STEPHEN L. CARTER: Hillary Clinton and the New Litmus Test.

You might have missed the news that John Paul Stevens, the retired U.S. Supreme Court justice, criticized Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton last week for her announcement that she would nominate to the court only individuals committed to overturning the 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. Stevens doesn’t like the decision any more than she does — his dissent ran to 90 pages — but he likes litmus tests even less.

At a house party in Mason City, Iowa, a few days after offering her promise, Clinton doubled down: “I will do everything I can do to appoint Supreme Court justices who will protect the right to vote and not the right of billionaires to buy elections,” she said.

Stevens, in remarks last week at George Washington University, was unimpressed: “I’m not really sure that that’s wise either for the court or for a presidential candidate to make a litmus test on one particular decision. … I’m surprised at her statement.” The former justice added: “If I were running for president, I don’t think I would make such a litmus test, even though I think the case ought to be overruled.”

Stevens is right. I won’t trouble here to go into the reasons for my own longstanding opposition to litmus tests, other than to note that there is something decidedly peculiar about promising to place on the Supreme Court individuals who have already decided the cases to come before them.

Read the whole thing.

JUSTICE: You’re All Out: A defense attorney uncovers a brazen scheme to manipulate evidence, and prosecutors and police finally get caught.

Prosecutorial and police misconduct are often dismissed as just a few bad apples doing a few bad apple-ish things. But what happens when it’s entrenched and systemic and goes unchecked for years? That looks to be the case in Orange County, California, where the situation got so completely out of hand this spring that Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals issued an order disqualifying the entire Orange County District Attorney’s Office (that’s all 250 prosecutors) from continuing to prosecute a major death penalty case. . . .

Revelations of misconduct in the Dekraai case have raised questions about patterns of obstruction and deception that have unraveled various other murder cases in the county, which has a population larger than that of 20 different states. Other cases involving informants who were eliciting illegal confessions have emerged, entire cases have collapsed, and more may follow. The story goes way back to the 1980s, as R. Scott Moxley explains at length in the OC Weekly, to a prosecutorial scandal that ended in the execution of one defendant and a lengthy sentence for his alleged co-conspirator. Their convictions were based on the testimony of various jailhouse informants even though they told conflicting stories. That scandal rocked the area then, and this new one shows eerie parallels. All this is happening right up the road from Los Angeles, home of one of the most massive jailhouse informant scandals in history.

End official immunity.

FALLEN ANGELS IS JUST A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? GUYS? Study Predicts Decades Of Global Cooling Ahead.

Or maybe we’re living in a John Ringo scenario. That’s never good. . . .

SOON, MY PRETTY. SOON! When Will Self-Driving Trucks Destroy America? Well, maybe not that soon.

ANNALS OF WISHFUL THINKING: Would Tenure Have Saved Blockbuster? No. Next question?

IT’S NOT JUST SCARY, IT’S GROSS:  A female Liverpool University student proudly touts not shaving. Her motto: “Being hairy isn’t scary.” I beg to differ.

WENT TO A BOOK PARTY for Andy McCarthy’s new book, Islam and Free Speech. Saw James Taranto, Roger Kimball, Greg Lukianoff, and a host of others.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The road to a ‘genius grant’ often starts at lesser-known colleges.

You can find genius almost anywhere.

That might seem obvious. But the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, known for bestowing six-figure grants on exceptionally creative people, provided evidence Thursday that standout talent is nurtured at a stunning variety of colleges and universities.

Since 1981, the foundation has chosen 918 people to receive fellowships in recognition of their creative capacity in artistic, intellectual and professional endeavors. They attended 315 colleges and universities for their undergraduate education, the foundation said in its first comprehensive analysis of the educational backgrounds of MacArthur fellows. Some attended no college at all, or dropped out without earning a degree.

Cecilia A. Conrad, a vice president of the foundation who oversees the fellowship program, said the list of schools reflects “a huge variety of educational backgrounds.” Many students and families are obsessed with gaining admission to elite colleges, but Conrad said is it more important what the students do when they get to college: “That’s just a really important point that sometimes gets lost.”

Indeed.

FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER HASTERT INDICTED:  Dennis Hastert was a Republican Speaker of the House from 1999-2006.

Hastert was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges related to bank withdrawals of large sums of money that he allegedly paid to keep someone quiet about “prior misconduct.”

Mr. Hastert is charged with intentionally withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in increments of less than $10,000 to avoid federal reporting requirements designed to prevent money laundering. The Republican also is charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the withdrawals, telling agents he was taking the money out because he didn’t feel safe using the banking system.

The indictment alleges the money was going to someone identified only as “Individual A,” who had known Mr. Hastert for most of the person’s life. In 2010, Mr. Hastert agreed to pay this person $3.5 million “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A,” the indictment said.

That’s potentially salacious.

BELIEVE ME, I WOULDN’T:  From Gateway Pundit: Detroit Police Chief: I wouldn’t gas up in the city late at night unless I had to.  Yeah, Detroit is truly a model of progressive governing.

GALLERY: Courtesans and samurai: Beautiful photos depicting life in 19th century Japan are some of earliest colour images ever taken.

Update: Link and formatting issues fixed.

HOUSE LAWSUIT VS. OBAMA GETS HEARING:  Federal district judge Rosemary Collyer appeared skeptical about the Obama Administration’s arguments urging dismissal of the House lawsuit against the executive branch, challenging its rewriting of Obamacare’s employer mandate and its spending of funds not appropriated by Congress.

