CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Permitless Carry Bill Introduced in Michigan.

THE INSTA-WIFE WRITES ON the secrets to maxing out your Social Security, and asks for your opinion.

THIS SEEMS USEFUL: Messaging App Weaves Smartphones Into an Alternative Internet: FireChat can link Android and Apple phones into a long-range communications network even when the cell network is down. “An upgrade to FireChat released today could make the app much more useful and powerful. It makes it possible to communicate with other FireChat users beyond the roughly 70 meters that your device can reach with Wi-Fi. Private and public messages can now travel longer distances by hopping between FireChat users until they get to the intended recipient—an approach known as mesh networking. Messages are encrypted as they travel through intermediate devices.” Even more useful would be if it could connect to other phones via direct radio connections at cellular frequencies. That’s much more challenging, though, and — I’m not sure — might require hardware changes, too, as I think all the cellular protocols divide base-to-mobile and mobile-to-base frequencies, so that I assume cellphones can only transmit on the latter.

HUMA ABEDIN’S “SPECIAL EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP”: The Washington Post reports that longtime Clinton confidant and aide, Huma Abedin (also wife of disgraced Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner) was overpaid by the State Department and may have violated the State Department’s conflict-of-interest rules due to her “special employment relationship” with the Clintons:

In letters sent Thursday to Abedin, Kerry and the Office of Inspector General, [Senator Chuck] Grassley wrote that staff of the inspector general had found “at least a reasonable suspicion of a violation” of the law concerning the “theft of public money through time and attendance fraud” as well as “conflicts of interest connected to her overlapping employment.”

Grassley also raised the possibility that efforts to investigate Abedin’s actions were thwarted because many of her exchanges were sent through Clinton’s private e-mail server. . . .

Since 2013, Grassley has been inquiring about Abedin’s “special government employee” status, which during her final six months at the State Department allowed her to take outside employment with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo, a firm led by longtime Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band.

 Paul Mirengoff over at PowerLine notes:

By allowing it, Clinton wasn’t just helping a friend boost her income. She was increasing the potential leverage of the Clinton machine, and in ways that could, and maybe did, benefit the Clinton Foundation.

The Abedin scandal is thus related to the “Clinton cash” scandal.

It is also related to Hillary’s email scandal. According to Grassley, the State Department investigators have “reason to believe that email evidence relevant to [its] inquiry was contained in emails sent and received from her account on Secretary Clinton’s non-government server, making them unavailable to [the investigators’ office] through its normal statutory right of access to records.”

It’s all just another thread in Clinton’s intertwined, rotten ball of corruption. The fact that her closest aide-de-camp has received special favors and status is par for the course.

JOURNEYING DOWN THE RPG RR: In his latest column on RPGs at the PJM Lifestyle section, Moe Lane explores what happens when the dungeon master sends his players down the dreaded Roleplaying Railroad.

AGING, AND THE BREAKDOWN OF THE ENDOPLASMIC RETICULUM: “Scientists at the Leibniz-Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie in Berlin have now taken one step closer to providing an answer. They have conducted a study in which, for the first time, they have shown that a certain area of the cell, the so-called endoplasmic reticulum, loses its oxidative power in advanced age. If this elixir of life is lost, many proteins can no longer mature properly. At the same time, oxidative damage accumulates in another area of the cell, the cytosol. This interplay was previously unknown and now opens up a new understanding of aging, but also of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.” Understanding is good. Fixing is better.

TRAINING THROUGH LEUKEMIA: Michael’s Story.

“SOCIALISM ALWAYS STARTS WITH THE SAME PROMISES AND END WITH THE SAME DISASTERS,” Glenn tweeted earlier today, linking to a Bloomberg report that “Venezuelan soldiers seized a food distribution center rented by companies including Nestle SA, PepsiCo. Inc and Empresas Polar SA in Caracas as the government looks to boost support ahead of elections.”

