21ST CENTURY TRAVEL: The Suite Life: Luxe Travel and the New First Class. It’s nice that carriers are offering private-jet-like amenities on their commercial flights, I guess. But when the flight is canceled, the First Class passengers just have to get off and try to find another one too. So I’d rather they worked on getting that part right.

IN LOS ANGELES, a “proxy war” between charter schools and the teachers’ union.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: The Political Economy Of Nail Salons. “The simple question is this: Why do these women come back day after day to the same location for rides to the same jobs if the situation is as toxic as Nir paints it?”

NOW ON YOUTUBE: Boyhood Under Attack: Why Boys Can’t Just Be Boys Anymore. The Insta-Wife with Bill Whittle, Stephen Green, Scott Ott, and Stephen Kruiser.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 733.

WELL, THE SPLC IS A HATE GROUP THAT HAS ALREADY CONTRIBUTED TO AT LEAST ONE SHOOTING: Southern Poverty Law Center adds “Draw Mohammed” Artist to its “Hate List.”

Question: If you’re a Common Core critic who’s also a pickup artist, and who draws Mohammed cartoons on the side, do you get, like, three stars or something?

And what’s the Democrat/Republican breakdown of the SPLC’s targets?

A CULTURE OF BOYS WITHOUT DADS:  Ken Blackwell and Roy Schwarzwalder have a compelling op-ed in TownHall today, discussing the elephant in the room that progressives don’t want to acknowledge:  the importance of fatherhood.

Fatherhood is in crisis all across the country. . . . Nationwide, only 17 percent of African-American children reach 17 in a family with their married biological parents. . . .Clearly, the solution is healthy marriage and strong families. As Jason L. Riley writes in the Wall Street Journal[wsj.com], “In 2012 the poverty rate for all blacks was more than 28 percent, but for married black couples it was 8.4% and has been in the single digits for two decades. Just 8 percent of children raised by married couples live in poverty, compared with 40% of children raised by single mothers.

As one of us (Blackwell), wrote with Pat Fagan last year in The Washington Times[frc.org], “Marriage is the greatest ‘program’ to end poverty, child abuse, child sexual abuse, school dropout, college failure, health problems, drug problems, depression, out-of-wedlock births to teenagers, reduce abortions, increase homeownership and savings … We know that when you remove marriage as a factor, there is virtually no difference between whites and blacks on graduation, employment and staying out of jail.”

Exactly.  There is nothing as powerful for the welfare of children than an intact family.  But even if the parents do not wish to be (or remain) married, having the constant presence of both a loving mother and father is probably the single most important predictor of the trajectory of a child’s life.

Fathers matter tremendously, and if progressives such as President Obama really “cared” about the black community, they would emphasize this message over and over again.  Instead, when faced with the fact that 73 percent of black children are born out-of-wedlock (versus 29 percent for whites and 17 percent for Asians), we hear crickets, or worse, howls of indignation from progressives, such as a recent piece posted at ThinkProgress, which proclaimed, “there’s compelling evidence that number of black dads living apart from their kids stems from structural systems of inequality and poverty, not the unfounded assumption that African-American men somehow place less value on parenting.”   Or this wisdom from a Washington Post blogger:

If black boys pulled their pants up, then are they more likely to find a job or less likely to be racially profiled? If they just finished school, then could they avoid the cradle to prison pipeline? If African Americans detached from hip-hop culture, stopped having babies out of wedlock and kept their neighborhoods clean, then would racism and social inequality finally end in America?

These questions are beside the point.  Does anyone doubt that a young black man (or white, or any other race) who has a good father/male role model in his life will be more likely to find a job, finish school, and avoid having children out of wedlock or ending up in prison?  The cause of these ills isn’t racism; it’s a cultural divide that causes young black men (or white, or any other race) from the lower socio-economic class  to reject the cultural values of higher socio-economic classes, such as marriage, education and work.  So much of what progressives call “racism” today is, in fact, culturalism.  If we want to have an “honest discussion” about race, we need to start talking about culture.

LAST YEAR IN NEW YORK, I HAD DINNER WITH A GUY WHO DOES A LOT OF FRACKING. “YOU’RE SAVING WESTERN CIVILIZATION,” I TOLD HIM. U.S. Shale Gets Ready to Take on Price Rebound.

