WELL, THAT WAS UNEXPECTED: Swarthmore students upset they actually got in trouble for office sit-in protest.

IT TOOK A GAY AUTHOR TURNED PODCASTER TO ROAST LIBERALS MELTING DOWN OVER TRUMP: The author turned podcaster lays waste to liberals still raging over Hillary Clinton’s loss.

AND THIS IS WHY THEY’RE EXTINCT: Tyrannosaurus rex was a sensitive lover, scientists find.

HAZARDS OF THE GIG ECONOMY: Uber driver unknowingly picks up boyfriend’s ‘side chick’ at the airport.

THE MORAL CURRENCY HAS BEEN SO DEVALUED HERE THAT FEW CARE, THOUGH: Spengler: The ‘Racism’ Libel Against the Trump Administration: Even some Republicans joined in.

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IT’S COME TO THIS: Trump-Hatred In The World Of Fashion. “How crazy are liberals? This crazy: a lefty fashion commentator writing in New York Magazine describes her own creepy behavior, and turns it into an indictment of Melania and Donald Trump. The writer is Cintra Wilson, who worked for the New York Times–who else?–as a “’critical shopper.’ She describes an episode that occurred in 2011, and that reflects poorly on her.”

“THEY’RE SUPER-CEREAL, YOU GUYS:” Actual tweet by PETA: “Did you know that milk has long been a symbol used by white supremacists?”

Back in 2001, Reason’s Ronald Bailey  noted how the fear of Fluoride, once parodied so brilliantly by Sterling Hayden’s Bircher-esque general in Dr. Strangelove, was, by the late 1990s, an obsession of the anti-science left. But hey, as Hayden’s character warned back in 1964, “Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk… ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream.”

Congratulations PETA, you went full General Jack D. Ripper. Never go full General Jack D. Ripper.

WHICH IS WEIRD, SINCE I’M ASSURED THAT HER BOSS, DONALD TRUMP, IS PRACTICALLY HITLER: Nikki Haley is kicking anti-Semites in the UN to the curb.

POTHOLE COAST HIGHWAY: With its dams and roads crumbling, California faces an infrastructure crisis.

Regarding the former, Jerry Brown, governor will get to deal with the mess initially created by Jerry Brown, mid-‘70s environmental activist. Regarding the latter, those crumbling highways play perfectly into Brown’s plan to put the state on a “road diet” and hasten the California left’s sweetest desire: high-speed rail, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Fred Silverman green-lit Supertrain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUERtAe73NI

WHY IS CANADA SUCH A CESSPIT OF SEXIST BRUTALITY? Man’s Cardiac Arrest Death Linked to Workplace Bullying. “Eric Donovan loved his job of 17 years at a Canadian nonprofit agency that runs group homes and programs for adults with intellectual disabilities. But during the final years of his life, that love turned to stress as Donovan felt he was being bullied by Nadine Hendricken, his supervisor at Queens County Residential Services. . . . Donovan’s co-workers also testified that Hendricken was known as a bully, while Donovan was known as ‘helpful and generous’ to his colleagues and “conscientious and compassionate” with group home residents. Per his widow, things got really bad after Donovan injured his back during an attempt to restrain an aggressive client on Sept. 30, 2013. Lisa alleges that Hendricken had called Donovan a ‘wimp,’ in front of his co-workers, prior to the incident, and that when he returned to work after his medical leave, she “berated” him as ‘weak,’ again in front of colleagues.”

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KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: What Devin Nunes Knows:

California Rep. Adam Schiff may not offer much by way of substance, but give him marks for political flimflam. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was so successful at ginning up fake outrage over his Republican counterpart that he successfully buried this week’s only real (and bombshell) news.

Mr. Schiff and fellow Democrats spent this week accusing Chairman Devin Nunes of carrying water for President Trump, undermining the committee’s Russia investigation, and hiding information. The press dutifully regurgitated the outrage, as well as Mr. Schiff’s calls for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation into possible Russian electoral meddling.

All this engineered drama served to deep-six the important information Americans urgently deserve to know. Mr. Nunes has said he has seen proof that the Obama White House surveilled the incoming administration—on subjects that had nothing to do with Russia—and that it further unmasked (identified by name) transition officials. This goes far beyond a mere scandal. It’s a potential crime.

I hope that the Trump Justice Department will prosecute this to the full extent of the law.

HEY MIKE PENCE HATERS, MEET PROGRESSIVE SUPERHERO TA-NEHISI COATES.

OMG! THERE’S GOING TO BE A SEQUEL TO AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

I’d love to see a Roman á clef movie about a man who creates a film on global warming (after previously comparing global warming to the Holocaust), then sells his TV network to the ultimate example of Big Oil – and then assumes nobody notices, and comes back with another movie about global warming. To be fair, I’ve already seen the Seinfeld episode predicting such a maneuver:

BE SURE THAT YOUR UMBRELLA IS UPSIDE-DOWN: Mexico makes it RAIN tequila in a bid to attract more tourists.

