THE SJW SINGULARITY HAS BEEN REACHED: “Fighting Trump via a romance novel about gay Muslims who pretend to be animals. No, really.”

Slate is the last Website owned by the Graham family, which also owned the Washington Post until its 2013 sale to Jeff Bezos. Something very strange has gotten in the water there recently. In addition to their above weirdness spotted by Rod Dreher, NewsBusters notes that “Slate Boss Salutes Irresponsibility: ‘I’m Glad BuzzFeed Published It.’”

CBS — which has refused to publish the details — brought on Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg, who saluted BuzzFeed’s decision to disseminate the anti-Trump hit piece.

Weisberg admitted that the document was composed of “gossip” including some which is “not true,” but nevertheless “I’m glad BuzzFeed published it because I got to read it.”

So it’s fake but accurate in Weisberg’s mind, to borrow from the New York Times’ phrase excusing RatherGate. Just think of them as Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense. Well, other than the gay Muslim furries part – that’s still pretty darn weird, even for Slate.

D.B. COOPER HIJACKING UPDATE: The FBI closed the 1971 airplane hijacking and ransom case in July 2016. The hijacker parachuted from the plane, with the cash. However, amateur sleuths have turned up an intriguing lead.

The three amateur scientists have found rare-Earth elements on the JCPenney tie the infamous skyjacker left behind when he jumped out of a commercial airplane on a blistering night in 1971, with $200,000 in unmarked bills, a parachute, and a raincoat. The sleuths say the elements could indicate Cooper was an engineer or manager in the aerospace industry.

This is an informative article with a succinct summary of the crime.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Clay Chambers, Success: How People Succeed.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Alan Dershowitz: Obama’s Mid-East Legacy Is Tragic Failure.

TEN YEARS AGO TODAY ON STRATEGYPAGE: Intelligence: The New Noise from Director of National Intelligence.

I’m posting this oldie without comment and current links — really don’t have time to do what I did yesterday with Strategic Weapons. Scan the decade-old post, consider current U.S. intelligence reports in the media, etc.

Oh yes — here’s one from January 13, 2007 I should have posted but I had no time. Information Warfare: Microsoft, the NSA and China. Scan the old post. Pull your chin. Hacking and digital privacy issues– are they topics with current resonance?

A lot’s changed, a lot hasn’t.

LIFE IN THE AGE OF OBAMA: What You Need To Know About Syphilis. “If you thought we were basically done with syphilis as a society, you’re not the only one. Back in the early 2000s, the disease was considered to be quite rare. But we’ve seen a steep and troubling increase in cases over the past decade.”

TOLERANT LEFT STRIKES AGAIN: Andrea Bocelli backs out of Trump inauguration because of death threats.

ANDREW KLAVAN’S STRANGE NEW TRUMPIAN GLEE:

Look, I don’t care if the Trump fan-bots rail against me, Trump is an unreliable chap, to put it mildly. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he throws away his promises too easily and a lot of his instincts are leftist in the worst way. Everything he’s done so far could be scuttled on the rock of his personality.

But that hasn’t happened yet and every day is another day. And today, after eight years of a dishonest, undemocratic, anti-American scold in the White House, I am feeling gleeful. Almost pretty. Okay, gleeful.

He’s far from alone; the left’s psychotic post-election meltdown – after years of promising “a new civility” and demanding the same of Trump voters had Hillary won — has done much to remind reluctant Trump supporters why they voted for him.

ATLANTIC CITY CASINOS REFUSED TO GIVE PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER WHAT HE HAD WON. INSTEAD OF PAYING HIM, THEY SUED HIM: Gambler Phil Ivey Can’t Get His Millions Because Casinos Are Too Big To Fail: “The Borgata alleged that Ivey’s actions, which the casino agreed to in advance, constitute cheating. In fact, they merely constitute a gambler getting a legitimate advantage over the casino. In this age of cozy cooperation between the state and the gaming industry, that’s something that’s just not allowed.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1346: IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins Resigns, Effective Jan. 20; GOP Questioned His Role In Tea Party Targeting.

