ERNIE PYLE WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Reporters claim PTSD from watching violent news. “Most have never left the comfort of their big city offices, but a growing number of reporters and editors are claiming to suffer trauma from watching and posting violent videos on news sites, according to a new study of media and human rights workers.”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Playing the ‘Bill card’ against Hillary: It’s what she gets for playing the ‘war on women card’ against Trump.

GIANT SQUID SURFACES FROM THE DEEP in Japanese harbor. Can Godzilla be far behind?

THIS JUST IN: No, Jesus Was Not a Palestinian.

NEWS YOU CAN USE from Kurt Schlichter, on What Conservatives Need To Know Before They Go On Mainstream Media Outlets:

Sometimes the host is going to be hostile to you, though the bookers and behind the scene staff are always very nice. That’s OK – your host is almost certain to be a liberal and does not want you to be able to get out your message if it is not what he’s looking for. Many feel that coherent, capable conservative commentators have to be disrupted, confused or cut off before they can make their points. But you can’t back down. You’re under no moral obligation to agree with the host just because you’re a guest. If you think he’s wrong, tell him. He might not like it, but he’ll like the attention the hit gets on the web afterwards.

No matter how well a conservative does, you’re going to get every commie, pinko, and left-wing loser in sight saying that you were incoherent, deranged and/or embarrassing. Ignore them. Their vitriol is your measuring stick in assessing how well you did. The angrier they are, the better your hit.

Remember, there’s no hypocrisy in going on the mainstream media to make our case. They need us, and we need their podium to get our ideas out. But understand that you’re at cross purposes. What they want from you is either ratings or help taking down a Republican. Your goal is to be an articulate, interesting advocate for conservative views. Get out into that alley and start preaching.

Speaking of which, “A week after he cut the mic of conservative guest Kurt Schlichter for bringing up Bill Clinton’s history of sexual misconduct, CNN’s Don Lemon found himself trying to shut down another guest” on Monday. Instead, Hugh Hewitt “Schools Lemon on Need for Trump, GOP to Educate Millenials on Bill Clinton Sex Scandals.”

CONTAINED: Brussels Cancels New Year’s Eve Fireworks Due To Threat. “Brussels was home to four of the radical Islamic attackers who killed 130 people in Paris Nov. 13. The week, Belgian authorities arrested two people in connection with another suspected plot to attack police, soldiers and popular Brussels sites during the holidays.”

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Heads Up. California Starts No Notice Gun Confiscation On January 1.

DOING SOMETHING ABOUT SPACE WEATHER.

AT AMAZON, fresh Year-End Deals.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Man charged with setting Houston mosque fire was a devout attendee. “According to a charging instrument released by the Harris County District Clerk, Moore told investigators at the scene that he has attended the mosque for five years, coming five times per day to pray seven days per week.”

With a jihadi beard. You know, the good news is that without fake hate crimes, we’d hardly have any hate crimes at all.

BURGLARS JUST WANT TACOS — brilliant repurposing of security camera footage as a restaurant commercial.

Best part — the thugs who broke in must be steaming about being mocked so badly, and this witty video going viral only increases their chances of being caught.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN JURISDICTIONS SUCH HELLHOLES OF FINANCIAL INSOLVENCY? Puerto Rico Says It Will Default on Some Bonds.

IT’S A SHOW ABOUT NOTHING: Barack Obama’s last year in office as TV satire (as if it wasn’t already), as scripted by Stephen Miller:

There are really only so many times you can show the main character of a long-running series going golfing before the audience stops caring and jumps to something new. Already there is talk of how producers can possibly insert Obama as a supporting character into future spinoff shows, including the upcoming 2016.

Season Seven, aptly titled “The Fu**-It List” in reference to a line of dialogue recited by the president (played by Barack Obama), started out with promise. We saw him jamming out in front of a podium wearing Dr. Dre’s “Beats” line of headphones and sitting down with some kooky new characters, possibly in an attempt at gaining viewers from the coveted 18–24 demographic.

As the season continued, its plot became fixated on a catastrophic refugee crisis, though scriptwriters bizarrely opted out of having the president (played by Barack Obama) deal with it head on, choosing instead to show the audience a simpler story of him trekking through Alaska.

The cinematography of those episodes last season was no doubt breathtaking, but the writers once again chose to rely on the overused past plot device of having him pull out a selfie stick instead of undergoing real character development. It’s almost as if the character of the president (played by Barack Obama) has become a one-line caricature simply hoping to ride out the final season of the show.

​As falling ratings have shown, audiences are tired of the same old shtick and are ready to move on.

I know I am — and pace Miller’s comments above, I’m praying that industry showrunners won’t try the Fred Silverman-esque stunt of plugging Barry Stinson into another spin-off.

