HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Oregon Tax Prof Nancy Shurtz Issues Apology For Wearing Blackface To Halloween Party; Dueling Online Petitions Seek Signatories.

A couple of thoughts. First, you’d think a former “Diversity Committee Chair” would know that this would upset a lot of people. She probably thought that since she meant well, it was okay. But intentions and context don’t matter anymore.

Which brings us to my second point: Lawyers hold people’s lives and fortunes in their professional hands. If a Halloween costume can reduce law students, or law professors, to a shrieking outrage mob bereft of all reason, what good are they?

THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS. Video: How white liberals really view black voters.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION AND OLD MEDIA APOCALYPSES: Rolling Stone Can Take Their Defamation Statement And Shove It.

Earlier: How deep is this Obama-appointed DoE official’s involvement in the Rolling Stone hoax?

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Roger Simon: Is America On The Brink Of A Civil War?

The bad news is this: As miserable as this endless election season has been, the aftermath is likely to be far worse. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see that putting the American Humpty Dumpty together again is going to be a herculean task. Our country could be permanently fractured in ways few of us would have anticipated even a year ago. Anything is possible now.

If Hillary Clinton is elected, the very next day millions of Americans will be watching to see what will happen with the FBI and the Justice Department. Since we can now assume this will be a close election, that would be nearly half the voters in this country, sixty to seventy million people, almost all of whom believe Clinton, the woman a few weeks from inauguration as president, should have been charged with serious crimes and belonged behind bars, not in the White House.

Moreover, many have seen the WikiLeaks that reek of collusion between the Clintonistas and officials at the FBI and Justice, not to mention with virtually all the mainstream media outlets that were distrusted to begin with and are now reviled.

If that’s not an explosive situation, what is? And we don’t know what Assange et al have in store for us after the election. Just now we learned that the Clinton Foundation accepted—while Her Ladyship was secretary of State and in honor of Bill’s birthday—an unreported one million dollar donation from that paragon of women’s and gay rights, Qatar. This is chump change in the grand Clinton scheme of things, but another reminder of their unending greed and corruption.

Remember, Hillary’s the one who wants the law changed so that criticizing her is a crime.

CHUTZPAH ALERT: The Parents Of This Dead Robber Are Really Mad His Victim Had A Gun.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: At UCSD, “Where Is the Kangaroo?”

A quick summary: in this case, the accuser made two charges—that the male student raped her, and then sexually assaulted her the following morning. A UCSD investigator spoke to 14 witnesses, but wasn’t able to corroborate the first claim. But even though something these 14 witnesses said caused the investigator to doubt the accuser’s credibility, notes of these interviews (and even the identity of the parties!) wasn’t shared with the accused student. Regarding the incident the following morning—to which there were no witnesses—both the investigator and a UCSD panel deemed it more likely than not the accuser was telling the truth. UCSD never gave the accusing student a copy of the accuser’s previous statements to UCSD. The panel chair also refused to ask 23 of the 32 questions the accused student submitted.

The hearing’s highlight came almost immediately. After a brief opening statement by Grant Davis-Denny, who represented the University of California system, Justice Huffman interrupted to express his concern with the basic unfairness of the UCSD system. The two other judges quickly chimed in their agreement. Then Huffman noted, “When I . . . finished reading all the briefs in this case, my comment was, ‘Where’s the kangaroo?’”

Ouch.

WHEN THE PATIENT ISN’T PAYING FOR IT, THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP COSTS LOW IS TO RATION: Here’s how the impending ObamaCare disaster affects you

WHY WE HAVE GUNS (ONE OF MANY REASONS): Because vermin like your spawn exist.

LIFE IS HARD, GIRL. IT’S HARDER IF YOU’RE DUMB: Young Women Need Less “Body Positivity,” More Modesty.

OH, SWEETIE, DON’T BOTHER. JUST GO AHEAD AND CALL HIM YOUR BEARD: Special Snowflake Insists World Create New Word for “Boyfriend”.

THE NEW YORK SUN ENDORSES TRUMP. I’M NOT SURE HOW MUCH GOOD THAT IS, BUT IT HAS TO BE BETTER THAN VOGUE: Donald Trump’s Optimism.

OLD AND BUSTED IDEAS, BUT I’M SURE SHE THINKS THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT: Hillary Clinton’s big ideas for tanking the US economy.

