MOST OF THEM ARE. IT’S A ROTTEN SYSTEM FULL OF ROTTEN PEOPLE: Gwyneth Paltrow is a ‘complicit fraud’ in Weinstein allegations: Kennedy. And deep down, they know it, which is why they try so hard to posture as morally superior.

BRUCE BAWER: ‘Reading the Riot Act’ to Truth-Tellers at UT San Antonio.

This is a Texas case of academic bullying of a bisexual student for having mentioned that there are about a dozen Islamic countries where he could be legally killed for his sexuality.

WAGING THE KOREAN INFORMATION WAR: The Trump Administration’s information warfare operation has strategic traction. Even The Washington Post has noticed. (bumped)

B-52 OVER THE MED: The bomber is refueling — and the pilots have an American flag (big flag) unfolded and on display in the cockpit window.

I SENSE A GRAVE DISTURBANCE IN THE CULTURE WARS:

“Middle America has always suspected the movie industry of being a den of perverts, cutthroats, and sociopaths. Now here’s Weinstein apparently proving it’s worse than everyone thought. And as more comes out on others, it may get worse still,” Allahpundit writes.

Read the whole thing.

BUH-BYE: British IS recruiter Sally-Anne Jones ‘killed by drone.’

The BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner said Jones had been a useful propaganda agent for IS on social media and her death would be “significant”.

Whitehall officials have declined to comment publicly. However, they have not denied the story, and US sources are confident she was killed in an unmanned drone strike in June, our correspondent added.

She was reportedly killed close to the border between Syria and Iraq by a US Air Force strike.

Jones, 48 – who had no previous military training – had been married to the jihadist Junaid Hussain, who was killed in 2015 in a drone strike.

Previously a punk musician, she had been used to recruit western girls to the group and posted threatening messages to Christians in the UK.

Jones, who was born in Greenwich, London, also encouraged individuals to carry out attacks in Britain, offering guidance on how to construct home-made bombs.

She used her Twitter account to provide practical advice on how to travel to Syria and shared pictures of herself posing with weapons.

She won’t be missed.

OBAMA DIDN’T BELIEVE IN CONSEQUENCES: Politico: China Abducted American With Impunity. “The circumstances surrounding this incident eerily parallel a similar one in Moscow that also occurred on President Obama’s watch. In that case, it was Russia’s FSB that roughed up an American official suspected of espionage on U.S. diplomatic grounds. In both cases, Obama officials took pains to hide the incident from public view while protesting through official channels—though that didn’t stop Moscow from publicly releasing footage of the brawl to humiliate Washington and score propaganda points at home. Indeed, the Politico story fits into a disturbing pattern of brazen provocations by rival spy services during the Obama years—provocations that were protested in private but never publicly exposed or avenged.”

Yeah, he was willing to say “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” — but only about Republicans.

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: What if the right-wing media wins?

What is this “right-wing media” you speak of? People who swore they were objective journalists employed by the Washington Post (through its then-subsidiary Newsweek) assured me in early 2009 that “We Are All Socialists Now.” Around that same time, an absolutely objective journalist employed by the New York Times laid out “The Death of Conservatism.” Also in early 2009, the same people who now tell me that journalism is all about running into fires and that democracy dies in darkness were favorably quoting James Carville that the Democratic Party would be a monopoly power for the next 40 years.

So how can there be a right-wing media today, unless…

Nahh, can’t be. Incidentally, the author of the article, McKay Coppins, is also a staff writer at the Atlantic. I can’t imagine why anyone on the right would be upset with that august publication after all the kind words their star blogger wrote about Sarah Palin in the fall of 2008.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: “Controversial celebrity photographer Jill Greenberg, a self-professed ‘hard-core Dem,’ deliberately took a series of unflattering shots of Republican nominee John McCain for the current cover of The Atlantic – and then bragged about it on a blog.”

THEY DON’T NEED ENERGY, THEY CAN USE ELECTRICITY INSTEAD: Driverless cars are giving fuel economy engineers a real headache. It turns out all those sensors use a lot of power. Who knew?

OF COURSE HE DOES: Chuck Schumer Tries to Racialize Puerto Rico Financial Crisis.

I’ve seen some other people saying that Puerto Rico is getting less attention because its inhabitants are Hispanic. But when a million people in Memphis lost power for weeks, nobody noticed. When the press has the attention span of a gnat, it doesn’t notice much outside its own bubble.

MORE ON THE ROSE MCGOWAN SUSPENSION: Rose McGowan suspended from Twitter after Ben Affleck tweets.

She announced the 12-hour suspension in an Instagram post. During this period she is not able to send tweets or retweets from her account, unless she deletes “tweets that violate our rules”, the notification from Twitter said.

It was not immediately clear which tweets had fallen foul of Twitter regulations.

McGowan has been a vocal figure in the Weinstein scandal since the New York Times broke the story last week and has been using Twitter to express her support for other women who have come forward, as well as to attack those who she sees as being complicit, including the Weinstein Company board of directors and high profile Hollywood figures such as Matt Damon and Affleck.

