DEVAL PATRICK: List My Brother-in-Law As A Sex Offender, Get Fired From Your State Job. So he fired a woman because she wanted to list his brother-in-law, who was convicted of raping his sister, as a sex offender?

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Are Tree Huggers Hypocrites?

I will give conservative critics this: Adopting this stance only makes sense if you don’t believe that there’s much power in “setting a good example.” As it happens, consistent with my stance, I do not believe that there is much power in setting a good example, at least not on things that are as central to modern life as breaking apart hydrocarbon chains and using the energy to replace human muscle. I believe that movie stars can inspire idealistic teenagers to go vegan; I do not think that more ordinary-looking adults can convince the majority of Americans to suffer through discomfort and inconvenience for the sake of a hard-to-see threat.

If this is what you believe, then it’s perfectly reasonable to go about your life until the day we are ready for collective action. But I must note that this belief is at odds with the faith professed by most environmentalists in the powers of American example-setting on carbon emissions. When it is pointed out (correctly) that China and India’s billions of people currently pose a much greater threat to the atmosphere than rich Americans, environmentalists usually respond by first pointing to the public-relations noise that China is making, even as it continues to construct dirty coal plants as fast as it can pour the concrete, and second by arguing that we need to adopt these changes first, which will set a good example and give us the credibility to ask that China and India follow suit.

I find this belief sincere, touching and almost willfully naive.

Almost?

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Millennials Aren’t Getting Jobs and Aren’t Buying Houses.

PHILIP K. HOWARD: When Humans Lose Control of Government: A decades-long obsession with writing excessively detailed laws had made it impossible for real people to get anything done.

AT AMAZON, Trick Or Treat Snacks in Grocery.

Plus, new deals on Fall Clothing & Shoes, for men and women.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: A rape epidemic — by women? CDC report reveals troubling equality when it comes to sexual assault rates.

MORE POLITICO MOCKERY, THIS TIME FROM JAMES TARANTO: “Politico landed an exclusive interview with Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the center of the still-unresolved scandal, and to call it a whitewash would be an insult to lime.” Heh. So should we call this sort of fluff-job “pulling a Rachel Bade?” from now on, since “whitewash” is inadequate?

WHO CARES? IT’S GOING ON THE CREDIT CARD ANYWAY: White House won’t estimate cost of ISIS war.

The White House does not have an estimate on how much the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will cost.

Pressed on that point Monday, press secretary Josh Earnest wouldn’t give a ballpark figure for how much the administration expected military operations to cost.

“I don’t have an estimate on that,” Earnest said. “I know that we’re interested in having an open dialogue with Congress to ensure that our military has the resources necessary to carry out the mission that the president has laid out.”

So far, the administration has relied on the Overseas Contingency Operations budget to pay for operations against the terrorist group. The White House had previously requested a cut in that pool — from $85 billion to $58.6 billion — for the next fiscal year, but lawmakers decided instead to keep funding at current levels in the temporary budget measure passed last week.

The White House also indicated it would seek funding for the effort against ISIS from international partners. So far, more than 40 countries have said they would support a coalition effort against the terror network.

I’ll believe it when the checks clear. Meanwhile, why aren’t we killing ISIS’s “angel investors” in Qatar and around the Gulf?

UPDATE: From the comments: “If we kill rich Arabs, who will pay Obama’s speaking fees after he leaves office?”

BYRON YORK: Something Is Terribly Wrong With The Secret Service.

Here at InstaPundit, I’ve been noting management problems with the Secret Service for over a decade. But the problems seem to be getting worse, not better.

UNDER OBAMA, WE’RE TOO DYSFUNCTIONAL FOR PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING: Are We Too Dysfunctional for a New War on Terror?

WAIT, I THOUGHT PUTIN WAS ON ASSAD’S SIDE: Russia Condemns U.S. Airstrikes Against Islamic State In Syria.

SO THAT POLITICO PUFF PIECE ON LOIS LERNER IS WORKING OUT NICELY: Lefty journalists circle wagons around whining Politico reporter, attack Stephen Hayes. The Politico reporter is Rachel Bade, and she should be apologizing, not whining. Because it was a lame puff piece that produced no significant new information, and seemed as if it was dictated by Lois Lerner’s PR person.

