HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Push For Unconstitutional College Programs. “Most efforts to reduce racial, ethnic, and gender ‘gaps’ and ‘underrepresentation’ are patently unconstitutional.”

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UGH: For decades, nuns in India have faced abuse.

Across India, the nuns talk of priests who pushed into their bedrooms and of priests who pressured them to turn close friendships into sex. They talk about being groped and kissed, of hands pressed against them by men they were raised to believe were representatives of Jesus Christ.

“He was drunk,” said one nun, beginning her story. “You don’t know how to say no,” said another.

At its most grim, the nuns speak of repeated rapes, and of a Catholic hierarchy that did little to protect them.

But, hey, the Pope has taken a strong stand against climate change.

HMM: Iranian mullahs’ lock on power is now shakier than ever.

Today, unpaid factory workers, teachers, farmers and truck drivers are some of the most organized and motivated anti-regime forces. The southwestern city of Ahvaz experienced anti-regime labor protests last month. Truck drivers were also on nationwide strikes for much of 2018, blocking major roadways and access to gas stations over low pay and rising tolls.

Farmers in Isfahan, in central Iran, have turned their backs against regime clerics during Friday prayers and chanted: “Our back to the enemy, our faces to our nation.” Another favorite slogan: “They say our enemy is America, when the real enemy is right here” — meaning the mullahs. Meanwhile, many Iranian women have been shedding the compulsory hijab in public, a gesture that was unthinkable even two years ago.

You can thank American frackers and Trump’s reimposition of sanctions — both bitterly opposed by many Democrats — for the mullahs’ increasingly difficult situation.

FLASHBACK: Our elites care more about what their peers think of them than about what they’re supposed to be doing. No wonder so many institutions are failing.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Black Lawmakers’ Charity Didn’t Give Out A Single Scholarship, Top Pols Hide Financials.

The caucus of black New York state lawmakers runs a charity whose stated mission is to empower “African American and Latino youth through education and leadership initiatives” by “providing opportunity to higher education” — but it hasn’t given a single scholarship to needy youth in two years, according to a New York Post investigation.

The group collects money from companies like AT&T, the Real Estate Board of New York, Time Warner Cable and CableVision, telling them in promotional materials that they are “changing lives, one scholarship at a time.”

The group — called the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators, Inc. — instead spent $500,000 in the 2015 – 2016 fiscal year on items like food, limousines and rap music, the Post found.

The politicians refused to divulge the charity’s 2017 tax filing to the Post despite federal requirements that charities do so upon request.

This sounds like the kind of thing any reasonably competent attorney general would look into, but in Cuomo’s New York…

YA THINK? New Documents Suggest The Steele Dossier Was A Deliberate Setup For Trump.

But here’s the angle that caught my eye:

The dossier operation has not only damaged institutions like the FBI and DOJ, it has also poisoned the public sphere, perhaps irremediably. As a result, it is now accepted journalistic practice to print, and reprint, any garish fantasy so long as it’s layered with Russian intrigue and Trump team treason. Even as the rest of the country sees an institution that has made itself a laughingstock, the press continues to salute itself for its bravery—or the courage and industry required to take leaks from law enforcement and intelligence officials and Democratic operatives in an effort to topple a president it doesn’t like, elected by neighbors it holds in contempt.

Barack Obama wasn’t just speaking for himself when he derided millions of Americans as bitter clingers, and Hillary Clinton wasn’t speaking just for herself when she condemned millions more as irredeemable.

IF YOU GAVE UP YOUR SMARTPHONE, YOU’D FREE UP ENOUGH HOURS to make love 16,000 times. Well, if you go as fast as they apparently do at the NYT, anyway. (Or, because this is the NYT, you could devote that time to lefty activism instead).

Related: Social Media as Social Disease.

TWITTER IS A CESSPIT, EXHIBIT #1,000,006: Hackers seize dormant Twitter accounts to push terrorist propaganda.

I HAVE MANY SUGGESTIONS, ALL DATING FROM 2012: Romney on Trump Criticism: People Can Suggest ‘How I Could Do a Better Job, Too.’

IF YOU WANT THE GOP TO RETAIN MINDSHARE, SOME GOP DONOR SHOULD TAKE THEM OVER: Women’s Magazines Are Dying.

Some background here, and my original proposal here. Excerpt:

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson alone donated $150 million. But Romney lost anyway, especially among unmarried women.

