IN THE MAIL: From Norman Podhoretz, Making It (NYRB Classics).
Plus, today only at Amazon: TCL 32S3800 32-Inch 720p Roku Smart LED TV, $125.00 (26% off).
And, also today only: Instant Pot IP-DUO60 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cooker, 6Qt/1000W, 47% off.
Plus: Up to 70% off Samsonite Two-Piece Spinner Sets.
DON’T BE STUPID, BE A SCHMARTY: It’s Springtime for Der Spiegel, who if anybody, really should know better, but redlines the Godwin Meter in their attempt to compare Trump to Hitler and Mussolini.
THE SECOND LAW OF HOLES: When your opponent is in one, buy them a bigger and nicer shovel.
Jill Stein's racket is incredible:
Step 1: Cost the Dem the Election
Step 2: wait for Trump panic
Step 3: Bilk millions for recount.— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) November 25, 2016
AN INSTAPUNDIT READER POLL, SHAMELESSLY STOLEN FROM SEN. FRANK NICELEY:
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, PAYBACK IS A BITCH EDITION: Right-Wing Inquisitors on Campus.
Conservatives have understandably felt for decades that the higher education establishment is indifferent or hostile to their interests. The number of right-of-center faculty has dwindled to the point of disappearance; Republican speakers are regularly shouted down; campus speech codes and harassment policies seem designed to disfavor conservative points of view. Now that the cultural wind is at their backs as never before, some on the Right may be tempted to be vindictive, and to do to college liberals what college liberals have done to them. Ben Carson, currently being considered for a Trump Administration cabinet position, suggested during the primaries that the government should police colleges for liberal bias.
Needless to say, such efforts would be deeply destructive. If Orwellian left-wing speech codes are wrong, then McCarthyist speech codes are wrong as well. If the principle of academic freedom requires the protection of conservative scholarship, it requires the protection of liberal scholarship, too. The aim of genuine defenders of the liberal tradition must be to promote tolerance and open-mindedness, not to replace left-wing academic hegemony with a right-wing version.
This is all 100% true. Also, the real sources of PC dictatorship on campus are the educrats — “diversity and inclusion” offices, “student life” deans, etc. They’re much bigger offenders than faculty.
TO BE FAIR, THAT’S HOW ALL THEIR DREAMS TURN OUT: Liberals’ California dream of secession will end up a nightmare.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Men to America — Thanks for nothing: While Clinton and Obama were playing the woman card, men and boys were falling behind.
If we had a college gap that favored men as much as the existing one favors women, it would be treated as a national crisis. If our girls (instead of our boys) attended schools where teachers were overwhelmingly of the opposite sex, there’d be loud demands for government action. And if there were articles with titles such as The End of Women running in major national magazines, their tone would be alarmist, not smug.
Maybe it’s time for a Presidential Task Force on Men and Boys. Before things get worse.
It would be inexpensive, and help Trump with his base. And it would address a real problem.
CABINET OF RIVALS? Trump Allies Raise Doubts About Mitt Romney Leading State Department.
Trump adviser and former Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway issued a series of tweets Thursday morning in which she appeared to question the former Massachusetts governor’s suitability for a role working alongside Mr. Trump.
Ms. Conway said she had received a “deluge” of social-media and private communications about Mr. Romney. In a second tweet, she added that previous secretaries of state such as Henry Kissinger and George Shultz “flew around the world less, counseled POTUS [president of the United States] close to home more. And were loyal. Good checklist.”
The debate over the State Department job has been marked by an internal tug of war in the Trump camp between supporters of Mr. Romney, those favoring former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani—a longtime Trump ally favored by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich—and others who believe Mr. Trump should keep searching for candidates.
The list of qualified Republican contenders who aren’t “tainted” by association with the Bush 43 Administration is pretty thin.
TRUMP IS INHERITING AN ECONOMIC MESS: GDP Hopes Slashed As Trade Deficit, Inventories Tumble In October.
PLEASE FOLLOW THIS ADVICE. PLEASE. Democrats neither can nor should ditch “identity politics”
“LOOK WHO ‘CAN’T ACCEPT ELECTION RESULTS:'” Conway mocks Clinton supporters for demanding recount. “When millions of people believed Clinton would defeat Trump, Clinton supporters were warning Trump voters that they needed to be ready to accept the results. Kellyanne Conway said Clinton supporters now need to heed their own advice, but said so far, many aren’t.”
ASYMMETRIC WARFARE, AMERICAN-STYLE: One by One, ISIS Social Media Experts Are Killed as Result of F.B.I. Program.
While American and British forces conducted a series of drone strikes on members of the group, the F.B.I. sifted through thousands of the Legion’s followers on social media to figure out who had actually been inspired to take action. In the last two years, it has arrested nearly 100 people in cases involving the terrorist group.
Several of the arrests were of people who had direct contact with the Legion. Many of the others involved were “folks who first came on our radar because we became aware of them” through their connections with Hussain and Reyaad Khan, also a British citizen, who was another leader of the group, according to Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the F.B.I.
Mr. Hussain wore a number of hats, including that of a hacker. He was linked to the release of personal information on more than 1,300 American military and government employees. In March 2015, his group posted the names and addresses of service members with instructions: “Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking they are safe.”
More important were Mr. Hussain’s efforts as an online recruiter.
According to court records, Mr. Hussain communicated with at least four men in four states, imploring them to initiate attacks or help spread the Islamic State’s message. Mr. Hussain was behind a plot to behead Pamela Geller, the author of a conservative blog. In early 2015, Mr. Hussain began communicating with Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, 26, and gave him instructions to kill Ms. Geller.
Mr. Rahim abruptly abandoned the plan and decided instead to kill a police officer in the Boston area. The bureau was monitoring him, and Mr. Rahim was shot and killed in June 2015 after he confronted an F.B.I. surveillance team with a knife. The F.B.I. also arrested two of Mr. Rahim’s associates, whom prosecutors say were involved in the plot.
Faster, please.
ALLIES: Denmark is going to ‘punish’ Britain when Brexit talks begin.
“We’ll be rather selfish,” Denmark’s former foreign minister Martin Lidegaard said.
“Brexit has changed it all. Instead of looking at the common benefit and pool our interest, we will get into a game where all of us look more selfish, more narrow-minded,” he said.
The word currently coming from Copenhagen is that Denmark — a country where growing Euroscepticism is now a serious concern for the political establishment — will take a hard line when it comes to Brexit talks with Britain.
Most EU member states have not really made much progress when it comes to preparing for Brexit talks, the FT notes. This is largely down to the mystery surrounding Theresa May’s plans for when negotiations get underway.
But Denmark, a small nation in Northern Europe with more to lose from the downsizing of the EU compared to most other member states, has seemingly reached its position — and it means another headache for May and her cabinet.
“The political environment says that we should be friendly to the UK, that we should not punish it,” an unnamed figure at the heart of preparations explained.
“You need a friendly divorce. Then you look at the issues, and it is clear. It’s not to our advantage to be helpful and friendly.
The Anglosphere is looking better and better.
“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Russia tells U.S. to get out of the way in Syria.