REVIEW: Colt Cobra Revolver. “There was not one malfunction during the five days at Gunsite or later, when I shot the Colt Cobra at my home range.”

JOURNALISM, NBC/BUZZFEED-STYLE: “Controversy Framing” and the “SQUIRREL! Distraction,” Explained.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF LIBERAL FASCISM AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Los Angeles Review of Books reviews Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal.

A long teaching career has provided Lilla opportunity to observe the damage this has wrought on students: “Young people on the left — in contrast with those on the right — are less likely today to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas.” Instead, they engage politics from the vantage of identity, which guarantees that their alliances (with other identity groups) “will never be more than marriages of convenience.”

Even more significant is how the discourse handicaps persuasion in the public square.

Speaking as an X […] This is not an anodyne phrase. It tells the listener that I am speaking from a privileged position on this matter […] It sets up a wall against questions, which by definition come from a non-X perspective. And it turns the encounter into a power relation: the winner of the argument will be whoever has invoked the morally superior identity and expressed the most outrage at being questioned.

Identitarian epistemology thus forecloses the possibility of normative communication. Argument is replaced by taboo. “At times our more privileged campuses can seem stuck in the world of archaic religion. Only those with an approved identity status are, like shamans, allowed to speak on certain matters.”

It is clear why the left intelligentsia’s response to Lilla has been so vicious. For an identitarian — for whom the personal is so deeply constituted by the political — embracing Lilla’s vision requires a radical transformation of self. Despite his fondness for ridiculing the religious intensity of the “social justice warrior,” Lilla fails to recognize that a rejection of one’s political expressivism could be experienced as a religious deconversion. For some, the remedy may well be worse than the disease. Of this reality Lilla is oddly oblivious. And this is tragic. As much as one may enjoy Lilla’s scorching wit, a stronger seasoning of empathy might have occasioned some advice for those navigating such a discomfiting transition.

“A religious deconversion.” The implications of that last paragraph quoted above are chilling — they make an identity politics true believer sound like the equivalent of someone who is deep into Scientology and requires extensive deprogramming to leave the cocoon — which is apparently correct in some cases. This also dovetails with Jonathan Haidt and Insta-co-blogger Greg Lukianoff’s own assertion that trigger warnings and other SJW identity politics are impacting the mental health of students.

As William F. Buckley once wrote:

In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.

Lilla’s book is a timely, enjoyable, if somewhat breezy read, and as the above review hints, no wonder he is angering his fellow leftists. If it doesn’t exist already, a detailed look at how identity politics became seeped into education at all levels (the programming starts long before college these days) and how it is taught would make for fascinating, albeit highly painful reading.

For my own review of The Once and Future Liberal last month at Ed Driscoll.com, click here.

MEDIA AGHAST AS JOHN KELLY SAYS HE’S STAYING AT HIS WHITE HOUSE JOB (Video).

OH: Ellison Refuses to Say if DNC Will Return Its Contributions from Harvey Weinstein.

CYBERWAR: Cyberattack Captures Data on U.S. Weapons in Four-Month Assault.

A cyberattacker nicknamed “Alf” gained access to an Australian defense contractor’s computers and began a four-month raid that snared data on sophisticated U.S. weapons systems.

Using the simple combinations of login names and passwords “admin; admin” and “guest; guest” and exploiting a vulnerability in the company’s help-desk portal, the attacker roved the firm’s network for four months. The Australian military referred to the breach as “Alf’s Mystery Happy Fun Time,” referring to a character from the soap opera “Home and Away.”

The incident, detailed by a senior Australian intelligence official in a speech on Wednesday, was the third major breach of sensitive U.S. military and intelligence data to come to light in the past week.

On Tuesday, a South Korean lawmaker said North Korean hackers had accessed a military database and stolen top-secret files, including a plan for a decapitation strike against top leaders in Pyongyang. That followed reports that hackers working for the Russian government stole details of how the U.S. penetrates foreign computer networks and defends its own.

The identity and affiliation of the hackers in the Australian attack weren’t disclosed, but officials with knowledge of the intrusion said the attack was thought to have originated in China.

Doesn’t anybody take security seriously?

CAR AND DRIVER ROUNDUP: New Cars for 2018.

AT AMAZON, save on Bestselling Appliances.

Plus, bargains on bestsellers in Beauty.