FREE-RANGE KIDS, LOS ANGELES 1938: This video, made to support plans for sidewalks, shows kids from Samuel Gompers Junior High School—back then it was apparently uncontroversial to name a school for a labor leader—walking home or, in a few cases, riding doubled-up on bicycles.

BEST TV OF 2015: Reason‘s Glenn Garvin ranks his favorite shows and explains why so few network programs got canceled.

BILL COSBY FACES SEX ASSAULT CHARGES IN PENNSYLVANIA’S MONTGOMERY COUNTY, NBC’S Philadelphia affiliate reports:

Cosby was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home 12 years ago — the first criminal charges brought against the comedian out of the torrent of allegations that destroyed his good-guy image as America’s Dad.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman charged Cosby, 78, with three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault, including that Cosby assaulted his victim while she was unconscious and without consent, according to court documents.

“Upon examination of all of the evidence, today we are able to seek justice on behalf of Mr. Cosby’s victim,” said incoming District Attorney Kevin Steele, who currently serves as first assistant district attorney.

It’s the first criminal case against Cosby over his conduct with women, which has received new scrutiny in the past year. The case sets the stage for perhaps the biggest Hollywood celebrity trial of the era and could send the 78-year-old Cosby to prison in the twilight of his life and barrier-breaking career.

Related: Rob Long on “The Cosby Mysteries” from the April issue of Commentary. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE [from Glenn]: Seeing a lot of this kind of thing on Twitter today:

UPDATE [From Ed]: Further thoughts on the charges against Cosby today, and background on the likely complainant, from Ed Morrissey.

IN 2015, the commercial spaceflight industry had a great year.

YOU LIKE US, YOU REALLY LIKE US: Veteran blogger Doug Ross’s annual “Fabulous 50 Blog Award Winners” lists InstaPundit as a winner of his “Best All-Around Blogging” and the recently redesigned PJ Media as one his “Best Op-Ed Blogs,” and we wanted to say thanks.

(Thanks to Glenn for letting me sit in on the best jam session on the Internet and for the Insta-readers for their perceptive comments to my posts. And also thanks to lead editor Aaron Hanscom for making the trains run so smoothly at PJM.)

I’M NOT SURE THAT ANYBODY — STEPHEN GREEN, EVEN — COMBINES LOVE FOR ALCOHOL WITH GEEKINESS ENOUGH FOR A BB-8 Ice Mold.

MY BROTHER WORKED AT WENDY’S WITH A GUY WHOSE LIFE GOAL WAS TO OWN A FIERO. HE ACHIEVED IT! The Pontiac Fiero Was a Misunderstood, Misfit Love Letter to American Backroads.

AT AMAZON, trade in your old video games for credit.

FASTER, PLEASE: Researchers see promising results in treating age-related decline in muscle mass and power. “Myostatin inhibits skeletal muscle growth. The humanised monoclonal antibody LY2495655 (LY) binds and neutralises myostatin. We aimed to test whether LY increases appendicular lean body mass (aLBM) and improves physical performance in older individuals who have had recent falls and low muscle strength and power.”

NO, BUT WE’RE GETTING CLOSER: We’re still not really in the space age. “If it meets its design goal the SpaceX Falcon 9 will cost $250 per lb to put into low Earth orbit (LEO). That is about a tenth of the price of competing alternatives. Suppose Elon Musk succeeds in getting the price done that far. Suppose he goes even farther and hits $100 per pound. Will we be in the space age yet? Nope.”

The more progress we make, the more progress we will make next.

JOHN PODHORETZ: This Is Just The Bloodletting The Republican Party Needs. “Now they’re making news, and in the right way — by airing their differences when it comes to policy.”

IN THE MAIL: The Entrepreneur Mind: 100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs.

Plus, today only at Amazon: Up to 70% Off Select Transcend Storage.

And, also today only: 74% Off “Rocky: The Undisputed Collection.”

And: Over 10 books by New York Times best-selling authors Rosamunde Pilcher and Linda Castillo, $2.99 today only.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 965.

TRUMP’S IDEAS: FROM CRAZY TO POLICY IN JUST A MONTH. GOP moves to pause refugee acceptance over background checks.

A group of Senate Republicans wants to largely pause the acceptance of Syrian and Iraqi refugees until the administration meets a wide-range of hurdles aimed at bolstering background checks.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has introduced legislation that would block the administration from accepting or resettling the refugees until the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Director of National Intelligence have determiend that each refugee has passed a background check ensuring that they aren’t a national security threat and haven’t supported a terrorist organization.

Kirk also wants the DHS inspector general and the comptroller general of the United States to, separately, review the certifications and give their findings to Congress. and for DHS to give a quarterly report to Congress on the number of refugees who tried to enter the United States and how many were given certifications.

