GOOD! University of Illinois cracks down on ‘heckler’s veto.’

The University of Illinois system released a new set of guiding principles Friday that explicitly prohibit students from exercising a “heckler’s veto” to prevent free speech on campus.

“An unyielding allegiance to freedom of speech—even controversial, contentious, and unpopular speech—is indispensable to developing the analytical and communication skills of our students and empowering all members of our university communities to be active and informed citizens,” the document asserts before outlining measures designed to safeguard that freedom.

While the university system vows to “vigorously and even-handedly protect community members against conduct that falls outside the First Amendment—including true threats, pervasive harassment, incitement to imminent lawless action, and libel—regardless of whether that illegal conduct happens to be undertaken for expressive purposes,” it also makes clear that conduct intended to disrupt lawful speech will not be tolerated.

More like this, please.

WHEN STORIES DON’T HOLD UP: Apple or banana? We’re STILL very curious about Anderson Cooper’s assistant and that tweet.

A REMINDER THAT The Volokh Conspiracy is now at Reason, with no paywall.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Arkansas State sued for banning students from telling peers they have First Amendment rights.

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BREACHER HITS THE BEACH: A USMC M1A1 assault breacher vehicle (ABV) rolls off a landing craft in exercise Steel Knight 2018. (The ABV is a M1A1 Abrams tank modified for combat engineer missions such as breaching a minefield. Here’s a basic description of the vehicle.)

VERY RELATED: The Orange County Register describes the full-scale USMC Steel Knight exercise. It is an annual exercise — but this year remember Inchon.

FIRST, TAVIS SMILEY.

Next: The NYT’s Russell Simmons Rape Expose Is A Nightmare.

Also: WATCH: NY Governor Mansplains Sexual Harassment To Female Reporter.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIALIZES: The FBI’s Trump ‘Insurance:’ More troubling evidence of election meddling at the bureau.

Democrats and the media are accusing anyone who criticizes special counsel Robert Mueller as Trumpian conspirators trying to undermine his probe. But who needs critics when Mr. Mueller’s team is doing so much to undermine its own credibility?

Wednesday’s revelations—they’re coming almost daily—include the Justice Department’s release of 2016 text messages to and from Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent whom Mr. Mueller demoted this summer. The texts, which he exchanged with senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page, contain expletive-laced tirades against Mr. Trump. Such Trump hatred is no surprise and not by itself disqualifying. More troubling are texts that suggest that some FBI officials may have gone beyond antipathy to anti-Trump plotting.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office—that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Mr. Strzok wrote Ms. Page in an Aug. 15, 2016 text. He added: “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

What “policy” would that be? The “Andy” in question is Andrew McCabe, the deputy FBI director. FBI officials are allowed to have political opinions, but what kind of action were they discussing that would amount to anti-Trump “insurance”?

In another exchange that month, Ms. Page forwarded a Trump-related article and wrote: “Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace.” He thanked her and assured: “Of course I’ll try and approach it that way.” Mr. Strzok, recall, is the man who changed the words “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless” in James Comey’s July 2016 public exoneration of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The McCabe meeting came on the heels of the FBI’s launch of its counterintelligence probe into Trump-Russia ties. July is also when former British spook Christopher Steele briefed the FBI on his Clinton-financed dossier of salacious allegations against Mr. Trump. The texts explain why Mr. Mueller would remove Mr. Strzok, though a straight shooter wouldn’t typically resist turning those messages over to Congress for as long as Mr. Mueller did.

Meanwhile, we’re learning more about the political motives of Mr. Mueller’s lieutenant, Andrew Weissmann.

Related: Fusion DOJ: It’s getting hard to tell where the Clinton campaign ends and the federal law enforcement apparatus begins.

Is animus toward President Donald Trump a prerequisite for landing a job with special counsel Robert Mueller ? Recent revelations in Washington also raise again the question of what former President Barack Obama knew about the decisions of his FBI Director James Comey to exonerate Hillary Clinton and investigate Mr. Trump in 2016. . . .

