Instapundit

Archive for 2016

September 28, 2016

WHEN DID OUR SCHOOLS BECOME SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION? Ex-substitute teacher accused of having sex with students.

WHY ARE LEFTIST INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF DISCRIMINATION? An Ivy League professor on why colleges don’t hire more faculty of color: ‘We don’t want them.’

DONALD TRUMP, GUNS, AND THE “NO-FLY LIST.”

Trump’s stance on this issue should be deeply troubling to those who care about gun rights – and also to people concerned about constitutional rights generally, even if they don’t care much about this one.

As both the ACLU and conservative commentators point out, the no fly list is notoriously inaccurate. It is also provides little or no due process protections. The process is secret, people are not told the reasons why they were placed on the list, and they are not given any advance opportunity to challenge the designation. And, once on the list, even a completely innocent person might find it difficult and time-consuming to get off it.

If Trump is committed to the idea that your Second Amendment rights can be stripped on such a flimsy basis, with so little due process, then virtually any other politically feasible limitation on gun rights is also acceptable. . . .

Commenters on Twitter point to Trump’s seeming support of a GOP bill sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn that would allow the government to ban people on the “no fly list” from buying guns for only 72 hours, after which they would have to go to court to provide evidence of links to terrorism, in order to extend the ban. It’s a fair point, and one I should have addressed in the original post. But I don’t think it much changes the bottom line on the dangerous implications of Trump’s position on this issue.

While it is entirely possibly that Trump would sign the Cornyn bill if it passes, he has never clearly stated that he supports it. Much more significantly he has never said that he will only support the “no fly, no buy” policy if it includes a right to a judicial hearing.

The good and the bad news about Trump is you figure he probably doesn’t mean half of what he’s saying. But which half?

UH-OH: Trouble Brewing in the Craft Beer Industry.

Creature Comforts Brewing Co. is growing so fast that its supply chain can’t keep up.

The brewer has had so much trouble finding enough of a special type of hops called citra—the plant that gives its popular Tropicália ale its bitter flavor and fruity aroma—that it has been forced to reject orders for about 8,000 barrels of beer during the past year. That is more than $2 million in revenue and enough beer to nearly double production.

The Athens, Ga.-based brewer isn’t alone. A host of smaller, regional brewers including Wicked Weed Brewing of Asheville, N.C., and MadTree Brewing of Cincinnati have run into similar constraints.

This trend of over-hopping everything will fade, and then the shortage will correct itself.

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CHARLOTTE HORROR: How Trapped Drivers Pleaded with 911 to Rescue Them From Seething Mob.

Charlotte motorists were caught in a terrifying nightmare as rioters flooded onto I-85 and surrounded their cars during last week’s unrest– and many drivers pleaded with emergency services to rescue them from the demonstrators.

The city of Charlotte has released a number of 911 tapes, including calls made from gridlocked motorists on Charlotte streets who feared for their lives as protests over the death of Keith Scott moved to block highways going in and out of the city. Dozens of vehicles were stopped on I-85 and other major thoroughfares. According to some of the motorists trapped on the streets, protesters jumped on cars, mobbed trucks, and threw rocks.

“I’m trapped,” one motorist told the 911 dispatchers. “They’re all in the street … Oh my God, they’re coming!” Screams could be heard in the background, according to local media who reviewed the tapes.

One family who had their window smashed by a rock was instructed by a 911 dispatcher to get to safety before pulling over to inspect the damage. “I’m still stuck in this,” the driver told emergency services. “I would like to get out of it before I pull over.”

The dispatcher responded, “I don’t want you to stop there, period. Just follow traffic and get out of the area.” . . .

Another trucker admitted to being terrified. “I’m so scared,” he said. “They’re just taking stuff and running with it. They’ve got the doors of the trailer open.”

Truckers also reported that rioters had started fires on the highway. That made a getaway in the truck impossible, and leaving the truck on foot too dangerous.

According to police, the demonstrators held vehicles on I-85 at bay for nearly two hours, shutting down all lanes of traffic and horrifying trapped motorists. Reports indicate the police were able to finally clear the highway a little after 3am, and only by firing tear gas into the rampaging crowd.

And yet to hear people talk, you’d think these were peaceful protests like the lunch-counter sit-ins of the 1960s.

SALENA ZITO: How Trump won over a bar full of undecideds and Democrats. “‘I’ve been a Democrat all of my life, but when Clinton mentions her husband and the jobs he brought to the country in the ’90s, it’s not a fair assessment. She is no moderate Democrat the way he was, her policies would not bring back jobs,’ said Nathan Nemick. It burns Nemick when Clinton references her husband, like she did in the debate on trade and jobs. ‘She is nothing like him,” he said of the Democrat he admired in his youth.'”

I didn’t think Trump was very good. But I’m reminded of something a consultant once told me: You think those ads for porcelain collector plates are tacky and awful. But the porcelain collector plate people run those ads because they work — with the people who buy porcelain collector plates.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Five Safety Tips For Getting Pulled Over While Carrying a Concealed Firearm.

WELL, LET’S HOPE: Cheer Up. History Will Forget This Dismal Campaign. “When historians look back on our era, the Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump campaign probably will be a modest footnote to broader and mostly uninterrupted positive trends.”

IDIOCRACY WASN’T MEANT TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: Celebs are Supporting Hillary Clinton by Going Naked.

(Via John Podhoretz, who tweets, “So she’s President Camacho too.”)

GOVERNMENT IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: Teen Girl Suspended for Days After Publicizing School’s Dirty Water Problem: ‘Inappropriate use of electronics’ for taking a picture of a safety hazard.

A senior at John Glenn High School in Westland, Michigan, was suspended for three days after she took a photo of the disgusting water in the girls’ restroom and posted it on Twitter.

The student, Hazel Juco, had aimed to call attention to the dirty water. But it’s against school rules to take pictures in bathrooms. . . .

It seems to me that school officials weren’t actually interested in enforcing sensible privacy rules—they wanted to punish a student for making them look bad, I suspect.

Thankfully, the district superintendent erased the suspension from Juco’s record and directed the school to figure out why the water was such an ugly shade of yellow. As it turns out, a corroded pipe needs replacing.

Too bad the school’s first impulse was to quash dissent, rather than fix a problem. But that’s what happens what you get when your schools are run by the government and thus shielded from market incentives.

Yep.

HE CHOSE…POORLY: Man arrested for berating Trump backer Sheriff David A. Clarke for two hours on flight to Charlotte.

PARIS MORPHED INTO SAN FRANCISCO SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: You May Soon Be Able to Walk Around Paris Butt Naked.

The 21st century isn’t really working out the way I had hoped. Particularly given that, as a friend of Glenn Reynolds once said, “the people you see at the nude beach are seldom the people that you want to see at the nude beach.”