Kirk’s legislation—which is backed by five other Senate Republicans—comes after an end-of-year spending bill didn’t address the refugee issue. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pledged to move legislation on the refugee acceptance program during the first quarter of next year, though it’s unclear what proposal he would have the Senate take up.

Kirk’s legislation would also require the FBI, the DHS and the Director of National Intelligence to clarify within six months how the administration plans to enhance its screening for refugee applicants, including reviewing social media. He also wants to know if any changes were made after two al-Qaeda supporters entered the United States in 2009 as Iraqi refugees.

Stay tuned.

DON SURBER: Pundit Of The Year: Dilbert Creator Scott Adams.

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Also, coupons galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

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ROGER SIMON ON SEX, LIES, CLINTON, AND TRUMP:

More importantly, times have changed and morality with it. I don’t think Bill, and certainly Hillary, would want Juanita Broaddrick brought up at a time when, on our campuses,  even an unwanted kiss is legally considered rape, thanks to Title IX. Can you imagine how many instances of what is called “unwanted touching” could come out of the woodwork now if Bill started to pick a fight with Trump? It’s hard to imagine Clinton making it through Georgetown or Yale Law under today’s rules, or even through his freshman year.

The truth is Bill’s relationships with women are the product of another era, one that is fading remarkably fast in the rear view mirror.  There is little tolerance these days for his kind of behavior — no more winking — not in the USA anyway.  Clinton’s well known hypocritical wagging of the finger at the television to swear to us that he “never had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” may not have looked terrific back when he did it, but today it would seem downright repellent.  Imagine it being played again and again next to a Hillary commercial.

Doubtless Donald Trump has not been a saint, but there is a big difference between him and Bill.  The Donald may often be rude.  He may be a thin-skinned bloviator.  But he’s not a creepy hypocrite.  In that sense he’s the opposite of the Clintons, both of them.

Lastly, what if Trump were to raise the Jeffrey Epstein case?…. whoa.

Read the whole thing.

Related: I haven’t watched Sex, Lies, and Videotape since it was first released on home video, but as I recall, Steven Soderbergh’s debut was noted for the long dramatic pauses in its dialogue. And whatdayaknow: “Liberal Guest On FOX Speechless When Asked If Bill Clinton Has Abused Women (Video).” Everything old is new again!

WE PRINTED AN OBVIOUS LIE, WE HURT PEOPLE, BUT WE DON’T WANT TO PAY DAMAGES: Rolling Stone wants lawsuit over debunked gang-rape article dismissed.

Rolling Stone Magazine’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by three former members of the fraternity maligned by the publication in a now-retracted article alleging a gang rape.

The three former members of the University of Virginia chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity claim in their lawsuit that they were easily identified as potential rapists in Rolling Stone’s expose. The students claim their names and hometowns were listed online following the article, and that their “names will forever be associated with the alleged gang rape.”

Attorneys for Rolling Stone dispute this, writing “No reasonable reader would understand from the article and the proffered extrinsic evidence that plaintiffs are identified as the perpetrators.”

The article didn’t provide the real names of any of the alleged attackers (the main perpetrator turned out to not even exist). But the fraternity members allege that enough identifiable information was provided that friends, family members and other students were able to figure out who might have been the rapists.

One of the suing students had the bedroom at the top of the first flight of stairs at the fraternity house, which was deemed “the mostly likely scene of the alleged crime,” according to the lawsuit. The three students say they were interrogated and harassed by the people they knew (as well as reporters and online commenters) after they were identified. . . .

Barely a month after the article was published, it was retracted with an editor’s note. In April 2015, the Columbia Journalism Review released its findings into what went wrong in the reporting.

Since then, three lawsuits have been filed against the magazine. One from the three fraternity members, one from a U.Va. dean who was named in the article and one from the Phi Kappa Psi chapter as a whole. The fraternity house was vandalized in the wake of the article.

I hope this ends like in The Verdict, where the jury comes back to ask the judge if it can award more in damages than the plaintiff asked for.

BETTER CALL SAUL: Protesters gather outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home, call for him to resign.

It will be interesting to see how Rahm reacts, considering the home protest is a tactic straight out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals — and Alinsky’s son praised Obama in 2008 for his mastery of dad’s techniques:

Barack Obama’s training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

And now his former chief of staff may learn a few lessons as well — couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Why Equality And Diversity Departments Should Only Hire Rich, Straight White Men. “In an age of grievance politics, where victimhood is currency, only those outside the game of Oppression Olympics can properly adjudicate between aggrieved minorities.”

LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: US Attorney declines prosecution of former VA execs.

Federal prosecutors have decided not to press criminal charges against two former executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs who were accused of manipulating the agency’s hiring system for their own gain.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said Thursday it has declined a referral from the VA inspector general for criminal prosecution of Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves.