LISA DE PASQUALE: When It Pays Better To Lobby Than To Be Entrepreneurial. Plus, Peter Thiel on the “tech slowdown.”

JACK DUNPHY: Daniele Watts and the Allure of Racial Victimhood.

STRATEGYPAGE: Philippines: The Chinese Threat Grows.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Roll Call: D.C. Council Considering Handgun Permit Bill. “Grudgingly” is the key word in this story.

ED DRISCOLL: Roll Over Alinsky, and Tell Glenn Thrush the News.

John Nolte of Big Journalism coined the phrase “BenSmithing” to describe the tactics of the former Politico turned BuzzFeed scribe and member of the JournoList, that self-described “non-official campaign” to elect Obama, which as its founder Ezra Klein explained, was only open to his fellow leftists. As the Urban Dictionary notes, BenSmithing is “a political tactic that disguises itself as journalism in order to protect Democrats, most specifically Barack Obama.”

Smith’s former colleague Glenn Thrush, still with the Politico, is also quite prepared to do a little BenSmithing to aid his fellow Democrats in higher places: whenever a scandal engulfs them, Thrush affects an attitude of boredom. Hey, no big deal — Evel Knievel totally meant to crash the motorcycle on the landing ramp. All part of the act; happens all the time, you guys.

It’s a curious tone though, for someone who holds himself out as a journalist, and not as a Democrat operative with a byline. Those of us who have the privilege of observing the Hieronymus Bosch meets Koyaanisqatsi landscape of the world of the 21st century and then reporting on the wreckage around us are usually horrified at how dysfunctional the modern world and its political players are and eager to share the details with our readers. But for Thrush, it’s all pretty boring. At least when bad things happen to his fellow leftists.

It’s never news unless you can blame a Republican, and preferably Sarah Palin.

Related, from Mollie Hemingway: “Yeah, I can’t put my finger on why people were talking about Alinsky ever… SAYS A POLITICAL REPORTER. I mean, seriously. I get if you’re a normal person who lives a happy life unencumbered by discussions of politicians. But if you’re a political reporter, how can you cover the manufactured War on Women without knowing from which its tactics spring?”

They know, approve, and don’t want to tell the truth because it would threaten the whole feedlot. Treat them accordingly.

METAPHOR ALERT: White House Will Now Lock The Front Door.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE (CONT’D): Former teacher’s aide found guilty on rape charges. “Jennifer Kennard was found guilty of six counts of second-degree rape, two counts of third-degree rape and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.”

WELL, IT HASN’T BURNED OUT LIKE EARLIER ONES, WHICH HAS BEEN TROUBLING ME FOR A WHILE: Could The Ebola Outbreak Last Forever? Well, if it persists for a while, there’ll be reason to develop and deploy a vaccine.

CHARLES C.W. COOKE: Robert Kennedy, Aspiring Tyrant: He’d like to charge the Kochs with treason and send climate-change dissenters to jail.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: A rape epidemic — by women? CDC report reveals troubling equality when it comes to sexual assault rates.

ROGER SIMON: Trotsky’s Curse: Obama Goes To War.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY . . . Joe Biden 2012: If Romney Wins, We’ll Go To War In Syria.

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: New lab incidents fuel fear, safety concerns in Congress.

Scientists wearing space-suitlike protective gear searched for hours in May for a mouse — infected with a virus similar to Ebola — that had escaped inside Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, one of the federal government’s highest-security research facilities, according to newly obtained incident reports that provide a window into the secretive world of bioterror lab accidents.

During the same month at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, a lab worker suffered a cut while trying to round up escaped ferrets that had been infected with a deadly strain of avian influenza, records show. Four days later at Colorado State University’s bioterrorism lab, a worker failed to ensure dangerous bacteria had been killed before shipping specimens — some of them still able to grow — to another lab where a worker unwittingly handled them without key protective gear.

Nobody was sickened in the incidents and the mouse was caught the next day. Yet in the wake of serious lab mishaps with anthrax and bird flu at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that prompted an uproar and a Congressional hearing this summer, these additional incidents are further fueling bipartisan concern about lab safety.

I’m troubled.