Mr. Trump does not have to be paranoid to believe that the indigenous creatures of the Beltway swamp are out to get him. A number of them have put it in writing. This column can only imagine what the two political lawyers Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok said about Mr. Trump when they weren’t creating electronic records of their conversations.

Plus: Why did a federal judge overseeing a major Fusion GPS court case never disclose that she worked for multiple firms that hired Fusion GPS?

HARMEET DHILLON: Here’s How The Defeat Of Hillary Clinton Led To The Sexual Harassment Revolution.. “If President Hillary Clinton ran the country, and Bill Clinton were the First Gentlemen, would we be experiencing this cultural moment recognizing the problem of sexual harassment, and would the 2017 Person of the Year be those who spoke out about being harassed? Certainly not. More likely, Harvey Weinstein would be sipping Chardonnay in the Rose Garden and eating canapes while ogling his next victim, with Bill Clinton doing the same. President Hillary Clinton would be smugly presiding over a brittle edifice of equality, beneath which lurked decades of enabling, shaming, attacking, suppressing, and silencing. Consider the lessons that the Clintons taught generations of young people growing up in the 1990s.”

APRIL RYAN: OMAROSA WAS DRAGGED OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE BY THE SECRET SERVICE. Secret Service: Yeah, that never happened. Fake news is everywhere.

BYRON YORK: After mysterious ‘insurance policy’ text, will Justice Department reveal more on FBI agent bounced from Mueller probe?

Yes, the release of texts sent between top FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page show that both loathed Donald Trump while they were working on investigations involving Trump as a presidential candidate and later as president. Of course, lots of federal employees loathe Trump. It would be hard for all of them to recuse themselves from government matters, although it is probably not a great idea to have them play key roles in high-stakes probes that could have a momentous effect on the presidency.

More troubling, in the set of texts released Tuesday night, is a single message, from Strzok to Page, dated Aug. 15, 2016. Here is what it said:

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40….

What does that mean? “Andy” apparently refers to FBI No. 2 Andrew McCabe, who was overseeing the bureau’s Trump investigation. “He” apparently refers to Trump. And “insurance policy” apparently refers to…well, it is not known what that refers to. Actually, we don’t know with absolute confidence what any of it refers to.

It’s suspicious. And I’d still like to know whether Lisa Page approved Peter Strzok’s warrant applications to the FISA court. I asked Mueller’s office about that, but they said no comment.

PERHAPS, GIVEN OUR NEW SENSITIVITY TO “TRIGGERING,” REVEALING ATTIRE IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT, OF MEN: Dem congresswoman says revealing clothing invites sexual harassment. “Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the longest-serving woman in the House, said Wednesday that some congresswomen and staffers dress so inappropriately that their clothing is ‘an invitation’ to sexual harassment. . . . Kaptur also said she thinks the Hill should have a stricter dress code for females.”

If you want a prim, sexless workplace, it probably involves prim, sexless attire.

PBS HAS SUSPENDED LATE-NIGHT TALK SHOW “TAVIS SMILEY” AMID MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ITS HOST AND NAMESAKE:

In a February piece in the Observer, Jacques Hyzagi, a former producer on Smiley’s television show, wrote that Smiley’s “misogyny is always creeping around, barely camouflaged by Midwestern good manners.” Hyzagi described Smiley picking up a woman at the Orlando airport and bringing her along on a reporting trip as a “fuck buddy”; alleged that Smiley had a romantic relationship with another producer; and quoted Smiley denigrating PBS executives.

Smiley currently has a development deal with Warner Bros. Television. Among the projects in the works under that deal is an adaptation of Smiley’s book “Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson’s Last Days,” about the pop singer, with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot.

The decision to halt Smiley’s program comes just weeks after the public broadcaster made a similar move to end Charlie Rose’s interview show following claims of sexual harassment levied at the host.