The inspector general said in a report this fall that Rubens and Graves forced lower-ranking regional managers to accept job transfers against their will. Rubens and Graves then stepped into the vacant positions themselves, keeping their pay while reducing their responsibilities.

Rubens had been earning $181,497 as director of the Philadelphia regional office for the Veterans Benefits Administration, while Graves earned $173,949 as leader of the St. Paul, Minnesota, regional office. Before taking the regional jobs, Rubens was a deputy undersecretary at the VA’s Washington headquarters, while Graves was director of VBA’s 14-state North Atlantic Region.

Rubens and Graves were accused of obtaining more than $400,000 in questionable moving expenses through a relocation program for VA executives, the inspector general’s report said.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said it has “referred the matter to the VA for any administrative action that is deemed appropriate.”

Rubens and Graves were demoted in November, but their demotions were rescinded this month after a paperwork mix-up.

Tar. Feathers.

GOOD: ‘I will not stop talking about this’! NRO’s Katherine Timpf won’t let Hillary off ‘feminist’ hook.

FREE SPEECH UPDATE: How Three Professors Banded Together to Beat Back a Free Speech Threat at Clemson.

More like this, please.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: California Laws: On January 1st, Students Won’t Have to Pass High School to Receive Diploma. To be fair, now that public schools are about warehousing and indoctrinating kids, why worry about whether they’re learning anything?

If only someone had warned us.

FROM TEHRAN, WITH LOVE: U.S. Carrier Harry S. Truman Has Close Call With Iranian Rockets:

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman came about 1,500 yards from an Iranian rocket in the Strait of Hormuz last week, two U.S. military officials told NBC News on Tuesday.

As the Truman was transiting the strait, which connects the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, Iranian Revolutionary Guards conducted a live-fire exercise right near the U.S. carrier Saturday, officials said.

Related: “On Thursday night as the ball drops in Times Square, millions of Americans watching on TV will join the revelers in Manhattan to celebrate the new year. For other Americans, alas, the arrival of Jan. 1 will mark only the beginning of another year behind Iranian bars. It’s long past time to bring these men home.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. When You Believe In Nothing, Islam Becomes Something:

France is a country that has lost much of its religion and national pride. They have become increasingly a people without desire, direction, or heart.

Christopher Caldwell points out in his similarly prescient 2009 book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, that Europe has engaged in self-shaming for so long that it reviles everything about its own culture, idolizing minority culture instead, as a kind of mea culpa for their colonial sins against the Third World. Perhaps the French today are so full of multicultural idealism, but lacking a pride in their own culture, that they would indeed go along with a religious takeover—so long as the pay is good, the wives are pretty, crime goes down, and a stable system is put into place.

Earlier: The crisis of character — Brendan O’Neill on Identity politics and the death of the individual.

ROBBIE SOAVE: Silencing Students: The 8 Most Loathsome Campus Censors of 2015. Normally, I wouldn’t give away who wins the #1 slot, but this year it’s hardly a surprise:

In George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece 1984, an agent of the authoritarian state tells the soon-to-be-brainwashed protagonist, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” Student-journalists, meet your very own boot-stamper: Melissa Click, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Missouri, who easily captures the #1 spot on this list.

The face of higher education in America: “If you want a picture of what’s to come on college campuses next year, imagine the hate-filled visage of Click as she stomps on a student’s camera—forever.” Note that she’s still employed at Mizzou.

WAIT, WAIT MATHEMATICIANS FORM POSSES?  HOW COME MY HUSBAND NEVER TOLD ME? Posse of Mathematicians Bridges Number Theory and Geometry.  His penchant for wearing a cowboy hat in order to keep his glasses snow-free is now explained!

WORST HARRY POTTER SEQUEL EVER: Stephen Miller on Twitter.

BUT IT’S NOT ALL GOOD.  POPCORN IS SO EXPENSIVE: Rahm Emanuel, Stranded in Cuba as His Deputy Gets Assaulted.

THE WORD DOESN’T MEAN WHAT NBC THINKS IT MEANS: Trump corrects NBC: Clinton, Lewinsky affair not ‘alleged’.

REALLY, WHERE IS MY SHOCKED FACE? Bay Area Job Growth Slows After Minimum-Wage Hikes.  In other news, the laws of physics, like the laws of economics, refuse to bend to the “feels” of liberals.

I’LL BE ATTENDING THIS IN FEBRUARY: Unless major disaster occurs. The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop. Attended the last one.  VERY worth it.

IN A MERE THOUSAND VOLUMES:What Obama doesn’t understand about human nature.

I THINK MY SHOCKED FACE IS GETTING WORN OUT FROM USE: Report: Obama’s NSA spied on Israel, Congress, and Jewish Organizations.