IF HE CAN’T, WHO CAN? Roger Simon: Can Peter Thiel Save California? “To have someone in the State Capitol in Sacramento with Thiel’s creativity would be extraordinary, scratch that, astonishing. He might make the most libertarian governor in American history. . . . But could he win? I dunno. Could Trump?”

For those who say that the Hispanicization of California makes a Thiel win impossible, remember Victor Davis Hanson’s Hispanic neighbor who voted for Trump. People said demographic changes made Trump’s win impossible, too.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Law professor gets a traffic-camera ticket. Hilarity ensues.

I then asked the question one is taught never to ask on cross—the last one. “So, you signed an affidavit under the pains and penalties of perjury alleging probable cause to believe that Adam MacLeod committed a violation of traffic laws without any evidence that was so?”

Without hesitating he answered, “Yes.” This surprised both of us. It also surprised the judge, who looked up from his desk for the first time. A police officer had just testified under oath that he perjured himself in service to a city government and a mysterious, far-away corporation whose officers probably earn many times his salary.

The city then rested its case. I renewed my motion to dismiss, which the judge immediately granted.

Vindication! Well, sort of. When I tried to recover my doubled appeal bond, I was told that the clerk was not authorized to give me my money. Naturally, the law contains no procedure for return of the bond and imposes on the court no duty to return it. I was advised to write a motion. Weeks later, when the court still had not ruled on my motion, I was told I could file a motion asking for a ruling on my earlier motion. Bowing to absurdity, I did so. Still nothing has happened now several months later.

Why This Matters

Traffic camera laws are popular in part because they appeal to a law-and-order impulse. If we are going to stop those nefarious evildoers who jeopardize the health of the republic by sliding through yellow lights when no one else is around and driving through empty streets at thirty miles per hour in twenty-five zones, then we need a way around such pesky impediments as a lack of eyewitnesses.

Yet traffic cameras do not always produce probable cause that a particular person has committed a crime. To get around this “problem” (as a certain law-and-order president-elect might call it), several states have created an entirely novel phylum of law: the civil violation of a criminal prohibition. Using this nifty device, a city can charge you of a crime without any witnesses, without any probable cause determination, and without any civil due process.

It’s all about money.

FROM PROF. STEPHEN L. CARTER: A SAFE PREDICTION: “Once Trump takes office, the left will swiftly rediscover the virtues of limited government and, in particular, strong constitutional restrictions on the independent exercise of authority by the executive. In a further turnaround, the left will celebrate corporate power as a check on government.”

Since the Left will then change its position immediately whenever it resumes power, Republicans should require that this newfound lefty enthusiasm for small government be put it in hard-to-reverse form, like a constitutional amendment . . . .

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HATE-FILLED ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC FROM DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MARTIN O’MALLEY:

With this sort of over-the-top insurrectionism from leading voices, do the Democrats even deserve to be treated as a serious political party anymore?

UPDATE: Cultural shaming of differing views as an authoritarian mindset.

I HOPE SO: Will Christians Urge UK Leaders to Seek U.S. Support by Rejecting Paris/UN Anti-Israel Moves?

KYLE SMITH: It’s time to face facts: Obama’s presidency was a failure.

The closing arguments for the Obama years are arriving, and they aren’t helping the outgoing president. A case in point is a new book published this week, one that acknowledges “Obama’s supporters have experienced [his presidency] as a continuous disappointment.”

Those supporters, and others, must have noticed that “for most of Obama’s term, wage gains were largely confined to the rich.” Or that “The administration’s planning in Libya clearly failed” or “It is certain that the actual outcome [of Obama’s Syria policy] was disastrous.”

Even many of President Obama’s proudest achievements look about as enduring as April snow: “If there was a single aspect of Obama’s legacy most vulnerable to reversal, it was his achievements on climate change,” the book says, and “Obama’s regulatory offensive is, of course, vulnerable to reversal by Donald Trump or the Supreme Court, since it rested upon executive action.” The longest chapter is titled “The Inevitability of Disappointment.”

