MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Why It Was Right To Scrutinize The UVA Rape Story.

Back in the 1990s, a dean at Vassar College told Time magazine that a false accusation is not only an acceptable price to pay, but might even benefit the falsely accused: “[The wrongly accused] have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. ‘How do I see women?’ ‘If I didn’t violate her, could I have?’ ‘Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?’ Those are good questions.”

There is, though, one point on which everyone can hopefully agree: if Jackie’s story proves to be false (or a dramatic overstatement of a still terrifying trauma), the damage done to those fighting the scourge of campus sexual violence will be incalculable. Because if accusations are never met with circumspection, prepare to see an increase in those who believe that all accusations are untrustworthy.

When you know that there’s an entire infrastructure of people willing to support a lie if it advances a narrative, it’s reasonable to be skeptical of any story they put forward.

CREATING NEW DETROITS: Victor Davis Hanson: Ripples Of Ferguson. “Just as the ethics reformer in the White House has left a legacy of unprecedented presidential scandal, so too the racial healer has presided over the greatest erosion in racial relations in the last half-century. That is the lesson of Ferguson — and the Fergusons to come — and the backlash outrages to the Fergusons to come — and on and on and on.”

MOE LANE: “It’s not demographics, and it’s certainly not gerrymandering, and shoot, it’s not even Barack Obama. It’s that the people who run the Democratic party [expletive deleted] hate the South. And Southerners have noticed.”

FROM THE COMMENTS OVER AT ACE’S some Pearl Harbor Day thoughts.

During the 3-1/2 years of World War 2 that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and ended with the Surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, “We the People of the U.S.A.” produced the following:

22 aircraft carriers,
8 battleships,
48 cruisers,
349 destroyers,
420 destroyer escorts,
203 submarines,
34 million tons of merchant ships,
100,000 fighter aircraft,
98,000 bombers,
24,000 transport aircraft,
58,000 training aircraft,
93,000 tanks,
257,000 artillery pieces,
105,000 mortars,
3,000,000 machine guns, and
2,500,000 military trucks.

We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb, and ultimately conquered Japan and Germany.

It’s worth noting, that during the almost exact amount of time, the Obama Administration couldn’t even build a web site that worked.

Ouch.

IT’S COME TO THIS: After apology, Rolling Stone changes its story once more.

Plus: WaPo’s Erik Wemple: Updated apology digs bigger hole for Rolling Stone. “Rolling Stone now acknowledges that not checking with the other side was a mistake, though the abandonment of common sense and journalism merely starts with this critical omission. . . . Again: Fire the Rolling Stone editors who worked on this story.”

I imagine that the lawyers for Rolling Stone are putting a lot of pressure on Jackie to remember the right things. . . .

PHOTOS: Inside The Pearl Harbor Attack.

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Rape Culture And The Ivy League Lynch Mob.

At Columbia, I was startled by some of the mob-like invective falling from the mouths of otherwise bright, well-read students. One group of female students said “the rapist” must be expelled. But he hasn’t been found guilty of committing rape, I said. “We know he committed the rape,” one said, with the kind of steely-eyed conviction that recalled (admittedly in a much less lethal context) how KKK members once “knew” that their black victims were guilty of raping local white women.

A male student told me my insistence that individuals suspected of a crime must be fairly tried and found convincingly guilty before we ruin their lives — and being expelled from a prestigious university for rape would undoubtedly be life-ruining — was evidence that I had fallen for the “liberal paradigm” of justice, which tends to benefit white, well-off men.

Yes, I imagine by current standards the whole Scottsboro Boys thing was an example of true gender justice.

DON’T SEND YOUR DAUGHTERS TO THESE LEFTY SCHOOLS: “Mass Rapes” At UC Berkeley. Or your sons.

IT’S BAD WHEN THE STATE OF MARYLAND IS THE GOLD STANDARD: A Citizen Confronts The Federal Bureaucracy. Of course, states compete for LLC registrations; the federal government faces no similar competition.

IT’S TRUE, THEY DO: Daniel Hannan: Leftists become incandescent when reminded of the socialist roots of Nazism.

AT AMAZON, Get the Kindle Fire HD7 for $134 ($25 off). Also, get the Fire HD7 Kids’ Edition for $159 ($30 off).

Plus, up to 60% off on coats, jackets, and more.

WELL, THIS IS STUPID: Alabama State Senator: Defining ‘journalist’ may become necessary.

Freedom of the press is essential. Freedom of the press is important to me. Freedom of the press is not going anywhere in Alabama.

With the national explosion of partisan political blogs and shady, fly-by-night websites offering purposely skewed and inaccurate interpretations of hard news events, I recently asked the Secretary of the Senate to put together a definition of what qualifies as a legitimate journalist. . . .

Just as elected officials are accountable to the people they represent, so, too, are journalists accountable to an editor.

