CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: The Music Video.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): An Industry Man For The FCC. ” There is no question that Mr. Wheeler, who was chief executive of the National Cable Television Association for five years and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association for 12 years before becoming a venture capitalist, understands the industry. The question is whether his long career representing the interests of telecommunications companies would make it hard for him to be an independent and fair regulator when consumers have few choices and pay high prices for cellphone, cable TV and broadband services. He was also a big “bundler” for Mr. Obama in the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, which means that he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from relatives, friends and business associates. Political campaigns disclose their donors, but they are not required to disclose which of them were recruited by bundlers like Mr. Wheeler. Given his background, it is almost certain that he raised money from people whose companies he would regulate, creating potential conflicts of interest.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: UK Study Shines Light On Men’s Struggles.

We’ve already seen how American men are falling behind in college education and how the evaporation of industries geared toward male workers has left many men unemployed. But the problems aren’t limited to the United States. The UK’s Guardian compiled statistics that show how British men are struggling in a six other areas: prison sentencing, employment, education, homelessness, and suicide. Obviously, the results are specific to Brtiain, but there are a number of parallels to things happening here.

Some of the findings were quite striking. Male workers with a job are far likelier to be laid off than their female counterparts, and less likely to be re-employed afterwards. As a result, men frequently have less stability in their careers than women.

Worse, should a man have a run-in with the law, he is likely to receive a much more heavy-handed treatment for a first time offense than a woman. According to the article, 29 percent of male first-time offenders were sentenced to custody, as compared to 17 percent of women. On average men serve 53 percent of their sentence, while women tend to serve only 48 percent. The data has some issues in that it doesn’t appear to take the severity of the various crimes into account, but it is interesting nonetheless.

On a more depressing note, the male suicide rate is still three times those for females.

The rule, however, is that if women are doing worse it’s a major social problem demanding action. If men are doing worse, it’s because of their innate inferiority.

UPDATE: Yeah, I know: If only someone would write a book on this.

KATIE PAVLICH: Hillary Clinton’s Big Benghazi Lie.

Related: Rich Lowry: The Benghazi Patsy.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Get Ready For The War On Data. “If the Census is the key to political control, then you can expect parties to put more energy into gaming the census.” I don’t think that’s new.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY — OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: Obama May Back FBI Plan To Wiretap Web Users. “The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.”

AT AMAZON, deals in Patio, Lawn & Garden.

Also, today only: Anne Klein Ceramic Watches for $29.99.

MICHELLE COTTLE: How Terry McAuliffe and the Dems Lost Virginia. Well, not yet. But it isn’t just the GOP that runs nutty candidates.

MARCO RUBIO IF YOU CAN: Roll Call: Florida Republicans Seek the Next Marco Rubio.

BUZZFEED: Benghazi Investigation Creeps Closer To Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: Father of Slain SEAL: ‘I Knew’ Clinton Was Lying When She Told Me It Was About the Video. But filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.

MICKEY KAUS: Three sides to amnesty in a nutshell.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Bloomberg: Colleges Soak Poor Students to Funnel Aid to Rich.

TOM BEVAN ON THE BENGHAZI HEARINGS:

Despite Obama’s claim during the second presidential debate that he had called the assault an “act of terror” in a Rose Garden statement the day after it happened (a claim famously supported by moderator Candy Crowley), the truth is that the president used the phrase that day in a generic sense.

It took eight days for White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Clinton to label the attack an act of terror. Obama was given opportunities to do the same during his Sept. 20/25 television appearances, but he declined.

We did learn at least two new, relevant facts from yesterday’s testimony. One is that Beth Jones, an official in the State Department, sent an email on September 12 bluntly acknowledging terrorists participated in the attacks (“The group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists.”) The other is that Hicks said his “jaw dropped” when he heard Rice make her claims about spontaneous protests. Hicks testified that he later confronted her about the comments, and shortly thereafter he was demoted.

So, while we may not have been treated to any “bombshell” revelations Wednesday, the testimony of Thompson, Hicks and Nordstrom and a fair reading of the record leads to an obvious conclusion: The president and his administration clearly misled the public about what happened on Sept. 11, 2012.

And filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.

REMINDER: After the Benghazi attacks, academics and journalists supported Internet censorship based on false YouTube claim.

The claim turned out to be entirely bogus. But filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.

THE HILL: Republican leader rips the media for ‘shoving us in the corner.’ “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) ripped the media in a speech Tuesday to the Ripon Society, arguing press coverage is partly responsible for the GOP’s messaging woes.”

You want to punish ’em? Mandate cable unbundling, which is the right thing to do anyway — and popular, to boot.

JAMES TARANTO: “Stop Being A Baby:” Gosnell, Infanticide, and the Infantilization of Women.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Enhanced Viagra Site Won’t End Male Embarrassment. “If you’re going to take Viagra, you would be wise to see a physician first. But a lot of patients are still determined not to. Maybe they’re too embarrassed, or maybe they think they just can’t spare the time. So instead of taking the risk of an online questionnaire in lieu of an exam, they take the larger risk of buying drugs with unknown formulations from sources with uncertain identities. If something goes wrong, no one can be held responsible. Pfizer’s new site will undoubtedly pick up a few patients who search ‘buy viagra online’ and just want to renew their prescriptions. But aside from search engine results, it offers little you can’t already get from CVS.com. As long as a real bottle of Viagra requires a visit to the doctor, even the most clearly branded site won’t do much against counterfeiters.”

Obviously, then the solution — as with Plan B — is to make it available over the counter. With no age limit.

OLD SPIN — NO STORY HERE. NEW SPIN: Benghazi: Incompetence, But No Cover-up.

The incompetence is beyond dispute. But so is the stonewalling, as noted in this National Journal piece. I still want to know why the Administration was so eager to pin things on an obscure YouTube filmmaker, stuck to that story for so long after it was clearly false, and worked so hard to see him hustled off to jail. I’d encourage investigators on the Hill to look into communications between the White House, and the DoJ in DC, and the U.S. Attorney’s office in LA.

OVERSOLD? China may not overtake America this century after all. With 87 years left, nobody really knows what’s going to happen “this century,” but yeah.

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Terry McAuliffe’s Woman Problem. “Democrat Terry McAuliffe has drawn a portrait of his marriage that is going to be hard to dispel. He is in the spotlight right now for ditching his wife Dorothy while she was in labor, to dash to a party for a Washington Post reporter. . . . The more problematic anecdote to me is one that involves the birth of another baby, in this case a newborn son whom McAuliffe left in the car with Dorothy on the way home from the hospital while he spent 15 minutes at a fundraiser. She was in tears, he writes. How the heck does he think women would react to that?”

HOPE YOU HAD A HAPPY FIBONACCI DAY: 5/8/13.

WASHINGTON POST: At Benghazi hearing, State Dept. officials challenge administration review of attacks. If we had a Republican in the White House, the inherent moral superiority of career civil servants would be front-and-center.

ACE EXPLAINS WHY: Why is it so important that the Kochs do not buy the LA Times? Why is it so important for the liberals to push out the only reporter who covered Benghazi? “Ghettoization.”

COLLEGE POLITICO: What The Washington Post Isn’t Telling You About Benghazi. Or even the folks tweeting about it.

ARI FLEISCHER: Irony: Bush Admin accepted CIA talking points on WMD. CIA was wrong. O Admin altered CIA TPs on Benghazi. CIA was right.