POWER CORRUPTS: Some College Campuses Opting to Stick with Old Title IX Rules.

ASSAULT IS EASY; COMEDY IS HARD: Seth Meyers on Slow Walking the Weinstein Story.

So where are the late night hot takes?

Not since Bill played cigar aficionado with Monica in the Oval Office has there been a subject so ripe for comedic plucking—and yet the after-hours comedy set has been sluggish to take up the subject. Stephen Colbert, who once gleefully called the president Vladimir Putin’s c*ck holster, has had little to say about where Harvey has been sticking his. Lorne Michaels, meanwhile, made a lame excuse for SNL, saying that it was “a New York thing” that nobody else would care about—as if they ever cared how a skit played in Peoria.

Seth Meyers, whose show Late Night was also late to the party, offered his own take on why the late night comedy establishment dragged its feet when it came to Weinstein. The former “Weekend Update” anchor explained to The Hollywood Reporter that it was discretion, rather than squamishness, that dictated the decision

You can read the whole thing, but I doubt you’ll be buying Meyers’ excuse.

FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS, IT WAS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE TO GET ENOUGH TO EAT. NOW: Child and teen obesity rates soar globally, WHO reports.

INDEED: We Can’t Only Blame Men for the Orgasm Gap.

Communication should be a two-way street. And fun, too.

HAPPY DREADFUL BIRTHDAY! Legal Insurrection is 9 years old, and filled with dread.

WHY YOU SHOULD GET A FLU SHOT.

ALIEN VOTER SIGHTING: Meet Kassiah Kamara.

(Essex County Election Records)

J. Christian Adams has the story.

ABOUT TIME: U.S. withdraws from UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural organization, citing anti-Israel bias.

CHANGE: Colorado’s 2017 marijuana sales reach $1 billion in just eight months.

GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE: VA conceals shoddy care and health workers’ mistakes.

WAPO HEADLINE: Trump to sign order to eliminate ACA insurance rules, undermine marketplaces.

Imagine the mental summersaults one must jump through to believe that allowing people to buy the kind insurance they need from the insurer they prefer “undermines” marketplaces.

HMM: Antihistamine shown to improve function in MS patients.

SARAH HOYT: Why We Must Go to the Stars.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: West Point superintendent responds to outrage over pro-Communist former cadet.

On Wednesday, West Point superintendent Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen responded to the outrage in a letter addressed to the men and women of the U.S. Military Academy.

“I ask that you help me prevent the negativity associated with the alleged behavior of one graduate from causing us to lose sight of the thousands of graduates who sacrifice and serve honorably every day,” he wrote.

Second Lt. Spenser Rapone, who is assigned to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, is under investigation for his subversive political views by both his unit and West Point.

USMA’s investigation is focusing on “policies and procedures as they pertain to then-Cadet Rapone’s time at USMA, and USMA’s determination of his suitability for graduation and commissioning,” Caslen wrote.

There doesn’t seem to have been any mystery about Rapone. As Kurt Schlichter wrote last week:

We have now reached the pinnacle of the military’s moral bankruptcy with the revelation that one Second Lieutenant Spenser Rapone is a communist. Not like a wannabe communist, not like a routine college-years liberal dummy, but a full-on, dictatorship-of-the-proletariat communist.

While at West Point.

Yeah, and the Academy knew. The chain of command knew what this guy was, because he told them (Army alumni have done the job the MSM, which probably sympathizes with this idiot, has failed to do, digging up plenty about him and putting it out on social media). But the Academy let this creep slide through anyway. They let a guy who unequivocally stated his hatred for this country get a security clearance.

“You go to war with the Army you have,” and apparently too many in our Army would rather let things slide than fight.

A GUEST POST FROM JOHN RINGO:

Deflection in abuse syndrome: Are Hollywood Actresses really angry at Conservative men? Or is it all just a sham?

The simple answer to the question is: Yes. But not because conservative men have abused them. Because they are forced to be silent, for various sociological and psychological reasons, about their abuse at the hands of the ‘in-crowd’ of liberals by which they are surrounded. And they lash out at any convenient target.

Let’s put this in a perspective that might make sense: A high school cheerleading team.
We’ll call the town this takes place in ‘Hollywood’.