Despite initial liberal/progressive dismissal of the lawsuit as “frivolous,” attorney David Rivkin and I have long argued that legal precedent suggests otherwise, and the serious separation of powers arguments deserve consideration on the merits.  Judge Collyer appears to understand this. Stay tuned.

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ASHE SCHOW: We still haven’t recovered from the last moral panic over sexual assault.

America is in the midst of another media-hyped moral panic. Sexual assault on college campuses, we’re told, is rampant, with women being targeted at every turn by the very men they call their friends. To stop this epidemic, we’re further told, colleges and universities must create their own justice systems and hold more accused students accountable. This, naturally, results in witch hunts based not on facts, but on feelings.

This moral panic comes nearly 30 years after the last one, in which men and women were accused of sexually abusing children after those children were coached into “remembering” the abuse by child therapists using now-discredited techniques. Among the more bizarre claims were that children were sexually abused in underground tunnels and that they were forced to watch ritual animal sacrifice and drink blood-laced Kool-Aid.

And the media of the era uncritically bought in to the accusations.

The press is more often leading the lynch mob than defusing it, despite its pretensions.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Coffee Protects Against Erectile Dysfunction. “The researchers theorized that caffeine’s effect on the body includes relaxing the helicine arteries of the penis, which in turn improves blood flow, which is how erections are formed.”

MAYBE I SHOULD SPEND A SEMESTER AS A VISITING PROFESSOR IN AUSTRALIA: At least, reading this blog makes me think so.

SO MUCH FOR “MY BODY, MY CHOICE:” Report: NYC Cops Arrested Men for ‘Manspreading’ on the Subway.

I HOPE THEY READ, AND LISTEN:  Michael Doran: “A Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends.”

On Friday, May 22, President Obama, calling himself “an honorary member of the tribe,” addressed you not just as the president of the United States but also as an explicit adherent of the “tikkun olam” tradition: a Jewish viewpoint for “repairing the world” that, in his reading, promotes universal progressive ideals like fighting bigotry and working for social justice everywhere. Thus, for him, the same “shared values” that underlay the civil-rights movement in the United States were what led him to identify himself with the cause of Israel—and also with the cause of Palestinian nationalism. . . .

Here’s my question. As Obama donned his yarmulke and embraced your community, did you also catch the hint of a warning? If you did, it was because the president was raising, very subtly, the specter of dual loyalty: the hoary allegation that Jews pursue their tribal interests to the detriment of the wider community or nation. . . .  And so the warning was faint, but unmistakable: if Jews wish to avoid being branded as bigots, then they—you—must line up with him against Netanyahu. . . .

On June 30, Obama will likely conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. This will spark a faceoff with Congress, which has already declared its opposition to the deal. Congress will inevitably pass a vote of disapproval, which Obama will inevitably veto. In order to defend that veto from a congressional override, however, he must line up 34 Senators—all Democrats. This calls in turn for a preemptive ideological campaign to foster liberal solidarity—for which your support is key. If the president can convince the liberal Jewish community, on the basis of “shared values,” to shun any suspicion of alignment with congressional Republicans or Benjamin Netanyahu, he will have an easier time batting down Congress’s opposition to the deal with Iran.

Progressive values have nothing to do with what is truly at stake in this moment of decision. Only one final question really matters: in your considered view, should the Islamic Republic of Iran be the dominant power in the Middle East, and should we be helping it to become that power? If your answer is yes, then, by all means, continue to applaud the president—loudly and enthusiastically—as he purports to repair the world.

Obama’s a master at making liberals feel guilty with insinuations of bigotry. The American Jewish community is being played.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Single molecule pump concentrates small molecules.

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IN THE WORDS OF HAN SOLO, I CAN IMAGINE AN AWFUL LOT: Imagine A Drug That Improves Many Metabolic Measures. “I would call a drug great if it could take off weight, improve glucose tolerance, and reverse fatty liver disease.” Well, you know, exercise can do that.

ANOTHER BREATHTAKING EPA POWER GRAB:  First, it was the Obama Administration’s rewrite of the Clean Air Act.  Now, it’s rewriting the Clean Water Act.

The Clean Water Act limits the federal government to regulating the “navigable waters of the United States” like the Colorado River or Lake Michigan. In 1986 the EPA expanded that definition to seize jurisdiction over tributaries and adjacent wetlands. Now it is extending federal control over just about any creek, pond, prairie pothole or muddy farm field that EPA says has a “significant nexus” to a navigable waterway.

The agency defines waters as “significant” if they are “located in whole or in part within 100 feet of the ordinary high water mark,” or, alternatively, within the 100-year floodplain and 1,500 feet of the high water mark of waters already under the government’s jurisdiction. That’s already a lot of water, but there’s more.

The EPA acknowledges that the “science available today does not establish that waters beyond those defined as ‘adjacent’” to these “significant” waters should be regulated. But forget science. The agency says its “experience and expertise” show there are “many” other waters that could have a significant downstream effect. Thus the EPA establishes an additional standard for significance that covers just about anything that’s wet.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

WAIT, I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: It’s Too Soon to Call This the Anthropocene Era: We humans can cause earth a lot of damage, but we don’t hold the whip hand.

LABOR LITMUS TEST: AFL-CIO leader warns Hillary Clinton that labor may not endorse her if she supports the fast-track trade deal.

