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‘HE SAID THAT RAPING ME IS HIS PRAYER TO GOD:’ “These extraordinary statements come from girls who were kept as sex slaves by jihadis of the Islamic State, as reported in a lengthy and revealing New York Times piece that was published Thursday,” Robert Spencer writes. Read the whole thing.

PISTOL-WHIPPED COP HESITATED USING FORCE BECAUSE OF ‘MEDIA:’ If the late ‘60s and ‘70s were any indication, we’re going to be seeing a lot more headlines like this one over the next several years, as Democrat operatives with and without bylines have worked in tandem to lessen the ability of the police to defend themselves and protect neighborhoods.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Russian ship designers push ahead with a nuclear aircraft carrier design and a smaller non-nuclear aircraft carrier.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS complain about transparency initiatives.

WE’RE NOT READY FOR THE “INTERNET OF THINGS,” IF YOU ASK ME: Entertainment Systems, Keyless Fobs Making Car Stealing Easier.

KYLE SMITH ON THE ENDURING APPEAL OF WHIT STILLMAN’S METROPOLITAN ON ITS 25th ANNIVERSARY:

What is so offbeat about Stillman’s film is the sense of fragility shared by his upper-class characters, who vaguely detect a harsh reality out there that is preparing to shut down their rituals. Stillman has said that the script was inspired by his own experiences as a Harvard student circa 1969, when Vietnam and other sources of turmoil began to gnaw away at the foundations of debutante culture. Metropolitan, though it takes place two decades later, shares that wistful feeling of the end of an era, as indeed do Stillman’s similarly-toned next two films, Barcelona (1994), in which the gap between European and American political attitudes is becoming a gulf, and The Last Days of Disco (1998), set in the very early 1980s when the dance-club atmosphere beloved by preppies starts to fray.

The left hated the 1980s, but in many ways, it was awesome decade; Metropolitan is the perfect swan song for one element of it.

(For my 2012 podcast interview with Stillman on his film Damsels in Distress, click here. And for my look back at The Last Days of Disco, click here.)

GALLERY: 12 Unbelievable Photos From the Explosions in Tianjin.

LAMEST. ENDORSEMENT. EVER.: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) endorses Hillary Clinton in the Des Moines Register.  It’s strangely mostly about Harkin, not Hillary, but he does manage a paragraph and a sentence or two about her:

Hillary Clinton’s commitment to public service stems from the same values. Her mother, Dorothy, was abandoned by her parents and sent to live with relatives who did not want her. By age 14, she was working to support herself just to get by. Guided by her mother’s experience, Hillary has devoted her career to championing the needs of children. She has been a tireless advocate for women and families since I first met her. As First Lady of the United States she was instrumental in advancing the idea that health care should be a right and not a privilege. As my colleague in the Senate and as Secretary of State, she made women’s rights and economic opportunity central to American foreign policy. Hillary has never forgotten who she is fighting for. . . .Today, too many talented children face limits on their futures. They need a champion in the White House. I know Hillary Clinton will be that champion.

Um, okay. So we should elect Clinton because (1) her mother had a tough childhood; (2) she loves children; (3) she is a feminist; and (4) she supported socialized medicine as a “right”? Geez, Tom, is that all you’ve got?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Humiliation is Not Good Parenting:

Social media is a dangerous tool when used by out of control people. Posting videos of you humiliating your child will be out there forever. That child may become depressed, withdrawn, and even suicidal. Parents who love their children do NOT drive them to depression with their discipline methods. One of the hardest things for a child to experience is embarrassment. They will experience this naturally because they are children and foolishness is bound up in the hearts of little ones, but when they fail and are embarrassed, they should come to you for solace. Their parents, the people who love them the most, should never be the source of that embarrassment.

Read the whole thing.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 827.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sheltered Students Go to College, Avoid Education.

The new language of campus censorship cuts out the middleman and claims that merely hearing wrong, unpleasant or offensive ideas is so dangerous to the mental health of the listener that people need to be protected from the experience.

During the time when people are supposed to be learning to face an often hard world as adults, and going through the often uncomfortable process of building their intellectual foundations, they are demanding to be sheltered from anything that might challenge their beliefs or recall unpleasant facts to their mind. And increasingly, colleges are accommodating them. Everything at colleges is now supposed to be thoroughly sanitized to the point of inoffensiveness — not only the coursework, but even the comedians who are invited to entertain the students.

The obvious objection to this is that it is not possible to have a community of ideas in which no one is ever offended or upset . By the time you’re done excising the Victorian literature that offends feminists, the biology texts that offend young-earth creationists, and the history lessons that offend whichever group was on the losing side, there’s not much left of the curriculum . The less obvious, but even more important, objection is raised by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in this month’s Atlantic: It’s bad for the students themselves.

Students demanding that campus life be bowdlerized to preserve their peace of mind seem to believe that the best way to deal with trauma is to avoid any mention of it. But Lukianoff and Haidt argue that this is exactly backward; chronic avoidance breeds terror. The current climate on campus is a recipe for producing fearful adults who are going to have difficulty coping in an adult world. It’s as if we were trying to prepare the next generation of American citizens by keeping them in kindergarten until the age of 23.