Which is why I think that rich people wanting to support the Republican Party might want to direct their money somewhere besides TV ads that copy, poorly, what Lee Atwater did decades ago.

My suggestion: Buy some women’s magazines. No, really. Or at least some women’s Web sites.

One of the groups with whom Romney did worst was female “low-information voters.” Those are women who don’t really follow politics, and vote based on a vague sense of who’s mean and who’s nice, who’s cool and who’s uncool.

Since, by definition, they don’t pay much attention to political news, they get this sense from what they do read. And for many, that’s traditional women’s magazines — Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Ladies Home Journal, etc. — and the newer women’s sites like YourTango, The Frisky, Yahoo! Shine, and the like.

The thing is, those magazines and Web sites see themselves, pretty consciously, as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. So while nine out of 10 articles may be the usual stuff on sex, diet and shopping, the 10th will always be either soft p.r. for the Democrats or soft — or sometimes not-so-soft — hits on Republicans.

When a flier about getting away with rape was found in a college men’s bathroom, the women’s site YourTango (“Your Best Love Life”) led with the fact that the college was Paul Ryan’s alma materin a transparent effort to advance the Democrats’ War on Women claim that Republicans are somehow pro-rape. A companion article was “12 Hot Older Men Who Endorse President Obama.”

Similar p.r. abounded across the board: Sandra Fluke is a hero; Sarah Palin is a zero. Republicans are all old white men (women or minority Republicans get mocked or ignored).

This kind of thing adds up, especially among low-information voters. They may not know or care much about the specifics, but this theme, repeated over and over again, sends a message: Democrats are cool, and Republicans are uncool — and if you vote for them, you’re uncool, too.

There’s nothing new about this, of course. In her 2004 book, “Spin Sisters: How the Women of The Media Sell Unhappiness — and Liberalism — to the Women of America,” Myrna Blyth (a former Ladies Home Journal editor) explained in considerable detail the variety of “Mean Girls” feminism that the women’s media aim at their readers with every issue.

The message: There’s one way that women should think; people who don’t think that way are bad and stupid — and if you think the wrong way, women won’t like you.

For $150 million, you could buy or start a lot of women’s Web sites. And I’d hardly change a thing in the formula. The nine articles on sex, shopping and exercise could stay the same. The 10th would just be the reverse of what’s there now.

For the pro-Republican stuff, well, just visit the “Real Mitt Romney” page at snopes.com, or look up the time Mitt Romney rescued a 14-year-old kidnap victim, to see the kind of feel-good stories that could have been running. For the others, well, it would run articles on whether Bill Clinton should get a pass on his affairs, whether it’s right that the Obama White House pays women less than men, and reports on how the tax system punishes women.

This stuff writes itself, probably more easily than the Spin Sisters’ pabulum. And opening up a major beachhead in this section of the media is probably a lot cheaper than challenging major newspapers and TV networks head on.

The only losers will be the political consultants who ate up so much of the GOP’s cash this time around.

It’s still a good idea. To their credit the Koch brothers have listened a bit.

NOT THE WAY TO GO:  The ONE Book.

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED. THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE:  Lawsuit Claims SPLC Abetted Theft, Spread Lies to Destroy Lawyer for ‘Thought Crime’.

AND SOON:  Ours to reason why.

LIBERAL WOMAN PRIVILEGE:  Ellen Barkin Wants Louis C.K. Raped, Shot.

TOOK THEM LONG ENOUGH:  CNN Notices Climate Change Policies Hurt Poor People.

THE CON IS UP:  2018 Saw A Global Revolt Against Climate Change Policies.

DUH:  DREAMers tell of going ballot-harvesting in California to flip the House blue.

SIGH. SOME DAYS.  US Strategic Command Deletes Tweet. For What?

OH, MITT, PLEASE!  Mitt Romney Swings For The Fences To Make Himself Relevant.  Look, talk to Lindsey Graham, okay? There is life beyond being the dems byotch.

ANYONE EXPECTED THEM TO?  Democrats Won’t Budge On Border Security Funds.

OH, THEY DON’T NEED TO BE HOT. LIBERAL GIRL PRIVILEGE WORKS TOO:  Hot Girl Privilege.

ALMOST LIKE SOME SORT OF ONGOING CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE: Lawsuit Claims SPLC Abetted Theft, Spread Lies to Destroy Lawyer for ‘Thought Crime.’