BECAUSE #OPPORTUNITY, NOT #HANDOUTS: Joel Kotkin on “The Changing Geography of Racial Opportunity“:

In the aftermath of the Baltimore riots, there is increased concern with issues of race and opportunity. Yet most of the discussion focuses on such things as police brutality, perceptions of racism and other issues that are dear to the hearts of today’s progressive chattering classes. Together they are creating what talk show host Tavis Smiley, writing in Time, has labeled “an American catastrophe.”

Yet what has not been looked at nearly as much are the underlying conditions that either restrict or enhance upward mobility among racial minorities, including African-Americans, Latinos and Asians. In order to determine this, my colleague at Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism  Wendell Cox and I developed a ranking system that included four critical factors: migration patterns, home ownership, self-employment and income.

We found, for all three major minority groups, that the best places were neither the most liberal in their attitudes nor had the most generous welfare programs. Instead they were located primarily in regions that have experienced broad-based economic growth, have low housing costs, and limited regulation. In other words, no matter how much people like Bill de Blasio talk about the commitment to racial and class justice, the realities on the ground turn out to be quite different than he might imagine.

Even the Democratic base doesn’t want to live in deep blue territory, since progressive policies lead to higher costs, higher crime and reduced economic opportunity.

READER BOOK PLUG: From reader Greg Krehbiel, What God Has Bent. Free on Kindle for the next week.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, NATIONAL-SECURITY PARANOIA WOULD PREVAIL. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Arms control treaty could land security researchers like me in jail.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Woman meets man who received her deceased brother’s face via transplant: “Wow, this is the face I grew up with.”

HARVARD CRIMSON: A Call To Arms: Law School professor Janet Halley is pushing back against Harvard and the government’s approach to Title IX. “When I read the University policy last July, I said to one of my colleagues at the Law School who works with me on these things, ‘You know we have to change the weather.’”

IF YOU LIKE, YOU CAN vote for Knoxville in this Bell Helmet-sponsored bike trail competition.

YES. NEXT QUESTION?: Peter Wehner at the NYT asks: Have Democrats Pulled Too Far to the Left?

AMONG liberals, it’s almost universally assumed that of the two major parties, it’s the Republicans who have become more extreme over the years. That’s a self-flattering but false narrative.

This is not to say the Republican Party hasn’t become a more conservative party. It has. But in the last two decades the Democratic Party has moved substantially further to the left than the Republican Party has shifted to the right. On most major issues the Republican Party hasn’t moved very much from where it was during the Gingrich era in the mid-1990s.

This is because today’s Democrats aren’t your father’s liberals, they’re progressives, which are more radical beasts.  And I’d argue that the Republican Party has shifted to the left, not further right, since the Gingrich era.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Feminists upset over statue of man and woman talking. “Note to future sculptors: When trying to show men and women talking as friends, don’t. There’s just no way you can do so without offending modern feminist sensibilities.”

THIS MAKES ME THINK OF STEVIE RAY VAUGHN: A Drone’s Eye View of the Devastating Flooding in Texas.

DON’T LET BILL BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE: Paula Jones tells the Daily Mail Bill Clinton would cheat again if Hillary is elected President, and that Hillary knew all about his infidelities:

‘He is going to be telling her what to do,’ she said. ’It is a partnership. They have a political relationship, that is all it is.’

While countless books and articles have been written about the dynamics of the Clinton marriage, Jones is insistent that Hillary was fully aware of what her husband was like.

‘I believe she knew all about it. Theirs was a political relationship and not a normal relationship that a man and a wife have. They did not have a normal relationship.’

Yeah, I guess this is pretty obvious–a marriage in name only.  #waronwomen

NEBRASKA LEGISLATURE BANS DEATH PENALTY: The legislature overrode Governor Pete Ricketts’ veto, by a 30-19 vote.

The measure replaces lethal injection with a maximum punishment of life in prison. It will take effect in 90 days, which would be late August or early September depending upon when the Legislature adjourns. The law could be blocked temporarily, however, if opponents gather signatures from 10 percent of registered voters in a referendum effort in the next three months. Voters would then decide the fate of capital punishment.

Legal experts say the repeal erases the statutory means to carry out a death sentence in Nebraska, meaning the 10 men currently on death row will serve de facto life sentences.

It also means that the two men who are each charged with four Omaha murders — convicted killer Nikko Jenkins and accused killer Anthony Garcia — will no longer face the death penalty.

Nor will Roberto Martinez-Marinero, the 25-year-old man accused of killing his mother and throwing his 4-year-old brother, Josue, in the Elkhorn River.

Sounds like a proportional punishment: Kill your mother and 4 year-old brother, and get life in prison with free medical and room and board.

IN THE MAIL: From Michael Z. Williamson, A Long Time Until Now (Temporal Displacement).

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 749.

JUDGE ORDERS MONTHLY RELEASE OF CLINTON STATE DEP’T EMAILS:  A federal trial judge has established a timetable for State Department release of Clinton’s official emails. The order comes as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by a Vice News reporter, Jason Leopold.

After the State Department releases the first batch at the end of June, the department must make public the rest of the emails on a monthly basis ending Jan. 29, 2016, the order shows. The judge’s timetable means voters will have a chance to assess the contents of the emails before the first contest of the 2016 presidential race: the Iowa caucuses in February.

