NEWS YOU CAN USE: Home Security Devices: How Good Are They?

I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER WHEN FAMILIES WERE SUPPOSED TO BE OFF-LIMITS: Hillary Appears To Take A Shot At Bernie Sanders’ Grandkids “Some People Talk About Extraordinary Grandchildren, I Actually Have One.”

BERNIE SANDERS AS MONTGOMERY BURNS: Nothing says “I get the 21st Century” like trying to strongarm Wikipedia with bogus DMCA notices.

TRAILERS FROM HELL: Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories (1980):

It’s a fascinating movie, brimming with ideas, and as Larry Karaszewski (co-screenwriter of Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and former critic) notes in the above clip, a homage to Fellini’s surreal 8 ½ from 1963, with a raw and stunning jumpcut sequence illustrating the nervous breakdown of Charlotte Rampling’s character.

But Stardust Memories also cost Woody Allen his American audience — coming off Manhattan, which earned nearly $40 million at the American box office (a respectable take in 1979 dollars), Stardust Memories only returned $10.3 million, barely breaking even.  (And United Artists could have really used a hit at that time to offset the concurrent financial debacle of Heaven’s Gate, which essentially put them out of business as an independent entity.)

Woody’s US career was never the same; he went from being a mainstream American filmmaker to being an acquired elitist taste for those outside of Manhattan. (Ted Cruz, call your office.) But then, filmmaker who trashes his audience as badly as Woody did in Stardust Memories shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t return for seconds. Or as James Lileks wrote in an early Bleat, “I just remember hating the movie. Deeply. I took it personally. I had walked into the theater hoping to see another film from My Hero, and when it was done I felt stupid for admiring him. Because only idiots admired him, it seemed. I don’t think I ever looked forward to a Woody Allen movie after that one.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 982.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Elite U.S. targeting force has arrived in Iraq to fight the Islamic State. “An elite U.S. Special Operations targeting force has arrived in Iraq and will carry out operations against the Islamic State, part of a broader effort in 2016 to strike at the militants and that also includes U.S. Special Operations troops in Syria.”

HEY, CONSIDERING WHAT YOGI DID TO LEONARDO DiCAPRIO, CAN YOU FAULT RANGER SMITH FOR BEING OVERLY CAUTIOUS? Assault Rifles, Flash Bang Grenades Bought for Park Rangers, Report Finds.

From the Department of Agriculture to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is there a government agency left that isn’t kitted out like a SWAT team these days? As Mark Steyn has written “Americans will end their days in a very dark place unless this vile trend is reversed.”

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Third teacher from same Louisiana school busted for sex with student after female teen fesses up. “A Louisiana teacher faces charges for a year-long relationship with a 16-year-old female student, police in St. Charles Parish said. Kimberly Naquin, 26, is a teacher at Destrehan High, the same school where two female teachers were charged with having threesome sex trysts with a different teen student.”

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THE PIVOTAL MOMENT:Will The Republican-Controlled Senate Seriously Confirm This Judge Who Called Reagan A Bigot?

Well, of course they will — unlike his “exercise bands,” no one in the GOP dares push back against all-powerful de facto Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

THEY STILL DON’T GET IT: Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post has a shockingly ignorant piece, “Tea Partyers Love the Constitution So Much–They Want to Blow it Up.”

Sometimes I think tea partyers are in an emotionally abusive relationship with the Constitution.

One day, they proclaim its inerrancy and say it must be loved, honored and obeyed in all its original perfection. The next day, they call for a constitutional convention, arguing that it’s broken, outdated and desperately in need of a facelift.

In other words: I love you, you’re perfect, now change. . . .

Consider Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), a tea party darling, who wants to convene a constitutional convention to amend this precious political heirloom.

And not to push through just a single amendment, but nine. . . .

In a 92-page document defending his proposals, Abbott laments widespread ignorance of the Constitution and argues that his plan is “not so much a vision to alter the Constitution as it is a call to restore the rule of our current one.”

“The Constitution itself is not broken,” Abbott writes in italics. “What is broken is our Nation’s willingness to obey the Constitution and to hold our leaders accountable to it.”

In other words, the Constitution says what Abbott thinks it says, not what it actually says, or what the Supreme Court decides it says — so now we just need to rewrite it so that the text fits what’s in his head.

Abbott is not the only right-wing Constitution-thumper to call for reframing the Founding Fathers’ allegedly perfect handiwork. . . .

Because, obviously, the best way to honor that cherished, perfect, original text is by getting rid of it. 

All I can do is shake my head and feel sorry for the ignorance this column displays.

Apparently, Ms. Rampell has forgotten her basic civics, and doesn’t realize that these calls for amendment by “right-wing Constitution thumper[s]” would employ Article V, which provides a lawful, supermajoritarian and republican process for amending the Constitution. Article V–which has been used  27 times to amend the Constitution–is evidence that the founding generation did not consider the original Constitution to be “perfect.” Indeed, the first ten amendments–the Bill of Rights–were ratified only two short years after ratification of the original Constitution.