After plunging 50 percent from a high of over $110 per barrel, the price of crude has been on the mend in recent weeks, back up to around $65 per barrel from a low of $47 in January. This has been driven in large part by slowing growth in American production as high-cost shale producers struggle to turn a profit in a bearish market. But, as the FT reports, prices aren’t likely to edge up much higher before U.S. fracking booms anew. . . .

Up until last summer the world was getting used to oil at over $100 per barrel, but shale precipitated the last year’s price plunge and looks set to prevent any return to what can now be called the old days.
American shale firms have had to scale back production, true, but as they’ve done so they’ve also been hard at work finding ways to refine processes and cut costs to stay profitable in today’s market. Even as the industry has worked on reducing its breakeven costs, it’s been squirreling away crude in storage tanks and drilled but not yet fracked wells, creating what’s being called a “fracklog” of oil that companies are ready to sell on the market just as soon as prices tick upwards.

The upshot of all of this is that once crude prices rise much higher than where they are, we can reasonably expect U.S. production to rise with it, further contributing to the global supply glut and eventually bringing prices right back down. By choosing not to cut production, OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, has given up the mantle of the world’s swing producer, and in their own way American shale firms have assumed it.

I meant what I said, and I was right.

A PC MILITARY:  Former Army intelligence officer Ray Starmann at Daily Caller has an oped, “Political Correctness has Destroyed the Army’s Readiness and Morale.”  His thesis:

The U.S. Army is facing its greatest danger as an institution since the 1970’s. Stricken with morale and readiness problems, it is also under attack from leftist social engineers who are determined to remake the Army, even if they have to destroy it.

Yikes.

ANOTHER CASE WHERE SATIRE HAS BECOME INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM REALITY: Rumor Check: Did a Professor Instruct White Male Students to Commit Suicide for the Benefit of Society? This is an old story, but it’s circulating again.

GIVEN THAT THE LAST SIX YEARS HAVE BEEN A LOW POINT FOR ETHICS AT THE IRS, SHE SHOULD SLINK OUT THE BACK DOOR. BUT SO SHOULD ALL OF THEM: Karen Hawkins To Step Down As Director Of IRS Office Of Professional Responsibility. But read her retirement statement for some real insight into how bureaucrats think. My favorite bit: “While the vision has yet to be achieved, I believe the goals have not only been reached, but surpassed. There can be no doubt that recognition of the Office and the Regulations Governing Practice before the IRS has increased exponentially in the past six years. Six years ago when I gave my first speeches (whether to tax professionals or to IRS personnel) few (outside the Enrolled Agent ranks) knew what the OPR was or did.”

ED DRISCOLL: Bill Nye, The Antediluvian Guy. “Nye is a made-for-television pseudo-scientist, so it’s no wonder he’s trafficking here in reruns even older than when his trademark bow-tie was in fashion. Nye is employing the Progressives’ hoary old ‘Moral Equivalent of War’ argument, which dates back its first use by William James at the dawn of the 20th century, and was employed by Jimmy Carter in his pathetic 1977 energy policy speech.”

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ROGER SIMON: Sabotage! Will Bill Save Us From Hill? “The more we read of the escapades or listen to the remarks of William Jefferson Clinton, the less it seems he wants his wife to be president. Even the court eunuchs at the Washington Post are starting to worry.”

SOME LIBERALS GET IT:   . . . but progressives never will.  Kirsten Powers has a Daily Beast piece, “How Liberals Ruined College” in which she acknowledges (as the subject of her new book) that the academy is a festering pile of progressive intolerance:

On today’s campuses, left-leaning administrators, professors, and students are working overtime in their campaign of silencing dissent, and their unofficial tactics of ostracizing, smearing, and humiliation are highly effective. But what is even more chilling—and more far reaching—is the official power they abuse to ensure the silencing of views they don’t like. They’ve invented a labyrinth of anti-free speech tools that include “speech codes,” “free speech zones,” censorship, investigations by campus “diversity and tolerance offices,” and denial of due process. They craft “anti-harassment policies” and “anti-violence policies” that are speech codes in disguise. 

Indeed.  It’s getting scary.  Just as the Phi Delta Theta fraternity members who were recently suspended from Washburn University’s chapter over text messages that made (gasp!) sexual comments about women and girls.

UPDATE:  Fixed broken link.  :)

ASHE SCHOW: Politifact strikes again.

The website carlyfiorina.org claims that Fiorina laid off 30,000 Hewlett-Packard employees and said she wished she had laid them off faster.