I know a lot of people criticize the effectiveness of litigation, but in many instances, lawsuits work far better at uncovering information about the executive branch than toothless congressional investigations.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Bill Clinton Formed His Shell Company Two Days After Hillary Was Picked As Top Diplomat.

More here.

IF YOU MISSED IT LAST NIGHT, here’s video of my segment on Kennedy, talking about higher education and what to do about it.

IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS, THE IVY LEAGUE SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO ADMIT STUDENTS BY LOTTERY: Recruitment, Resumes, Interviews: How the Hiring Process Favors Elites.

In terms of the gatekeepers to these elite jobs, these are just people who are on the ground who are responsible for deciding who is in and who is out, who gains access to professional jobs in management consulting, investment banking, etc. The decisions they make have huge consequences for students, in terms of not only their immediate post-graduate opportunities, the salaries they make, but also opportunities for future and career growth and development.

Commonalities of all of these individuals: They tend to be a very elite group, they tend to come from a fairly prestigious set of institutions, and they tend to come from some of the most highly educated and affluent backgrounds as well. This is pretty standard across the industries. . . .

I think if you were to ask someone at first glance, they would say “oh anyone can work at my firm” and they could probably point to one or two people who didn’t attend elite schools. But if you look at how these firms’ recruiting processes actually work in practice now, the chances of getting into one of these firms from what’s called a non-targeted school is extremely low. And this is because these firms starting around the 1980s shifted from a hiring system in which people were hired in a one-off fashion through informal networks to really really focusing on on-campus recruitment where firms hire directly out of the graduating classes and oftentimes earlier from elite universities.

They talk about equality and diversity, then they hire people who look just like them.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: “Robotic rump” helps med students avoid being pains in patients’ butts.

Called “Patrick,” scientists say the pseudo backside is helping proctology students gain an upper hand in carrying out what have typically been uncomfortable examinations for millions of men, KQED TV & Radio reported.

Fitted with four sensors, the equipment will tell a student whether they are applying the right amount of pressure and whether they are properly covering the prostate.

Patrick? LOL.

SORRY, RAND, BUT YOU CROSSED THE LINE ON THIS ONE: Rand Paul says GOP hawks “created” ISIS.

The freshman senator from Kentucky said Wednesday that the GOP’s foreign policy hawks “created these people.” . . .  “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately,” Paul said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” He continued: “They created these people. ISIS is all over Libya because these same hawks in my party loved – they loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya. They just wanted more of it.”

This has triggered understandable backlash, including the Wall Street Journal editorial board today:

Citing Iraq, Syria and Libya, Mr. Paul added that “everything that they’ve talked about in foreign policy, they’ve been wrong about for 20 years, and yet they have somehow the gall to keep saying and pointing fingers otherwise.”

Speaking of gall, and a word of political advice, an aide might want to remind Senator Paul which party’s nomination he is seeking. Republicans who begin their campaigns assailing other Republicans rarely succeed—especially when the accusation is culpability for a would-be caliphate that uses executions, slavery, extortion, rape and general terror to enforce oppression in the Middle East and North Africa, and whose ideology inspires jihadists world-wide.

More to the point, even President Obama now largely refrains from blaming George W. Bush for all the world’s ills, albeit with an exception here and there for old time’s sake. Maybe even he recognizes that the statute of limitations has expired for Republicans who haven’t run the executive branch for seven years and have had no perceptible influence on Administration policy. . . .

Mr. Paul seems to think he can win the GOP nomination on an anti-interventionist platform, though we think he’d be better off focusing on his domestic agenda. But if he wants to run as an Obama Republican on foreign policy, he shouldn’t also adopt the Obama trick of rewriting history. It reflects poorly on his judgment as a potential Commander in Chief.

It’s a critical error for Paul, who has exhibited a vulnerability to foot-in-mouth disease.

INSERT GOLF COURSE WATER HAZARD JOKE HERE: President Obama asserts power over small waterways.

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SOMEBODY NEEDS TO ASK HILLARY IF AMERICA HAS TOO MANY KINDS OF DEODORANT. BUT, OF COURSE, FIRST SHE’D HAVE TO BE TAKING QUESTIONS. Reason TV: Introducing The Bernie Sanders Save the Children Fund.

CAMP OF THE SAINTS IS JUST A NOVEL, RIGHT? How many more can Kos take? Holidaymaker misery as thousands of boat people from Syria and Afghanistan set up migrant camp to turn popular Greek island into ‘disgusting’ hellhole.

MORE ON science fraud.

ROGER SIMON: Rand Paul Reveals His True Colors and Destroys Himself.

IT’S CALLED JOURNALISM:  Politico’s Bill Scher seems truly baffled by Fox News’ hosts/reporters who ask tough questions of GOP presidential candidates: “Fox News Eats Its Own.’  Yes, that’s what actual journalists do: They ask tough questions, and they don’t “play favorites.”  Shocking, I know, to a liberal/progressive mainstream media that hires hacks parading as hosts, such as George Stephanopoulos, Dan Rather, Candy Crowley and Keith Olbermann.

ASHE SCHOW: Carly Fiorina is moving the crowds, but not the polls.

It seems that everywhere former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina goes, the crowds go wild.

Two weeks ago, the 2016 presidential candidate was in Iowa to speak at the state GOP’s Lincoln Dinner. She wasn’t the only 2016 candidate who spoke, but she was the only one for whom, when her mic was cut off after her 10 minutes of allotted speaking time were up, the crowd was noticeably upset.

