JUNIOR ANTI-SEX LEAGUE: Yandy Pulls Its ‘Sexy’ Handmaid’s Tale Costume After a Swift Backlash.

FRENCH COURT ORDERS FAR-RIGHT LEADER MARINE LE PEN TO UNDERGO PSYCHIATRIC TESTS AFTER SHE SHARED IMAGES OF ISIS ATROCITIES:

Do you not see where this is going? Do you not see why it must be stopped cold?

The Soviet Union used to declare dissidents criminally insane and imprison them in psychiatric units. And now the same sort of thing is manifesting in the West, by those who want to preserve liberalism at all costs. Those who challenge the regime, even with facts and images, will be taken to court and forced to submit to tests to prove that they are not criminally insane.

A breathtaking irony: the French state is doing this to silence those who criticize barbarians who would destroy liberalism.

Partying like it’s 1789.

DISPATCHES FROM THE NETWORK OF CHARLIE ROSE AND LES MOONVES: CBS Warns of GOP Being ‘Clueless and Insensitive Men’ Again.

Related: “CBS News was warned three different times about Rose’s behavior. That puts CBS News president David Rhodes, brother of Ben Rhodes, squarely in the limelight. Ben Rhodes was Present Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter, who devised the plan to blame the Benghazi terrorist attack on a YouTube video. Ben Rhodes, who has a Master’s degree in fiction writing from NYU, is the brother of the CBS News chief.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. “If you’re an attorney who can’t figure out how to defend a client from a 35-year-old allegation of sexual assault with no physical evidence, corroborating witnesses, and major gaps in the accuser’s statement, you’re incompetent or have an ulterior agenda.”

Read the whole Twitter thread.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is Mold Causing My Allergies?

“COCAINE MITCH IS ON IT:” “You’ve watched the fight. You’ve watched the tactics, But here’s what I want to tell you: In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court… Don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re gonna plow right through it and do our job.”

UPDATE: “GOP members of the Judiciary Committee held a conference call on Friday morning to discuss how to respond to Ford’s requests on Thursday. And barring new revelations, the party plans to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination in Judiciary Committee shortly after hearing her testimony next week.”

SCRAPPLEFACE: Kavanaugh Victim Asks Delay to Finish Final Draft.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Engineers develop first method for controlling nanomotors.

VIDEO: CNN asked women if they believe Judge Kavanaugh. This was not the response they were expecting.

OVER AT THE FEDERALIST: This is insane, Apple. You’ve gone and ruined my perfectly curated playlists.

AMAZING WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN AN ADMINISTRATION ISN’T AT WAR WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: The Economy Is Beating The Last Administration’s Low Expectations.

AT AMAZON, Deals on Top Rated Products.

SPACE RACE II: Long March 9 will take 140 tons to low-earth orbit starting 2028.

Li Guoping, director of the Department of System Engineering of the CNSA, said that the length of the Long March-9 will exceed 90 meters, and the rocket would have a core stage with a diameter of 10 meters.

It would be able to carry a payload of 140 tonnes into low-Earth orbit, five times that of the Long March-5, said Li.

The first version of the SpaceX BFR has been re-designed to carry 100 tons to low-earth orbit. Later upgrades will enable 150 tons or more to low-earth orbit.

If SpaceX BFR and NASA Space Launch System have delays then the Long March 9 will be the most powerful rocket in 2028.

I have a lot more faith in SpaceX’s BFR than in NASA’s SLS, but I’d love to see both beat China into the heavy lift category.

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ: Censure Dianne Feinstein.

In substance, she “deliberately misled and deceived” her fellow senators, with the “effect of impeding discovery of evidence” relevant to the performance of their constitutional duties. No one should know better than Feinstein herself that such deceptive and obstructive conduct, widely regarded as “unacceptable,” “fully deserves censure,” so that “future generations of Americans . . . know that such behavior is not only unacceptable but also bears grave consequences,” bringing “shame and dishonor” to the person guilty of it and to the office that person holds, who has “violated the trust of the American people.” These quoted words all come from the resolution of censure Feinstein herself introduced concerning President Bill Clinton’s behavior in connection with his sex scandal. She can hardly be heard to complain if she is held to the same standard.

Comparison with other past censure cases only makes Feinstein’s situation look worse. The last three senators censured, Thomas Dodd, Herman Talmadge, and Dave Durenberger, were all condemned for financial hanky-panky: converting campaign contributions to personal use and the like. They were all found to have brought the Senate into “dishonor and disrepute” even though nothing they had done implicated the Senate’s performance of its constitutional duties. Feinstein, in sharpest contrast, sought to keep her committee from timely and properly investigating an apparently serious charge of misconduct, and is still doing so, even in the face of criticism from all (or most) quarters.