THEY ALWAYS PROTECT THEIR OFFENDERS: The Bill Clinton Effect: Why Liberals Treat Women Worse. (BTW this has been my experience with liberals in my business as well.)

VICTIMS ARE VICTIMS ARE VICTIMS: Gay sex slave trial exposes hardships of male trafficking victims.

WON’T HAPPEN: What will it take for Hillary and Obama to condemn the Chicago coverup?

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF FACT CHECKERS: BBC Admits ‘Gaza Under Attack’ Images Fabricated.

JUST WHAT WE NEEDED:New contagious form of cancer discovered.

OBITUARY: George Clayton Johnson, science-fiction author, dies at 86.

FROM THE PARTY THAT GAVE US SLAVERY AND JIM CROW: The ‘mismatch theory’ is a real danger to minority students.

BAD STATS DRIVE BAD POLICY: Census vet weighs in.

ALL MEN MUST DIE: But must it be in vain?

MEGAN MCARDLE: ‘The Force Awakens’ Has a Perfection Problem.

Like pretty much all of the rest of you, my family saw “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” over Christmas week. I emerged from the screening into a lively Internet debate over whether Rey, the main hero, was or was not a “Mary Sue”: an author’s wish-fulfillment character, perfect in every way, beloved by children, dogs and everyone around her. Plotwise, this character is improbably central to everything — the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral. . . .

The answer is that of course Rey is a Mary Sue, though not in this case for the author; she is a stand-in for every 10-year-old who imagined themselves into the Star Wars universe, and particularly the women who wanted to be Luke, not Princess Leia. J.J. Abrams has taken all the skills of the main characters of the first “Star Wars” cast and rolled them into one: She is a pilot as good as Han Solo, also a mechanic; she is apparently fluent in multiple languages; she is a terrific hand-to-hand fighter, a good shot and, oh, she knows how to use a lightsaber the first time she picks one up. Also, mid-movie, she discovers that she can do Jedi mind tricks without having any reason to know that they even exist — apparently not content to make her Luke, Abrams also had to make her her own Obi-Wan Kenobi.

What Abrams left out is twofold: first, the sense that these are skills that have to be trained and developed, not simply inborn traits one has, like blue eyes. Second, and more important, he’s omitted the weaknesses that made the original characters so appealing: the genuine streak of nasty self-interest in Han Solo, Leia’s bullheaded arrogance, Kenobi’s wistful sense of being past his prime, Luke’s needy, whining sense of entitlement to greater things than he has gotten from the universe so true to actual teenage boys. . . .

I also tend to believe that this undercuts the longevity of the films. Kids will like it, because kids love action-packed CGI stuff. But how many people who watched this movie as a kid will keep coming back to it as an adult, the way my generation has with the original? The movie is fine for what it is, but what it is is, as my friend Terry Teachout noted, “an homage to an homage,” missing much of the charm that made the original so enduring. If the three prequels had not been so downright terrible, people would be being much harder on “The Force Awakens.” The fawning critical reaction is mostly just a vast outpouring of relief that George Lucas hasn’t been allowed to inflict more damage on his own creation.

Well, that’s a relief.

WHY IS HILLARY SO RACIST? “You could’ve at least let Rosa sit at the front of the logo @HillaryClinton.”

THE TRUMP/HILLARY FIGHT HAS REOPENED THIS: The Jeffrey Epstein Affair Imperils Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Prospects.

YEAR END DEALS ON Amazon Devices. I just bought the Fire TV Stick with voice remote, for the living room TV that has cable but no Internet. I’ll let you know how it works out.

OKAY, THIS ISN’T DON’S BIGGEST SCOOP EVER: Don Surber: Newsweek Is Run By Idiots.

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Never Mind Rhodes: It’s The Cult Of The Victim That Must Fall.

Also, the practice of caring what college students think.

IT’S BACK! After an Instalanche-induced stock-out, my book The Power of Glamour, is again available from Amazon. Thanks to everyone who bought it for Christmas—or just to read yourself—and to the kind commenters who urged others to read it too.

Lest you share the common misconception that “glamour” is a synonym for fashion, here’s a column I wrote on the glamour that attracts recruits to Islamic State. Here’s a happier excerpt on the tech glamour of wirelessness. Here’s a Q&A I did on glamour for financial advisers (yes, you read that right), as well as interviewer Ken Silber’s review of the book. And here’s a review that describes how the book’s discussion of Star Trek‘s glamour gave the reviewer a better understanding of women’s relation to beauty-magazine imagery than the usual feminist “beauty myth” critique.

REVEALED: NSA Spied On Israel, US Lawmakers. In a less politicized environment, this would bother me less. But you know this was mostly about domestic politics, not national security.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Death Of Gratitude.