“She was like a fireball,” dinner guest Tanya Manatt, told the Des Moines Register. “She had a lot of energy, and she’s not intimidated.”

“She left us wanting more,” said another.

“She was very confident, probably one of the strongest speakers,” guest Rick Haas told Politico.

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post said on Twitter that Fiorina received the “loudest applause of the night.”

A similar story unfolded at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference last week. Republican Chase Condrey tweeted about Fiorina: “just watched the SRLC and you have definitely sparked my interest in your candidacy. The Young GOP wants leaders like you.”

Another attendee, Richard Morgan, said Fiorina had the “best speech” of the conference. Fiorina ended her speech to a standing ovation, according to numerous other conference-goers.

Fiorina is also gaining fans from her clever media appearances, where she trolls her hosts and takes on tough questions with poise.

But despite wowing crowds and television viewers over the past month, Fiorina’s poll numbers aren’t budging.

I like her. She fights.

UPDATE: Wrong link before. Fixed now. Sorry!

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: GAO, Inspector General Warned Of IRS’s Lax Computer Security For Years Before Hack Of 100,000 Taxpayer Accounts On IRS Website.

WELL, OBAMA IS IN THE PROCESS OF FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING AMERICA INTO THE KIND OF COUNTRY PEOPLE EMIGRATE FROM, INSTEAD OF IMMIGRATE TO: Fewer immigrants are entering the U.S. illegally.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Millennials Weighed Down By Student Loan Debt.

U.S. Census Bureau data shows that the number of 25- to 34-year-olds living in their parents’ homes jumped 17.5% from 2007-2010. This is similar to Pew Research, which found that 57% of 18- to 24-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012. By way of comparison, in 1960, three out of four women and two out of three men had finished school, left home, were financially independent, had married and had children by age 30.

Meanwhile, the number of 30-year-olds who own their own homes is now roughly equal to those who live with their parents–a sharp contrast to 2003, when a 30-year-old American was twice as likely to own a home as he or she was to live with parents, according to the New York Federal Reserve (24). There’s also a clear correlation between growth in student debt and the rate at which adult offspring live with their parents. For every $10,000 increase in a state’s student debt per graduate, there’s a corresponding 2.9 percentage-point rise in 25-year-olds living with parents (25).

All of this comes as the dollar amount of student loans outstanding in the U.S. has tripled in the past decade, reaching a record $1.2 trillion last year. (See “Growing U.S. Student Debt Could Have Long-Term Credit Implications,” published Aug. 26, 2014.) In fact, student debt was the only type of household borrowing that continued to grow during the recent recession and recovery.

Ouch.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: “One of the beauties of parking, it’s like the [Internal Revenue Service]. If you get a parking ticket, you are guilty until you have proven yourself innocent. . . . And that’s worked well for us.”

PLEASE DO! Roger Simon: Should I Run For President? Election 2016 As “The Voice.” On the Democratic side, meanwhile, it’s more like Lawrence Welk.

J.D. TUCCILLE: Is On the Run Flawed Sociology or Interesting Impressionistic Journalism? There may be a touch of Hunter S. Thompson in Alice Goffman’s tale of inner-city life.

A BAD WEEK FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE (CONT’D): Michael LaCour Made Up a Teaching Award, Too.

Yesterday, Science of Us reported that Michael LaCour, the graduate student who is alleged to have faked data for a highly publicized and celebrated Science article on same-sex marriage, had made up the largest funding source listed on “Original Grants & Data” section of his curriculum vitae. It appears the fabrication extends to another part of his CV, too: the “Awards & Fellowships” section.

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus?

NONSENSE. PRESIDENT OBAMA APPROVED IT, AND HE’S THE ENVIRONMENTAL PRESIDENT: Oil Drilling In Alaska Is A Disaster.

But if you really believe that, then you support fracking as an alternative, right?

AT ANY RATE, BUDDHISM ISN’T AS NONVIOLENT AS MANY WESTERNERS SUPPOSE: “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog. I am proud to be called a radical Buddhist.”

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SCOTT OTT: The 7 Reasons Scott Walker Should Get the Republican Nomination for President.

HEH:  The Charlie Charlie challenge.  A modern-day Ouija board, only weirder.

SOUNDS REASONABLE TO ME:  Islamic televangelist rants: men who masturbate “will find their hands pregnant in the afterlife.”  So be sure to use condoms, gents.

TOP COMMENT AT THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Non-Muslims who work in the Middle East, are forced to wear ‘respectable’ clothing by their employers, or face disciplinary measures.

The Arab Muslims say that this demand is quite acceptable; and that this is to ensure that people adhere to local traditions and customs of the host country. So, with this same philosophy, why can’t Europeans set a similar standard for migrants?

If I owned shares in multiculturalism, I’d sell now.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Study: Women buying more sex than ever before.

NO, WE’RE WAY OVER THE EDGE:  Marco Rubio tells CNN:  ”[W]e are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech.”

SOCCER ORGANIZATION COMMITTING A “WORLD CUP OF FRAUD”?:  That’s what the IRS head of criminal investigation claims, as the U.S. initiates a 47-count indictment in federal court charging 14 FIFA officials with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.  The charges stem from an alleged $150 million in bribes received by FIFA officials, as well as accepting kickbacks in return for granting lucrative media and marketing rights.