Ms. Rampell fails to grasp that the method of changing the Constitution–i.e., the process employed–matters to a “Constitution-thumper” because, well, the Constitution allows for amendments only via the processes set forth in Article V.  To a liberal/progressive, by contrast, the method of constitutional change is irrelevant, so long as the Constitution changes in the “right way”; it’s only results, not process, that matters.

Thus. to a liberal/progressive like Ms. Rampell, it is perfectly fine for five liberal/progressive Supreme Court Justices to “amend” the Constitution with a stroke of their outcome-oriented pens.  In Ms. Rampell’s eyes, using Article V’s legitimate, supermajoritarian, republican processes to effectuate constitutional change is so time-consuming and republican, it’s downright silly, and maybe even dangerous. Surely, it’s much better to just let elitist, liberal/progressive Supreme Court Justices alter the Constitution on the people’s “behalf” (unless of course they want to overrule decisions such as Roe v. Wade or roll back the Commerce Clause).

“Constitution-thumper[s]” believe in the Constitution–and this includes employing its only legal mechanism for alteration: Article V. Given the Supreme Court’s long history (since about 1937) of misconstruing the Constitution to serve liberal/progressive ends, calls to change the Constitution and restore its original vision is far from hypocrisy. It’s the height of principled constitutional conservatism. But I wouldn’t expect someone like Ms. Rampell to get that.

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES: The Two Democrat Parties.

ASHE SCHOW: Law professor argues against ‘affirmative consent’ laws.

A University of Pennsylvania law professor is arguing that “affirmative consent” or “yes means yes” policies should be used as a rule of personal conduct, but not a standard of liability in sexual assault accusations. . . .

The rules state that each party must obtain ongoing consent from the other for each sexual activity. In reality, this translates to an impractical question-and-answer-session whenever sex occurs.

Since nonverbal communication is too ambiguous for those who have written the policies, words are all that counts. Which means that if a man (they are almost always the accused) takes a woman’s enthusiastic participation as an indication instead of explicitly asking permission again and again, he becomes a rapist. And there’s no way for him to defend himself from an accusation, because it’s her word against his, and colleges and universities are under pressure to “listen and believe” accusers no matter what the evidence.

As Robinson notes, those seeking to change the culture are the ones who would be most helped by affirmative consent being a means of conduct but not liability.

“Ironically, it is the reformers seeking to change existing norms — such as the norms of sexual consent on college campuses — who would most benefit from a criminal law that has earned moral credibility,” Robinson wrote. “It is their reform efforts that are most injured when the law’s credibility is damaged by using affirmative consent as a standard when determining guilt.”

Telling people how to have sex in a way that is counterintuitive and unnatural and then punishing them for failing to have sex in that way will never improve the culture, as men and women will increasingly become distrustful of each other instead.

Indeed.

TRAVEL THE GLOBE! STAY IN 5-STAR HOTELS! ENJOY FINE FOOD! All you have to do is be a federal bureaucrat whose job occasionally requires work overseas. The *best part, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Katie Watson, is the taxpayers foot the bill really generously.  (* Unless you’re a taxpayer. Then it’s the worst part.)

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump Fans vs. Trump Supporters: Which Group Are Polls Really Counting?

It doesn’t matter that many of Donald Trump’s positions are ridiculous, incoherent, or both. They tap into a current of emotion composed partly of anger, partly of impatience, and partly of fear.  People are angry at the inability or unwillingness of their elected officials to bring about the changes they were sent to Washington to accomplish. They are fearful, rightly, about the destruction wrought by seven years of Barack Obama on this country: the degradation of our military, the low esteem in which the rest of the world holds America, the regulatory burden that has stymied our economy, pustules of Islamic terrorism which Obama refuses even to name. These and other results of Obama’s disastrous reign have instilled great anger and great fear in large swathes of the American public.

It’s not acknowledged, not yet, by the folks who think that The New York Times or MSNBC or CNN are sources of news rather than outposts of the DNC press office, but it is nevertheless a palpable fact about America circa 2016.

The question for Trump is whether his many fans are convertible into reliable supporters. The polls measure the former. I am not at all sure that they are a reliable guide to the latter. And that is one reason that I suspect that Ted Cruz’s recent bump in the polls is more significant that Donald Trump is quite willing to admit. He half-admitted it last night, it is true, when he allowed that he had gone birther on Ted Cruz only because Cruz had suddenly been doing “a little better” in the polls.

