I THINK SO: Is Judicial Deference to Agency Fact-Finding Unlawful?

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Space Sex Is Serious Business – Astronauts Haven’t (Officially) Done It, But Here’s Why They Need To.

ANDY McCARTHY: What Crime Would a ‘Special Prosecutor’ Prosecute?

Hey, Hillary lost the election — isn’t that crime enough?!

STEPHEN CARTER: I Side With the ‘Bad Guys’ on Encryption: Law-enforcement agents want the power to break into secure devices. Why should we trust them?

One of the more intriguing pearls in FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week was his disclosure that the Bureau has been unable to penetrate the encryption on about half of the 6,000 cell phones seized in the course of various investigations between October and March. To Comey and the senators, this was plainly a problem. I will confess that my own feelings are more mixed. . . .

When the head of the FBI says to the tech companies, “Please help us,” he is in effect saying to ordinary users, “Please trust us.” And that’s where the problem lies. Little in recent history — or, for that matter, not-so-recent history — offers any particular reason to believe that government officials, once granted a power, will use it sparingly.

Moreover, a warrant requirement offers little protection. The courts rarely say no, and recent administrations, including those of President Donald Trump’s two predecessors, have found ways to get around judicial scrutiny. Nor has Trump himself given the impression that his use of such powers would be sparing. But even if we imagine a government run entirely by angels, we live at a time when intelligence agencies can hardly protect their own secrets, including their hacking tools. If the tech companies yield to official pressure and begin to build backdoors into their encryption, how long will it be until the details show up on WikiLeaks, and the actual methods are being bartered in various corners of the Dark Web?

Actually, the Dark Web is used these days by journalists, who try to evade the vast networks of official surveillance by offering sources the ability to remain anonymous while sending encrypted communications via SecureDrop. SecureDrop uses the Tor network of hidden servers to allow sources and reporters who never meet to exchange untappable messages. Among the many news outlets that have signed on are the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the New Yorker.

Now suppose that the U.S. government demanded that a backdoor be built into SecureDrop. After all, in the view of law enforcement, to disclose classified information to the news media is a crime. Under the Obama administration, more leakers were prosecuted for espionage — espionage! — than in all prior administrations combined.

Well, sure but that was okay because he was a Democrat.

OLD: ORGASMS ARE EVERY WOMAN’S RIGHT!

NEW: “Why is it always the woman who’s orgasming?”

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EUROPE: Emmanuel Macron and the barren elite of a changing continent.

Emmanuel Macron founded a new party, and his election as France’s president is said to herald the “revival of Europe.” Interestingly, Macron has no children.

This is not that notable in itself. After all, George Washington had no biological children. But across the continent Macron wants to bind closer together, there’s a stark pattern:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also has no children. British prime minister Theresa May has no children. Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni has no children. Holland’s Mark Rutte has no children. Sweden’s Stefan Löfven has no biological children. Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel has no children. Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon has no children. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has no children.

This is too remarkable to ignore. While Macron is young—39 years old—the rest of Europe is being governed by childless Baby Boomers.

Europe has chosen . . . poorly.

BYRON YORK: What Grassley and Feinstein said about Trump, the FBI, and Russia.

Blumenthal did not succeed in squeezing Comey for information about the possibility the FBI is targeting Trump. But he did put the subject on the table. And Comey’s answers — non-committal, non-revealing — did not confirm or knock down Blumenthal’s speculation. To that extent, Blumenthal managed to throw out the suggestion that the FBI was targeting Trump himself.

Blumenthal’s tactics were so concerning that on Thursday, at a business meeting of the Judiciary Committee not devoted to any aspect of the Russia affair, Republican Chairman Charles Grassley and Democratic Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein both addressed the subject.

In a carefully-written statement, Grassley said that he and Feinstein were indeed briefed by Comey on the particular individuals targeted in the current FBI investigation. And Grassley strongly implied — in fact, did everything but come out and say directly — that the president is not one of those individuals. . . .

Trump, of course, said in his letter firing Comey that Comey had told Trump, on three separate occasions, that Trump was “not under investigation.”

Finishing his statement, Grassley called on the FBI to “confirm to the public whether it is or is not investigating the president. Because it has failed to make this clear, speculation has run rampant.” In what appeared a clear nod toward Blumenthal, Grassley called on the FBI to brief all members of the Judiciary Committee “on what is actually going on.”

“Hopefully, that will help temper some of the unsubstantiated statements that have been made,” Grassley said.

Feinstein had a prepared statement of her own to make concerning the Comey firing, much of it criticizing the White House’s changing rationales for taking action, plus calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate. But before she began her prepared remarks, Feinstein said a few words addressing what Grassley had just said about Trump and targets of the investigation.

“Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman,” Feinstein said. “I very much appreciate what you’ve said, and it’s very accurate, and we were briefed. And the nature of the briefing was a counter-intelligence and criminal investigation that the FBI was carrying out, and more than that I will not say, either.”

Can we have an investigation into Blumenthal’s lies about serving in Vietnam?

NOT A BAD IDEA. WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT ACTUALLY SERVE? Gingrich urges Trump: ‘Close down the press room’.

THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED . . . OH, HELL, THIS IS TOO EASY: Detroit School to Hold ‘Muslim Girls Only’ Prom.

DEMOCRAT ADVOCATES VIOLENCE? John Lewis encourages ‘necessary trouble’ against injustice in America. If Trump said this it would be considered incitement.

A LINE IN THE SAND for academic philosophy.

MAYBE RARER:‘Rare as winning the lottery’: New dinosaur fossil so well-preserved it looks like a statue.

FLORIDA FAMILY: The mango did not fall far from the tree.

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL AT THE CANNIBAL CAFE: Hollywood’s highest profile feminist gets smacked around by film critics for some surprising reasons.

IT DEPENDS. ARE DEMONS BUYING ICE-SKATES? Late night TV demands this kind of show. But would Hollywood even consider it?

FLORIDA MAN MOVED????? Man arrested after ‘masturbating vigorously’ in public because he ‘hates Portland’.

I CAN’T HELP BUT FEEL UNEASY ABOUT  A TOTALITARIAN REGIME IN SPACE WHEN WE’RE NOT: China plans ambitious space mission to hunt and ‘capture’ asteroids by 2020.

WRONG SQUIRREL! Oops: The New York Times Accidentally Exposed ‘The Hillary Clinton-Russia Nexus’!  (Also, this headline made me cackle like a madwoman, sending everyone in the house to see what I was looking at.)

OH, SURE.  WE REALLY NEED A NEW WAY FOR SHALLOW PEOPLE TO ANNOY EVERYONE ELSE! Can these ‘magic mirrors’ save retailers?

BUT WILL THEY HAVE THE APPROVED OPINIONS? We could be talking to dolphins by 2021.

DAVID FRENCH: How The Elite Poisons Our Culture. “Interestingly, she found that the open marriages she studied were typically initiated by the woman, and the resulting picture wasn’t so much exciting as pathetic and sad. The wife enjoys her new relationship while the husband, desperate to both save the marriage and equalize the arrangement, creates online-dating profiles in the hope that someone will take the bait.”

I believe that some people call men like this “cucks,” but I may have the usage wrong.

Plus: “Among the many fascinating findings in Charles Murray’s seminal book Coming Apart is the reality that our secular elite speaks blue, but largely lives red. In other words, our wealthy, progressive, urban centers are hardly hedonistic enclaves. They’re chock-full of intact families, featuring moms and dads who waited until marriage to have children, value education immensely, and work hard to make sure that their kids make the same choices they did. When it comes to actually arguing for the traditional family values they practice in their own lives, though, liberals are silent.”

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SPACE: What if We Discovered an Alien Civilization Less Advanced Than Our Own?

Rob Merges and I discuss this very topic in our space-law textbook.