INDEPENDENT-COUNSEL-ORAMA: John Hinderaker: Let’s Investigate All The Scandals. “The House Republicans identify no fewer than 14 additional scandals or potential scandals that they want investigated by a second special counsel, Robert Mueller having shown himself to be a tool of the Democratic Party (my characterization, not theirs). . . . Roger Simon more modestly suggests five scandals that need to be investigated, along with Russian activities in connection with the 2016 election: the unmasking scandal, Fusion GPS, Imran Awan, Loretta Lynch’s cover-up of the Hillary Clinton email scandal, and Uranium One. . . . The House Republicans addressed their letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Sessions may or may not have been correct in recusing himself with regard to the investigation into the Trump campaign, but he certainly has no need to defer with regard to the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the fourteen additional subjects raised by the House Judiciary Committee members.”

EQUALITY IS FINE SO LONG AS IT HAPPENS TO OTHER PEOPLE: Democrat Freaks Out After Trump Threatens to Take Away Congress’s Special Obamacare ‘Carve-Out.’

“What they were saying is, ‘We want a little special carve-out,’” Henry said. “Now, will the president be able to do away with that? Who knows. Maybe it’s just rhetoric. But he is pointing out that these lawmakers, who didn’t have the courage of their convictions … he’s saying, ‘Maybe I am going to expose your special deal.’”

Henry argued that Trump’s message “resonates” with a lot of Americans.

It resonates because the American ruling class is entitled, intolerant, and incompetent — and the internet has made it impossible for Washington’s media gatekeepers to cover for them.

OH: Convention Hackers Break Into Voting Machines in Minutes.

FLASHBACK: Paper ballots are hack-proof. It’s time to bring them back.

IT’S LIKE IT’S DESIGNED TO KILL OFF THE WORKING CLASS: “Obamacare Won’t Pay For My Back Surgery, But It Will Pay For Opioids.”

ABOLISH THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX AND IT WON’T MATTER: Should The Government Continue To Exempt Churches From Taxation?

WHEN PEOPLE ARGUE ABOUT MERITOCRACY, IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT “EDUCATION” ISN’T THE SAME AS “MERIT.”

There’s a weird assumption throughout all these articles, that meritocracy is founded on the belief that smart people deserve good jobs as a reward for being smart. . . .

I think this is both entirely true and entirely missing the point. The intuition behind meritocracy is this: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The Federal Reserve making good versus bad decisions can be the difference between an economic boom or a recession, and ten million workers getting raises or getting laid off. When you’ve got that much riding on a decision, you want the best decision-maker possible – that is, you want to choose the head of the Federal Reserve based on merit.

This has nothing to do with fairness, deserts, or anything else. If some rich parents pay for their unborn kid to have experimental gene therapy that makes him a superhumanly-brilliant economist, and it works, and through no credit of his own he becomes a superhumanly-brilliant economist – then I want that kid in charge of the Federal Reserve. And if you care about saving ten million people’s jobs, you do too.

Does this mean we just have to suck it up and let the truffle-eating Harvard-graduating elites at Chase-Bear-Goldman-Sallie-Manhattan-Stearns-Sachs-Mae-FEDGOV lord it over the rest of us?

No. The real solution to this problem is the one none of the anti-meritocracy articles dare suggest: accept that education and merit are two different things!

I work with a lot of lower- and working-class patients, and one complaint I hear again and again is that their organization won’t promote them without a college degree. Some of them have been specifically told “You do great work, and we think you’d be a great candidate for a management position, but it’s our policy that we can’t promote someone to a manager unless they’ve gone to college”. Some of these people are too poor to afford to go to college. Others aren’t sure they could pass; maybe they have great people skills and great mechanical skills but subpar writing-term-paper skills. Though I’ve met the occasional one who goes to college and rises to great heights, usually they sit at the highest non-degree-requiring tier of their organization, doomed to perpetually clean up after the mistakes of their incompetent-but-degree-having managers. These people have loads of merit. In a meritocracy, they’d be up at the top, competing for CEO positions. In our society, they’re stuck.

We have too many people who are credentialed rather than educated, and too many people who think their education creates an automatic entitlement. The problem isn’t with “merit” rising to the top, the problem is that we have a false and destructive idea of what constitutes merit.

DOOOOOOMED, DOOOOOOOOOMED, I TELL YAH: Stephen Hawking and the Temple of Dooms.

PRECIOUS SNOW FLAKE MEDAL, WITH ENTITLEMENT CLUSTERS: Swedish Hiker Calls for Helicopter Rescue Because She Was … Tired.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH: Gun Control Fantasies. Reality based community.  Pfui.

YEP, YEP, YEP: Global Warming and Suckers.

BUT BUT BUT, THE GOVERNMENT SAID YOU COULD KEEP YOUR DOCTOR:1,332 Counties Will Only Have One Health Insurer on Obamacare Exchange in 2018.

IN OTHER NEWS, THE LEFT CONTINUES TO BE OUT OF IDEAS: “Suburbicon” Pummels Hollywood’s Favorite Punching Bag… again.

THERE IT IS, MY SHOCKED FACE:Elizabeth Warren Again Calls for ‘Equal Pay,’ Ignores Pay Gap in Own Office.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The deadly reason why you shouldn’t let dogs lick your face.

WHY ARE LIBERAL-CONTROLLED INSTITUTIONS AND COMPANIES SUCH CESSPITS OF EXPLOITATION, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE? NBC only wants ‘good-looking’ employees: lawsuit.

NOT A PROBLEM FOR THE SELF EMPLOYED: Even if my boss is a b*tch.  When a colleague is laid off, it can send shockwaves throughout the workplace.