YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW, PEASANTS! Court mulls revealing secret government plan to cut cell phone service. “The last known time mobile phone service was cut by a government agency was the San Francisco example from 2011. That’s when the Bay Area Rapid Transit System took heat for disabling service to quell a protest in four downtown San Francisco stations. The three-hour outage was done after BART cut service without the assistance of the telcos.”

TORTURE-TESTING THE NEW Remington RM380 Pocket Pistol. “It seemed to hold up well under far more continuous fire than you’ve ever expect from a pocket pistol. There was a dud primer (a solid strike, but no ignition of the powder) at round 142 that was no fault of the gun, but other than that, the little six shooter just kept chugging along. Richard’s trigger fingers (on both hands) wore out at 200 rounds in less than six minutes.” I can believe that. I have a Ruger LCP in .380 and it’s a nice little gun, but it’s punishing to put too many rounds through it. Which is fine, as it’s not designed as a recreational firearm.

ALIENS: NASA Chief Scientist Is Sure We’ll Find Alien Life Within 20 Years.

PETER SUDERMAN: 5 Things To Know About Rand Paul’s Campaign for President.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Business Etiquette Advice: “Don’t Be The Office Joe Biden.”

I WANT TO SEE JEB BUSH RUN AGAINST LIZ WARREN FOR A HISTORIC ALL-MINORITY RACE.

HUH. AND I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Brontosaurus Is Back: New Study Says the Dino Is Real After All.

ASHE SCHOW: Columbia dean discusses problems in campus sexual assault reporting.

Rolling Stone’s hoax story about a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia is not the only example of poor journalism when it comes to reporting on campus sexual assault.

Sheila Coronel, Columbia University’s dean of academic affairs, spoke with the Columbia Spectator following a televised press conference on the scathing review of the Rolling Stone story, issued Sunday night by Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Coronel discussed how journalists need to get both sides of the story when writing about campus sexual assault. . . .

Coronel was specifically asked about Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia student who claimed she was raped during an otherwise consensual sexual encounter and now carries a mattress around campus because the school didn’t find the man she accused responsible. For months, the Sulkowicz story consisted solely of her account of the incident, which led to the student she accused being labeled a rapist even though he was found “not responsible” by a campus court.

It wasn’t until Cathy Young at the Daily Beast told the accused student’s side of the story that journalists realized that the case was not as cut and dry as Sulkowicz made it seem. Young published Facebook messages between Sulkowicz and the accused that indicated she was not the victim she claimed to be.

“Ideally, if you’re reporting this story, all of these things [details about interactions between Sulkowicz and her alleged assailant] should have come out in the beginning rather than pieces of it in dribs and drabs,” Coronel said. “Some of the same lessons [from the Rolling Stone article] we see there: It’s always better to get the other side of the story.”

“It’s hard to establish guilt or innocence, particularly in a case of rape, especially in colleges, where frequently the assaults take place when both parties are drunk and there are few witnesses,” she added.

One would think these difficulties would make people more cautious about assuming guilt without evidence.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Connecticut High School Teacher Charged With Sex Assault. “A 24-year-old science teacher at a Connecticut high school has been charged with sexual assault and providing alcohol to a minor after allegedly having sexual contact with a male student, authorities say.”

I blame our pervasive culture of female sexual entitlement.

JOURNALISM: NBC & Brian Williams: Worst Assumptions Confirmed By Insiders.

CHARLES C.W. COOKE: Fighting Against ‘Rape Culture’ Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. “Even if we suspend our disbelief and give Erdely an extremely generous benefit of the doubt – if we assume, that is, that she made all of her mistakes in a good-faith attempt to spare the feelings of her source – we will still come up against a considerable institutional problem: that being that whether or not they are setting out to deliberately mislead their audiences, journalists writing about claims of rape are operating under rules of engagement that have been set by zealots. . . . Over the last decade or so, we have witnessed the rise of a political movement that hopes to set the investigation and punishment of sexual assault outside of the limitations that are imposed by respect for due process, for rational inquiry, and for common intellectual decency. By and large, this movement is populated by people who despise the truth if it contradicts the narrative; who regard evidence and process as tools of oppression; who interpret skepticism and questioning as acts of hostility; and who, at least as it relates to ‘rape culture,’ consider unthinking credulity as a virtue and not a vice.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 698.

