Archive for 2018
May 24, 2018
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Big Meeting at WH Today and Much, Much More. “Ok, let’s get this straight right now, there will be no production of documents. I am positive of this. This will be another feckless attempt by Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to hide whatever parlor games were machinating against the Trump campaign. What started the investigation? When did it start? What aother evidence was used to obtain the FISA warrants? Congress cannot get straight answers out of these jokers.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My latest Creators Syndicate column, Israeli Air Force bombs send Iran an unambiguous message. (bumped)
RELATED: Iran’s corrupt and brittle regime faces maximum pressure.
FROM PROF. STEPHEN CALABRESI: Opinion on the Constitutionality of Robert Mueller’s Appointment. “I argue in this Legal Opinion that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller is unconstitutional both under the test for officer inferiority set forth in Justice Scalia’s opinion in Edmond v. United States, which is cited as good authority in Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB and also under the test for officer inferiority set forth in Chief Justice Rehnquist’s majority opinion in Morrison v. Olson. Under both tests, Mueller is acting as a principal officer even though he has not been nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Mueller’s appointment is therefore unconstitutional.”
THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: With death rate up, US life expectancy is likely down again.
STONEWALL — NOT JUST A GAY BAR IN THE VILLAGE: Byron York: FBI appears ready to miss another deadline in Trump-Russia probe.
Related: Grassley Demands DOJ Explain Redaction of Strzok Text Suggesting Obama White House Ran Probe.
REPEAT AFTER ME: “We do not have a right to not be offended.” An Oregon high school student is suing his school, saying it violated his First Amendment rights when it suspended him for wearing a Trump T-shirt. The very terrible and horrifically offensive T-shirt can be seen here. I warn you, sit down before viewing because you might faint.
This is why they need to start teaching civics in elementary schools again.
UNMANNED NAVY COAST WATCHER: A USN petty officer aboard a Mark VI patrol boat launches an unmanned aerial vehicle –somewhere in the Pacific.
MORE EVIDENCE RUSSIA SHOT DOWN FLIGHT MH-17 OVER UKRAINE: The attack occurred in July 17, 2014.
The missile that downed a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 belonged to a Russian brigade, international investigators say.
For the first time, the Dutch-led team said the missile had come from a unit based in western Russia.
All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 died when it broke apart in mid-air flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
It was hit by a missile fired from rebel-held territory in Ukraine. Russia says none of its weapons was used.
But on Thursday Wilbert Paulissen, a Dutch official from the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), told reporters: “All the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces.”
He restated the JIT’s conclusion that the plane had been destroyed by a Russian-made Buk missile, adding that it had been supplied by the country’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade in Kursk.
Everyone knew this was what happened. Forensic analysis in the immediate aftermath of the incident proved it was a Buk surface to air missile, but the Kremlin first said a Ukrainian aircraft downed the commercial jet then claimed the missile came from Ukrainian sources. Now investigators have traced the missile that shot down MH-17 to Russian military stocks.
Here’s what StrategyPage reported on July 23, 2014:
The Ukraine situation got a lot worse a week ago when pro-Russian rebels shot down a Malaysian airliner that was passing through. The official Russian line is that the destruction of the Malaysian airliner was all a CIA plot to discredit Russia and justify NATO expansion. Russia claims a Ukrainian fighter shot down the airliner, which may be why the rebels kept international investigators away from the crash site for so long. Russian aviation experts know that when the wreckage is carefully examined parts of the missile that brought down the airliner will probably be found and identified. Photos of the wreckage already show damage characteristic of what a BUK (SA-11) missile warhead would inflict. The missile has a 70 kg (154 kg) warhead and a proximity fuze that detonates the warhead close to the target and sprays the target with a unique form of metal fragments.
Like I said, the evidence was there, despite the Kremlin agitprop cover story. The StrategyPage report has more background.
ALEX GRISWOLD: Democrats Resurrect the Worst Talking Point in Politics.
JOHN HINDERAKER: James Comey In Panic Mode.
SPY GAMES: U.S. Government Can’t Get Controversial Kaspersky Lab Software Off Its Networks.
“It’s messy, and it’s going to take way longer than a year,” said one U.S. official. “Congress didn’t give anyone money to replace these devices, and the budget had no wiggle-room to begin with.”
At issue is a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enacted last December that requires the government to fully purge itself of “any hardware, software, or services developed or provided, in whole or in part,” by Kaspersky Lab. The law was a dramatic expansion of an earlier DHS directive that only outlawed “Kaspersky-branded” products. Both measures came after months of saber rattling by the U.S., which has grown increasingly anxious about Kaspersky’s presence in federal networks in the wake of Russia’s 2016 election interference campaign.
America’s intelligence chiefs have, too, issued public warnings about Kaspersky software. When asked by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at an intelligence committee hearing last year whether they would be comfortable using Kaspersky software on their computers, all six of the top intelligence leaders—from the Central Intelligence Agency chief to the director of National Intelligence—had the same answer: No.