IF UNION LEADERS STOP START PAYING ATTENTION TO THEIR MEMBERS’ DESIRES, THE WHOLE SYSTEM BREAKS DOWN (fixed, sorry, very unfortunate typo): WikiLeaks exposes NEA’s inner workings.

MEDIA HATRED BEARS FRUIT: Donald Trump is rushed off the stage by Secret Service while speaking during Reno rally after a protester runs at the podium and is tackled to the ground by supporters.

I think it was Bruce Sterling’s Holy Fire where the way to kill people was to agitate crazies against them via the Internet. But today, you can also use the New York Times or the Washington Post.

YES, THE PRESS HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY AWFUL, EVEN BY THE LOW STANDARDS OF PREVIOUS ELECTIONS: Biggest loser of 2016 presidential election? The media.

We are still days away from finally knowing the winner of one of the ugliest elections in modern history, but we already have the biggest loser: the media.

From cable news employees sharing questions with Democrat Hillary Clinton in advance of TV town halls and debates, to executives making their airwaves endlessly available to Donald Trump for phone “interviews” that the Republican candidate controlled, the media have never performed less responsibly in a modern-era presidential election.

And that perception is not simply the result of WikiLeaks giving us an unvarnished, drip-drip-drip look at the incestuous groveling and information-sharing that reporters at some of the nation’s top news outlets engaged in with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta the past 18 months. It’s the result of my daily reporting on an industry that appears to have largely lost a clear sense of civic direction and purpose, while simultaneously becoming cozier with the powers that be and more dishonest with audiences.

It’s a deadly combination that has dark consequences for democracy as the press fails in its primary job of giving citizens accurate, trustworthy information they can use in choosing who they want to lead the nation. Instead, as we have seen in two CNN events in March, candidate Clinton was secretly given information intended to skew the event and, therefore, the vote in her favor. That’s the opposite of serving democracy — and it feeds Trump’s dangerous rhetoric of the election being “rigged” against him.

Is the rhetoric “dangerous” if it’s true?

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SO WHEN DANA MILBANK IMAGINES THE “HORRIFIC” FIRST 100 DAYS OF A TRUMP PRESIDENCY, it sounds a lot like all the fear-mongering projections of a post-Brexit world.

REPORT: SECRET SERVICE RUSH DONALD TRUMP OFF THE STAGE DURING HIS NEVADA RALLY.

SHOCKER: Feminist sermons don’t sell beer: Bud pulls ads with Amy Schumer yacking about equal pay. Who, you may ask, could have thought this was a good idea? Well, actually it was just a way to run Hillary promotion while charging it to Anheuser Busch.

NO FLYING CARS, NO MARS BASES, but we’ve got crowdfunded vibrators.

Related: “Sex robots with the ability to talk and respond to touch will be commercially available in 2017.”

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DETHRONE THE HOUSE OF CLINTON: Deroy Murdock with a full broadside tirade.

Sample:

While Clinton apologists call the foundation a font of beneficence, its 2014 IRS filings show that it spent a whopping 5.76 percent of its funds on actual charitable activities — far below the 65 percent that the Better Business Bureau calls kosher. That paltry figure also mocks Hillary’s Las Vegas lie, uttered at the final presidential debate on October 19: “We at the Clinton Foundation spend 90 percent — 90 percent of all the money that is donated on behalf of programs of people around the world and in our own country.” The Clinton Slush Fund . . . uh . . . Foundation seems to be mainly a travel and full-employment program for Hillary’s government in waiting. It’s also a bribe pump that sucks in money and spews out favors.

MORE ON MOSUL: An AP report. Islamic State fighters are conducting local counter-attacks and using “human shields” (hostages) to stall or stop Iraqi Army probes and advances.

…Iraqi Cpt. Naqib Jaff, who was covered in dust after helping to hold positions east of Mosul overnight, said the air support “hasn’t been enough” and that the coalition was only striking suicide car bombs. He said that in previous operations against IS-held towns and cities, civilians would be moved away from the front lines, allowing forces to advance. But he said in Mosul, his men have been ordered to keep families inside their homes. “We’ve never been in such a situation before. We would be fighting and there would be a family right next to us,” he said.

I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN OBAMACARE WAS GOING TO FIX ALL THIS: Mom Who Gave Birth in Car Must Pay $7K Delivery Room Fee.

When the Insta-Daughter was born, the obstetrician was also looking after a much-higher-risk delivery, and she was nearly crowned before he came back. I told the nurse that if I had to deliver my own kid, they weren’t getting a dime from me. Perhaps coincidentally, he showed up minutes later.