Nestlé, eh? That business name rings a bell; it’s what launched Jonah Goldberg to write Liberal Fascism, which focused several chapters on a century’s worth of corporatism, the intertwining of government and corporations, much beloved by the namesake publisher of Bloomberg (and in an even more radical form by Bernie Sanders), which the post-Weimar government of Germany dubbed the Gleichschaltung. As Jonah told Kathryn Jean Lopez in 2009, at the apogee of the left’s Hopenchange Obamamania:

You know, when I first started pondering the book, I thought it might be all about economics. About ten years ago I went on a junket to Switzerland and attended a talk with the CEO of Nestlé. Listening to him, it became very clear to me that he had little to no interest in free markets or capitalism properly understood. He saw his corporation as a “partner” with governments, NGOs, the U.N., and other massive multinationals. The profit motive was good for efficiency and rewarding talent, but beyond that, he wanted order and predictability and as much planning as he could get. I think that mindset informs the entire class of transnational progressives, the shock troops of what H. G. Wells hoped would lead to his liberal-fascist “world brain.”

If you look at how most liberals think about economics, they want big corporations and big government working in tandem with labor, universities (think industrial policy), and progressive organizations to come up with “inclusive” policies set at the national or international level. That’s not necessarily socialism — it’s corporatism. When you listen to how Obama is making economic policy with “everyone at the table,” he’s describing corporatism, the economic philosophy of fascism. Government is the senior partner, but all of the other institutions are on board — so long as they agree with the government’s agenda. The people left out of this coordinated effort — the Nazis called it the Gleichschaltung — are the small businessmen, the entrepreneurs, the ideological, social, or economic mavericks who don’t want to play along. When you listen to Obama demonize Chrysler’s bondholders simply because they want their contracts enforced and the rule of law sustained, you get a sense of what I’m talking about.

I don’t think Obama wants a brutal tyranny any more than Hillary Clinton does (which is to say I don’t think he wants anything of the sort). But I do think they honestly believe that progress is best served if everyone falls in line with a national agenda, a unifying purpose, a “village” mentality expanded to include all of society. That sentiment drips from almost every liberal exhortation about everything from global warming to national service. But to point it out earns you the label of crank. As I said a minute ago about that “We’re All Fascists Now” chapter, I think people fail to understand that tyrannies — including soft, Huxleyan tyrannies — aren’t born from criminal conspiracies by evil men; they’re born by progressive groupthink.

And they all end the same way, as Glenn noted today. In the meantime though, if anybody can up the chocolate ration, I’m sure the post-Chavez government, having seized one of Nestlé’s assets, can.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Tips To Help You Get Into Weightlifting.

Here’s the only tip you really need: Buy Mark Rippetoe’s book.

HUGO WARS: Larry Correia: Fisking the Guardian’s Latest Sad Puppy Article of the Week. “And when I say Article of the Week, I’m not really exaggerating. Apparently the Guardian is all worked up about Sad Puppies. A cursory Google search shows this is what the Guardian has run recently, and let me save you some time, it appears all of them run with the same racist/sexist/homophobic angry white cismale backlash narrative that’s been easily debunked since Entertainment Weekly beclowned themselves on day one. . . . Three years ago I set out to demonstrate that there was a left wing bias in publishing. Immediately the Guardian did their best to prove me right. Not once in three years have they spoken to anybody on my side.”

But here’s his best line: “The Guardian hasn’t been this upset since Hugo Chavez died.”

WELL, TO BE FAIR, IT’S NOT THE ONLY ONE: The College that Hates “Americans.”

The administrator who added a confusing, tin-eared Bias-Free Language Guide—a 4,500-word assault on the English language—to the University of New Hampshire’s website as a resource for students and faculty must have been crazy. . . .

The Bias-Free Language Guide is a massive wall of text that explains why common word choices, phrases, and modifiers are unwelcome in polite discourse. Its purpose is to assist in the creation of “an inclusive learning community” by raising awareness of trivial slights in everyday language that, “for some, feels like a form of violence.”