As the second-richest member of the Senate, with a net worth of $94 million, Feinstein is presumably above the temptations to which Dodd, Talmadge, and Durenberger succumbed. She does, however, face a difficult reelection campaign, with a serious enthusiasm gap on her left, the California Democratic party having refused to endorse her bid for a sixth term in office. Her conduct in arranging matters to make her appear the champion of an allegedly abused constituent, and perhaps positioning herself as the woman who sank the Kavanaugh nomination, can only help on that flank. Is a nakedly political motive for senatorial misbehavior any less reprehensible than a financial one?

No.

GETTING RID OF SENESCENT CELLS IS SEEMING MORE AND MORE IMPORTANT IN FIGHTING AGING: Clearance of senescent glial cells prevents tau-dependent pathology and cognitive decline.

OF COURSE THEY WILL: US Air Force F-22s and F-35s will soon launch and control recoverable attack drones from the cockpit of the plane.

This fast-approaching technology, which calls upon advanced levels of autonomous navigation, is closer to reality due of DARPA’s Gremlins program which plans to break new ground by launching – and recovering – four drones from an in-flight C-130 next year.

Air recoverable drones, slated to become operational over just the next few years, will bring a new phase of mission options enabling longer ranges, improved sensor payloads, advanced weapons and active command and control from the air.

“The team looked at how fifth generation aircraft systems like the F-35 and F-22 respond to threats, and how they could incorporate Gremlins in higher risk areas,” a DARPA statement said.

Gremlins also can incorporate several types of sensors up to 150 pounds, DARPA statements said.

That’s enough of a payload for a sensor and a small bomb.

SACRED COW SLAUGHTERHOUSE: Why We Should Still Be Talking About Killing Communists.

POP: NYC Home Sellers Are Slashing Prices “Like It’s 2009.”

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Ian Buruma and the age of sexual McCarthyism — The New York Review of Books editor is the latest casualty of the identitarian mob:

My own theory is that a small minority on the identitarian Left have used various Maoist tactics, including public shaming on social media, to persuade people that their doctrinaire positions on #MeToo allegations and a range of other issues – gender is a social construct, masculinity is toxic, climate change is caused by misogyny, etc. – are much more ubiquitous than they really are, thereby stifling dissent.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Maggie’s Farm.)

STEPHEN KRUISER: Politicized Entertainment Award Shows Continue to Hemorrhage Viewers. “Shut up and act.”

ALLIES: Turkey Trims Unjust Sentence for NASA Scientist, Won’t Release U.S. Citizen. “Gölge’s reduction to five years behind bars sends him into another appellate process at a higher court that could take years.”

REPLACE “CLIMATE CHANGE” WITH ALMOST ANY OTHER ISSUE: Jerry Brown Made Climate Change His Issue. Now, He’s Not Sure How Much Politicians Can Do.

THE MED AT NIGHT: The USS Carney on a starry night in the Mediterranean Sea.

WHAT UNDERGRADUATES THINK ABOUT LAW SCHOOL.

A highly anticipated new survey of thousands of undergraduates and first-year law students found that the top four most cited reasons for pursuing law school are: providing a pathway to a career in politics, government or public service; having a passion and high interest in legal work; creating opportunities to give back to others; and the desire to be an advocate for social change.

The study commissioned by the Association of American Law Schools, Before the J.D.: Undergraduate Views on Law School, found that access to high-paying jobs was the fifth most-cited reason undergrads are interested in law schools, with 31 percent placing it among their top three reasons for seeking a law degree.

Joe Patrice comments:

“Women are more likely than men to say that law school is too hard and that they don’t want to defend guilty people, while men are more likely to say that three years is too long and that too few jobs in the field pay enough money.”

The men’s answers directly track the big controversies in legal education. Obama publicly tagged the “three year” problem and its impact on students forced to pay another year of tuition for classes that ultimately have little bearing on their future careers. And it’s good to hear some undergrads are cluing in to the bimodal salary distribution.

But where were they finding these women? This is “Math is hard” level swill. How much does one have to scrape the bottom of the collegiate barrel to find a majority of women talking about school as too hard?

The concern about defending guilty people is understandable though. Even though it’s ludicrous — it would at best represent half of the field of criminal law, which itself is only small part of litigation, which is a small part of the legal landscape. But too many people have no concept of a legal career outside of Law & Order reruns.

True. Or maybe “Suits.” But an honest representation of, say, ERISA practice probably wouldn’t draw ratings.