The most serious are the racketeering charges, which allege that the officials turned soccer “into a criminal enterprise,” according to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who spoke to reporters in New York. A conviction could command a sentence of up to 20 years.

“The idea of being shocked about bribery and racketeering at FIFA is like being shocked about jumping into a pool and finding yourself wet,” said Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation magazine.

“What makes this particularly different is the fact that this time it looks like the charges have real teeth. I mean, coming from the U.S. Department of Justice, that’s a first. That’s never happened before,” he said.

Well, I don’t know much about soccer, but ouch.

THE LINK BETWEEN antibiotic overuse and c. dificile infection.

1980s ARE CALLING:  The IRS believes the hackers who broke into the IRS system and stole information about 100,000 taxpayers are Russian. But hey, as President Obama said in the debate with Mitt Romney, “the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” so there’s no need to worry about Russia.

YEP, IT’S A RACKET ALRIGHT: Freedom Watch files racketeering (RICO) lawsuit against the Clinton Foundation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.  The lawsuit includes a request to seize and conduct a forensics evaluation of the Clinton’s private email server. I really admire the chutzpah of Freedom Watch and Larry Klayman. They know how to fight.

I LIKE HER. SHE FIGHTS. Fiorina v. Clinton in South Carolina: Fiorina Launches #AskHillary.

GOOD FOR HIM-CONGRESS NEEDS TO ASSERT ITS MUSCLE MORE:  Ted Cruz, chair of the Senate Judiciary Oversight subcommittee, is threatening to subpoena Treasury officials to testify about their rulemaking process for Obamacare subsidies. Obama Administration officials have balked at testifying, citing the ongoing Supreme Court litigation in King v. Burwell, but Cruz (aptly) is having none of it.

Congress needs to issue more subpoenas to perform its oversight function appropriately.  And equally important, Congress needs to be prepared to enforce such subpoenas, including civil enforcement, criminal contempt, or even arrest and detention by the Sergeant-at-Arms (which hasn’t been used in years, but is still possible).

OF COURSE THEY ARE:  The Taliban 5– released from Gitmo in exchange for deserter Bowe Bergdahl–will be free to travel as soon as Monday. The US agreement with host country Qatar restricting their movement expires June 1.  Great move, Sparky Obama!

I’LL BE ON FOX BUSINESS’S KENNEDY NATION TONIGHT IN THE 10PM ET SLOT, talking about higher education costs and administrative bloat.

FIRST LISA LOEB, NOW THIS: I Was a Proud Non-Breeder. Then I Changed My Mind. “It’s embarrassing to be such a cliché, to give so many people a chance to say, ‘I told you so.’ (And some people, I’ve learned, will say those actual words.) I fear I’ve let down other women who disavow children and who, because of my example, might face an extra smidge of condescending doubt. Worse, if I’m honest, when I hear younger women confidently describe how they’ll feel when they’re older, sometimes I feel a pinch of such condescension myself. Not because I think they’ll all necessarily want kids, or that they should have them, but because one tricky thing about your 20s is the need to make decisions for a future self whose desires are unknowable.” Actually it’s not entirely unknowable, or people wouldn’t be saying “I told you so.”

CHIMPANZEES GET THEIR DAY IN COURT: Two research chimps at Stony Brook University got a hearing in a NY State court today, where their lawyers (for the Nonhuman Rights Project) argued that they are entitled to habeas corpus.  I’ve written about this case before.

Its lawyers said that personhood rights have already been applied to corporations, rivers and ships. If chimps are also eligible, they are then eligible for the writ of habeas corpus, which gives those who believe they are unlawfully detained or imprisoned the right to appear in court.

During the hearing, Nonhuman Rights Project’s president and animal-rights lawyerSteven Wise drew parallels to past court cases over the rights of slaves, prisoners and Native Americans.

Assistant Attorney General Christopher Coulston said these cases didn’t apply.

“There is simply no precedent anywhere of a nonhuman animal receiving the kinds of rights they’re talking about,” Mr. Coulston said.

But there is an understanding that law evolves, said New York Supreme Court JusticeBarbara Jaffe, based on scientific discoveries and social mores.

“Witness marital rights,” she said. “Isn’t it incumbent upon the judiciary to at least consider whether a class of beings may be granted a right or something short of a right, under the habeas statute?”

In a brief filed Friday, the attorney general’s office wrote that current animal-rights laws are sufficient, and to grant chimps additional rights was a slippery slope.

To extend the writ of habeas corpus “could set a precedent for the release of other animals held in captivity, whether housed at a zoo, in an educational institution, on a farm, or owned as a domesticated pet,” the brief reads.

It’s a slippery slope indeed, but that’s not the primary reason why this argument needs to be summarily rejected.  Humans are humans, and the law of  humans does not apply to nonhumans.  Period.  Any other approach leads to unprincipled line drawing among different animal species.  Why chimps but not dolphins or elephants?  What about cows, dogs, ants or roaches?  If humans wish to confer special statutory protections to certain animals–such as domesticated pets–that is perfectly appropriate.  But to apply a law that protects human beings–such as habeas corpus–to animals is the height of lunacy.

CHRIS CILIZZA: The Clintons’ Finances Are Way Too Complex For The Average Person To Understand.

The AP reported late Monday that Bill Clinton has a limited liability corporation — called WJC, LLC — that serves as a “pass through” entity designed to “channel payments to the former president.”

