NO: Did Learning to Cook Make Me a Bad Feminist? It’s nice to see a woman overcome culinary frigidity.

UPDATE: Sorry, I saw this on Twitter, but I must have seen this earlier, and absorbed the “culinary frigidity” line without realizing it!

WHY RUDY GIULIANI’S REMARKS STRUCK A NERVE: Less than Half in New Poll Think Obama Loves America. “Nationally, only 47 percent of people think the nation’s leader loves America while 35 percent do not. . . . As for Americans themselves, love of country still runs deep: 90 percent of conservatives say that they love America, compared to 85 percent of moderates and 82 percent of liberals.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 657.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Now It’s Black Parents Turning To Homeschooling.

There are as many reasons to homeschool as there are reasons to distrust the public school system. According to The Hechinger Report, African-American families have started to embrace homeschooling and now make up 10 percent of the homeschooling population. Many teach their children at home to protect them from racism, and also, as one scholar says, schools’ lower standards for black students. . . .

We’ve noted before that homeschooling is on the rise as Americans lose trust in the experts that run the American school system. For religious people, that distrust stems from their belief that schools don’t respect their values. Silicon Valley entrepreneurial types think they can disrupt education and create better approaches on their own. According to this piece, African Americans increasingly distrust schools as well. It’s not just because of low expectations either—some families quoted in the piece think their kids don’t get as complete an education in African American history in public schools as they should. Distrust in experts, cultural pluralism, dissatisfaction with current institutions, DIY-ism: some of the biggest trends reshaping America are at play in the rise of homeschooling.

Public schools are a 19th century model. This is the 21st century.

WAIT, I THOUGHT IT WASN’T A CHOICE: ‘I’m gay. And I want my kid to be gay too’: Lesbian CNN pundit admits she does not want her daughter, 6, to be straight and is ‘disappointed’ that she is already ‘boy crazy.’

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DID HE FLY TO EPSTEIN’S ISLAND WITH BILL CLINTON ON THE “LOLITA EXPRESS?” State Department ‘Director of Counterterrorism’ Charged with Soliciting Sex from a Minor. Hillary’s State Department seems to have had a problem.

I’D BE TROUBLED BY THIS KIND OF TENSION, EXCEPT THAT I KNOW WE’VE GOT SMART DIPLOMACY^TM ON THE JOB! U.S. military vehicles paraded 300 yards from the Russian border.

U.S. military combat vehicles paraded Wednesday through an Estonian city that juts into Russia, a symbolic act that highlighted the stakes for both sides amid the worst tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War.

The armored personnel carriers and other U.S. Army vehicles that rolled through the streets of Narva, a border city separated by a narrow frontier from Russia, were a dramatic reminder of the new military confrontation in eastern Europe.

The soldiers from the U.S. Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment were taking part in a military parade to mark Estonia’s Independence Day. Narva is a vulnerable border city separated by a river from Russia. It has often been cited as a potential target for the Kremlin if it wanted to escalate its conflict with the West onto NATO territory.

Frankly, I approve — but only if this represents actual, as opposed to symbolic, determination.

POLICING IN OBAMA’S AMERICA, AND OBAMA’S HOMETOWN: The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site.’ This kind of thing is what happens under unaccountable one-party regimes.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: $3M asbestos scam at heart of NY’s Sheldon Silver scandal shows trial lawyer abuses continue.

ASHE SCHOW: University of Colorado settles with student accused of sexual assault.

Lau also told the Examiner that the settlement is structured in such a way so that, combined with his clean transcript, there is no reason for other universities to question his disciplinary record.

The “false allegation” Lau referred to was the basis of her client’s lawsuit, obtained by the Examiner, which alleges the university found John responsible for sexual misconduct despite the accuser admitting she initially lied about the encounter.

John met Jane Doe (as she is referred to in the lawsuit) at a house party. The two were drinking but, according to John, not “drunk or intoxicated.”

The two flirted and eventually began kissing. The two eventually went back to John’s apartment and engaged in sexual intercourse, which John said was consensual. Days later, Jane would tell the Boulder Police Department otherwise.

Jane would later admit to university investigators that she “may have stretched the truth” because she was “pissed off,” according to John’s lawsuit. She also told the police that she didn’t accurately describe her evening with John and that she thought he was nice guy but then “realized he’s just another douchy frat dude.”

Jane also told police that she wanted to get revenge against John for rebuffing her and wanted “the s*** to be scared out of him.”

Jane also made factually inaccurate statements to the police, including claiming she didn’t have John’s contact information despite texting him the day after the sexual encounter. Other lies, revealed during the investigation process, included Jane claiming she was forced to stay in John’s room that night, that John didn’t walk her home the morning after the encounter and that she resisted John removing her clothing.

When John brought up these lies to campus investigators, the school justified Jane’s actions on her behalf, according to the lawsuit.

They don’t care about facts, they just hate men. Take that into account, potential applicants and donors.

JOHN HINDERAKER: ClimateGate And The Smearing Of Willie Soon.

JEB BUSH: Does his appeal stretch beyond professional Republicans? I’m skeptical. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s the establishment’s guy, and I don’t see the GOP electorate as being very pro-establishment these days. After all, what has the establishment done for them?

ED MORRISSEY: The audacity of the media’s Obama worship.

By “audacity,” I of course mean “utter shamelessness.” Over the past week, media reporters have tried to hold Republicans accountable for any personal attacks by anyone on Barack Obama, going out of their way to demand that GOP candidates defend Obama’s honor — especially Scott Walker, who has emerged as a top-tier candidate in the early campaign. This trend reached its nadir when two reporters from the Washington Post, Dan Balz and Robert Costa, demanded that Walker answer whether he thought Obama was a Christian — despite the fact that Walker has never brought up that topic. When Walker scolded them for their irrelevancies, the media instead took it as Walker “othering” Obama.

The big losers in this are Balz and — especially — Costa. Voters won’t remember this incident in two weeks, but activists on the right will never forget. It’s especially bad for Costa because his selling point was supposed to be that he had credibility on the right.

IF ONLY THE GOP TREATED THE DEMOCRATS AS BADLY AS IT DOES ITS BASE: Right turns fire on McConnell.

Conservative hardliners laid into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Tuesday night for what they view as capitulating to Democrats on immigration.

McConnell announced earlier in the day that the Senate would vote on a “clean” bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security past Friday, as well as a separate measure freezing President Obama’s November executive actions to shield certain illegal immigrants from deportation.

Members of the GOP right said McConnell’s move essentially amounted to giving in to Democrats’ refusal to consider legislation undoing the president’s immigration actions.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said he “absolutely” won’t vote for a DHS funding bill that allows the November actions to go forward. He suggested freshman GOP senators failed to deliver on campaign promises.

“If I was a donor to some of these senators that just won election and was told things would be different in a new Senate, I’d be pretty pissed. We put Harry Reid back in charge of the Senate again?” Huelskamp said.

Huelskamp said that separating the bill freezing the executive actions from a must-pass DHS funding bill eliminates Republicans’ leverage over Democrats.

Maybe I’m missing something, but that’s how it looks to me, too.

BECAUSE COMMIES GET A PASS. Why Is the International Environmental Movement Silent about the Nicaragua Canal?

RICH LOWRY: The Science Is Settled: Yes, Liberals Are Less Patriotic. “To be less patriotic than the average American doesn’t require any elaborate backstory or exotic beliefs — it is, as a matter of fact, a standard characteristic of the typical American liberal. The survey data are clear: There is a patriotism differential between the Right and the Left. Which doesn’t mean that liberals don’t love the country in their own fashion, but their love is not reflected in old-fashioned pride in country. A Pew Research survey last year found that 46 percent of ‘steadfast conservatives’ believed that the U.S. stands above all other countries; only 11 percent of ‘solid liberals’ believed the same. Seventy-two percent of steadfast conservatives said they often feel proud to be an American; only 40 percent of solid liberals said they do.”

THINGS HILLARY ISN’T ASKED ABOUT: Charge: ‘Clintons turned the State Department into a racket to line their own pockets.’

IS THIS PART OF “OPERATION CHOKE POINT” OR SOMETHING? FedEx Refuses to Ship a Digital Mill That Can Make Untraceable Guns, Even Though It’s Completely Legal. Or is FedEx just a bunch of pukes?

TRIFECTA: 72-cents on the Dollar: Hillary Pays Female Staffers Less.

ANOTHER FRUITFUL AREA FOR CONGRESSIONAL ACTION: RIAA Accounting: Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales. Play this right and you’ll not only hurt the music industry — big source of Democratic money — but you’ll also split the labels and the musicians. The musicians have been getting screwed for many decades, and here’s a chance to right a wrong, and punish political enemies all at once. Hearings where record executives are grilled about screwing the artists a plus.

Here’s an earlier post on this subject, which I’ve been flogging for a while. More here.

ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: Christian militia takes the war to Islamic State in Syria.

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BUT, OF COURSE, ADAM BALDWIN ISN’T MUCH FOR BEING A VICTIM: Adam Baldwin Could Have Been the Latest Victim of the Censorious Left.

Mainstream “geek culture” media have been frothing at the mouth this month because Supanova, an Australian convention for sci-fi, comic, anime and gaming fans, has refused to rescind actor Adam Baldwin’s invitation to appear, after a petition claimed that, as a supporter of GamerGate, his attendance will make women “feel unsafe”.

Internet petitions demanding speakers’ invitations be withdrawn have become more and more common, and realising that by simply being upfront about their motives for wanting to disallow their target a platform will unmask them for the intolerant, authoritarian drones they are, campaigners have learned to up the stakes, claiming that the presence of speakers they don’t like “threatens the safety of attendees”, when the true reason is that they are banning any speakers with right-wing or even libertarian sympathies.

Punch back twice as hard.

UPDATE: From the comments: “I can see Baldwin being invited to lots of events if that would keep the busybodies away.” SJW repellent! There’s a market for that all right.