STANDING UP FOR GAY RIGHTS, AND GAY LIVES: Leading Conservatives Call on Apple to Pull Out of Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran Until They Stop Torturing Their Gay Citizens.

UPDATE: Joel Kotkin: Calling Out The High Tech Hypocrites. “Yet beneath the veneer of good intentions, the world being created by the tech oligarchs both within and outside of Silicon Valley fails in virtually every area dear to traditional liberals. . . . None of this is to say that the tech elites need to be broken up like Standard Oil or stigmatized like the tobacco industry. But it’s certainly well past the time for people both left and right to understand that this oligarchy’s rise similarly poses a danger to our society’s future. By their very financial power, plutocratic elites — whether their names are Rockefeller, Carnegie, Page, Bezos or Zuckerberg — need to be closely watched for potential abuses instead of being the subjects of mindless celebration from both ends of the political spectrum.”

THAT’S OKAY, WE’VE GOT SMART DIPLOMACY^TM ON THE JOB TO DEAL WITH IT! Will Yemen Hostilities Spill into Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia’s Eastern province has been unstable ever since protests erupted in 2011. More than 20 people have been killed since then, and Saudi forces killed four militants in a shootout as recently as last December.

A Shi’a revolt in Saudi Arabia could have major consequences. The Shi’a-majority Eastern province also happens to be where much of Saudi Arabia’s oil is found.

Beyond that fact, a fight in Saudi Arabia could pull more countries into the war in Yemen—most notably Pakistan. Pakistan’s Defense Minister admitted today that Saudi Arabia had asked for warships, planes, and troops to help in Yemen. Thus far, mindful of the sensitivities of its own Shi’a minority, and of its relationship with neighboring Iran, Pakistan has been unwilling to commit fully, saying it will only send troops to help defend Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity. If conflict spreads to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan will find it difficult to maintain its delicate balancing act.

Quick, send John Kerry and a hashtag battalion!

PATRICK FITZGERALD WOUND UP WITH A POSH SLOT AT A TONY CHICAGO DEMOCRATIC LAW FIRM: New revelation helps exonerate Scooter Libby. Of course, it’s been known for some time that Richard Armitage, not Libby, was the leaker, and that Fitzgerald knew that from the beginning but continued to investigate, and target Scooter Libby, anyway. A cynic would say that this was a softening-up operation by the Chicago Machine. But who could be that cynical, in this flowering era of hope and change?

THE INSTAWIFE: If “Facts Are Conservative,” Then Are Lies Liberal?

Well, that seems to be the gist of this Elizabeth Bruenig piece at TNR. Excerpt:

The right, on the other hand, tends to understand politics on the individual level, which fits in neatly with a general obsession with the capital-i Individual. Thus, the right tends to pore over the specific details of high-profile cases like those of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, concluding that if those particular situations were embattled by complications or mitigating factors, then the phenomena they’re meant to represent must not be real either. And if a few highly publicized rapes turn out to be murkier than first represented, then rape itself is not a crisis, just a regrettable and rare anomaly. The positive version of this approach is the elevation of people like Joe the Plumber, individual cases that purportedly show the value and effectiveness of conservative politics. It isn’t great reasoning, but it is very appealing on a sub-intellectual level.

So to Breunig, it works like this: Left: Here’s a really, really important fact that totally proves my general point! Right: Your “fact” is a lie, and thus doesn’t support your argument at all. Left: That isn’t great reasoning, but it is very appealing on a sub-intellectual level.

Well, someone’s sub-intellectual here. And TNR seems to be doing a lot of hiring along those lines lately.

UPDATE: And, of course, the usual childish lefty response to criticism:

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ASHE SCHOW: Despite lack of evidence, Rolling Stone’s Jackie still labeled a rape victim.

There’s no evidence to suggest that University of Virginia student “Jackie” — the source of a now-retracted Rolling Stone article about a brutal gang rape — was actually raped, yet she’s still being labeled a victim.

In her apology, RS author Sabrina Rubin Erdely used the phrase “Jackie and her account of her traumatic rape,” as if it was an established fact. This despite the 12,000-word Columbia Journalism School report on how Erdely’s article about Jackie’s alleged rape was completely false.