If you have no idea what the heck the sentence above means, you are not alone. And therein lies the problem for Hillary Clinton as she seeks to sell herself as the voice of everyday Americans in her bid for the White House in 2016. . . .

But, whether or not she is Romney 2.0, the reality is that the amount of money coming into the Clinton coffers ($25 million from speaking fees alone since the start of 2014) coupled with this WJC, LLC — not to mention the regularly revised donor policies of the Clinton Foundation — badly complicate Hillary’s pitch that she is able to understand regular folks.

Selling Clinton as in touch with “everyday Americans” was always going to be next-to-impossible. And revelations like this one about a “pass through” company to handle money being paid to her husband prove why. No family with a former president and a future presidential nominee in it are “regular” — in their life experiences, resumes or personal finances. No family with an income in the 10s of millions of dollars and setup like the one Bill Clinton has at WJC, LLC, are just like the rest of us. They just aren’t.

The more that idea gets reinforced to the casual voter — and stories like WJC, LLC, do just that — the harder it will be for Clinton to shake the image that what she says publicly doesn’t jibe with how she and her husband conduct their own business.

Yeah, they’re also crooks. This reinforces that, too.

ROAD & TRACK: Robot highway considered for autonomous trucks: The proposed corridor could let self-driving trucks go from Mexico to Canada along Route 83.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Pentagon: Live anthrax inadvertently distributed by Army laboratory.

LIST: 25 Forthcoming Cars Worth Waiting For, 2016-2019.

AT AMAZON, Up to 60% off on Men’s And Women’s Athletic and Outdoor Clothing.

Also, Outlet Deals in Tech Accessories.

ITS’ A VERY DANGEROUS WAR, AND IT’S REAL:  Michael Grunwald:  Inside the War on Coal.  It’s a long, annoyingly pro-”green” piece, but the very end is telling:

There will be no formal surrender in the war on coal, no battleship treaty to mark the end. But Beyond Coal’s leaders believe they can finish most of their work setting the U.S. electric sector on a greener path over the next five years. The next phase of the war on carbon would be to try to electrify everything else—cars and trains that use oil-derived gasoline and diesel, as well as homes and businesses that rely on natural gas and heating oil. Nilles hopes power companies like OG&E and DTE that Beyond Coal has spent the last decade fighting with—but then cutting deals with—can become allies in Phase Two. And allies will be vital, because if King Coal seems like a rich and powerful enemy, it’s a pushover compared to Big Oil.

“Once we’ve taken out coal, we’ll need to take on oil, and who better to help than our new friends in the utility sector who can make money from electrification?” Nilles says with a grin. “It’s a long fight. This is how we win.”

Yep–oil is next. They won’t be happy until we all drive Priuses.

THEY’RE ALL FULL OF HOT AIR ALREADY:  The chair of the House Administration Committee, Candice Miller (R-MI) is considering the use of blimps to monitor the airspace around Capitol Hill.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: This is Why High School Sucks for so Many Kids: 16 Yr Old Photog Threatened by Admin for Selling Pics.

I ASSUME SO:  Could hackers bring down an airplane?

The officials from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) were not at all happy about what they were hearing. An unshaven 32-year-old from Spain, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, was talking about cockpit computers and their weaknesses and security loopholes. Specifically, he was telling the EASA officials how he had managed to buy original parts from aviation suppliers on Ebay for just a few hundred dollars. His goal was to simulate the data exchange between current passenger-jet models and air-traffic controllers on the ground in order to search for possible backdoors. His search was successful. Very successful.

The salient question is:  What are airlines doing to reduce this vulnerability?

GOOD: Mobile Call Quality Gets a Long-Overdue Upgrade: Wireless companies and a few ambitious startups are racing to make your cell-phone calls better.

Why, exactly, do cell-phone calls often sound crappy? Jerry Gibson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies wireless networks, says that at the network level there are a number of reasons. You simply might not have good signal reception, and even if you do, the base station closest to you is probably considering all kinds of factors—the load on the cell site, the time of day, and network use projections—in order to decide how to allocate bandwidth for your call.

To improve sound quality, wireless carriers have been upgrading their networks to support technologies often referred to as HD voice or wideband audio. While old telephone and cell-phone networks cut out some of the high and low frequencies in voice calls, wideband audio includes a wider range of frequencies to make calls sound better, letting you hear more high and low tones. In the United States, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile use VoLTE, or voice over LTE, to send audio atop their fast LTE networks. Sprint currently offers advanced voice service over its 3G network, though Ron Marquardt, Sprint’s vice president of technology innovation and architecture, says a move to VoLTE is inevitable.

Faster, please.

THE DEBLASIO EFFECT: You’re 45 percent more likely to be murdered in deBlasio’s Manhattan.

“City Hall better wake up soon,” a police source said. “When murders and shootings go up in Manhattan, everyone is affected,’’ he said, pointing out that crime impacts business, tourism and the city’s economy as a whole.

He said there are a variety of reasons, from the plummeting number of “stop-and-frisks’’ to the fact that the city needs more officers. “The cops’ hands are tied,’’ he said.

It’s regressing back to the Ed Koch/David Dinkins days.

SPYING: Obtained Emails Show FBI’s General Counsel Briefly Concerned About Privacy Implications Of License Plate Readers.

TALK TALK: Here’s how badly we’re getting ripped off by our mobile phone providers.