Plus:
The company works so closely with Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, that agents are sometimes embedded in the firm’s Moscow headquarters. And like virtually all anti-virus products, Kaspersky’s has complete access to any computer on which it’s running, including the ability to riffle through files and, depending on the configuration, upload them to Kaspersky’s servers in Russia. It can also execute arbitrary instructions transmitted from the company’s headquarters.
What a mess.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! My weekly column is up at The Daily Caller. This week we take a look into the reporting out of Gaza, and find it’s much more complicated than you might think:
Many of the scenes propagated by mainstream media range from selective editing to outright falsity. It seems to me that the real question is whether such deception is a function of inherent bias, a conspiracy of sorts, or instead, the attention-grabbing motive best described as “if it bleeds, it leads.”
LEGAL INSURRECTION: Amazon demonetizes conservative website (us). This is very disturbing. I’ve never had any trouble with them, but I suppose that could change. I never saw any sign that Legal Insurrection was violating any of the rules, and the Amazon folks apparently won’t give any specifics.
UPDATE: I believe Walmart.com has an affiliate program now. Perhaps Prof. Jacobson should check it out.
POWER PROJECTION: China’s first home-grown aircraft carrier finishes maiden sea trial amid speculation Asia’s most advanced destroyer will be next.
Launched in April last year, the Type 001 carrier sailed out of the northeastern port of Dalian on Sunday.
Xinhua said that the main purpose of the trial was to test its domestically developed propulsion systems.
Engineers from the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and PLA Navy will now assess the test results of the first sea trial, said Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military expert.
The next trial would focus on a number of systems, including the ship’s electronics and radars, and would involve much more detailed tests, he said.
Tests on the new carrier will continue for the next six to 12 months in different waters and varied ocean conditions before it is delivered to the PLA navy.
“Engineers from the builder will work together with the PLA Navy for the tests until it is handed over to the PLA Navy,” Song said.
Related: Chinese J-20 stealth fighter jets carry out first sea training mission.
COMPLICATING THE NARRATIVE: Moses Farrow defends Woody Allen, details Mia’s alleged abuse.
Full report here.
BLUE STATE BLUES: Checking the math on California’s cap and trade, some experts say it’s not adding up.
Far more troubling are red flags highlighted in reports from academia, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, independent market experts and other major carbon markets, all concluding that California has a serious problem with too many unused pollution credits.
In the cap-and-trade system, major polluters must either produce fewer greenhouse gases to comply with California’s emissions caps or buy credits to offset their excess emissions from companies that pollute less. Credits are traded at state-sanctioned auctions and on secondary markets. And the state gives some free to utilities, natural-gas suppliers and industries that are vulnerable to out-of-state competition.
Some companies have not yet needed to use up the allowances to stay within state emissions limits and probably won’t have to in the next couple of years, according to some analysts, who estimate there are hundreds of millions of unused credits in the system.
The result is a glut of credits that could allow businesses to keep polluting past state limits in later years, after the overall cap becomes more restrictive. Unless the oversupply is addressed, experts say, polluters will have no incentive to cut emissions to required levels by 2030; instead, industries could continue polluting and use banked allowances to offset their emissions and technically keep them under the cap.
The state Legislative Analyst’s Office foresees a reckoning, estimating that because of excess allowances, actual emissions could be as much as 30 percent over the statewide target by 2030.
Positive spin: Sacramento finally produced a surplus of something.
Think of them as Democratic Party operatives with bylines and the logic is plain.
CHANGE: Tunisians Protest For the Right to Eat in Public During Ramadan. “Tunisia is a civil state and not an Islamic state.”
YALE, USC, AND NOW MICHIGAN: ‘Girls Code Camp’ and other gender-specific programs under fire at University of Michigan for potential Title IX violations.
After receiving a complaint from an economics professor, University of Michigan school officials are currently reviewing 11 separate university programs that may be in violation of Title IX, the Michigan State Constitution, and UM’s own nondiscrimination policy by specifically favoring female students and female hospital patients over males.
According to professor Mark J. Perry, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and professor of economics at the UM-Flint campus, programs such as “Girls Code Camp” and “The Och Initiative for Women in Finance, Math and Sciences” may possibly be in violation of Title IX guidelines regarding gender discrimination because they appear to be “illegally granting preferential treatment for cis women and illegally discriminating against men and gender non-conforming students, faculty and patients.”
In his complaint, Perry highlighted 11 total campus programs or initiatives that appear to be in violation of the University of Michigan’s own guidelines of gender discrimination, as well as the “Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972, Section 681. Sex” policy that forbids gender discrimination “under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Perry also pointed out that the school may also be discriminating against their own medical patients as well by offering initiatives such as the “Women’s Respiratory Clinic” and the “Women’s Heart Program,” both of which are listed as offering medical treatments specifically tailored to “women.”
In conducting his research, Perry also found that before benefits, University of Michigan spends an astonishing $8.4 million dollars each year employing a diversity staff of 93 individuals, 23 of whom earn more than $100,000 each year. The top paid diversity officer is Robert Sellers, who serves as the vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer and takes home an annual salary of $396,550 per year.
Well, on the other hand, such employees provide reliable votes and ground troops for Democrats.
And congrats to Mark Perry for speaking up. I think we need more of this.
OPEN THREAD: The possibilities are endless.