SO THE TECH COMPANIES ARE JUST AN ARM OF THE GOVERNMENT NOW: Windows 10 covertly sends your disk-encryption keys to Microsoft. And under the “third party doctrine,” the government can get them from Microsoft without a warrant. But wait, there’s more:

Windows 10 has many unprecedented anti-user features: a remote killswitch that lets it disable your hardware; keylogging and browser-history logging that, by default, sends it all to Microsoft, and a deceptive “privacy mode” that continues to exfiltrate your data, even when you turn it on.

I don’t trust these guys.

CAUSE AND EFFECT:

Shot: New York Times Editorial Board Calls For Nationwide $15 An Hour Minimum Wage.

Chaser: New York Orders Fast-Food Workers Replaced With Robots, Kiosks, Mobile Apps — A state panel recommends hiking the minimum wage by 70%.

RICHARD NIXON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress:

President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.

But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

Related: “Your Employer Can’t Stop You From Recording Conversations At Work.”

That’s pretty much been Barry’s motto, hasn’t it?

Also Related: Minneapolis Councilwoman and Black Lives Matter Supporter Doxxes Critics Writing to Her, Then Plays the Victim Card When She Is Criticized for Doxxing Her Critics.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Louisville Law Prof Objects To ‘Chinese Mind Control’ Diversity Training.

A couple of years ago, the acting dean of the law school ordered all law faculty and staff to attend “diversity training” sponsored by the vice president for diversity. At that training, we were first asked to identify our religious preferences: Would everyone who is Catholic please stand up? Would everyone who is Jewish please stand up? Would everyone who is agnostic please stand up? Would everyone who is atheist please stand up? We were then asked to identify our sexual orientation. Would everyone who is gay please stand up? Would everyone who is a lesbian please stand up? We were asked then asked to stand if we were disabled.

The session was conducted like Chinese mind-control training. Before the first group was asked to stand up, we were instructed that we were expected to clap for each group, and we were told that polite clapping was simply insufficient. For each group, we were required to clap and affirm with a “woo-hoo” level of vigor. Thus, devout Catholics were required to go “woo-hoo” for agnostics and atheists, agnostics were required to do likewise for Catholics, and heterosexual individuals were required to go “woo-hoo” for gays and lesbians.

Group speak was the agenda of the day. Individuality and, indeed, diversity of thought were adamantly discouraged.

This is what organizations do when they have too many people onboard who aren’t contributing to their actual mission.

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION OFFICE? Feds improperly gave away $64 million in Social Security Disability payments because they failed to check the recipients’ income. Oh, and they did so despite the fact the SSA Inspector General has issued at least two reports in the last decade warning that millions of tax dollars are being lost because of such sloppy work, according to Ethan Barton of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

BOMBSHELL: Pataki about to drop 2016 bid.

On the other hand, perhaps, there is (to coin a Tatooine-minted phrase) A New Hope: “Santorum Could Trample Trump.”

As Allahpundit deadpans in response, “Big if true.”

Nay, Yuuuuuge.

MICHAEL LOTUS: Avi Davis: A Personal Reminiscence and Thoughts on Honoring his Memory and Carrying on the Cause.

Jim Bennett reported that the Magna Carta event was a smashing success. He also told me that the generally hopeful and optimistic aspect of our message was greeted with some disbelief, even scoffing, but also with relief, hope and a desire to know more. This has been our usual experience. Most conservatives and libertarians, as well as opponents of jihad and supporters of Israel, tend to be pessimistic. They know they are right, they know the other side is wrong, and often evil. But in their guts they think history is not on the side of freedom, the rule of law, civilization and the West. So when we suggest that this is a very bad phase, but we will get through it, this message has a strong impact on people who are willing to listen. As I came to learn, Avi had been struck by this as well.

Read the whole thing.

TWILIGHT OF THE HEADBANGERS: How long can the legends of heavy metal keep on rocking?

Where’d Lemmy go? The stage is empty: vacated mics, cooling drum stool, the blocky, buzzing statuary of amps and speakers. Motörhead, the legendary Motörhead, is not there anymore. I’m in a heavy-metal hangar in Salt Lake City in late August, and singer/bassist Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister has just walked off, shakily and in evident distress, after only four songs, anxiously pursued by his drummer, Mikkey Dee, and guitarist, Phil Campbell. A man in a bandanna approaches me, pop-eyed with dire foreknowledge: “He’s not comin’ back, man! He’s not comin’ back! He’s too old!” Then he reels away, into the hormonal half-smoke and press of bodies in front of the stage. Should we riot? Are we sad? Is it possible that Lemmy—69 years old, pacemakered, diabetic—Lemmy, the great survivor, opposer, grizzled odds-beater, humanity’s middle finger, was crying? “Listen,” he’d said to us before exiting, in his familiar English roar-gasp, that voice of fiery exhaustion. “I’m really sorry—I can’t tell you how sorry I am—but my back’s gone. I’ve got this bad back and … I can’t breathe up here either.” Then he covered his face with his hands, and he left us.