2017, MAN: Auschwitz Demonstrators Who Killed Sheep Weren’t Neo-Nazis, Officials Say. The headlines just get weirder.

BUT OF COURSE: “Acacia Friedman, from San Diego, was charged with engaging in prostitution. Friedman, pictured left with former President Bill Clinton, is a student at the University of Miami.”

INEZ STEPMAN: Administrative State Delenda Est.

With the election of Donald Trump and Republican majorities in the House and Senate, there is no single issue in a more desperate need of addressing than the out-of-control administrative state.

While taxes and healthcare are perennial policy battles, the so-called “fourth branch” is in many ways responsible for the “rigged game” that many conservative voters are tired of losing. When Democrats are in power, government grows; when Republicans are, it continues to do so at a slightly decelerated pace.

Until Congress and the president take concrete steps to rein in the bureaucrats who stay in office regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, they are at best playing for temporary stakes.

While the Congressional Review Act and the proposed REINS Act are good methods to put legislative power back with Congress, more is needed to control the fourth branch of government from within. The permanent, unaccountable elite that Trump often rails against can find no better symbol than the nearly three million federal government employees who are virtually guaranteed jobs for life. . . .

Around 90 percent of all federal government jobs now have civil service protections, a far cry from the mere handful of protected jobs when the law first passed. And “burrowing,” whereby political appointees secure protected civil service jobs after the president who appointed them leaves office, has become a common practice. Many of the top-level, career-protected bureaucrats in important agencies today were Obama political appointees during the last administration.

With 95 percent—99 percent in the State Department—of political donations from federal employees going to the Democratic Party, it’s hard to say spoils haven’t survived. Instead of the detached, apolitical bureaucracy that turn-of-the-century Progressives imagined, there now exists a permanent class of bureaucrats with almost limitless power over the lives of Americans.

We need dramatic reform, both in the civil service and with regard to regulation.

WELL, THIS IS DISCOURAGING: Exercise is good … but it won’t help you lose weight, say doctors. In my experience, it’s mostly true. Exercise helps you get fitter and look better, but its main impact on my status is that, having invested so much effort in exercise, I don’t want to ruin it by overeating.

BREAKING NEWS FROM 1882:  The Left Is Transforming into a Religion, Maybe a Bit Too Literally.

I blame the Bearded God-Killers of the 19th century.

(Classical reference in headline.)

REALPOLITIK: Haley, Tillerson Say Removing Assad Not Priority; McCain Fears ‘Faustian Bargain’ in Works.

The Faustian Bargain has been our least-worst option since former President Obama erased his own red line four years ago. The rest, until perhaps now, has been nothing but posturing and can-kicking.

MORE WW2 BOMBER PHOTOS: I’m finally catching up with the StrategyPage photo series. One of the greats is featured this week.

The B-25 Mitchell: The plane flown in the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.

The B-25 deserves a two photo bonus. They aren’t part of the series but they are fine photos. I found them in a site search. A sky filled with B-25s: The picture was snapped April 18, 2010 during a memorial for the Doolittle Tokyo raiders. A B-25 air strike — from 2016: Well, the plane was part of an air show at Nellis AFB.

HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS? Liberal voters push Democrats to a new nuclear age.

Buoyed by its initial victory on health care, Democrats are interested in using the improved bargaining position that the party’s House and Senate members suddenly find themselves in.

Instead, progressives are continuing to demand total opposition to Trump.

With the confirmation fight over Gorsuch and a deadline to fund the government both looming, Democratic lawmakers are under intense pressure not to give an inch, even if that means forcing what could be a losing battle over the filibuster in the Senate.

The real nuclear power of course resides in the Reid Option.

HEALTH: No Proof of Benefit from Contralateral Mastectomy, But Rates Rise Anyway.

The proportion of women with early breast cancer opting for contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) almost tripled from 2004 to 2012, despite no changes in the indications for the procedure, data from cancer registries showed.

Overall, the rate of CPM increased from less than 5% of women with early breast cancer in 2004 to 13% to 14% in 2012. Similar increases emerged from analyses of women ≥45 (3.6% to 10.4%) and those who were 20 to 44 at diagnosis (10.5% to 33.3%).

Encompassing 45 states and the District of Columbia, the analysis showed increases in CPM in all states, but the magnitude of increases varied substantially across the states, including one contiguous five-state region that had a combined CPM rate exceeding 42% in younger women during 2010 to 2012, as reported online in JAMA Surgery.

It seems early CPM is becoming the new normal, despite what the story says is a “lack of evidence that CPM improves survival in patients.”