While a free and open press is vital and necessary, there are some who are attempting to hijack the profession by promoting raw political agendas from the confines of the press gallery. This is not freedom of the press, it is deceitful and wrong.

I acknowledge that in today’s rapidly changing media world, it is more complicated to determine who should and should not be considered a legitimate journalist.

To that end, I have asked the Alabama Press Association to assist the Senate staff in determining a proper definition of what constitutes a journalist meriting access to the press room.

Uh huh. Granted, this is only press-room access but (1) it’s not like traditional journos aren’t partisan operatives; and (2) this is a slippery slope.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Sex victim con artist deported after police spend $150,000 investigating false claims. “An immigration board hearing heard city police and health officials spent weeks and over $150,000 this fall investigating Azzopardi’s spurious claims she was the victim of prolonged sexual abuse before realizing the woman — who Ireland’s media described as a ‘Walter-Mitty-like con artist’ — had spun a similar web of lies to law enforcement officers in that country a year ago.”

OOPS: This year’s flu virus a poor match for this year’s flu vaccine. Maybe I should lay in some Tamiflu.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Could An Asteroid Strike Knock The Moon Into The Earth? More like a planetoid strike.

AT AMAZON, featured Digital Deals.

Plus, the Men’s Denim Store.

Also, 60% or more off on Hunting & Tactical Knives.

MEDICAL PRIVACY In Our Biologically Upgraded Future. I guess the upside is that by now, there’s not much left to lose.

WHO OWNS the Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century? “There’s a bitter fight over the patents for CRISPR, a breakthrough new form of DNA editing.”

NOT-SO-DIRTY JOBS: What It’s Like to Be an Uber Driver in a $500,000 Rolls Royce.

RICHARD BRADLEY LISTS people who should apologize for calling critics of the UVA rape story sexists.

IN THE MAIL: Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth.

Plus, today only at Amazon: 37% or More Off a Little Giant Velocity Multi-use Ladder in 13-Foot, 17-Foot, and 22-Foot Sizes. Those are good.

And, also today only: 50% Off Select Toys from ALEX.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 577.

I’M GOING TO GO WITH “YES” ON THIS ONE: Terry Bean sex charges: Should national media pay more attention to Democratic fundraiser’s arrest? (Poll).

TECH MOGULS and the TNR meltdown.

Plus: TNR cancels December issue after mass staff resignation. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a magazine canceling an issue, except in WWII when there were paper shortages.

But my favorite take is this one:

TOM MAGUIRE NOTES SOME RATHER DRAMATIC REVISIONS to the WaPo story on the Rolling Stone rape debacle. These changes don’t make Rolling Stone look any better, but suggest that there may be something in there somewhere. Maybe.

UPDATE: Readers note that the changes are also consistent with a liar who keeps changing the story to make it more dramatic. True.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rolling Stone Quietly Changes Its Rape Story Apology. “A note that initially said the magazine “misplaced” its trust in an alleged gang rape victim was edited Saturday to say the ‘mistakes are on Rolling Stone.'”

When contemplating a libel defense, you don’t want to be crossways with your only source.

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on Bestselling Products, updated every hour.

Also, check out the Kindle Daily Deals.

Plus, today only: Over 45% Off Select Home & Business Monitoring Cameras.

And, also today only: T-fal C770SF Signature Hard Anodized Oven Safe Nonstick Thermo-Spot Heat Indicator 15-Piece Cookware Set, $99.00 (65% off).

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: US to keep 1,000 more troops than planned in Afghanistan.

Hagel, speaking at a joint news conference with President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, said the reason for the extra troops was that U.S. allies had been slower to help out with a planned NATO mission next year than originally thought. The defense secretary insisted that troops weren’t staying longer because of a recent increase in Taliban attacks.

The president, Hagel said “has provided U.S. military commanders the flexibility to manage any temporary force shortfall that we might experience for a few months as we allow for coalition troops to arrive in theater.

Hmm.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: SMU plans layoffs, other changes to cut $35 million.

Southern Methodist University is expected to cut up to $35 million in annual operating expenses through layoffs and administrative changes in an effort to curb rising costs, even as the school continues its billion-dollar capital campaign.

The decision to rein in finances, which came as a surprise to many, follows a series of high-dollar expenditures in fiscal 2013 that included the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, a change in the school’s athletic conference, consulting fees for a branding study to boost the school’s national reputation and 3 percent salary increases, according to a recent ratings update from Moody’s Investors Service.

Moody’s notes that the university has reached its debt capacity under its current rating and has “very thin liquidity” compared with similar universities, but it gives it a stable outlook. SMU has an Aa3 rating from Moody’s, the fourth-highest credit rating, and lags behind similar universities such as Vanderbilt, Emory and Notre Dame.

Hmm.

IT’S AS IF HE WAS JUST BROUGHT IN AS A DISTRACTION: Ebola czar Ron Klain returning to private sector.

