapist, named “Drew” in the Rolling Stone story but known by the Harlequin-romance name Haven Monahan to Jackie’s friends, seemed to be a ghost. There was no one by that name on the UVA campus or anywhere else; “Haven’s” text messages to Jackie’s friends were fake (and came from fake phone numbers registered to texting-via-Internet services), and his photo matched a former high school classmate of Jackie’s who lived outside Virginia. The catfishing scheme was apparently an elaborate play for the affections of Jackie’s friend and fellow student Ryan Duffin, who had previously rebuffed her romantic overtures—and whom she called for help after the alleged rape.

It was enough to make Anna Merlan, a writer for the feminist website Jezebel.com, apologize to blogger Richard Bradley and Reason writer Robby Soave for calling them idiots after they publicly wondered if the UVA gang rape story was a hoax. But not enough for either feminists or the mainstream media to call a fake a fake, instead of politely referring to “discrepancies” in Jackie’s story and piously intoning that traumatic memories can be unreliable.

In March 2015, when the Charlottesville Police Department released the results of its investigation into Jackie’s alleged assault—which found “no substantive basis” for her claims and explicitly disproved many of them—CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin repeatedly emphasized that “we have to be very careful” not to call Jackie a liar. Asserting that only two percent of rape reports are false according to the FBI, Hostin concluded, “The suggestion that she just sort of made this entire thing up flies in the face of statistics.”

Apart from the bizarre logic—a two-percent chance is hardly the same as “never happens”—this analysis was flawed in more ways than one can count. FBI statistics actually show that around 9 percent of rape reports are classified as “unfounded” by local law enforcement; however, it is nearly impossible to obtain a reliable estimate of false reports. Some “unfounded” complaints are mislabeled as false; on the other hand, some unresolved cases and even some rape convictions involve false allegations. What’s more, false report statistics track only formal complaints made to the police or to college officials; Jackie never filed such a complaint.

CNN wasn’t the only media outlet dancing around the facts. The New York Times story never mentioned the evidence that “Haven Monahan” was fabricated, stating only that “the police were unable to track Mr. Monahan down.” (They were also unable to interview Santa Claus.) . . .

By the way, the judge in the Rolling Stone case ruled that Jackie’s records must be turned over to Eramo and her attorneys, obviously disagreeing with NOW. According to The Washington Post, Jackie’s lawyers have claimed that their client was “not in possession” of “Haven Monahan’s” correspondence and was not withholding any documents. But it turns out that just four days before that letter was sent, someone using the law firm’s network logged into “Haven Monahan’s” email account.

You have to wonder what the people who still “stand with Jackie” will make of the news. Maybe the dastardly Haven broke into the law firm’s office or hacked the server. Or we could always go with the “shape-shifting alien” theory.

It’s important for SJW types to feel good about themselves. Any damage done along the way is acceptable.

JUST THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES AND YOU WONT GO FAR WRONG: Former White House Reporter: Media ‘Happy to Be Managed’ by Obama.

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER GODDAMN WORD ABOUT GLENN REYNOLDS’ CARBON FOOTPRINT: Leonardo DiCaprio Flew 8,000 Miles on Private Jet to Accept Environmental Award.

WHAT DO THEY TEACH THEM IN SCHOOLS THESE DAYS? Nobody Knows Anything About Fascism. Fascism was an ideological movement, with intellectuals, detailed theories, conferences, and agendas. It was only in the post World War II era that it was transformed into a synonym for “things we don’t like.”

WELL, YES: Dershowitz and Other Professors Decry ‘Pervasive and Severe Infringement’ of Student Rights.

A group of law professors are accusing the civil rights office of the U.S. Education Department of taking “unlawful actions” that have led to “pervasive and severe infringements” of speech rights and due-process protections on college campuses.

An open letter signed by Harvard University professor Alan Dershowitz and 20 other legal scholars blasts a series of directives issued by the federal office to schools on dealing with sexual misconduct and harassment complaints from students.

Excerpt:

We recognize that sexual harassment represents unacceptable conduct, and those found responsible should be appropriately sanctioned. Some of us have witnessed the injustices resulting from institutions that downplay or ignore sexual harassment on their campuses, and we commend [the Office of Civil Rights] for taking a proactive approach to this problem.

