OH: Mueller Spokesman Denies Key Claim in New Anti-Trump Book by Michael Wolff.

WAS? Beto: ‘I Know I Was a Giant A**hole.’

Related: The New Bad-Luck Curse in Politics: Jim Geraghty rounds up the names of four (insert “infamous” or “superstar” here, depending upon your worldview) leftists, including Beto, who have undergone a dramatic reversal of fortune in recent days, who have all been lovingly photographed for Vogue or Vanity Fair by Annie Leibovitz, and confirms Iowahawk’s observation: “Whom the gods would destroy they first make pose for Annie Leibovitz.”

BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND KINSLEY GAFFES: Here’s the video from the Washington Nationals AAA affiliate linking AOC to Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Un.

JULIE KELLY: Comey’s FBI Ignored Sexual Abuse Victims To Play Politics.

BUT OF COURSE: High school apologizes after students’ MAGA hats blurred from yearbook.

THEY’RE ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Slimy fish mucus can help chemists develop new antibiotics — here’s how.

NARRATOR VOICE: IT IS ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA. China’s State TV Uses Daily Show Clip as Anti-American Propaganda.

THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT… WAIT… NEVER MIND: Drowning Man With Swastika Tattoo Saved by Jewish Teens.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Good blood pressure, blood sugar levels can prevent ‘heart block.’

YOU CAN BET THE CRIMINAL SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT STILL HAS PLENTY: Venezuela’s economic crisis is now so bad that criminals can’t afford to buy bullets.

AT AMAZON, save on Bestsellers in Military History.

DON’T GET COCKY: Three Modelers Predict Trump Will Be Reelected.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Are Facebook, Twitter, Google evil or just everywhere? What we have to do about big tech.

I’m not sure I mentioned it, but I have a book out.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: USC was told gynecologist could be preying on Asian women, secret records show. “After decades of complaints about a campus gynecologist, USC administrators hired a team of medical experts to evaluate him. The experts came back with a disturbing report saying there was evidence Dr. George Tyndall was preying on vulnerable Asian students and had signs of ‘psychopathy.’ Still, the university did not fire Tyndall or notify the state medical board. Instead, lawyers for USC arranged a secret deal with the doctor that allowed him to leave his post with a financial payout and a pristine professional record.” Why are leftist-run institutions such cesspits of abuse?

GOOD: French Senate says Notre-Dame must be restored exactly how it was.

So, no swimming pool on the roof, I take it.

HOW CAN WE MISS YOU IF YOU WON’T GO AWAY? Merkel Un-resigns.

GOOD LORD: Mom Accuses Union of Forging Signature to Deduct Money From Disabled Daughter’s Checks.

Maria Quezambra of California filed a federal lawsuit seeking to recover dues that she says United Domestic Workers Local 3930 (UDW) improperly took from the money that helps her take care of her daughter. She accused the union of misleading her about dues requirements, rebuffing her attempts to recover money, and trespassing on her property.

“Ms. Quezambra did not sign anything indicating she desired to become a union member or pay union dues, and the State began to deduct Union dues from her paycheck automatically,” the suit says. “The Union forged Ms. Quezambra’s signature to justify past dues deductions and to lock her into paying full union dues each year.”

The Supreme Court struck down Illinois’s mandatory dues scheme for home health aides like Quezambra in 2014, ruling that they were not public employees. The Court followed that ruling by forbidding forced public sector unions in 2018. The union never informed Quezambra of her right to abstain from dues payments. Her suit alleges that the union misled her into believing dues were mandatory and delayed her attempts to withdraw.

Maybe some prison time for fraud would put an end to this crap.

THEY DO ALL KIND OF LOOK THE SAME TODAY: Design Regulations Helped Ruin American Cars. “You drive around today and can barely distinguish one wheeled box from another. We look through websites at concept cars and wonder why they never seem to exist. And whatever happened to the Golden Age of design?”

INCREDIBLE STORY: Air Force cadet conquered cancer to get lieutenant’s bars.

During Air Force Academy’s graduation on Thursday, senior cadets will be told about the uncertain world they are entering and the battles they may face.

It may be underwhelming for 22-year-old Parker Hammond. He’s already fought a private war.

Hammond went from a strapping 275-pound offensive lineman as a freshman to a shriveled and shivering senior as he fought through chemotherapy. He battled cancer, and he battled bureaucracy to get the lieutenant’s bars he’ll pin on after he crosses the stage in Falcon Stadium on Thursday.

Any service would be lucky to count someone with that much grit as one of its members.

Read the whole thing, and by the way, Parker is the VodkaWife’s boss’s son.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “Some faculty members argue that surrendering the ‘professor’ title to some academic staff will further confuse students and the public.” “Colleges across the country have shrunk the share of tenured labor force for more financial flexibility. Institutions then offset those positions with instructors who operate on short-term appointments with heftier teaching loads, lower salaries and less academic freedom. ‘I believe what we are being asked to do today is to relinquish that,’ physics professor Lisa Everett told the Faculty Senate last month. ‘And no matter what statements are there in bold at the end (of these resolutions) about how we don’t want this to be used as arguments against hiring more faculty positions, I think it’s very clear that that’s already going on.'”

From the comments:

A minor element of ongoing decadence.

A decaying institution will steadily add more process and overhead, creating more tail to tooth, more staff to line. And they will act according to internal rather than external incentives.

Its all in Schumpeter. It is also inevitable, until something external comes along to destroy the entire minimally functional system.

Yep.

WAS IT OVER WHEN ANDREW JOHNSON BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? D’oh! Al Sharpton Confuses Presidents Andrew Jackson & Andrew Johnson — Twice.

OREGON: Clerk fired after pulling gun on hatchet-bearing attacker, causing attacker to flee.

A hearty “Well done” and “Stout fellow!” are due the clerk. With well-disciplined use of the pistol, he defended his own life — surely the Plaid Pantry’s first consideration — while preventing the confrontation from escalating or bringing harm to anyone else. He managed to notify the police, and he didn’t make the error of trying to pursue the attempted robber. For good measure, the would-be robber took off without his hatchet, leaving it on the counter, so he was disarmed at that point too.

The clerk is now out of a job, however.

The president of Plaid Pantry told KOIN 6 News the stores have a zero tolerance for weapons and the clerk is no longer employed there. He said employees are trained to de-escalate robbery situations to avoid injury.

Granted, if the clerk knew about the “zero tolerance policy for weapons,” he shouldn’t have had a weapon in the store. (He probably shouldn’t have accepted employment there in the first place.) But what an indictment it is of zero tolerance policies for weapons, that the clerk would have had no way to bring off the same very happy outcome if he hadn’t been armed himself.

Read the whole thing.

GOOD NEWS FOR LEGAL EDUCATION: NALP: First-Year Associate Salaries Jump 20% (To $155,000).

IF IT WEREN’T FOR FAKE HATE-CRIMES THERE WOULD HARDLY BE ANY HATE CRIMES AT ALL: Subway rider lied about anti-gay attack, was actually aggressor.