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GOOD FOR HER. WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE AFRAID OF A STRONG WOMAN? Tennessee college senior defends posing for graduation picture with gun in her waistband.

“I NEED WIDER POWERS!” Knife-Control Debate Heats Up in the UK amid London Murder Spike.

Murders in the city have increased over the past year, and criminal knife use has been identified as a major contributing factor. Both gun crime and knife crime saw dramatic increases between fiscal year 2015/2016 and fiscal year 2016/2017, according to statistics released by the Metropolitan Police. Knife crime saw a 24 percent increase with a 20.5 percent increase in stabbings. Gun crime saw a 42 percent increase with a 57 percent increase in armed robberies.

The police have been actively engaged in anti-knife crime Operation Sceptre since July 2015. The operation has resulted in “2,294 arrests, 473 of which were for possession of a knife or weapon and the recovery and removal of 1,435 weapons from the streets of London” using a combination of weapons sweeps and sting tactics, police say. The operation is also partnering with a local charity on a drive to get people to anonymously turn in their knives at police stations or at 30 knife surrender bins located throughout London.

“You might be carrying a knife as you are worried that someone is after you and you might want to protect yourself,” Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Duthie said in a public letter. “But that is not the way to go about it.”

Banning guns didn’t work, so they’re going after knives — what will they ban when the knife-ban fails?

HAPPY HOCKTIDE:  I take my holidays wherever I can find them.

GEORGE KORDA: ‘Student-led’ in-school events; who’s in charge around here? “Would students wishing to either protest, or support, Roe v. Wade be allowed to hold an approved in-school event with poetry, student art exhibits, student-led songs, and student speeches? What about students who want to wear T-shirts with the Confederate Flag, who make the argument that they’re not racist, but they feel they ought to have the freedom to wear the shirts if they wish, either as a First Amendment issue or just because they like it? What about any other subject or issue about which students feel inspired to leave class to demonstrate?”

These are like the “student-led” prayers schools used to do in an attempt to get around the Constitution. Just in service of a different religion.

AN IDEA THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE IT’S SURE TO BE IGNORED: Americans Can’t Stand Each Other, So Let’s Stop Forcing Our Preferences on One Another: If you want to avoid conflict among hostile groups, decentralize power—preferably to individuals.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela stopped bond payments in September. “Central bank data suggest government is in ‘a stealth default’, says analyst.”

Margaret Thatcher, call your office.

BIG BROTHER’S LATEST SCHEME: You May Not Be Interested In Social Credit, But Social Credit Is Interested In You.

SPENGLER: President Trump Is Magnificently Right and Catastrophically Wrong. “America’s trade deficit is like a giant benign tumor: It’s troublesome and ultimately dangerous, but it’s a symptom, not the cause, of the underlying problem. Cut it out with a rusty scalpel and the patient will bleed to death. Trump is entirely right to address the problem, but some of the advice he is getting may have disastrous consequences.”

Read the whole thing.

ART OF THE DEAL: China’s president offers US possible trade concessions.

Comment: “If Xi follows through this is legitimately a major success for Trump.”

DIPLOMACY: The Peril of North Korea’s Charm Offensive.

North Korea’s ultimate goal since the end of the Korean War has been to weaken the U.S.–South Korean alliance. To accomplish this, North Korean leaders have devised both coercive and persuasive measures to raise the costs of entrapment and abandonment for Washington and Seoul.

This strategy is based on key differences between conservative and liberal South Korean presidents’ policies on North Korea. The South Korean right often supports a hard-line approach out of ideological confrontation, while the left embraces a reconciliatory tone in the spirit of shared ethnicity.

Pyongyang calibrates its South Korea policy to each administration accordingly, in order to widen the differences between Seoul and Washington. For the South Korean conservatives, Pyongyang increases the frequency and intensity of its nuclear and missile tests. This sets a hard-decoupling challenge, pressuring the U.S. to recalculate the value of the nuclear umbrella it provides to South Korea, and raising the central dilemma of trading New York for Seoul.

For the South Korean liberals, North Korea implements its soft-decoupling strategy, emphasising the shared bloodline between North and South Korea to encourage bilateral economic relations in defiance of international and U.S. sanctions.

It’s Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football — only now the football is nukes.

IT ISN’T ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY: Take a look at these ‘weapons’ found by British police during a sweep.

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE WASHINGTON POST? Both those newspapers are confused about the Obama-era school discipline policy that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos should disavow.   So says my essay on NRO today.

If you are interested in the school discipline issue more generally (and golly gee you should be, since the country is doomed, doomed, doomed if the federal government can’t even let teachers maintain order in their classrooms), then read The Department of Education’s Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline: Wrong for Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard to interrogate profs accused of ‘microaggressions.’

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Looking for ‘solutions’ to mass killings? Start with punishing government failure.

SHOW THEM SOME LOVE: Wells Fargo Resists Union Threats Aimed at Getting It to Drop Gun Manufacturer Clients.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: ‘Deafening Silence of ACLU’ After Raid on Trump Lawyer ‘Really Appalling.’

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Lawyer Gets Manafort-ed and Much, Much More. “One thing is curious: Mr. Cohen was cooperating with the authorities, so why were the jack-boots brought in? A special team of agents will need to go through the material in order to identify communications that are protected under attorney-client relationship. If the New York agents just happen to find something relevant to Mueller’s investigation, they can turn it over to the special counsel The New York Times reports.”

Show me the man, and I’ll find you a crime.

I AM AWAITING THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission—the case about a Christian baker who declined to design a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. He considered this “participating” in the wedding (but he was apparently willing to sell an off-the-shelf cake to all comers). But I can’t say I am eager for the decision, since this isn’t an easy case, and I prefer a well-considered opinion to a quick one.

Cases at the intersection of religious liberty and anti-discrimination law are rarely easy. The Commission on Civil Rights did a report a few years ago on the topic. I was shocked at the level of hostility to religion among my Commission colleagues.  For example, here is what the then-Chairman had to say:

“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”

Weirdly, in person, he always seemed like an affable guy. Alas, many otherwise affable guys go off the deep end these days when discussing hot-button issues.

My Statement in that report tried to deal with the broad issue of religious accommodation (and tried to deal with some of the fevered arguments made by those on the Left). The latter task was pretty easy, the former very hard. Maybe it’ll be “a piece of cake” for the Supreme Court … but … I doubt it.

PRIVACY: 6 questions Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg still needs to answer.

The seventh question, likely on the mind of everyone in the hearing room: “What does he have on me?”

IT SEEMS LIKE IT: Is Science Hitting a Wall? Economists show increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns. We have a system that rewards people for getting grants; unsurprisingly, one of the biggest skills it develops is getting grants.

RAPTOR AND CLASSIC LIGHTNING: A P-38 and an F-22 bank in formation. Great photo of the P-38.