In pursuing its objectives, however, OCR has…ignored constitutional law, judicial precedent and Administrative Procedure Act requirements by issuing numerous directives, and then enforcing these directives by means of onerous investigations and accompanying threats to withhold federal funding. OCR has brazenly nullified the Supreme Court definition of campus sexual harassment. These unlawful actions have led to pervasive and severe infringements of free speech rights and due process protections at colleges and universities across the country.

Read the whole thing.

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And with all the Zika news, I’m guessing that the mosquito control stuff will be a big item this year.

FIVE YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN WE’D SEE WHISTLEBLOWERS PURSUED WITH A VENGEANCE. And they were right! “When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as ‘often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.’ But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined.”

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

DYMPHNA:

Remember the 1930’s when so many of Europe’s intelligentsia came to America to escape Fascism? Albert Einstein was one; Karen Horney was another. Our intellectual ranks and our universities were enriched as Europe’s totalitarian rumblings caused the educated ranks to flee to safer shores.

It seems to be happening again. In addition to Hirsi Ali’s imminent departure from the Netherlands, there is a growing feeling that Europe is not safe for those who dissent even a little from the received wisdom of the bureaucratic state, or dare to confront the Muslim taqiyya so prevalent there.

Poor Europe needs all the smarts it can get; it would be much better off if it could keep those people.

FIVE YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

JESSICA WAKEMAN: Why I Don’t Feel Too Bad For Maria Shriver. “Rumors of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity and sexual harassment have been going on for years. Arnold’s wandering penis (and hands) pre-dates his governorship of California, a role that staunch Democrat and Kennedy scion Maria Shriver helped him win. So, while this situation undeniably sucks, I’m not boo-hoo-hooing for her. I believe Maria Shriver was either willfully ignorant of or willing-to-put-up-with, Hillary Clinton-style, her husband’s cheating and sexual harassment. How could she not be aware of it, in some way? . . . I expect better from my smart, feminist political ladies (and yes, that includes you, Hillary Clinton, as much as I love you). But addressing the cheating/sexual harassment/abuse publicly was apparently not on the table for Shriver, which strikes me as hypocritical.” Politics trumped principle, until he was out of office. Then politics didn’t matter.

Related: When cheating scandals become beauty contests. I think Arnold’s the loser here.

A SUIT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS CONSPIRACY WOULD BE BETTER, BUT THIS IS GOOD: CEI Runs “Abuse of Power” Ad In New York Times.

FLASHBACK: An opinion by Mr. Justice Reynolds. As close as we’re ever likely to get . . . .

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MICKEY KAUS: What Could Hurt Trump. “In a campaign of normal length, Trump would probably win the fight. (He seems to be winning now.) The trouble is, at this rate we’ll have run through a normal campaign’s worth of thrusts and parries by the middle of next month– and there’ll still be five months still to go. That will force voters to learn what is like to live with each of the candidates, and weigh their flaws and virtues with special thoroughness. Hell, by September it will seem as if Trump’s already been president for a year. That means attacking him over last fall’s insults may not work — after all, they will have been a looong time ago, and now we’ll know the guy. If voters turn out to like living with their Daily Trump, he could easily be ten points ahead by Labor Day. But we might also tire of his personality the way … married couples do the way voters typically tire of a President about halfway through his first term.”

STEPHEN GREEN: To all the PCs I’ve loved before.

ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Being a Boy Doesn’t Equal Being a Rapist.

DAVID BOAZ: Capitalism, Not Socialism, Led to Gay Rights: What system better allows people the freedom to live how they choose? “Some historians like to claim socialist ideas helped bring about gay rights in the modern era. But they’re mistaking academic theory for reality. . . . Capitalism is more than an idea, of course. It’s a set of social institutions, which Downs correctly notes came under scathing attack from gay socialists. But as D’Emilio recognized, it was capitalism that in fact allowed individuals to live autonomously and to flourish. Capitalism freed people from feudalism and from the family farm. It allowed them to construct their own lives in a market society with space for separate personal and professional lives. It gave them the freedom and affluence to live on their own. Capitalism led to industrialization, which led to urbanization, which offered the anonymity of the city to anyone who chafed under the strictures of the family and the village, as well as the chance to find people who shared one’s interests. The writer Eric Marcus produced a book of interviews with gay activists called Making History. What his subjects illustrated—even when they didn’t realize it themselves—was that it was the freedom to leave home and the affluence that allowed people to do so that enabled them to move and to choose lifestyles they wanted.”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Terrifying Report: TSA’s Cybersecurity May Be Worse Than Its Customer Service.