Ron Klain, the man brought on by President Obama to run the administration’s response to the Ebola virus, will return to the private sector in 2015.

Klain, a former Fannie Mae and Cigna lobbyist, plans to return to his job with former AOL executive Steve Case by March 1, Fortune reported Friday.

“He has no intention of staying on in any other capacity here at the White House,” an administration official told Fortune. “Ron will do the job for which he was appointed and return to Revolution.”

Klain was appointed in October to oversee the combined response of government agencies after Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was the first to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., passed away from the virus. Two of his nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson, contracted the virus, but went on to recover.

But hey, it worked. I would be interested, though, in seeing a report of what he actually did in his six-week tenure.

THE INEVITABLE “FAKE BUT ACCURATE” SPIN: “Ultimately, though, from where I sit in Charlottesville, to let fact checking define the narrative would be a huge mistake.”

THE REAL FERGUSON PROBLEM: Grand Juries Don’t Work That Way All The Time.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Clarksdale teacher arrested on a charge of sexual battery.

A 23-year-old Clarksdale Municipal School District teacher faces sexual battery charges after allegedly sleeping with a student, according to the Coahoma County Sheriff’s Department.

Kristen Damon was arrested at her home Tuesday and remains in jail on a $25,000 bond.

Employed through the Teach For America Program, Damon taught seventh grade English at Higgins Middle School and coached soccer at Clarksdale High School.

No word on whether the student was male or female.

JOURNALISM: Before Rolling Stone Was Conned By “Jackie” They Fell for “Billy.” (Via Romenesko).

CHARLES C.W. COOKE: Rolling Stone, Rape Apologists. “Worse, it is increasingly clear that Rolling Stone is not only indulging in one of the most high-profile examples of rape apology in recent memory, but that it is also keen to blame the victim. In its retraction, the outfit squarely places the responsibility for the mistake on Jackie herself — a classic move.”

BUT IT’S IN SERVICE OF A PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL CAUSE, SO IT’S OKAY: Michael Brown Protesters Have Shut Down More Traffic Than Chris Christie.

AT AMAZON, Christmas Deals in Running.

Plus, deals on Fishing Gear.

JOURNALISM: NYTimes Fails to Disclose Clinton Paid for Interviews About Administration.

In a five year span, the William J Clinton Foundation gave five grants totaling $851,250 to the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. One year in particular, 2007, the Clinton gift was specifically marked: “Oral history project of Clinton presidency.”

Well, today the New York Times has a front page feature on the newly relesaed oral history project about the Clinton presidency. The one the Clintons helped pay for. But no where in the 2,600 word piece do Times writers Amy Chozick (who is on the Clinton beat) and Peter Baker (longtime White House reporter) disclose the obvious conflict of interest.

It would only be a conflict of interest if the money came from Republicans.

FORTUNATELY, IT’S GOTTEN MUCH EASIER TO CARRY A GUN: Gallup: In U.S., 37% Do Not Feel Safe Walking at Night Near Home.

ST. LOUIS: Attack on Bosnian woman near Bevo Mill is called a hate crime.

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson has called in the FBI to help investigate what he is calling a hate crime because a woman assaulted by three black teens is Bosnian.

The Friday morning attack occurred in the Bevo Mill neighborhood where earlier this week a Bosnian man was killed with a hammer by a group of teens.

In Friday’s case, the woman, 26, told police that she was driving in the 4600 block of Lansdowne Avenue about 5:25 a.m. when three men in their late teens to early 20s walked in front of her vehicle.

When the woman attempted to drive around the young men, at least one of them pulled a gun and ordered her to stop.

Note: If someone does this to you, run them down. More:

One of the men asked where the woman was from. She said she was European.

“You’re a (expletive) liar. You’re Bosnian. I should just kill you now,” Dotson said of the woman’s account.

Based on that comment, he said, police are labeling the assault as a hate crime. The woman was pushed to the ground and kicked before the attackers fled. A passer-by told police the woman was found unconscious.

Is there some special anti-Bosnian sentiment among blacks in St. Louis? I know the Bosnian community there is quite large, but is there a history of bad relations?

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE:BYRON YORK: In tough Senate race, pork couldn’t buy Landrieu victory. Neither the Louisiana Purchase nor the Cornhusker Kickback was enough to overcome the toxic effects of voting for ObamaCare. That’s because ObamaCare was that toxic, but perhaps also in some small part because people are less receptive to pork. And so Cassidy countered with the “post pork paradigm.”

So I guess it’s time to bring this flag out one more time.

ED DRISCOLL: The MSM Gang-Raped the Truth This Week.

WELL, THAT WAS FAST: AOSHQDD calls Louisiana for Cassidy, a Landrieu loss. Remember when people thought this runoff might decide control of the Senate? Now it’s 54R, 46D.

MARK RIPPETOE TALKS TRAINING in this interview.