Yet the title of the book containing these quotations is “Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail,” by the New York magazine columnist and lefty firebrand Jonathan Chait.

Denial.

SO THE OTHER DAY I MENTIONED THE FEDS’ student loan cutoff at Charlotte Law School. But I have a few more thoughts.

This is an interesting move for the Obama Administration as it heads out the door. It sets a precedent allowing the Trump Administration to crack down on higher ed in general — there are probably a dozen or more law schools as vulnerable as Charlotte — while saying it’s just following policy developed under the Obama Administration.

Then, if they wanted to make life tough on universities in general, they could just agree-and-amplify on the Obama Administrations sex-discrimination policies, while hammering schools over dishonest graduation, employment, and placement claims. Four to eight years of that and nobody would be going to college.

It’s weird that the Obama Administration, for whom higher education has functioned as a gigantic political-action committee, would lay this sort of foundation for higher ed’s ruin. It reminds me of Conquest’s Third Law: “The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”

UPDATE: Obama’s even set a precedent by going after Harvard.

THIS ISN’T A PROTEST, IT’S A CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY: Inauguration Protesters Plan To Destroy Property And Disrupt Balls.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Trump Hits Back at John Lewis [Updated].

Lewis is invariably described as a “civil rights icon,” but the man is an utter fraud. He has been coasting on his 50-year-old reputation for decades. Andrew Breitbart exposed Lewis as a liar when he claimed, falsely, to have been subjected to racial epithets by a crowd outside the Capitol. Lewis disgracefully testified against Jeff Sessions’s nomination as Attorney General, again playing the fake race card. And, for what it’s worth, he didn’t consider George W. Bush a legitimate president, either.

There is no reason to treat John Lewis with kid gloves, and Donald Trump doesn’t do so.

Plus: “The Democrats are already fundraising, dishonestly, off this exchange. A little while ago they sent out an email headed: ‘BREAKING: Donald Trump INSULTS Rep. John Lewis.'” But of course.

Related: The AP Spins Lewis vs. Trump. “Enough with the ‘civil rights legend!’ That was 50 years ago, and has nothing to do with Lewis’s claim that Trump is an illegitimate president-elect, or Trump’s Twitter riposte to the effect that Lewis is an ineffective Congressman. Nor does the impending Martin Luther King day, or the departure of Barack Obama from office, have any relevance. These references are just thrown in so you know whose side you are supposed to be on.”

Yes, but fewer and fewer people care.

Plus: “Lewis has devoted his life to being a hack Democratic Party politician. John McCain was a hero 50 years ago, too, but has that ever stopped the Democrats from criticizing him? No.” That’s different, because shut up racist.

Takeaway:

A LADLE WIELDED WITH FEROCITY BEATS A KNIFE WITHOUT IT: Defensive Ladle Use: Watch cooks chase knife-wielding robber from Chinese eatery. “Note the second cook grabbing the stool as he went after the perp. Smart move. A chair is a great defensive weapon against a knife. My Krav instructor would approve.”

NO, BUT THE REST OF US SHOULD KEEP POINTING IT OUT: Sharpton Can’t Admit Tawana Brawley Hoax. “Brawley claimed she was kidnapped and gang-raped by white men, including a police officer and local prosecutor, in 1987. The story became a national sensation and was a career-maker for Sharpton, who was largely unknown at the time. But after a long investigation revealed Brawley’s claims to be false, it was dropped. Brawley finally began making defamation payments in August for her false accusations in the case, but Sharpton would still admit no fault Tuesday for his controversial involvement.”

OKAY, I LINKED THIS TED CRUZ BEATDOWN OF CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS’ NEWFOUND CONCERN FOR THE RULE OF LAW EARLIER, but it’s worth a full-on embed.

INAUGURATION FUN: Bikers for Trump Ready to Stand up to Protesters.