WHY ARE LEFTY INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION? Yale Ethics Expert Charged With Sexual Harassment.

When Thomas Pogge travels around the world, he finds eager young fans waiting for him in every lecture hall. The 62-year-old German-born professor, a protégé of the philosopher John Rawls, is bespectacled and slight of stature. But he’s a giant in the field of global ethics, and one of only a small handful of philosophers who have managed to translate prominence within the academy to an influential place in debates about policy.

A self-identified “thought leader,” Pogge directs international health and anti-poverty initiatives, publishes papers in leading journals, and gives TED Talks. His provocative argument that wealthy countries, and their citizens, are morally responsible for correcting the global economic order that keeps other countries poor revolutionized debates about global justice. He’s also a dedicated professor and mentor, at Yale University — where he founded and directs the Global Justice Program, a policy and public health research group — as well as at other prestigious institutions worldwide. By Pogge’s own count, he’s taught 34 graduate seminars, given 1,218 lectures in 46 countries, and supervised 66 doctoral dissertations.

But a recent federal civil rights complaint describes a distinction unlikely to appear on any curriculum vitae: It claims Pogge uses his fame and influence to manipulate much younger women in his field into sexual relationships. One former student said she was punished professionally after resisting his advances.

To read the description of his work, he’s been running a scam for years. It wouldn’t be a shock if his morals were weak in other areas. Or, perhaps, he’s falsely accused — by aspiring ethicists. Either way it doesn’t look great for the profession.

Related: Are professional ethicists good people? According to our research, not especially. So what is the point of learning ethics?

As Peter Morgan and I wrote in The Appearance of Impropriety, there’s not much evidence that talking about ethics makes anyone more ethical.

I’VE BEEN MEANING TO DO THIS: You Should Get TSA Pre-Check. Here’s How.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Lipsticks shaped like penises are a thing and we don’t know how to feel.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: The real reason that so many women have to spend so much time getting ready.

ANN ALTHOUSE POSES THE QUESTION OF THE AGE: “Did Donald Trump make that happen or did he just sit back coolly and let it happen or — if such a thing is possible — is this not even about Donald Trump?”

CONTEMPT FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Labour MP Pat Glass apologises after calling voter ‘a horrible racist.’

I FEEL THAT THIS STORY LACKS IMPORTANT DETAILS ABOUT THE VICTIM AND THE MOB: San Francisco: Man seriously injured in mob attack.

RIDE THE ROLLING STONE RECURSION!

● The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

● I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.

● Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.

● By disgracing and degrading the presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.

● America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

—Hunter S. Thompson, one of Rolling Stone’s favorite writers, on America.

● [Rolling Stone’s] Matt Taibbi: Conservative Republicans ‘Destroyed the American Character…No Hell Is Hot Enough For Them.’

—Headline at NewsBusters on Thursday.

(Besides, why would Republicans want to go where the muse for Obama and Hillary’s mentor resides?)

NEW OBAMA/HOLDER DECEPTIONS EXPOSED: Turns out the Department of Justice under former Attorney General Eric Holder used the power of government to force settlements on Bank of America, Citicorps and other financial industry titans that required them to make millions of dollars in contributions to “community groups,” including many that are political favorites of President Obama and advocates for more government regulation.

Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group reports on a briefing Friday by the Cause of Action Institute and Rep. Sean Duffy, the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations. It’s bad enough that these big banks routinely collude with the government on regulation; here they are found submitting themselves and their abundant resources to serve the liberal political agenda.

“Among the political activist groups favored favored by the settlements is La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic activist organization that routinely supports Democratic candidates and causes. Cecilia Munoz, a La Raza senior vice president, was appointed by Obama in 2012 to head the White House Domestic Policy Council.

“La Raza is flush with money, reporting in 2013 to the IRS assets of $55 million. Janet Murguia, the group’s president and CEO was paid $417,000 that year, according to the group’s IRS tax return. Even so, La Raza is slated to receive at least $1 million from the Bank of America settlement and $500,000 from the Citigroup settlement,” according to Pollock.

There is more here to this story, much, much more, and all of it is worth reading. Just be careful to keep some nitro pills handy in case you have a weak heart because this stuff will make your blood boil. This is a story of liberal politicians using the power of government to divert millions of dollars slated for folks suffering in 2008′s housing meltdown to political groups, all to advance their personal and political agendas.