Here’s the iTunes link.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): U.S. Birthrate Declines for Sixth Consecutive Year; Economy Could Be Factor. Huh. What happend six years ago that could have reduced people’s faith in the future?

AT AMAZON, take an additional 20% off already-discounted open-box tablets.

Also, take an additional 10% off already-discounted laptops.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON JOURNALISM AND LIES:

As any journalist or cop or lawyer or academic can tell you, reality is usually complicated. Eyewitnesses are unreliable, narratives are cloudy, the data you want is missing or never existed, people seeking money or power have pushed deep into legal gray zones without quite breaking the law. It’s not that clearer stories don’t exist — Bernie Madoff committed a very clear-cut and mediagenic crime. But those stories are hard to find, because the perpetrators are at pains to conceal their actions.

Fabricators can create exactly the sort of story that becomes front-page news: an obvious and sympathetic victim, a clearly identified perpetrator who obviously broke the law, vivid details to hold the listener’s attention. They don’t need to backtrack and say “Oh, wait, no, that happened three weeks earlier” the way that real witnesses often do, or shamefacedly confess, when confronted, that they maybe left out a few parts of the story that didn’t put them in the most flattering light. In other words, they can give us exactly the sort of story that can get us a prize, because they aren’t constrained by the often banal and frequently ambiguous details of anything that actually happened. The very reason people like Stephen Glass and Jack Kelley were so successful was that lies generally make better copy than reality.

I’m not saying that most of the amazing scoops that get printed are false. On the contrary. But it is true that journalists get offered many, many amazing scoops that simply won’t stand up to scrutiny. We keep them out of the news stream by carefully checking the stories for inconsistencies and offering the accused the opportunity to respond. Thankfully, fabrications frequently reveal themselves as questionable when you try to corroborate the details — often because these oft-rehearsed tales are carefully set up to be completely impossible to check, and the source disappears when you press. There’s also a reason that so many of the worst fabrications we know about were created by journalists, who knew exactly what they had to do to get the story through the system.

Unfortunately, reporting by others suggests that Erdely didn’t do one of the basic things that reporters do to try to keep fabrications or exaggerations out of our stories: Check with the other side. It now seems clear that her story has always been essentially a single-source story; she spoke to Jackie, and people who heard the story from Jackie, none of whom turn out to have pressed Jackie for such details as the names of the accused. According to the Washington Post, when Erdely did press, Jackie tried to back out.

Going ahead at that point, in my opinion, pretty much turned Erdely from a victim of fraud into a collaborator in it. When your single source doesn’t want to stand behind the story. . . .

Related thoughts from Hanna Rosin. “One thing we know is that Rolling Stone did a shoddy job reporting, editing, and fact-checking the story and an even shoddier job apologizing.”

Plus: “Fake rape allegations may be very rare but they have a huge impact, especially when they get so much attention.” How do we know that they’re very rare?

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: There Is A Reason We Never Crack Down On Medicare Fraud. Actually, though, it’s a classic case of anarcho-tyranny: Fraud is almost never addressed, but doctors are potentially at risk for prison time even for simple paperwork mistakes, should the authorities want to go after them for some reason.

EUGENE VOLOKH: Libel law and the Rolling Stone / UVA alleged gang rape story.

IT’S A SUCCESS, AND A CAUTIONARY TALE, AT THE SAME TIME: Sexual Misconduct Witch Hunt Recently Concluded at Yale Without a Hanging. It’s not rape just because you later wish you hadn’t slept with them.

A FEW LOUDMOUTHS COMPLAINED: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority.

FLASHBACK TO 2008: A Vote For Obama Is A Vote For Civility.

WE NEED PHAGES OR NEW ANTIBIOTICS OR SOMETHING: ‘Superbugs’ Kill India’s Babies and Pose an Overseas Threat.

THE CAYENNE’S MINI-ME: The 2015 Porsche Macan Turbo: A 400-horsepower Porsche for the Starbucks drive-thru. “There is an artificiality to the Macan Turbo’s handling, bolstered as it is by physics-defying technology. The torque-vectoring differential and adaptive suspension make it seem smaller and lighter during cornering, at least until it eventually succumbs to understeer.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH SCIENCE FICTION WRITER Tim Powers. I quite enjoyed his Declare.

VIDEO: Watch a guy do a 5-mile wheelie: Helmet-cam captures freestyle motocross rider Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg’s seemingly endless motorcycle wheelie.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: How Nanobot Swarms Will Hunt Down Cancer Cells. Faster, please.

THE INSTA-WIFE: UVA, The War On Fraternities, And The Fight For Male Space.

IN THE MAIL: From Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics, Fifth Edition.

Plus, today only at Amazon: Up to 70% Off Select Top-Rated Portable Bluetooth Speakers.

And, also today only: Vanguard Endeavor ED 10×42 Binoculars, $169.99 (60% off).

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 576.