Its authors, UNH Coordinator of Community Equity and Diversity Sylvia Foster among them, intended the guide as tool for molding a more feelings-conscious campus. But if their advice had ever been followed by a significant number of students and faculty members, everyone would have soon found themselves walking on eggshells 100 percent of the time.

Some examples are in order.

Instead of referring to the elderly as senior citizens (or even as the elderly), members of the UNH community are encouraged to embrace the most up-to-date politically-correct terminology: “people of advanced age” in this case, according to the guide. This is supposed to be somehow less derogatory than “senior citizen”, which of course was once the politically correct of saying “old”.

A poor person is not a poor person; he or she (or ze! At least according to the section on gender-queer pronouns) is a “person living at or below the poverty line.” Ok, fine. But by the same token, one should say that the rich are “persons of material wealth,” since persons living at or below the poverty line may be rich in character, or spirit, or any number of other things.

Fat people are not fat, overweight, or obese; they are “people of size,” a decidedly abstract description. Are all of us not people of size, in some sense?

Midgets are “someone(s) of short stature.” Illegal aliens are “persons seeking asylum.” (Then again, what if they’re not seeking asylum?) A blind person is a “person who is blind.” . . .

It’s good that these public universities aren’t explicitly requiring the use of inoffensive language, because that would be both illegal and impossible. It would violate the First Amendment rights of students and faculty while failing to protect everyone’s delicate ears from words that hurt them. Everything is offensive to someone, and some things that are offensive to some people aren’t offensive to others. One man’s “fat” is another man’s “person of size.” The great war on hurt-feelings at American university campuses is unwinnable, and the causalities are significant.

Yeah, well, liberals/progressives aren’t very fond of the First Amendment anymore. I’m confident they would ban “offensive” speech if they could get away with it. Oh, wait–maybe I shouldn’t call them liberals/progressives. Probably the more politically correct term–as a literal matter– is totalitarians. There, that’s better.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 814.

IN THE PAST, MAJORITY-CHRISTIAN NATIONS MIGHT HAVE INTERVENED TO PROTECT THEM, BUT NOW THAT’S RACIST OR SOMETHING: The Islamic State’s Christian and Yizidi Sex Slaves.

Unlike Muslims, who can conform and wait out ISIS until the day it is defeated, Christians, along with “polytheist” Yizidis, can don veils and give up cigarettes and alcohol, but, as non-Muslims, their very presence is an intolerable offense to the year-old “caliphate.” These minority religious groups in Iraq and Syria, lacking protecting armies or militias of their own, find themselves in unique peril. During his Bolivian trip this month, Pope Francis called it “genocide.”

ISIS demands nothing less than the conversion of all Christians and Yizidis to Islam under penalty of death for men and enslavement for women and children. (Another frequently cited option for Christian “People of the Book”, the payment of jizya, is a ruse, for the tax is raised until it becomes unpayable and property and lives are taken after all. Hence, last summer, Mosul’s bishops chose exile for their communities, rather than attend an ISIS meeting to learn of its jizya terms.)

The beheadings, crucifixions, and other means ISIS uses to slaughter unarmed Christian and Yizidi men—from priests and bishops to destitute migrant workers—have been proudly displayed by the ultra violent group on social media and have drawn condemnations worldwide. But the Islamic State’s “revival” of the institution of chattel slavery—sex slavery of Christian and Yizidi women and girls no less—has faded from public attention.

Hey, some dentist shot a lion.

WHEN GRAY LADIES COLLIDE: “Clinton campaign complains of ‘egregious’ New York Times reporting errors.”

SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A THEORY OF GRAVITATION: Symposium: The Unknown Newton.

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NEW YORK POST: Obama’s Pathetic Attempt to Spin the IRS Scandal: “No sooner did President Obama claim last week the IRS scandal was just a mirage than new evidence emerged to show it was anything but. . . . Of course, the biggest scandal of all is that Team Obama has managed to stonewall and leave the public hanging. And that no one has been held accountable.”

