DELIBERATELY CREATING A HOSTILE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FOR MEN: Why Any Male Student Should Think Twice Before Applying to Washington & Lee University.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: It’s Time To End Faculty Tenure. “All the pressures facing American higher education make this a good time to reconsider its unusual employment structure. False claims about academic freedom are not going to protect higher education from the realities of technological change, an aging professoriate, and an increasingly demanding and indebted student body.”

Related: Why tenure is important.

BAD SCIENCE: What recent research says about fraud, errors, and other dismaying academic problems.

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FIRST THEY WEAPONIZED THE IRS, NOW THIS: Conservative video-maker James O’Keefe: Homeland Security targeted me, asked intrusive questions. “It is our contention that this is retaliation for our journalism along the Mexican border. . . . It’s troubling that they are doing this to a citizen reporter. … These questions have nothing to do with national security or border issues or smuggling narcotics into the country. They are questions that they would never ask a Washington Post reporter, that they would never ask NBC News.”

That’s because they’d fear the consequences. So give them consequences now, pour encourager les autres. You have to make examples, unfortunately, to get the message across. Nice that the WaPo is covering this, at least. And if you want to punish them, do a series on corruption and incompetence in DHS. Should be a target-rich environment.

DEAR FUNNY OR DIE: THERE’S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT CRUSHING BABIES TO DEATH.

ISN’T THIS HARAM? Surgeons Smash Records with Pig-to-Primate Organ Transplants.

UNKILLABLE MACHINE: Amiga Turns 30.

FORWARD, INTO THE PAST: DARPA’s Bringing Back the Vacuum Tube.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Teacher seduced student at Disneyland, police say.

A former substitute teacher at a Los Angeles-area high school was set to be arraigned on Wednesday on charges of molesting and having sex with several young boys, officials said.

Michelle Yeh, 28, was charged with eight felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, oral copulation and lewd acts on two boys under the age of 16, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Remember, male teachers are rare because people fear they will be sexual predators.

WRONG COLORS: Larry Elder explains why it’s “not news” when “Unarmed White Teen Killed by Cop; Two White Cops Killed by Blacks.”

The media enthusiastically remind us that it’s the first anniversary of the death of Ferguson’s Michael Brown, a death that spawned the so-called Black Lives Matter movement.

In a September speech at the United Nations, President Barack Obama said, “The world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri — where a young man was killed, and a community was divided.”

Never mind that both a grand jury and the federal Department of Justice exonerated the officer who shot and killed Brown. Never mind that neither the physical evidence nor eyewitness testimony corroborated the assertions that Brown had his hands up or that he said, “Don’t shoot.” . . .

The media enthusiastically remind us that it’s the first anniversary of the death of Ferguson’s Michael Brown, a death that spawned the so-called Black Lives Matter movement.

In a September speech at the United Nations, President Barack Obama said, “The world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri — where a young man was killed, and a community was divided.” . . .

In just the last two weeks, two cops, who happened to be white, were killed by two suspects, who happened to be black. And an unarmed white teen was killed by a cop.

In Tennessee, Memphis police Officer Sean Bolton approached an illegally parked car, apparently interrupting a drug deal that was taking place inside. The car’s passenger got out, engaged Bolton in a physical struggle and shot the officer multiple times. Bolton, a 33-year-old Marine vet who served in Iraq, died at the hospital. . . .In Louisiana, Shreveport Officer Thomas LaValley was dispatched to investigate a potential prowler, an armed man reportedly threatening a family member inside a house. When LaValley arrived, he was shot multiple times, and pronounced dead at the hospital. . . .

In South Carolina, an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by a cop. Zachary Hammond, 19, was out on a first date when he was fatally shot by a Seneca police officer during a drug bust. . . .The Hammond family wonders why so little national attention has been focused on their son’s death. “It’s sad, but I think the reason is, unfortunately, the media and our government officials have treated the death of an unarmed white teenager differently than they would have if this were a death of an unarmed black teen,” said Eric Bland, the family’s attorney.

We all know that it’s #BlackLivesMatter, with the emphasis being on black. It’s an overtly racist movement, focusing on police killings of blacks, not any other race, and without regard to any actual statistical data or evidence in particular cases. Instead of shunning such overt racism in 2015, top Democrats are embracing it, and Republicans are trying to stay as quiet as possible, lest the racist ire be directed toward them, as it was recently with Bernie Sanders.

#BlackLivesMatter is racially divisive at a time when this country desperately needs unity, and its votaries have on blinders about the biggest problem of all in the black community: black-on-black murder. The only candidate who seems to have the courage to acknowledge this is Ben Carson.  So far, the Black Lives Matter movement has left Dr. Carson alone, presumably because of his race. How typical of them. Perhaps they are also afraid that a thoughtful, fact-based response by a black Republican candidate might take away some of the momentum of  their self-righteous, divisive, racist indignation?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 826.

DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY: Black lawmakers stand behind disruptions of Sanders, Dem events. So they’re still on Team Hillary. Note that her events have faced no such disruptions.

LANNY DAVIS: Your criticisms of Hillary are irrelevant, which is why I’m responding to them in the nation’s largest daily newspaper.

REALITY ASSERTS ITSELF: UK FOLLOWING SCOTT WALKER’S EXAMPLE.

The UK is not exactly a bastion of right-wingery. As a hoary political joke has it: In the UK, they have two parties—the Labour Party, which we in the U.S. would call the Socialist Party, and the Conservative Party, which we in the U.S. would also call the Socialist Party. And in the American context, Wisconsin is not a particularly right-wing state. Why are unions not getting their way in these places?

The answer is not, pace the wailings of Richard Trumka, a labor leader and Scott Walker critic, that Gov. Walker is some unique right-wing monster—and the same holds true for British PM David Cameron. As Richard Aldous pointed out in a must-read essay yesterday, the British voters reelected Cameron because of, not despite, his austerity and reform agenda; likewise, Wisconsin voters chose three times to keep Scott Walker in office.

To the moderate voter, it seems faintly ludicrous that public sector unions, alone of all political advocacy groups, are entitled to government-enforced dues collection. And then, that voter opens the London papers and sees that unionized public sector workers such as London’s tube drivers, who make far more than that same average voter, are going to strike for the second and third time this month over issues that have nothing to do with safety, job security, or any of the supposed traditional arguments for unionization. (The rural-American equivalent would be a school strike in a Wisconsin town over pension and health contribution levels that the average voter can only dream of.)

The waning of the blue model isn’t just an American phenomenon. The inability of Western countries to support and pay for lavish public sector pensions and benefits is becoming more apparent. Voters are giving politicians on both sides of the pond a mandate to do some remodeling.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

HANS VAN SPAKOVSKY: Why Any Male Student Should Think Twice Before Applying to Washington & Lee University. “A recent decision by a federal judge describes, in excruciating detail, the bias and prejudice that American universities now display in handling sexual misconduct claims against male students.”

INSUFFICIENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRAFT: The promise of an open and free Internet is disappearing.

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IRS CLEANUP: THIS IS A START. Republican plan to eliminate IRS union, as it elects new leadership, could threaten federal unions generally. “It is virtually impossible for the IRS to maintain the reality, much less the appearance, of neutrality and fairness to all taxpayers, when a substantial number of IRS employees are members of the highly partisan and left-leaning National Treasury Employees Union.”

Government employees shouldn’t be unionized. And that goes double for the IRS, with its powers and with its sleazy record.

ASHE SCHOW: Another sad reason to be skeptical of brutal campus sexual assault allegations.

One of the more damaging and lasting effects of the Rolling Stone gang-rape debacle was that allegations of brutal campus sexual assaults would be less likely to be believed.

The accuser in that story, Jackie, painted a picture of an assault so brutal as to challenge the imagination. She claimed she had been gang-raped on broken glass and punched in the face, and that the experience left her covered in blood and bruises and cuts.

Given her own description, it was difficult to believe that anyone who saw her in such a state would have suggested she not report such a hideous and obvious crime. It became impossible to believe that a man responsible for orchestrating such an attack would shortly afterward say he had a “good time.”

The same issues plagued Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia University, who claimed that during an otherwise consensual sexual encounter, a man who had never before shown violent tendencies suddenly punched her, choked her and raped her as she fought back. The accused student, Paul Nungesser, invited Sulkowicz to a party two days after this alleged attack — hinting that if the allegations are true, he must be a real sociopath. . . .

The problem here is that these two frightening stories of brutal rape are not what they appear to be. In the case of Jackie, no evidence exists she even had sex the night of her alleged attack, or that her alleged attacker ever existed. For Sulkowicz, the sex actually occurred, but there is no evidence to suggest it was the violent encounter she described.

The idea that a woman would wait months after an obvious, brutal attack, and that her friends wouldn’t notice or care about her injuries, strains credulity.

And now another accusation appears to follow suit. A woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe is suing Virginia Wesleyan College for allegedly failing to prevent her rape or respond properly to her report after the fact.

Women do lie about rape. That’s not the PC line, but it’s become abundantly clear that it’s the case.

THE HILL: Outsiders take over GOP.

Outsiders who have never before held political office are dominating the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Donald Trump is the GOP front-runner, while businesswoman Carly Fiorina is surging after a strong performance in last week’s debate.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is also showing strength, and is a candidate to watch in the Iowa caucuses, where he is outperforming former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Conservatives are thrilled with the developments.

“This is a paradigm shift,” conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace told The Hill. “The base of the party is in open revolt. We’re watching a political party dissolve. It’s a civil war and the GOP as it’s constructed may not survive.”



Others think Republican voters will eventually coalesce around a more traditional GOP candidate — perhaps Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

They believe Trump’s rise is a product of his celebrity and a media frenzy that will ultimately fizzle. They doubt that Carson and Fiorina will be able to compete in the fundraising fight, or pull together the political operation to make a deep run through the primaries.



But for now, the anti-establishment wing of the GOP is on the upswing.

I’d be okay with Walker, or Cruz, actually. I don’t think they’re “establishment” in the way that, say, Jeb is.

THIS SUGGESTS THAT TRUMP ISN’T SERIOUS: Trump Snubs Tim Scott’s South Carolina Town Hall.

Donald J. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has declined to participate in one in a series of town halls run by South Carolina’s most popular politician, making the real estate mogul the only high-polling candidate to snub the state.

Because the Palmetto State is third in line to vote on the party’s nominee, because it’s first in the South, and because Sen. Tim Scott’s job approval is hovering in the heavens, his endorsement and support is as coveted as can be — making the Trump no-show all the more conspicuous.

I can’t imagine why he’d skip this if he were serious.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER:

IT’S GETTING HARDER AND HARDER FOR HILLARY TO DISMISS: Poll: Most want criminal probe of Clinton emails.

More than half of registered voters say a criminal investigation should be launched into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system while serving as secretary of State, according to a new poll.

The Monmouth University survey, released Wednesday, was conducted before Tuesday evening’s revelation that Clinton had turned over to the government her personal email server and USB thumb drives containing copies of the emails, following news that at least two emails had been classified as “top secret.”

According to the poll, 52 percent of voters say that Clinton’s emails “should be subject to a criminal investigation for potential release of classified material.”

Plus: “Republicans are paying closest attention to the story, the poll found, though a majority of Democrats and independents also said they had heard a lot about the controversy.”