Fearful, and looking for a big brother to protect them.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL MOVES FOR decriminalization of prostitution, worldwide.

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ASHE SCHOW: One year in, ‘yes-means-yes’ policies begin to fall apart.

One recent ruling, limited in scope but broad in its potential ramifications, addressed the yes-means-yes policies head-on. Judge Carol McCoy addressed two of the biggest concerns shared by opponents of yes-means-yes — the burden of proof being shifted onto the accused, and the nearly impossible task of proving such consent was obtained.

McCoy overturned a University of Tennessee-Chattanooga ruling that a student accused of sexual assault failed to prove he did obtain consent. Of course, such proof could not be obtained, as there are very few ways — and even fewer legal ways — to provide such proof.

“Absent the tape recording of a verbal consent or other independent means to demonstrate that consent was given, the ability of an accused to prove the complaining party’s consent strains credulity and is illusory,” McCoy wrote.

To be fair, there is nothing in yes-means-yes — sometimes known as affirmative consent — policies that require schools to shift the burden of proof onto accused students. But in practice, that’s what happens, just as it did at UTC. As McCoy pointed out, accused students “must overcome the presumption inherent in the charge that the violation has been established.” Simply denying the allegation is seen as “insufficient.” The accused then becomes responsible for proving “the converse of what is taken as true and credible, i.e., the complainant’s statement that no consent was given.”

And he — it is almost always a he — must do so without witnesses or video of the event. That’s a high bar for an accused student, who is often blindsided by the accusation weeks, months or even years after the encounter happened. . . .

Yes-means-yes policies require both parties to obtain consent from each other in order to engage in sexual activity. But in practice, the accusing student is absolved from obtaining consent once the accusation is made, which retroactively puts the onus on the accused to have obtained consent.

The adoption of one-sided policies, aimed almost exclusively at males, is itself sex discrimination and creates a hostile environment for male students. Sadly, my own institution is moving down that path. And, weirdly, it’s doing so despite legal concerns about its approach:

Richter is expecting a challenge to this definition of consent from several courts.

“We had some indication from around the country that this is going to be not looked upon kindly by courts.We know of two court cases at least that are saying, ‘That’s ridiculous,’ ” Richter said.

Despite that, Richter and the university are standing firm by the definition.

“They (the courts) don’t deal with university students on a regular basis. These are very complex situations, so it’s going to be difficult and these things will be challenged. We felt, at the UT community, that this was the best way to move forward with a different way of thinking about these issues,” Richter said.

I suppose Ben Rose will be happy, anyway.

ISIS USES CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST KURDS: And note this: “Late last year, ISIS reportedly seized an Iraqi chemical weapons factory with about 2,500 rockets, containing the deadly nerve agent Sarin.”

Chemical weapons in Iraq? All the experts told me that was umpossible!

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: How The Islamic State’s Footprint Grew, Month By Month. I like that the WaPo admits that the Garland, Texas attack was an ISIS effort. I also like this: “The attack failed and only the gunmen were killed.”

THE HILL: Just 1 in 3 approves of Obama’s handling of Iran.

Just one in three Americans supports President Obama’s handling of the situation in Iran, lower approval than several other issues measured in a Gallup poll released Thursday.

While 33 percent surveyed in the poll approve Obama’s handling of the Iranian situation, 55 percent disapprove — the same percentage that disapprove of his handling of terrorism and foreign affairs. . . .

Obama’s overall approval rating in the poll is below 50 percent, and his handling of Iran is rated below his efforts on issues such as immigration, the economy, climate change and education.

The numbers come as Obama hopes to secure lawmaker support for an international nuclear accord with Iran, which has been met with deep skepticism in Congress and the general public.

As it should be.

ROMNEY WAS RIGHT AGAIN: With Sesame Street cutting a deal to debut on HBO, turns out Big Bird can survive without public funding.

Or as Jonathan S. Tobin writes at Commentary, “Sesame Street Move Should Mean End of Government TV.”

CHARLES C.W. COOKE: Why Hillary’s Wiping Her E-mail Server Clean Matters More than It Might Seem.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Scandal Exposes Hillary’s Disregard For Security.

RON FOURNIER: Parsing Clinton: Deflection, Deception, and Untruths: Breaking down the campaign’s talking points on her email fiasco.

USA TODAY: Federal aid drives up college tuition. “The more federal grant money that’s made available, the higher the college tuition will go. High college costs are partly the federal government’s fault.”

Do tell.

REMEMBER, THE DEMOCRATS APPLAUDED WHEN THEY DIDN’T: What if George W. Bush’s Social Security reforms had passed? “More than a decade ago, President George W. Bush set out to fix what he called a broken Social Security system. In 2001, intermediate projections had shown the retirement trust fund would be exhausted in 2040. By 2005, finances had improved and the projected exhaustion date was 2043. But today, exhaustion looms closer, only two decades away in 2035.”