POLICING AS A NUMBERS-DRIVEN SHAKEDOWN SCHEME:

No, it’s not a race thing. It’s a Ray Kelly thing. That man singlehandedly ruined this department. When I came up as a rookie, you were assigned an older cop who had been around and knew what they were doing. We were taught that you catch more flies with honey. Basically, if you let the small things go — like the guy selling loosies or weed or whatever on the corner — then when the big shit happens, like homicide or burglary, those are the same guys who will tell you all about it. If they hate you, they won’t tell you shit. . . .

Nowadays, since Kelly’s Operation Impact, rookies are taught one thing: Write tickets, do searches, make money. They’ll have a quota they have to fill. They’re not supposed to, but they do. They come up not knowing their asses from their elbows. These rookies don’t understand how to let the small stuff go. They’ll be on your back for a bag of grass. So then when things happen, they overreact.

Plus: “It’s just that people don’t hear our side. When you’ve been on this job for a while, you see some awful shit. There was a little girl who died once — anyway, you just numb-out to a certain extent. When you see those same things over and over, you just lose some part of yourself.”

LIKE JENJIS KHAN! John Kerry Is Trying to Stall the Release of the CIA Torture Report.

DEALS GALORE IN Amazon Fashion: Apparel & Accessories, Jewelry, Shoes, Watches.

Also, up to 20% off Gourmet & Specialty Gifts.

And, today only: 70% Off Select 14k Gold Diamond Stud Earrings.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Media Furious With Rolling Stone’s Mishandling Of UVA Rape Story. Or, as it seems to be, “non-rape story.”

Reaction to Rolling Stone’s admission was both swift and furious from across the ideological spectrum.

“Rape on college campuses remains a huge problem,” the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein tweeted. “Tragedy of the story is it will distract from that/cast doubt on future incidents.”

Similarly, Breitbart News’ Mary Chastain called it “a complete disgrace to actual rape victims.” And the Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay said “Rolling Stone is really screwing over other victims who will now face even greater skepticism in reporting campus rape.”

Some journalists who defended the article, even after its many inconstancies came to light, blasted Rolling Stone for failing to vet the story properly.

“This is really, really bad. It means, of course, that when I dismissed Richard Bradley and Robby Soave’s doubts about the story and called them ‘idiots’ for picking apart [the story], I was dead f**king wrong, and for that I sincerely apologize,” Jezebel’s Anna Merlan wrote.

“It means that my conviction that [Rolling Stone] had fact-checked [the] story in ways that were not visible to the public was also wrong. It’s bad, bad, bad all around,” she added.

“Welp. Turns out many of us, myself included, were wrong to trust the story,” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie tweeted.

The apologies are nice, but other backers of the story also need to apologize for calling anyone who questioned it “rape apologists.”

ROLL CALL: Three Things To Know About The Louisiana Runoff. “Landrieu is known for snatching victories from the jaws of defeat. But this year, the national environment that sunk many of her colleagues seems likely to overwhelm her as well. President Barack Obama is incredibly unpopular in Louisiana, and Cassidy has taken full advantage of that fact.”

OH, HELL NO — PUT THE CHAIRS EXTRA-CLOSE TOGETHER: HHS asks GOP: Keep us away from Gruber.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is asking lawmakers not to seat ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber next to Medicare’s top official when the two testify on Capitol Hill next week.

HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislation Jim Esquea wrote to the House Oversight Committee with the request, stating that government witnesses are “almost always afforded an opportunity” to sit alone or with other federal officials.

ADVERTISEMENT
“The accommodation of separate panels for government witnesses reflects important comity in congressional-executive relations,” Esquea wrote. “The relatively few exceptions to this practice reinforce the seriousness of this accommodation.”

The Oversight panel, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), is preparing to grill Gruber over his comments that the “stupidity of the American voter” and a “lack of transparency” helped ObamaCare pass in 2010.

“The request is currently before Chairman Issa but at past hearings, government officials have testified alongside other non-administration witnesses,” said Becca Watkins, a spokeswoman for the committee.

While he has apologized, Gruber’s remarks have become their own flashpoint in debates over ObamaCare. Republicans say the comments confirm their view that the law was not passed in an open process.

Democrats have sought to distance themselves from Gruber. The Esquea letter is the clearest example related to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, who will serve as a witness at the same hearing.

Having the two seated together — with all the resulting photos — would be a public relations nightmare for the administration.

Which it should be, and the GOP would be crazy not to make it happen.

WORTH READING AGAIN: Petty Offenses and Police-Community Relations in Ferguson.

THE UVA FAKE-RAPE SCANDAL REMINDS ME OF THE Hofstra fake-rape scandal. And also of this fake-rape case. Plus, not just one, but two, posts on college as a hostile environment for male students, going back to 2002.