On Wednesday, Affleck apologised to actor Hilarie Burton for groping her during an appearance on MTV’s Total Request Live in 2003. He had earlier published a statement condemning Weinstein for alleged acts of sexual harassment, prompting the Twitter responses from McGowan, who claimed Affleck was aware of the mogul’s behaviour.

Plus: “Twitter has not made the exact conditions for locking an account public.”

EXPLAINS A LOT: Secret pharmacy serving Congress delivers Alzheimer’s drugs: “It makes you kind of sit back and say, ‘Wow, they’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.’”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY EDITION: Professors warn academic intolerance for dissenting views is reaching new highs. But when taxpayers lose patience and won’t fund it, academics will blame “anti-intellectualism.”

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, updated hourly.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Digital Deals.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The Democrats’ IT scandal just got even more bizarre. The press is giving this story the kind of loving attention that NBC gave to the Harvey Weinstein story.

LOUD AND PROUD: UK MP Calls for ‘Very Loud’ Pro-Brexit Voices in U.S. “Architect of EU exit notes Britain can’t start renegotiating trade deal with America ‘until we’ve left… we can’t actually sign’.”

Maybe State is worried that we’d upset Brussels.

INSTITUTIONAL ROT IS EVERYWHERE: Former West Point professor’s letter exposes corruption, cheating and failing standards.

KURT SCHLICHTER: BEHOLD OUR BETTERS:

To be a normal American is to constantly be scolded, to be lectured, to be treated as a morally bankrupt simpleton in need of the guidance and direction provided by an urban elite ruling class notable for its empty academic credentials, its track record of incompetence, and its idolization of people who erotically abuse the foliage.

If we are to have betters, is it so wrong for us to demand that they actually be better? Superiors should be distinguished by their superiority – if you presume to take charge shouldn’t you demonstrate tactical, technical, and moral mastery? So what has our ruling class mastered lately? What is the skill set that sets the smart set apart?

Fiddling the rules so that they come out on top, mostly. Oh, and self-righteousness.

UPDATE: A reader sends: “2020 is going to be so great. War on women! Party of rape!”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Armed Ground Robots Could Join the Ukrainian Conflict Next Year.

Ukrainian military leaders and defense industry officials showed off their experimental Phantom robot on Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army show in Washington, D.C. It has an extendable frame that can be outfitted with treads like a tank or with six wheels, and armed with anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers, or machine guns. Currently in testing, the Phantom could be sent into action against Russian-backed forces as early as next year, they said.

Russia, too, has a wide array of ground bots it could dispatch to the conflict, though Moscow has not signaled its readiness to do that. But Russian drones of the flying variety have been used to tremendous effect there. They identify enemy positions to target fires. They hijack cell-tower signals to deliver false messages and texts, an effect experienced by Ukrainian soldiers and even NATO soldiers outside the country.

There’s video of the Phantom at the link, which doesn’t look much more dangerous than an RC car.

BECKET ADAMS: Hollywood is brave so long as the targets are easy.

Everything about the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal is shocking.

From the number of alleged victims, to the high-profile celebrities who say they were abused by the Hollywood heavyweight, there’s nothing about this story that doesn’t leave one stunned.

What isn’t shocking, however, is that the entertainment industry, whose members pride themselves on their supposed courage, is full of cowards.

As details of Weinstein’s behavior continue to emerge — and they are getting worse by the day — one question continues to overshadow all the rest: How was this allowed to go on for so long when so many people apparently knew about it?

By some accounts, Weinstein’s reported abuse dates back to at least the late 1980s. These same accounts also say the producer’s vile behavior was well-known within the industry. So well-known, in fact, that it was considered Hollywood’s biggest “open secret.” His behavior was even the subject of a sly punchline in 2013 during the Academy Award nominee announcements.

Yet, here we are in 2017, and Weinstein is only now being made to answer for his actions.

It’s one thing for the victims to remain silent, usually because they feel intimidated. That is common for the abused, and you won’t find any criticism of Weinstein’s targets here. But what about the many celebrities and Hollywood operatives who were in on the joke, who have come forward since the damn burst to allege that most of the industry knew about Weinstein? Actors knew. Actresses knew. Other producers knew. People in the press knew.

Not just cowards, but worse. Being in the know made them feel special. They were complicit.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Starving homeless woman eats a CAT in front of shocked crowd as Venezuela’s economic crisis continues.

Think of it as one less predator on Venezuela’s next big food source.

TWITTER’S WAR ON WOMEN: FIRST MARSHA BLACKBURN, NOW THIS: Twitter Suspends Account Of Weinstein Accuser Rose McGowan.

JOURNALISM: How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé: ‘NBC did everything they could to delay it, complicate it, and ultimately [kill] it.’

As IowaHawk explained:

Or, as Jim Treacher did: