AFTER AN APPARENTLY BOGUS CLAIM OF A “THREAT:” Creighton Dean Lifts Law Prof’s Suspension After Faculty Threaten Vote Of No Confidence. University administrators like to characterize any strong disagreement as a “threat” in order to marginalize critics. I don’t know that that’s what happened here, but it sure sounds like it.

RESPONDING TO FUTURE BENGHAZIS: The article discusses the Pentagon’s quick response forces for dealing with future attacks on U.S. diplomatic and security facilities.

FLASHBACK: Barack Obama’s Press Freedom Legacy. “As journalists often note, the Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all former presidents combined.”

GO FIGURE:

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Exclusive Army Times survey: Most soldiers support the return of iconic ‘pinks and greens’ uniform.

BRAZILIAN CORRUPTION SCANDAL INVESTIGATION GOES INTERNATIONAL: It’s going to get even more interesting.

A vast corruption scheme that started in Brazil but morphed into a giant international scandal is about to spread even further, a top prosecutor warned on Monday.

Brazil-based Odebrecht, one of the region’s biggest construction companies, was at the heart of a scheme to bribe Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras in exchange for inflated contracts.

Odebrecht also systematically bribed politicians, mostly in Brazil but also in other countries, even running a department to keep track of the bribery.

Odebrecht admitted to paying $788 million in bribes across 12 countries and agreed with the US Justice Department to pay a $3.5 billion fine, a world record in foreign corruption cases.

Some background from 2016.

GOOD OPTICS: France’s Le Pen cancels meet with Lebanon grand mufti over headscarf.

Le Pen, among the frontrunners for the presidency, is using a two-day visit to Lebanon to bolster her foreign policy credentials nine weeks from the April 23 first round, and may be partly targeting potential Franco-Lebanese votes.

Many Lebanese fled to France, Lebanon’s former colonial power, during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war and became French citizens.

After meeting Christian President Michel Aoun – her first public handshake with a head of state – and Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Monday, she had been scheduled to meet the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian

He heads the Dar al-Fatwa, the top religious authority for Sunni Muslims in the multireligious country.

“I met the grand mufti of Al-Azhar,” she told reporters, referring to a visit in 2015 to Cairo’s 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning. “The highest Sunni authority didn’t have this requirement, but it doesn’t matter.

“You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” she said.

The whole thing feels about as spontaneous as kabuki, but will likely play well with French voters.

ANNALS OF FAKE NEWS: When President Obama’s National Security Advisor Lied, The Media Laughed.

THE LATEST SNIT-FIT: Trump’s Enemies: Cancel Presidents Day ‘For the Next Four Years’! How childish and pathetic.

RESIST WE MUCH: ‘Not My Presidents Day’ rallies bring thousands to the streets.

I’m so old, I can remember when “Not My President” was racist.

EIGHT YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

WALL STREET JOURNAL: J. Edgar Moyers. “Memories are short in Washington, and Mr. Moyers has gone on to promote himself as a political moralist, routinely sermonizing about what he claims are abuses of power by his ideological enemies.” There are so many stories like this — hatchetmen rewarded for their service by becoming revered “thinkers” in the media — that it’s really hard to take the “have you no decency” routine seriously any more.

The story is about Bill Moyers asking the FBI to investigate two men who were “suspected as having homosexual tendencies.”

UPDATE: There’s also his financial greed.

AT AMAZON, shop the Home Improvement Outlet.

Plus, deals in Safety and Security.

INSTAPUNDIT READERS WEIGH IN ON TRUMP’S H.R. MCMASTER PICK FOR NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Reader T.J. Linzy writes:

I served with HR McMaster in 2/2 ACR in the first gulf war. He was the E Troop commander; I was a F Troop platoon leader. For your readers who may not know him very well, I would like them to know that this long time Instapundit reader thinks this might be President Trump’s best appointment yet.

HR is is highly intelligent, courageous, and one of the best human beings I have ever known. His integrity, wide-ranging knowledge, and willingness to take the fight to the enemy will dove-tail perfectly with GEN Mattis, IMHO.

Our old, famed unit, the 2d Cavalry (known as the Ghosts of Patton’s Army in WWII), has produced several USA leaders recently, including Mike Powell (Colin Powell’s son and ex-FCC chairman), Doug Lute, US Rep to NATO, and Mike Pompeo, current CIA Director. All were Lieutenants, Captains or Majors in 2CAV in the late 80s and early 90s.

Plus, from another reader:

With President Trump selecting LTG HR McMaster to be the next National Security Advisor, we will no doubt be hearing a lot about the Battle of 73 Easting in the Gulf War. Captain McMaster was in the middle of what may be “the last great tank battle” when his Troop and one other destroyed a brigade of Iraqi tanks. History channel featured it in their series “Greatest Tank Battles” and it is a must watch; I imagine they will replay it soon because of this appointment.

I wanted to add a couple thoughts as I served under him and while I didn’t interact much with him personally, it was clear that McMaster may be the smartest man I have ever met – I went to an “elite” northeast academy and an Ivy – and nobody I know can hold a candle to his ability to learn every side and nuance of almost every conflict around the globe. While at Fort Benning, I was selected by my commander to head up the International Military Student Office where roughly 1000 foreign officers and non-commissioned officers from nearly 100 allied nations attend US Army courses. McMaster was the commanding general at the time of the Maneuver Center of Excellence (combined Infantry and Armor schools) and since it was a somewhat sensitive posting, I had to meet him personally. He was very knowledgeable of what my job would entail and made sure I understood, but he also knew about my entire career up to that point; this is impressive as he had hundreds of captains under him, but not exactly rare as it is a common characteristic of leaders effective enough to make flag rank.

What impressed me the most about him was his interaction with the international students. One of the courses that the international students attended was the captains’ career course and I had 7 cycles of 25-30 students in each ranging in rank from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel. At the end of each class, MG McMaster would have a lunch with them where he would open the floor to any and all questions. These students came from every part of the world, and McMaster was able to answer nearly every question with stunning detail and understanding of the entire geopolitical ramifications behind each situation. In fact, only once did I every hear him say “I am not entirely familiar with that situation…” if I remember correctly, it revolved around a (relatively) new narcotics conflict in Suriname, but he then still answered the question by being able to draw upon knowledge he had in narcotics trafficking conflicts in other parts of South America, and the overall political climate in Suriname. The most challenging questions came from the Pakistanis of the class and while they sometimes became heated, he would approach the student after and speak personally to ensure that while they may not like what he said, they understood that he felt he had to answer them honestly – there was never hard feelings and always mutual respect from both him and the student. Every single student I spoke to afterward was blown away by how McMaster addressed their question and appreciated how much he understood about the problems in their home countries.

These Q&A sessions were scheduled for an hour and almost always went much longer as he was willing and eager to interact with those students whom he told would be “the future leaders of our allies” Imagine being a Lieutenant from a small nation being given this kid of respect and deference by a 2-star general of the US Army! These lunches were not mandatory but he did them anyway because the foreign students sent to study in the US are those officers whose nations predict will be their future senior leaders, quite possibly even some heads of state; McMaster understood to his core that the impressions he made then would affect US foreign relations 10, 20, 30 years into the future.

McMaster is a speed reader and I believe he also has a photographic memory. He was able to have an expansive grasp of the political ramifications on almost every live conflict in the world and it wasn’t even his job at the time to know them – his job was to train Infantry and Armor officers, but he knew that adding this aspect to his own education and the educations of those studying under him would make them better. This man is a perfect fit for the job of NSA and hopefully he will not meet the same resistance that so many current appointees encounter.

TJ Buttrick, CPT, US Army (retired)

And I don’t want to share details without permission, but a former student of mine who served with McMaster was saying similar things on Facebook.

ACE ON MILO: “I would say an important additional dimension here is that if they can do it to him, they can do it to you too. And they seem to be really doing it.” Lena Dunham writes a book where she reminisces about abusing her baby sister and it’s no big deal. Milo talks about being abused, says it wasn’t that bad, and Simon & Schuster cancels his contract. Double standards indeed.

Meanwhile, he should self-publish. He’ll make a lot more money, and, really, you can’t rely on lefty platforms. They’ll cut you loose in a second.

AND THEY KEEP TELLING US THAT TRUMP’S CRAZY: ‘Trump Trance’? Media Sure It ‘Heard’ Sweden Comment Trump Never Said.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: For Generation Z, ‘Live Chilling’ Replaces Hanging Out in Person: Teens are finding their friends via video chat, in apps such as Houseparty, Fam and Kik. “It isn’t just that teens have phones, and that the infrastructure required to handle multiple simultaneous video streams is more accessible to developers than ever. It is also that teens aren’t getting out to socialize in real life like they once did. . . . To a large extent, all these technologies have been an adaptation to teens’ inability to access one another in person, says Jan Odiaga, assistant professor at Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago, who studies how technology influences activity levels in young people. The situation is worse than ever because of packed schedules, helicopter parenting and the decline of walkable neighborhoods.”

GEE, I WONDER WHY MEN AREN’T EXCITED ABOUT GETTING MARRIED THESE DAYS? Campbell’s Knows.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Trump And The Crisis Of The Meritocracy.

Donald Trump has been president for a month now, and it’s been months more since he was elected. But the division over him, and his presidency, hasn’t settled down. If anything, it’s gotten worse. But why?

I don’t think it’s Trump’s policies, which seem to be more popular than he is. And though many of his pronouncements are portrayed as extreme, his statements on, say, immigration seem eerily like what former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were saying not all that long ago. So why all the anger over Trump?

As I’ve pondered this, I’ve gone back to Tyler Cowen’s statement: “Occasionally the real force behind a political ideology is the subconsciously held desire that a certain group of people should not be allowed to rise in relative status.”

I think that a lot of the elite hatred for Trump, and for his supporters, stems from just such a sentiment.

Do I have to tell you to read the whole thing? Do I?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: All the Guns John Wick Shoots in Chapter 2.

JUST NBC THE AMNESIA! KATY TUR CAN’T RECALL OBAMA’S 2012 ‘FLEXIBILITY’ HOT MIC TO RUSSIANS.

And thus NBC comes full circle — Sharpton and Brian Williams invent fake news, and Tur conveniently forgets the real thing.

Just think of the network’s “news” division as being largely staffed by Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

FLASHBACK: NBC’s Tom Brokaw conveniently forgetting Obama’s worldview on the eve of the 2008 election:

https://youtu.be/hzMas1bVidw

KURT SCHLICHTER: President Trump Has Been Far Too Nice To The Mainstream Media.

REPORT: SIMON & SCHUSTER IS CANCELING MILO’S BOOK DEAL.

Plus related thoughts from Ace of Spades.

CLOSED CIRCUIT TV FOOTAGE OF KIM JONG NAM’S ASSASSINATION?: CNN says that the footage “appears” to record the assassination. The date, time and location support that conclusion. This clip first aired on Japanese television. Kim Jong Nam is the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Nam definitely suffered an Un-seemly death.

LEMONADE: H. R. McMaster is the new National Security Adviser. Trump already has General Mattis on his team, as SecDef. In McMaster, the President has another stellar military officer with a superb intellect and an earned reputation for out-of-the-box conceptualization.

I still don’t think we know the whole story about LTG Mike Flynn. I don’t know what transpired between Flynn and VP Pence. But the Administration has responded to the perceived political difficulties by finding a first-rate replacement.

AUTOMATION: The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates

In a recent interview with Quartz, Gates said that a robot tax could finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools, for which needs are unmet and to which humans are particularly well suited. He argues that governments must oversee such programs rather than relying on businesses, in order to redirect the jobs to help people with lower incomes. The idea is not totally theoretical: EU lawmakers considered a proposal to tax robot owners to pay for training for workers who lose their jobs, though on Feb. 16 the legislators ultimately rejected it.

“You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed” of automation, Gates argues. That’s because the technology and business cases for replacing humans in a wide range of jobs are arriving simultaneously, and it’s important to be able to manage that displacement. “You cross the threshold of job replacement of certain activities all sort of at once,” Gates says, citing warehouse work and driving as some of the job categories that in the next 20 years will have robots doing them.

I wonder what Gates would think of punitive taxes on, say, office productivity software which helped to eliminate so many inefficient office jobs.