TOM MAGUIRE: “I am delighted to see Phi Kappa Psi cleared; I am having a harder time believing that nothing of consequence happened to Jackie.” It may or may not have, and if it did, it may or may not bear any relationship to the story she told Rolling Stone.

Related: 4 discrepancies surrounding the U.Va. gang rape allegation.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl: “Rolling Stone’s on record source served on TWO WH task forces?? What are the chances??”

WHO POLICES PROSECUTORS WHO ABUSE THEIR AUTHORITY? Usually Nobody.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Don Surber: Suspend UVA’s President, Teresa Sullivan:

On November 22, University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan unilaterally suspended all activities by fraternities based on a report on an alleged gang-rape reported by the Rolling Stone.

Today, Rolling Stone for all intents and purposes retracted that story.

UVa.’s board should suspend Teresa A. Sullivan immediately. Her decision was arbitrary, rash and wrong. Even Delta House got some semblance of a trial in the movie, “Animal House.”

Even if the Rolling Stone story had been true, her response was unfair, prejudiced, and a sign of lousy judgment and poor leadership. But she could have asked simple questions — was there a party on September 28? do they have pledges in the Fall? — herself. Instead, UVA knew about this claim but did nothing until it was in Rolling Stone, and then she responded in a knee-jerk, hateful, PR-oriented way, one that punished the innocent but not the guilty in order to provide the appearance of firmness. That was a betrayal of her responsibility to the University of Virginia’s student body, every one of whom has the right to expect a President who will deal fairly, honestly, and sensibly with whatever comes up.

Meanwhile, I expect the members of the Board of Visitors who — briefly — fired her a couple of years ago feel their judgment was vindicated this week.

YOUR RAPE: Is It Clickbait? Does It Pop? “She was rape shopping: going from campus to campus auditioning rape victims, contacting advocacy groups and asking for introductions. But the rapes she found at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn didn’t have the right narrative feel. They were just rapes, and she needed a cover-worthy rape. So she kept shopping until she found someone who would tell her a version of the story she had already decided to tell. . . . Get better rapes, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn. Let’s face it: For magazine journalism, yours just aren’t colorful enough.”

Related thoughts from Tom Maguire.

THE WAPO’S ERIK WEMPLE: Rolling Stone’s disastrous U-Va. story: A case of real media bias. “Under the scenario cited by Erdely, the Phi Kappa Psi members are not just criminal sexual-assault offenders, they’re criminal sexual-assault conspiracists, planners, long-range schemers. If this allegation alone hadn’t triggered an all-out scramble at Rolling Stone for more corroboration, nothing would have. Anyone who touched this story — save newsstand personnel — should lose their job.” And the newsstand personnel should wash their hands.

CLIMATE SKEPTIC/BLOGGER ANTHONY WATTS is asking for help.

YOU KNOW, I MIGHT JUST HAVE A LITTLE DRINK LATER TONIGHT: Today is the 81st anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. Of course, what’s sad is that we didn’t learn our lesson with that debacle.

AT AMAZON, new Cyber Monday deals all week! Browse and save.

Plus, deals galore in Training & Fitness.

And shop the Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: The Market for Law School Applicants — A Milestone to Remember. “We are indeed living through a business school case study, which is both bad and good. At many schools — likely well more than half — hard choices need to be made to ensure survival. (And for the record, virtually all schools, regardless of rank, are feeling uncomfortable levels of heat.) A law school needs cash to pay its expenses. But it also needs faculty and curricula to attract students. The deeper a law school cuts, the less attractive it becomes to students. Likewise, pervasive steep discounts on tuition reflect a classic collective action problem. Some schools may eventually close, but a huge proportion of survivors are burning through their financial reserves.”

Related: Law Schools Still Have A Ways To Fall.

DAVID BOAZ: Eric Garner could spark American Spring.

#GREENFAIL: A Two-Day Battle to Charge My Car Convinced Me We’re Not Ready for EVs.

CHEAP OIL COULD kill off biofuel mandates. I wouldn’t mind keeping cellulosic ethanol research going, but food-based biofuels have been a disaster.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Holiday Gift Guide in Electronics.

Also, shop the Golf Gift Guide.

RATHER A LOT, REALLY: The Pentagon Finally Details its Weapons-for-Cops Giveaway. Plus, scroll down and you can search by state to see what was given to police forces in your area.

COMPUTERS AND IMAGING TECHNOLOGY PRODUCING AN ASTRONOMICAL REVOLUTION: 55 Cancri Super-Earth Spotted With Ground-Based Telescope. “Computer and sensor advances have made telescopes of all sizes much more powerful. What this means: Any intelligent civilization that reaches our level of technological development will be able to search for and find planets which have a substantial chance of harboring life. Any civilization in our neighborhood that is much older than ours was able to detect our sun a long time ago and find evidence of the planets in orbit around our sun. Surely technologies for detecting intelligent life are also very advanced in civilizations that past our point of development a long time ago. So what strikes me: If there are other intelligent and industrialized species out there in our arm of the Milky Way Galaxy some must know our planet harbors life. But do any yet know our planet has intelligent life? Have any already made the decision to reach us for some purpose?”