A sadly prescient Atlantic article from last month, given the announcement of Lemmy’s death yesterday. Motorhead wasn’t my cup of arsenic (Led Zep and The Who are about as hard as my mp3 collection rocks), but as more and more rockers exit the stage, increasingly I wonder about the future of pop music. Or the lack thereof.

(Via Sonny Bunch.)

JUST NBC THAT MEMORY HOLE! “Donald Trump appeared on NBC’s Today where co-host Savannah Guthrie attempted to convince Trump that former President Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs (and specifically what occurred with Monica Lewinsky) were merely ‘alleged’ and thus might not be fair to bring up in a campaign involving Hillary Clinton.”

In contrast, even the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus can see the obvious: “Trump has smeared women because of their looks. Clinton has preyed on them, and in a workplace setting where he was by far the superior. That is uncomfortable for Clinton supporters but it is unavoidably true.”

But then, truth is the ultimate scarce resource inside NBC and most other DNC-MSM newsrooms.

Related: ‘I will not stop talking about this’! NRO’s Katherine Timpf won’t let Hillary off ‘feminist’ hook.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Victims and Microaggressions: Why 2015 Was The Year Students Lost Their Minds.

WAPO: Trump is right: Bill Clinton’s sordid sexual history is fair game.

HEY, WHEN DID FOX BUTTERFIELD START WRITING HOLLYWOOD REPORTER HEADLINES? How Eddie Redmayne’s Transgender Role in ‘The Danish Girl’ Went From “Commercial Poison” to Oscar Contender.

(The Danish Girl’s not exactly printing money at the box office, which only benefits its chances in the era of the uber-politicized stick-it-to-the red states Academy Awards; Butterfield Effect explained here.)

In other news from politics and gender-obsessed Tinseltown, “The new Ghostbusters are fighting the ghosts of the patriarchy.”

Bless their souls! But of course they are.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Bay Area Job Growth Slows After Minimum-Wage Hikes:

The pace of hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector fell to a five-year low for the Bay Area last month, Labor Department data show. Job gains have slowed to less than half the rate that preceded Oakland’s and San Francisco’s adoption last spring of the highest citywide minimum wage in country.

After rising close to 5% a year, hiring at restaurants, hotels and other leisure sector venues rose just 2.2% from a year ago in November. Meanwhile, in the rest of California, where the minimum wage is generally $3.25 below the $12.25-an-hour level set in Oakland and San Francisco, leisure and hospitality employment rose 4.9%.

The data suggest potential employment headwinds from the higher minimum wage, which jumped 36% in Oakland and 14% in San Francisco. On top of that, Oakland’s minimum wage is set to rise to $12.55 in January while San Francisco’s will jump to $13 in July.

Also in news of fresh disaster from the formerly Golden State, What Price Will Californians Pay for Decent Roads?

Of course, all that deferred maintenance on some of the worst roads in the nation now also helps Jerry Brown sell his party-like-its-1899 fantasy of “high speed rail” to connect the state, the ultimate “desire named streetcar,” given all of its potential for graft and eminent domain abuse:

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Liberal Professor Admits: Higher Ed’s ‘Falling Apart.’

COURT EUNUCHS PROTECT THE KING: Why did it take this long for a comedian to mock The One and his Giant Ego?

And speaking of the symbiosis of Obama and the DNC-MSM, Barry O’s transformation into Barney Stinson is finally complete:

As John Nolte likes to say, “Democrats sure got it good.” Obama and his staffers can only post trolls like that knowing that he has protection from being mocked by the media and its late-night talkers. Or by nightly news anchormen placing that image into context by reminding viewers that “3 weeks ago we had the worst terror attack on the homeland since 9/11.”

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ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER THAT YOU’LL EVER DO: LOL: O’Malley Can’t Convince Only Person at His Iowa Event to Vote for Him.

TEST DRIVE: 2016 Mercedes-Benz C450 AMG.

YOU WILL BE MADE TO CARE: Oregon Bakery Pays $135K for Refusing to Make Cake for Gay Wedding.

HE ONLY WANTS WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU: Facebook’s Zuckerberg: If You Oppose Our International Power Grab, You’re An Enemy Of The Poor.

THE 21ST CENTURY HASN’T TURNED OUT AS I EXPECTED: British health experts warn of unstoppable gonorrhea.

VIDEO: Watch the Picture-Perfect Implosion of a Century-Old Pittsburgh Bridge.