Are Trump’s “many fans are convertible into reliable supporters?” We’ll know soon enough. But it’s entirely possible that by bringing the full fire of the New York media (read: outposts of the DNC press office) down upon his head, Ted Cruz’s “New York Values” line might just resonate enough to allow him to end-run Trump, and to carry him through the early primaries. Or not — in any case, as far as who is left with a viable shot in the primaries, to borrow from a Photoshop I did for Roger Simon around Thanksgiving…

SO IT’S AS EASY AS THAT, HUH? “To absorb newcomers peacefully, Europe must insist they respect values such as tolerance and sexual equality,” The Economist deadpans.

I’m sure Joe Biden could swing into action to implement this plan, just as soon as he’s done curing cancer. Then the EU can tap on the handy Continental-sized economy version of Staple’s “That Was Easy” button and get on with their more pressing issues, such as banning vacuum cleaners, mandating the shape of bananas, and other matters that truly vex the sharpest minds of the Euro-left.

Related! Anti-Pedophilia Bill Rejected In Pakistan As ‘Anti-Islamic.’

TWO CNBCs IN ONE: A recession worse than 2008 is coming.

That’s sounds so odd to read today, after the infamous dumpster fire of a debate CNBC masterminded in late October. The unspoken message behind the incessant attacks on the GOP POTUS candidates by Obama’s palace guard at the Comcast-owned business network is the awesome, awesome job that Obama’s been doing on the economy.

Speaking of which, “Study: 93% of US Counties Still Haven’t Recovered from the Recession.”

CARRIE LUKAS: Defining Sexism Down. “Yet campuses aren’t the only place where oppression and grievance are being defined down, often to the point of ridiculousness. Today, feminists gloss over and even explain away actual violence against women (so long as that violence is committed by men from groups that qualify as oppressed), but they stand ready to point out acts of sexism so subtle that they would otherwise be undetectable.”

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? What? Obama To Let The United Nations Decide Which Refugees Come To America.

TAHARRUSH GAMEA: HAS A NEW FORM OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT ARRIVED IN EUROPE?

The Swedish and German authorities say they have never encountered anything like it: groups of men encircling then molesting women in large public gatherings. It happened in Cologne and Stockholm, but is it really unprecedented? Ivar Arpi argues in the new Spectator that it may well be connected to a phenomenon called ‘taharrush gamea’, a form of group harassment previously seen in Egypt.

So what is taharrush gamea, and should Western police be worried? Here’s what we know.

‘Taharrush’ means sexual harassment – it’s a relatively modern word, which political scholar As’ad Abukhalil says dates back to at least the 1950s. ‘Gamea’ just means ‘collective’. Taharrush gamea came to attention in Egypt in 2005, when female protesters against the Mubarak government were sexually assaulted by plain-clothes policemen. Many subsequent cases were political in nature, but not all: as Mariam Kirollos writes, in 2006 ‘Egyptian bloggers reported cases of group sexual assault in downtown Cairo, where large groups of men groped veiled and unveiled women, and in some cases ripped their clothes off’. There were also cases of rape.

* * * * * * * *

Taharrush gamea shouldn’t be ruled out as a factor; but given what we know so far, some of the news reporting and the social media hubbub seems a little over-excited.

And we must haven’t have that – better raped than rude, to paraphrase John Derbyshire.

Oh, and by the way: “This Is The Cartoon Germany Gives To Refugees At Public Swimming Pools.”

BUILDING A BRIDGE TO CHAPPAQUIDDICK: Hillary Clinton Struggles with Answering the Question on What Her Message Is, rambles on incoherently for three and a half minutes.

Ted Kennedy, call your office! Shades of 1979 when, “As the cameras rolled, [CBS’s Roger Mudd] popped the now-famous question: Why do you want to be president? Even if he had not been a Kennedy, what followed was stunning: a hesitant, rambling and incoherent nonanswer; it seemed to go on forever without arriving anywhere. Mudd threw another softball, and Kennedy swung and missed again. On the simple question that would define him and his political destiny, Kennedy had no clue.”

IS THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE going after Donald Trump? “What?? Drug money in Miami? Illicit funds going into US real estate from fabulously wealthy foreigners whose wealth accumulation tactics might not hold up to the strictest of scrutiny? We have only been reading about this since, oh, Imelda Marcos. So why the sudden interest in Manhattan real estate? Please – the race is on to see whether the DoJ can smear Trump by linking him to some unsavory purchasers before they are obliged to not indict Hillarity! and spark an internal rebellion.”

NANCY PELOSI CAN SEE IRAN FROM HER HOUSE: “If Sarah Palin had said this, it would be a joke for years. But it was Nancy Pelosi so only Republicans will notice. Nancy Pelosi, when asked about the the sailors taken by the Iranians, said that she has ‘been to Bahrain and looked right across the Persian Gulf to Iran. Everything is very close.’ Actually, the distance from Bahrain to Iran across the Persian Gulf is about 150 miles.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Who Exactly Is the Republican Establishment?