Throughout all of this, the suggestion from activists has always been that Jackie was indeed raped, just not in the way she told Rolling Stone. In fact, it’s not any more reasonable to assumes omething happened to her than it is to rule out the idea completely. There’s no evidence that she wasn’t raped, but given that everything she has said about her ordeal has turned out to be false so far, it’s hard to put much faith in the idea that she is a victim.

Nope. The only clear victims were the falsely accused.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Audio Recording Exonerates Uber Driver Falsely Accused Of Rape.

A Chicago Uber driver’s instinct to record his conversation with a woman he picked up for a ride in November has saved him from spending years behind bars.

Maxime Fohounhedo, a 30-year-old native of Benin, was released from a Cook County jail on Monday after spending the past four months there.

Fohounhedo was arrested in December after a 22-year-old woman accused him of sexually assaulting her at his apartment on Nov. 16. The woman claimed that she was passed out during her ride in Fouhounhedo’s car, but his secret recording provides evidence that she was awake and carrying on a conversation. After prosecutors verified the audio they consulted with the accuser, and she decided to drop charges.

“He had a gut feeling he needed to protect himself,” Shady Yassin, Fohounhedo’s attorney, told CBS Chicago of his client’s decision to record his fare.

She was a predator. He should sue her for costing him four months in jail, and her name should be public now. She’s not a victim of sexual violence, she’s a perpetrator.

DOES THIS MEAN I SHOULD CANCEL MY FACE-NEEDLING SESSION? Ed Driscoll: Adventures In The Skin Trade. Hey, I joked about facial needling to a woman I know, and she was like “I’ve had that.”

ROLL CALL: Democrats File Court Brief Backing Obama Immigration Orders.

A group of 181 Democratic members of the House weighed in on the legal fight over immigration on Monday, telling an appeals court that the executive branch has the authority to make the policy changes that President Barack Obama announced in November.

In an amicus brief, the lawmakers said the enforcement of immigration laws and the deferral of certain deportations are squarely within the discretion of the president — a central part of the legal dispute now at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The brief adds that the White House is often better positioned than Congress to determine how to adjust to laws like immigration.

Remember their names.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Rolling Stone Can’t Even Apologize Right. “I think at this point we can stop dancing around the fact that ‘Jackie’ is a fabulist. The Rolling Stone report adds some detail to this, including the suggestion that the two additional alleged victims of gang rapes at Phi Kappa Psi were also creations of Jackie’s imagination. But dealing with fabulists isn’t some kind of rare hazard that journalists can’t be expected to anticipate. People lie to journalists all the time, for fun and profit. They tell self-serving lies designed to get them out of trouble, or self-aggrandizing lies designed to puff themselves up. They tell lies of kindness to shield others from shame or worse, and lies designed to hurt people they hate. They also tell bizarre lies about things that bring them no benefit at all, for reasons that a psychologist might be able to explain but I cannot. And unfortunately, reporters get taken.”

LET’S PAY WELFARE RECIPIENTS $2000 TO BE STERILIZED INSTEAD: Dems: Pay gun owners to hand over assault weapons.

Gun owners would receive tax breaks for voluntarily turning in high-powered assault rifles under new legislation proposed Monday.

The Support Assault Firearm Elimination and Education of our (SAFER) Streets Act expected to be reintroduced next week by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) would provide gun owners with an incentive to turn in their firearms to local police departments.

“Assault weapons are not about hunting, or even self-defense,” DeLauro said. “There is no reason on earth, other than to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible, that anyone needs a gun designed for a battlefield.”

Though DeLauro is in favor of stronger guns laws that would completely ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, she emphasized this bill would not force gun owners to turn in their firearms.

The legislation would provide up to $2,000 in tax credits for gun owners who voluntarily hand over assault weapons to their local police departments.

Rosa DeLauro is, of course, an idiot, and this is just a bit of political grandstanding. But if I were a GOP member of Congress, I’d introduce the welfare-sterilization bill and model it very, very closely on this bill. I might even mention this bill in the preamble. . . .

ONE IS OWED, BUT ONE WILL NOT BE DELIVERED: Will an apology be forthcoming from U. Va. president Teresa Sullivan?