Despite this being a completely untrue statement, Politifact rated it as “half true” because 30,000 people were indeed laid off from HP.

Of course, this is not how truth works. The person who purchased the Fiorina domain claimed that the 2016 presidential candidate was referring to the 30,000 laid-off employees when she said: “I would have done them all faster.” The Politifact researcher even acknowledges that this is not true — Fiorina was not referring to 30,000 people laid off when she said she would have “done them all faster.” And that means there is nothing true about the statement at all.

“Rather than musing that she should have laid off 30,000 people faster, the full article suggests she’s referring to a select group of high-ranking executives,” Politifact researcher Louis Jacobson wrote.

He’s referring to an article in Fortune Magazine from 2005 where Fiorina was talking about laying off a select group of high-ranking executives faster, not 30,000 employees:

“Fiorina does not agree, naturally, that there’s been a brain drain. In fact, she believes that one lesson she’s learned while running HP is that she should have moved more quickly in ejecting certain people,” Fortune’s Carol Loomis wrote. “Smartened up now, she says, ‘I would have done them all faster. Every person that I’ve asked to leave, whether it’s been clear publicly or not, I would have done faster.'”

But because the domain name mentioned 30,000 workers first, Politifact is okay making a Republican look bad.

And you don’t have to take my word for it — you can take Politifact researcher Louis Jacobson’s word.

In his ruling on the Fiorina statement, Jacobson wrote: “The claim is partially accurate, but takes some things out of context, so we rate it Half True.”

Now compare that reasoning to this one about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her foundation’s charitable spending: “The claim contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.”

It’s as if their “fact-checking” is more about protecting Democrats.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Maine Law School’s New Dean Charts New Course After 31% Enrollment Decline.

JONATHAN ADLER FOLLOWS UP ON MY USA TODAY COLUMN FROM YESTERDAY: What gives Congress the authority to regulate abortion?

THE HILL: Rand Paul threatens Patriot Act filibuster.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said in an interview published Monday that he will filibuster a reauthorization of provisions within the Patriot Act.

“I’m going to lead the charge in the next couple of weeks as the Patriot Act comes forward,” the GOP presidential candidate told the New Hampshire Union Leader. “We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it. We are not going to let them run over us. And we are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches.”

On Sunday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he would filibuster a short-term extension of the current provisions, which critics say give the government unreasonable surveillance powers.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) has said that he favors a full reauthorization of the measures, but other lawmakers say they would be willing to pass reform legislation.

A short-term extension would give lawmakers more time to sort out their differences beyond the current June 1 deadline for renewing the law.

A filibuster of the Patriot Act provisions could give Paul more visibility as the presidential campaign ramps up. He lists his opposition to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs on the homepage of his website and sells a “NSA Spy Cam Blocker” in his campaign store.

Stay tuned.

21ST CENTURY PHYSIQUES: I have a dad bod. Here’s why women love it. My six-pack abs weren’t as successful with the ladies.

Yes, ladies, you do like dad bods. You like them a lot, in fact.

Men — and by that I mean male humans above the age of 25 whose testosterone levels no longer burn with irrational desire — have long known women like dad bods. The Internet, it seems, has just figured it out.

How do I know?

Because over the last decade, I have inhabited both types of male physiques — the kind sporting six-pack abs and, more recently, the kind that looks like it should be pushing a stroller and Googling high-blood pressure medications. And yet, the latter physique has always proved more successful for me with the opposite sex. Much more.

Or you’ve just acquired more confidence and status with age, and that offsets the paunch since most women care more about confidence and status than looks.

But let me point out that this has all been said before — so long ago that it was when Salon was actually worth reading.

BYRON YORK: Taking Donald Trump Seriously.

CANADIAN “FREE” SPEECH:  Canadian government weighing hate speech charges against those who boycott Israel.  Allahpundit asks, “I wonder how Canadian law would treat a boycott of a Christian-owned business organized by gay-rights activists if the proprietor refused to cater a gay wedding.”  Oh, what a tangled web progressives weave, when they allow proscription of “hate” speech.  Thankfully, the First Amendment to our Constitution doesn’t have a hate speech exception. Yet.

UPDATE:  A website called Honest Reporting Canada claims that the story is a “bizarre conspiracy theory.”

SUZANNE VENKER: Feminism Is Ruining Relationships For Young Women.