A BIT OF BACKGROUND ON THE JUDGE WHO BLOCKED RELEASE OF ABORTION STING VIDEO: “Judge William H. Orrick, III, granted the injunction just hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation. Orrick was nominated to his position by hardline abortion supporter President Barack Obama. He was also a major donor to and bundler for President Obama’s presidential campaign. He raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated $30,800 to committees supporting him, according to Public Citizen.”

Remember, when you elect a President, you’re also electing a whole lot of other people.

“BILL CLINTON WORKING TO GET RID OF STD.”

GUILT AS POWER: “One of the most common reactions to the Planned Parenthood body parts scandal is along the lines of ‘I can’t bear to watch the videos of those horrible people laughing and talking about the sale of babies. It’s just too upsetting to see,'” Richard Fernandez writes at the Belmont Club. “This exactly captures the reason why the videos are so dangerous: they have forced society at large to watch what many must have always suspected was true, but hoped never to confront directly:”

Freud, like many 19th century men were so steeped in custom they could never conceive of the possibility that “educated men and brain-workers” would free themselves, not only of God, but all fixed taboos — of everything. He himself never imagined the Nazis were possible. At the end of his life, sick and old in Vienna — a Vienna he never thought could come to pass —  he was saved, as David Cohen writes, not by the harsh logic of supermen, but by bourgeois sentimentality: the kindness of friends, the intervention of admirers and the secret intervention of a Nazi admirer.

The trouble with 19th century atheism is that it had not completely freed itself from the sentiments of Christianity: in many subtle ways they assumed that man after God would still have limits. They failed to understand until the middle 20th century that man’s need for power did not necessarily contain limits. They  learned, too late, that like the Bill of Rights understands, it is in the “won’ts” on men’s actions that earthly freedom lives.

The people who in the videos merrily describe the prices they can obtain for this or that body part may one day be old and as helpless as the infants they have dismembered.  Then they will be in the care of men like themselves.  And on that far day these young — then old —  may want water. On what grounds will they demand it? On what basis will they ask for care, love or compassion?

Read the whole thing.

BLUE MODEL MELTDOWN: Here Comes Puerto Rico’s Default.

The Puerto Rico meltdown is going to be brutal: Many of the bonds are held by Puerto Rican retirees, either directly or as part of pension fund portfolios. Moreover, the island is a typical example of blue model governance, with a bloated state that doesn’t perform effectively, public sector unions out of control, and lots of poor people who depend on a government that doesn’t serve them very well. And on top of all this, there are no bankruptcy provisions that would enable an orderly restructuring.

Ultimately, bankrupt blue cities and states and their pension funds will troop to Washington with their hands out, begging for bailouts. Already we’ve seen a leading New Jersey state Democrat call for a $1 trillion federal bailout fund for pensions. The political pressures around the issue will be intense. Some (mostly Republicans) won’t want to give a single dime to the improvident fools and crooks who created this mess. Others (mostly Democrats) will insist on no-fault bailouts, arguing that social justice demands nothing less than an infinite willingness to pour money down ratholes, so long as those ratholes are Democrat-run.

What the country needs is something in between: relief for reform. Cities, counties, and states (or, as in the case of Puerto Rico, commonwealths) who can’t manage their debts anymore can qualify for limited help—but only if they undergo serious, life-changing reform. That may well mean the end of public unions, drastic changes in governance, haircuts all around, tax reforms, and other substantive changes. Forward-looking people in Congress should be thinking now about the legislation that would be needed to set up a framework of some kind to handle these cases. The legal issues are complex; courts have been upholding, for example, the inviolability of employee pensions under state constitutional provisions. It’s hard to see how federal bailouts would let those pensions go unchallenged.

But will anyone act before it’s a disaster?

THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND SJW:

The term ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ captures an important truth: an effective way to leverage power is by assuming the status of a victim. A culture of victimhood is inherent to political correctness. It is through this victimhood, ultimately, that the tribal hatred of its advocates are nourished, and the dignity of its opponents are undermined.

Read the whole thing.

SHATTERED FANTASY: Sorry Leftist Americans, Your Swedish Utopia Does Not Exist: It’s time to kill the myth about the superiority of the Nordic welfare state model.

As a Swede living in the U.S., one of the most common reactions when I tell people where I am from is the question of why I would ever leave Sweden in the first place. Many Americans seem to truly believe that life in the Scandinavian countries is superior to that in virtually all other places on earth, and that the Nordic welfare state model is the magical formula that explains it all. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont recently echoed these beliefs when he said that he wants America to be more like Scandinavia, where both incomes and equality are higher, the middle class stronger, both education and health care are publically funded, and even graduate school is free.

Sanders is not alone. The Scandinavian countries are regularly praised for their income equality, quality of life, gender equality, maternal care and many other traits, not just by leftist politicians and activists, but also by left-leaning economists like Paul Krugman. The Scandinavian model, they believe, is the ultimate proof that you can combine a high-growth economy with a generous welfare state.

The problem is that much of the praise is wrong. . . .

During the decades before, between 1870 and 1936, Sweden had enjoyed the highest economic growth in the entire industrialized world. Moreover, in the most intense period of “third-way” policies of market socialism, between the 1970s and 1990s, Sweden’s economic performance was exceptionally low. This period, however, was an exception: for most of its modern history, Sweden has been anything but a socialist mecca. The government has usually pursued free-market policies and free trade. If anything, high taxes and extensive social policies have hindered Scandinavian economic performance, which would most likely have been much higher without them.

Instead, Sanandaji shows, the root of Scandinavian success can largely be found in culture. These countries, and Sweden in particular, have historically had remarkably high levels of social trust, family values, a strong sense of work ethic, and social cohesion. The notion of the “Protestant work ethic” goes back far longer than the modern welfare state. Scholars like Max Weber, Sanandaji shows, long ago noted that the Protestant countries of northern Europe had an overall higher living standard and economic success than most. The often-celebrated equality of Scandinavian countries, too, began well before the welfare state was developed.

Again, these traditions and values by no means came with the welfare state. Sanandaji shows that these Scandinavian values follow people as they move abroad, even for generations: Americans of Scandinavian descent, whose ancestors left way before modern welfare states were established, tend to carry many of their norms with them. The median incomes of Americans with Scandinavian heritage is 20 percent higher than average income in the U.S. as a whole, and poverty rates in this group is roughly half of that of average Americans.

Yes, I believe that when Milton Friedman was told that poverty didn’t exist among Swedes, he responded that it was also unknown among Swedes in America.

EMAIL REVEALS HILLARY CLINTON WAS FED QUESTIONS BEFORE MEET THE PRESS APPEARANCE: Which isn’t all that surprising, considering that it’s NBC providing their usual public relations service to Hillary, Obama, and the Democrats. In 2013, after Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s infamous gaffe on MSNBC, in which she mispronounced the word “mislead” as “myzled,” Tammy Bruce asked, “How do you mispronounce a word you’re not reading? Unless, of course, MSNBC has a script for her in the teleprompter.”

Last year while writing at Mediaite, Noah Rothman described how the network helpfully edited US Senate candidate Michelle Nunn’s response to a question about whether the Georgia Democrat would vote to repeal Obamacare, “to make it seem more nuanced and conservative,” by cutting off the end of the interview where “Nunn clearly said she would oppose the ACA’s repeal, placing her firmly in line with the majority of the members of her party.”

But then, deceptive video editing (see also: Zimmerman, George) and supplying talking points to Democrats are all in day’s work for the networks that serve as the home to Brian Williams and Al Sharpton. Or as Iowahawk tweeted yesterday with a flashback to the early days of rigged television at NBC: