SEEMS LIKELY: Psychology Today: Will More Men Be Falsely Accused Of Sexual Assault In 2015?

2014 was a landmark year with two high profile sexual assault hoaxes exposed. HBO’s “Girls” star Lena Dunham’s publisher has recently admitted that in her memoir “Not That Kind Of a Girl” the actress falsely claimed that a Republican named Barry raped her when she was a student at Oberlin College. In fact Barry had never met Lena. Meanwhile the University of Virginia Phi Kappa Psi gang rape yarn by a freshman student named Jackie has also unraveled. After these high profile sexual assault charges proved to be fictional, the difficult,unpleasant question must be asked is: how often do women make phony claims of sexual assault? . . .

Unfortunately sexual assault has been politicized since the 1980s, when feminists established that a subordinate at work was inherently being sexually harrassed if approached by a romantically interested or sexually suggestive superior. In this super-charged era, Republican President George H. W. Bush’s Department of Defense nominee John Tower and Republican Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon were both sacked for inappropriate sexual advances to women and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas was accused in his contentious confirmation hearing of inappropriate behavior towards his assistant Anita Hill. In the heat of debate about allegations of improper conduct by men in high office, feminists famously railed that women don’t lie about such things. Then feminists grew silent when women’s rights supporting Democratic President Bill Clinton was accused of that very type of sexual harrassment.

Now, after a two decade truce, a new campaign by the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has targeted college campuses, hysterically attempting to demonize men as potential sexual predators by bandying about propaganda that 20% of college women are victims of sexual assault. The state of California has reacted to this alleged epidemic of rape by passing the “Yes Means Yes” legislation that puts the government on every student’s date and in every student’s bedroom. The result of basing policy on bad statistics is a further poisoning of the relationships between men and women. More innocent men now face the very real prospect in 2015 of having their lives destroyed by false accusations of sexual assault.

This dangerous crisis of male-female relations is an opportunity for the Obama Administration to reverse course, tamp down the vigilante atmosphere and actually contribute positively to the discussion. Politically neutral social scientists should be commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services to study the incident of bogus claims versus true claims of sexual assault in a variety of urban, rural and college locations across the country to get impeccably reliable data. The Obama Administration “It’s On Us” campaign should be mothballed. The Office of Civil Rights should cease strong-arming universities into complying to ridiculous new standards to prosecute men for sexual assault claims. President Obama should announce that the 20% sexual assault claim that the campaign was based on was erroneous in lieu of the latest Justice Department study that showed a 0.61 percent incidence of female college students actually being assaulted.

By making a clean break from the misguided Office of Civil Rights offensive against men, President Obama can create a lasting legacy of de-politicizing this tempestuous subject by accurately identifying and targeting those who do assault women without falsely tarring and feathering innocent men.

Yeah, I don’t think that he’s interested in doing that.

ROGER SIMON: Hillary Out? Democrats Should Beware ‘The National Enquirer.’

WHAT U.S. INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS thought 2015 would look like. But note the tendentious first sentence, which kind of gives away the author’s bias.

CHANGE: Swedish Armor Moves To The Russian Border.

THOMAS SOWELL: “If science could cross breed a jellyfish with a parrot, it could create academic administrators.”

UH OH: 2 NYPD Officers Shot in Bronx.

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A LOOK AT Vitamin D and Serotonin Production.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TOMORROW IS UP. Normally I don’t publish excerpts, just a link, but here’s the introduction:

This past year, science found new evidence for an old theory — that infusing new blood into old people could make them younger and more vital. According to reports, “Scientists at Harvard University also discovered that a ‘youth protein’ which circulates in the blood is responsible for keeping the brain and muscles young and strong. The protein, known as ‘GDF11’, is present in the bloodstream in large quantities when we are young but peters out as we age.”

Meanwhile, Stanford researchers are experimenting with transfusions of young blood to treat Alzheimer’s disease. “Work in animals,” writesThe Washington Post, “has shown that a transfusion of young mouse blood can improve cognition and the health of several organs in older mice. It may even make those animals look younger. The ramifications for the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries could be huge if the same thing happens in people.”

I myself experienced some anecdotal support for this over the holidays, as my father received six units of blood. Afterwards, he seemed much more lively, and my brother reports that he now has the appetite “of a 13-year-old boy on a growth spurt.” So maybe there’s something to this whole new-blood thing. For another experiment, maybe we should try injecting healthy people with tired old blood to see if they show signs of decrepitude.

Which brings me to the subject of the Republicans and Jeb Bush.

Read the whole thing.

A ROBOT IN THE FAMILY.

REVIEW: A cold-brew coffeemaker that makes even cheap beans taste good.

The price is right.

PART OF FASCISM IS HAVING ALLEGEDLY INDEPENDENT GANGS OF THUGS TO ATTACK POLITICAL ENEMIES: Bands of ‘Putin Youths’ Fight His Enemies, Ridicule Opposition Leaders as ‘Condoms.’

LIFE IN OBAMA’S POST-RACIAL AMERICA: “Peaceful protesters” disrupt ceremony for 100 yr old war veteran.

While the disrespect shown for Mr. Raschio is beyond the pale, this is fairly characteristic of the latest rounds of anti-cop, “peaceful protests” going on around the country. One of the defining characteristics of these schemes is that they are so completely outside the realm of the issue they are purportedly out there to correct. If you are angered about perceived injustice by police against minorities, what could that possibly have to do with Mr. Raschio? This theme is repeated in the so called Black Brunch protests in Oakland and New York City this weekend. Protesters invaded various businesses to disrupt service and dining in what they referred to as “white spaces.”

This is simply a continuation of the theme we saw when more allegedly peaceful protesters blocked traffic and tried to shut down the highways. What on earth do people eating french toast in a diner have to do with police practices? How does stranding thousands of motorists in rush hour traffic convey any sort of relevant message? The disconnect is obvious, but these protesters may be doing the rest of us a favor. By demanding an end to “business as usual” and screwing up the daily lives of regular working people with an off tune message which is inappropriate for the situation, the nation will tire of them even faster than they did with the filthy homeless camps of the Occupy movement.

The vast majority of the nation is not anti-cop. The further these agitators push the rest of the rank and file citizens, the quicker they will find that out.

This is bullying for the sake of bullying, by racists. It is designed to intimidate, but it is likely to have the opposite effect. It has also completely undermined what looked like a substantial bipartisan consensus on police reforms.

DIETS FROM YOUR FAVORITE POLITICIANS.

Well, I gotta say, Ted Cruz is looking pretty trim. . . .

MORE TROUBLE FOR THE NARRATIVE: Europe Slightly More Polluted Than The United States. But they give better symbolism.

SCIENCE: “Just as lingerie turns on human males, tiny jackets do the same for male rats, a new study finds.”

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SO WHEN ROBOTS COMMIT CRIMES, DO WE SEND IN THE ROBOCOPS? A Bot Just Purchased Fake Passports and Ecstasy.

SCIENCE: Device Squeezes Cells to Get Drugs In. “A new microfluidic device, recently developed by a startup called SQZ Biotech, can get microscopic material into cells quickly and cheaply by vigorously squeezing those cells, temporarily making their membranes permeable.”

EBOLA: Doctors Are Divided On IV Therapy In Africa.

THIS SEEMS OBVIOUS, BUT NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE DOING IT: Four financial resolutions worth keeping in 2015.

JERRY POURNELLE’S ADVICE ON STROKES: “I advise you not to have one.” But he’s blogging from rehab and getting better every day.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Seductions Of Appeasement.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 606.