When the new freshman girls reach high school they’re SOOO EXCITED! They were cheerleaders in junior high and now they might get on the JV CHEERLEADING TEAM and even be VARSITY CHEERLEADERS! YAY! GO HOLLYWOOD!

So let’s follow the career of a freshman aspiring JV cheerleader named, oh, Ashley.

As part of Ashley’s tryout she’s invited to a HIGH SCHOOL PARTY! (YAY! WE’RE REALLY GROWN UP NOW!) And at that high school party she gets a little drunk and ends up in the morning in a bed full of strangers (various male varsity jocks) wearing nothing but her socks.

She’s embarrassed and shocked and hurt and doesn’t know what to do. Because she’s never had an experience like that before. (Though she’s rarely a virgin.)

Does she call them out? Does she report it? Will it affect her chances of being on the cheerleading team?
At some point she might open up to a Varsity Cheerleader we’ll call, oh, Dame Judy D. And Dame Judy’s rather cold response tends to be: Welcome to the bigs, sister. No shut up and act.

And so Ashley is now part of the herd. She’s one of the ‘important’ people in high school. And she probably ends up being one of the mean girls who makes life horrible for the nerds. (Herein played by anyone with (R) after their name or anyone who can be defined as ‘conservative’.) And the reason that she makes life horrible for the nerds is THEY ARE THE ONLY SAFE TARGET!

If she lashes out at the jocks and Varsity cheerleaders who are actually making her life hell, the best she can hope is a punch in the face. Worse SHE MIGHT BE THROWN OUT OF THE IN-CROWD! She might NEVER DO LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!

And when it’s her time to be the Varsity Cheerleader and some newbie freshman wimp is crying and sulking she tells her: Welcome to the bigs, sis. Now shut up and act.

And when that cheerleader finds a convenient nerd target (herein played by… oh, choose the R target of choice) she makes his life hell. Because she can. And she has to get the rage out somehow.

It’s all part of abuse syndrome, people. I’d wondered about it for some time but the ‘revelations’ about Harvey Weinstein just make it crystal clear. People who are subject to long-term abuse MUST find an outlet for the anger that bubbles in them all the time. They don’t, dare not for various reasons, lash out at their abusers. Think of children in abusive homes. How can they lash out at their parents who are abusing them? They are powerless. So they become bullies in turn.

Conservatives are an easy target. OBVIOUSLY they are worse than the ‘good’ and ‘decent’ liberal men who talk about how important feminism is all the time. Then abuse them. Conservatives HAVE to be worse! They HAVE to be! It’s just not getting reported, just as the abuse they are subjected to by the Harvey Weinsteins of the world is not reported. And since the people around them are ‘their’ tribe, they must, for various psychological reasons, be ‘good’ or at least ‘better’ than the enemy tribe.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t conservatives just as shitty as Harvey Weinstein. There probably are. But they are MUCH more likely to be outed by the news media. (Think of Newt Gingrich and divorcing his dying wife or for that matter the Access Hollywood tape. Interesting that name keeps coming up don’t you think?) Do you really think if a Republican senator was charged by a woman with groping her or masturbating into a plant, that the New York Times would kill the story?

In that way the liberal bias in media can be considered a God send to conservatives and Republicans. It polices our ranks. It is a major weakness for the Democrats and liberals because it refuses to do so. Thus you get the Harvey Weinsteins, the Weiners, the Spitzers who are all ‘protected’ classes until they can’t be protected anymore.

So do liberal actresses and models and all the rest really think conservative men are the worst human beings in the world?
Yes. Yes, they do. Because they have to work every day with some of the ACTUALLY worst human beings in the world. And they have to believe conservative men are worse. Otherwise, there’s no point to being on the ‘good’ side.

Thus when Donald Trump said some needlessly crass things and alleged to have groped women, they immediately saw in him not just Harvey (all the rest of the abusers in Hollywood High not to mention Billy ‘I did not rape that woman’ Clinton) but WORSE THAN HARVEY.

Because Trump has to be worse. They can’t really be slaves to some of the most vile human beings on the face of the planet.

Got news for you ladies: Yes, yes, you are. You enable them every day and by doing so you not only support the abusers, you directly or indirectly tell all the hurt new cheerleaders: Welcome to the bigs, sis. Now shut up and act.

You’re blaming the wrong side.

HMM: Steve Bannon targets reliable Trump supporters in revolt against Mitch McConnell.