Fermi’s Question with a slightly different spin. Of course, maybe they’re on the way. . . .

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nearly perfect carbon nanotubes key to energy-saving lights.

OUT: WOMEN DON’T LIE ABOUT RAPE! IN: Washington Post: U-Va. fraternity to rebut claims of gang rape in Rolling Stone.

A lawyer for the University of Virginia fraternity whose members were accused of a brutal gang rape said Friday that the organization will release a statement rebutting the claims printed in a Rolling Stone article about the incident. Several of the woman’s close friends and campus sex assault awareness advocates said that they also doubt the published account.

Officials close to the fraternity said that the statement will indicate that Phi Kappa Psi did not host a party on Sept. 28, 2012, the night that a university student named Jackie alleges she was invited to a date party, lured into an upstairs room and was then ambushed and gang-raped by seven men who were rushing the fraternity.

The officials also said that no members of the fraternity were employed at the university’s Aquatic Fitness Center during that time frame — a detail Jackie provided in her account to Rolling Stone and in interviews with The Washington Post — and that no member of the house matches the description detailed in the Rolling Stone account. . . .

Will Dana, Rolling Stone’s managing editor, also released a statement with new doubt. “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” he said in a statement.

Will U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan apologize for her evidence-free collective punishment of the entire Greek system? Actually, she should resign.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: DARPA Is Getting Closer to an Iron Man Suit.

RANDY BARNETT: How To Finally Kill ObamaCare: The Supreme Court is more likely to act if Republicans have an alternative bill ready.

JAMES ANTLE: Wounded Donkey: The Democratic Party’s Obamacare Disaster. “Both Harkin and Schumer are liberals lamenting what will likely be the Obama administration’s main domestic-policy legacy. They are both now saying the Democrats blew it.”

IN THE MAIL: From Frank J. Fleming, Punch Your Inner Hippie: Cut Your Hair, Get a Job, and Make America Awesome Again.

Plus, today only at Amazon: Up to 63% Off: “Breaking Bad: The Complete Series.”

And, also today only: Over 55% Off the Sony NEX5TL Interchangeable-Lens DSLR with 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 575.

ROB LONGLEY: Republicans Use Constitutional Experts — and President’s Own Words — in Debate Over Immigration Decree.

“President Obama has stated over 20 times in the past that he doesn’t have the constitutional power to take such steps on his own — and has repeatedly stated that, ‘I’m not a king,’” Goodlatte said in his opening statement.

He then played a video showing a series of clips in which Obama insists he can’t unilaterally change or make immigration law.

He said the president’s 180-degree turn on the issue has lit the fuse of a “full-fledged” constitutional crisis.

“The Constitution is clear,” Goodlatte said. “It is Congress’ duty to write our nation’s laws and, once they are enacted, it is the president’s responsibility to enforce them.”

Indeed.

STEPHEN L. CARTER: Law Puts Us All in Same Danger as Eric Garner.

On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn’t. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law.

The obvious racial dynamics of the case — the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, is white; Garner was black — have sparked understandable outrage. But, at least among libertarians, so has the law that was being enforced. Wrote Nick Gillespie in the Daily Beast, “Clearly something has gone horribly wrong when a man lies dead after being confronted for selling cigarettes to willing buyers.” Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, appearing on MSNBC, also blamed the statute: “Some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they’ve driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive.”

The problem is actually broader. It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won’t lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.

Yes, but fewer laws also offer politicians fewer opportunities for graft.

FLASHBACK: Waco: When The Press Loved Militarized Policing. “As Kaus notes, it was strange to see reporters fawning over Reno after she presided over a catastrophic failure that left twenty-six children dead.”

Lot of white people killed by the police that day, though to be fair the Branch Davidians were a pretty diverse bunch.

CHUCK TODD ON OBAMACARE: “This Bill Is A Mess.” Kinda makes you wish people had read it before they passed it, huh?

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Reid vs. White House Tensions Cloud Majority’s Final Days: Divides over electoral strategy and a tax deal reflect stresses between the Senate’s top Democrat and the Obama administration.

AT AMAZON, Up to 50% off on Gourmet Food & Gifts, including Chocolate Gifts, Coffee Gifts and Specialty Gifts.

Also, Cyber Monday Deals in Tools & Equipment.

Plus, today only: Jackery Giant+ Premium Portable Charger Aluminum 12000mAh Power Pack and External Battery Bank, $29.95 (You Save $100.00 (77% off)).

And, also today only: 40% or more off Phillips Norelco shavers.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: The Hill: Watchdog: IRS Withholding Documents on Taxpayer Data Requests. “A watchdog group says the IRS is withholding documents between the agency and the White House that show inappropriate requests for taxpayer data, according to multiple reports. . . . A court has said the agency must hand over the documents. But IRS officials have said that they will not release the documents, citing a part of the tax code that protects the confidentiality of individual tax returns.” They’ve got something to hide.