AUSTIN BAY: Counter ISIL’s Truck Bombs with Real Close Air Support.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 8 Essential Tips To Keep Your Phone’s Battery Healthy.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: While D.C. Downplays Risk, U.S. Sees Shocking Rise in Terror Arrests This Year: It’s only May, but 2015 has seen 40 U.S. individuals arrested for terror charges, nearly double the combined total for 2013 and 2014.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Angry Faculty Savage New York University. “A real estate development/management business with a predatory higher-education side venture.”

Ouch.

MICHELLE OBAMA TO GRADUATES:  At Oberlin College’s commencement, she advises graduates to “shape the revolutions of your times.” She also told them:

Here at Oberlin, most of the time you’re probably surrounded by folks who share your beliefs. But out in the real world, there are plenty of people who think very differently than you do, and they hold their opinions just as passionately. So if you want to change their minds, if you want to work with them to move this country forward, you can’t just shut them out. You have to persuade them, and you have to compromise with them.

Mrs. Obama’s disconcerting reference to “revolutions” aside, the sentiment she articulates of surrounding oneself with those who think differently is laudable, as is “compromis[ing] with them.”  But notice that her focus is on “chang[ing] their minds” and “persuad[ing] them” so that you can “work with them to move this country forward.”  The problem she and her husband have had over the last 6+ years is that they don’t seem to grasp the value of actual compromise– as in, you win some, you lose some.  Their idea of “compromise” is persuading, cajoling or pressuring others to change their minds.  Newsflash: that isn’t compromise.

FIRST THAT BOGUS GAY-MARRIAGE STUDY, now this Alice Goffman beat-down by Steven Lubet, in which he both suggests that her research is fraudulent and notes that she — seemingly without realizing it — admits to committing a felony in the course of conducting it.

I do not know if Goffman’s editors and dissertation committee held her to a journalist’s standard of fact checking. There is no footnote for the hospital incident in On the Run, and her dissertation is not available from the Princeton library. Alas, it is now too late to obtain any additional documentation, because Goffman shredded all of her field notes and disposed of her hard drive.

Who does she think she is? Hillary? But the felony part is worse — it’s conspiracy to commit murder.

A few days after the funeral, “the hunt was on to find the man who had killed Chuck,” whom the 6th Street Boys believed they could identify. Guns in hand, they drove around the city, looking for revenge. This time, Goffman did not merely take notes – on several nights, she volunteered to do the driving. . . .

Taking Goffman’s narrative at face value, one would have to conclude that her actions – driving around with an armed man, looking for somebody to kill – constituted conspiracy to commit murder under Pennsylvania law. In the language of the applicable statute, she agreed to aid another person “in the planning or commission” of a crime – in this case, murder. As with other “inchoate” crimes, the offense of conspiracy is completed simply by the agreement itself and the subsequent commission of a single “overt act” in furtherance of the crime, such as voluntarily driving the getaway car.

I sent the relevant paragraphs from On the Run to four current or former prosecutors with experience in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Their unanimous opinion was that Goffman had committed a felony. A former prosecutor from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was typical of the group. “She’s flat out confessed to conspiring to commit murder and could be charged and convicted based on this account right now,” he said.

This seems a rather serious professional breach. Related: “The professor and the thug, entirely different lives, separated by the thinnest of margins.”

It’s a bad week for social science.

IN THE MAIL: From Michelle Malkin, Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs.

Plus, today only at Amazon: $44.99 Seiko Men’s Automatic Canvas Strap Watches.

And, also today only: Up to 58% Off the DYMO LabelWriter 4XL and Labels.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 748.

WHITER THAN A VOX EDITORIAL BOARD MEETING. WHITER THAN A NATION FUNDRAISING CRUISE. WHITER THAN AN MSNBC ANCHORS’ MEETING. WHITER THAN A HOWARD DEAN MEETUP. Analysis: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Events Are Nearly All-White…

ASHE SCHOW: Colleges between a rock and a hard place on campus sexual assault.

College campuses have it rough these days. It’s easy to blame them for the current state of lawsuits stemming from sexual assault complaints, but a lot of the blame should be placed on the federal government.

It was the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that published the “Dear Colleague” letter that has been used by colleges to institute pseudo-court systems designed to make it easy to expel accused students. For their part, the colleges aren’t exactly happy about this new world.

“A university is not a court of law and the same rules that apply in criminal cases do not apply to student conduct proceedings,” said a spokesman for James Madison University. “No matter how the proceedings are handled, at least one of the parties will likely be unhappy with the results and may choose to go to federal court.” . . .

The universities are being forced into this untenable position. Nancy Gertner, a feminist and former federal judge, summed up the current culture surrounding campus sexual assault thusly: “If you find for the man, you’re bound to be criticized. If you find for the woman, you are not.”

Josh Engel, an attorney in Ohio who has been taking on cases from accused students, described this sentiment last year.

“All the incentives for the school are lined up at the moment to encourage them to throw kids out. Schools do not get any credit from the Department of Education because they provide adequate or more-than-adequate due process,” Engel told the Washington Examiner. “All the Department seems to be concerned about these days is results, which is, ‘how many kids have you disciplined?’”

And as far as the Department of Education goes, what is considered acceptable behavior and what constitutes a university response are constantly changing.

What’s sad is the unwillingness of universities to file suit and oppose the Department of Education here. The higher education establishment has made clear that it cares more about money than about fairness.