THE YEAR CAMPUS FREE SPEECH STOLE THE SPOTLIGHT: As 2015 comes to a close, we at FIRE are taking the time to look back on a year in which free speech issues on campus exploded on the national scene:

Protests roiled more than 75 college campuses, congressional leaders debated students’ civil liberties on multiple occasions, and newsmakers ranging from Jerry Seinfeld to President Obama felt compelled to chime in on the state of free speech at America’s colleges and universities.

You can read more about these events (and many others) in FIRE’s “2015 Year in Review for Student and Faculty Rights on Campus” over at The Torch.

SAN FRANCISCO TO JUSTIN BIEBER: STOP SPRAY-PAINTING GRAFFITI ON OUR SIDEWALKS. “While the exact source of the graffiti remains unclear, City Attorney Dennis Herrera wants Bieber and his label to help make it stop:”

“This prohibited marketing practice illegally exploits our City’s walkable neighborhoods and robust tourism; intentionally creates visual distractions that pose risks to pedestrians on busy rights of way,” Herrera wrote in his letter.

He added the graffiti “irresponsibly tells our youth that likeminded lawlessness and contempt for public property are condoned and encouraged by its beneficiaries — including Mr. Bieber and the record labels that produce and promote him.”

I agree with the message — graffiti is vandalism, after all, but I’m not at all sure if a representative of the city of San Francisco is the best person to be attacking someone over his contempt for public property, given the city’s well-deserved Calcutta meets Caligula reputation.

LOSERS: Union Posts Names of Non-Members, Urges Shunning. “Local 412 of the United Auto Workers has placed a spotlight on employees who have chosen to exercise their right to not support the union financially under Michigan’s right-to-work law. In a recent newsletter, the local urges co-workers not to share ‘tools, knowledge or support’ with individuals who chose not to pay union dues. It then lists the names of the employees to be shunned.”

Sounds like a conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights to me.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Top 10 Best “Top 10 Best Lists of 2015” of 2015.

BEEN THERE, SEEN THAT. Terry Teachout has a brief and brutal review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which concludes thusly:

To all this I need only add that the American film industry has now, it would seem, attained the perigee of decadence: it has given us, courtesy of J.J. Abrams, a totally derivative hommage to a totally derivative hommage.

Here endeth the lesson.

Heh. To how understand just how badly self-lobotomized Hollywood has become, despite SW: TFA‘s undeniably derivative nature and plot holes you could drive a Star Destroyer through, it’s likely the most watchable movie in film theaters right now.

Related: “But we now live in the age of the fake nerd and I think that’s where Star Wars fits best. The people that ‘f***ing love science!’ and watch Big Bang Theory can’t shut up about Star Wars. It’s another method to signal their membership in the cult of pseudo-scientism. They may never have made it past geometry in school, but they swear they grew up on comic books and were always a nerd.”

IN THE MAIL: From David Weber & Joelle Presby, The Road to Hell (Multiverse Series).

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 964.

BERNIENOMICS 101.

The day after Christmas, Bernie Sanders asked a question on Twitter: “You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?”

Finance types may snicker. But I’ve seen this question asked fairly often, and it seems worth answering, respectfully, for people whose expertise and interest lie outside the realm of economics.

The short answer is: “Loans are not priced in real life the way they are in Sunday School stories.” In a Sunday School story, the cheapest loans would go to the nicest people with the noblest use for the money: single mothers who need money to buy their kids a Christmas present, say.

That’s splendid for the recipient. But what about the lender? Let’s say you had $150 that you really needed to have at the end of the month, say to pay your rent. Would you want to lend it to the single mother whose income is stretched so tight that she needs to borrow money for Christmas presents, or would you want to lend it to some heartless leech of a securities litigator with an 800 credit rating who happens to have left his wallet at home? C’mon. You know the answer; you just don’t want to say it. If you really need the money — if you cannot afford to turn your loan into a gift — then you lend it to the better credit risk with the higher income, not the person who may find themselves too short to pay you when the loan comes due.

In aggregate, most of the money in your savings account is loaned out using this cold calculus, and unless you could afford to have that contents of that account suddenly vanish, you want it to be. That’s why poor people, on top of all the other unfairness heaped upon them, pay higher interest rates. And that is why secured loans, like mortgages, get lower interest rates than unsecured loans, like credit card balances and student loans.

You’d think Bernie would have learned something about this in his 74 years on the planet.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Who Can Be President of the United States?: Candidate Hillary Clinton and the Problem of Statutory Qualifications.

COULD THIS BE WHY IRS ILLEGALLY HARASSED 292 RIGHT GROUPS IN 2010 AND 2012? Kathryn Watson says analysis of campaign contributions made by IRS workers between 1990 and 2014 found twice as many of them contributed to Democrats as did to GOP candidates and causes. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s analysis was based on FEC data compiled by OpenSecrets.org.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: An Interview With The Founder of Brown University’s Underground Free-Speech Group.

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