CHANGE: Mark Levin urges states to ‘take back your power’ from ‘runaway’ Obama.

The building national movement for a constitutional convention of states to block President Obama’s executive orders got a huge boost Thursday when leading advocate Mark Levin urged state lawmakers to throttle all of Washington, including Republicans.

“Take your power back,” he demanded of the hundreds of lawmakers attending the American Legislative Exchange Council convention on Capitol Hill. “You are the last line of defense of liberty.”

Levin got star billing because a focus of the winter meeting of the limited government group is pushing for a convention of states, a project of the Citizens for Self-Governance, who sponsored the top talk show host who recently wrote a book laying out constitutional amendments the nation should consider. The process is offered in Article V of the Constitution.

He described a nation that is morphing into a “post-constitutional” crisis where state legislatures are “irrelevant,” and the president and Congress do whatever they want, and nobody in Washington provides checks and balances.

“We have a president of the United States who says, ‘Hey, Congress won’t act. I will.’ Excuse me? Well what’s that? Sounds like a runaway convention to me,” he said.

Ditto for Republicans. “Throw out the establishment Republicans and others who are stopping you from doing what you need to do,” Levin urged.

To applause, he pushed legislators to consider a convention of 2,000-3,000 delegates to review procedures for hosting a constitutional convention as a warning shot to Congress and the White House. “That alone would shake up this city,” he said.

The Tennessee Law Review published a special symposium issue on constitutional conventions a few years ago. I wrote the Foreword, Sandy Levinson wrote the Afterword, and an all-star cast including Randy Barnett, Brannon Denning, Richard Epstein, Tim Lynch, Rob Natelson, and too many other luminaries to mention contributed the stuff in between. Here’s my contribution, which focuses specifically on spending. And here’s video of me talking about it at the Harvard Law School conference on constitutional conventions.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Healthcare.gov average premiums increasing in 2015.

ROLL CALL: Obama’s Push for Political Ambassadors Reaching Lame-Duck Limit.

President Barack Obama won the latest round Tuesday, when senators voted almost straight down party lines to confirm two new diplomats whose most obvious calling cards were raising a combined $4 million to elect and re-elect the president. That would be Colleen Bell, a Hollywood soap opera producer who will now spend the next two years running the U.S. embassy in Budapest; and Noah Mamet, a public relations consultant who got his start as a fundraiser for House Democrats two decades ago and is off to take the corner office in Buenos Aires.

Starting next year, the advantage in the argument will go to the Republicans, because once they take over the Senate they’ll have total power to ignore into oblivion any diplomatic choice they view as unqualified.

The mystery is what happens in the next week. Beyond the big-ticket legislative items, Majority Leader Harry Reid is confronting a mountain of routine bills and nominations, knowing he can’t possibly get it all done even if he stretches the lame duck beyond Dec. 12. He’s not tipping his hand on how hard he’ll push for action on would-be ambassadors — although in the short time available the Nevada Democrat will have more success with the 13 career diplomats waiting in the wings than with the dozen political appointees.

By recent historic standards, Obama is starting to test the ceiling for putting friends and campaign supporters in U.S. diplomatic posts. Altogether, 35 percent of Obama’s assignments so far have gone to political people. But in his second term, the number has grown to 41 percent according to research by the American Foreign Service Association, the union representing career diplomats that would like more strict enforcement of a 1980 law that says campaign donations may not be considered a qualification for any foreign posting.

Well, I’d say that law is constraining Obama about as much as, well, all the others.

THE HILL: Obama signals he’ll put muscle behind response to police killings.

During a Thursday speech, Obama said he intends to “take more steps” with leaders like New York Mayor Bill de Blasio “in the months ahead to make sure that all Americans have confidence that police and law enforcement are serving everybody equally.”

“When it comes, as we’ve seen, unfortunately, in recent days, to our criminal justice system, too many Americans feel deep unfairness when it comes to the gap between our professed ideals and how laws are applied on a day-to-day basis,” Obama said.

He acknowledged addressing the issue was a big challenge, but said it should galvanize the country and bring Americans together.

The New York grand jury’s decision to not indict a police officer in the death of Garner, who was placed in a chokehold and said “I can’t breathe” as he was pulled to the ground, hit Washington like a sledgehammer.

The decision came just two weeks after a separate grand jury did not indict a white police officer in the death of Michael Brown, a black teenager.

Both decisions have provoked protests around the country, elevating the issue of criminal justice and police behavior.

But it remains unclear how long Obama and the White House will be focused on the issue given a breadth of other challenges facing the administration.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Dems really make a clean break with the police unions. Related: Police union leader says de Blasio threw officers ‘under the bus.’