At the beginning of 2009, NewsBusters reported on Smiley’s biases:

Chris Matthews won’t be working alone.  Back in November, the Hardball host said it was his job to make Barack Obama’s presidency a success.  Today, another TV journalist expressed a similar sentiment. Tavis Smiley has declared that “we’re all working for Barack Obama” and that “we have to help make Obama a great president.” [H/t reader dronetek.]

The host of Tavis Smiley on PBS was a guest on Morning Joe.  Reacting to Harry Reid’s claim last week that he doesn’t work for Barack Obama, Smiley said Reid should “put down the crack pipe.”  Smiley added “we’re all working for Barack Obama.” It soon became clear that was no passing quip, but a literal description of how he sees his role.

And now it’s time to take one for the team.

SPEND LESS; REVENUES ARE AT RECORD HIGHS AND WE’RE STILL RUNNING A DEFICIT: House GOP Charts Spending Collision With Senate.

DOUG JONES: In ‘gracious’ call, Trump invited me to the White House.

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THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Investigation finds Swedish scientists committed scientific misconduct: Probe centered on controversial paper that claimed microplastic pollution harms fish.

Two Swedish scientists have been found guilty of “misconduct in research” in a paper that they published in Science1 and later retracted. Their highly publicized work had suggested that tiny particles of plastic in the ocean harm fish.

The misconduct ruling was made by an investigative board from Uppsala University in Sweden, where the researchers work.

Marine biologist Oona Lönnstedt and limnologist Peter Eklöv originally reported in their 2016 paper that microplastic particles had negative effects on young fish, including reducing their efforts to avoid predators. The duo’s report described a series of experiments on an island in the Baltic Sea. After other researchers raised questions about data availability and details of the experiments, Uppsala conducted an initial investigation and found no evidence of misconduct.

However, an expert group of Sweden’s Central Ethical Review Board, which was also tasked with vetting the study, concluded in April 2017 that Lönnstedt and Eklöv “have been guilty of scientific misconduct”. The researchers defended the paper but requested that Science retract it in light of questions about their findings. . . .

In its decision, announced on 7 December, the board finds Lönnstedt guilty of having intentionally fabricated data; it alleges that Lönnstedt did not conduct the experiments during the period — and to the extent — described in the Science paper.

Well, it’s hard to argue that’s not fraud.

SPACE: Blue Origin Launches New Crew Capsule on Third New Shepard Rocket: The suborbital booster took the new capsule to the edge of space and then returned for a controlled vertical landing.

Blue Origin launched and landed a New Shepard rocket for the first time since October 2016 at their launch facility in West Texas. The launch, which took place Tuesday, December 12, was the first of a new rocket booster and the company’s Crew Capsule 2.0, which has been upgraded from a previous test capsule by adding large windows and some internal amenities. Ultimately Blue Origin plans to use the New Shepard rocket to launch paying customers on suborbital flights to space.

The seventh flight of New Shepard was the first flight of a new rocket booster, the third Blue Origin has built. The capsule achieved an altitude of 326,075 feet (99.39 kilometers), which is just shy of the internationally recognized boundary for space at 100 kilometers, known as the Karman line. The booster then returned for a propulsive vertical landing and the capsule landed using a parachute.

Faster, please.

HELPFUL KNOWLEDGE: A Visual Guide To Lock-Picking.

ANOTHER OPEN THREAD: Because you folks have a lot to say.

KYLE SMITH RESPONDS TO A NEW YORKER STORY: Dear “Cat Person” Girl: Here’s how to avoid soul-crushingly bad sex. “I’m sorry about what happened to you, Margot. But I don’t think you have thought through how you got into a terrible situation.”

Frankly, I don’t understand why Cat Person Girl wasn’t called out for fat-shaming.

PAUL MIRENGOFF: Trey Gowdy grills Rod Rosenstein.

SAD: Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens Passes. Great band, nice guy.

Here’s Blood and Roses.

AND ANOTHER ONE: PBS suspends “Tavis Smiley” for sexual misconduct.