THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Measles In The Airport Again, This Time It Is Philadelphia.

SAME: Hanoi Jane Fonda Says She’s Been ‘Climate Scientist For Decades.’

AS LONG AS THERE’S NOT A FLEET OF PAK PROTECTORS ON THE WAY: Center of Milky Way exploded 3.5 million years ago.

21ST CENTURY TREATMENTS: Bedroom booster Viagra offers new hope to cancer patients.

ANSWERS TO THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:  How Rednecks Saved Hollywood.

HAPPY 11TH BLOGGIVERSARY to Legal Insurrection.

FLASHBACK: ‘Tolerant’ educators exile Trump voters from campus.

DEMOCRATS PROTECT THEIR OWN SHOCK TROOPS: Wisconsin governor vows to kill plan to punish campus disruptors.

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Brilliant Midnight Fireball Lights Up Sky Over Northeast China. I assume that these things aren’t actually happening more often, it’s just that now there’s video.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UF claims students showed ‘civility and tolerance’ at Trump Jr. event…but video tells a different story.

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CHANGE: Hunter Biden Steps Down from Chinese Board Amid Trump Attacks.

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump’s Foreign Policy Deals Properly with Tyrants. “Trump’s coddling of the dictatorial mind is not capitulation but a steely eyed gambit to get part—he hopes all, or a lot, but at least some—of what he and what the United States wants.”

I don’t know that Trump’s strategy is correct, but it’s definitely a strategy, as anyone who’s read The Art of the Deal should be able to tell.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: The Mugged Liberal.

ON THE HARVARD CASE: Last week a federal judge decided that it is just fine for Harvard University to demand much higher academic credentials from Asian American students seeking admission than from other students. Not unexpected … but not good.

Interestingly, in the court of public opinion, the race preference question consistently comes out the other way. Even when WGBH tried to load the question in favor of race preferences in admissions, its poll came out against them and in favor of race neutrality.

Should polls have any bearing on the law?  Hmm … maybe.  (For non-lawyers:  Under longstanding legal doctrine, a law or governmental policy that discriminates on the basis on race must be narrowly tailored to accomplish a compelling governmental purpose. In 1978, Title VI was held in the Bakke decision to apply this standard of “strict scrutiny” to private schools, like Harvard, that receive federal funds.)

Of course, if the public is in favor of race discrimination, that should carry no weight in court at all. (Obvious, right?  That’s the whole purpose of the strict scrutiny standard–to make it really difficult to uphold a law or policy that discriminates.  The thumb on the scale against race discrimination is heavy) But if it’s the other way around—the public firmly opposes a policy that discriminates on the basis of race and wants race neutrality instead—that should be a different matter. I don’t see how in the world the Supreme Court can conclude that the policy nevertheless serves a “compelling purpose” that the public doesn’t view it as compelling (or even minimally persuasive).

For this (and many other reasons), I believe there is hope the decision will be overturned on appeal.  We’ll see.

ACTUALLY, IT MOSTLY IS BECAUSE OF HOUSING COSTS: Why are these L.A. people sleeping in pods stacked on top of each other? It’s not just the cost of housing. But there is also a lot of loneliness out there. “So many people now work jobs that might not involve co-workers. In the course of the day, if they don’t work at it, they might not have a single conversation.”

DON’T MAKE FUN OF ANA NAVARRO. I think she’s actually a closet Trump supporter who’s figured out how to make his opponents look ridiculous while hanging on to her cushy media gig.

This is painful on so many levels. She literally wouldn't even let him answer the question then accuses him of "mansplaining." https://t.co/Buv9VceCbu

— Courtney Shadegg (@CShadegg) October 11, 2019

And now you know the answer to this question.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: My University Is Dying; Soon, Yours Will Be Too.

If only there had been some sort of warning.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Wait… now we’re talking about decriminalizing intentional HIV transmission?

All the Democrats have to do is not be crazy, and they can’t even manage that.™

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: Whistleblowers And The Real Deep State.

The “deep state”—if we are to use the term—is better defined as consisting of career civil servants, who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows. As government grows, so do the challenges of supervising a bureaucracy swelling in both size and power. Emboldened by employment rules that make it all but impossible to fire career employees, this internal civil “resistance” has proved willing to take ever more outrageous actions against the president and his policies, using the tools of both traditional and social media.

Government-employed resisters received a call to action within weeks of the new administration. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates became acting attorney general on Mr. Trump’s inauguration and Loretta Lynch’s resignation. A week later, the president signed an executive order restricting travel from seven Middle Eastern and African countries. Ms. Yates instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the order in court on the grounds that she was not convinced it was “consistent” with the department’s “responsibilities” or even “lawful.” She decreed: “For as long as I am Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order.”

Mr. Trump fired her that day, but he shouldn’t have had to. Her obligation was to defend the executive order, or to resign if she felt she couldn’t. Nobody elected Sally Yates.

The Yates memo was the first official act of the internal resistance—not only a precedent but a rallying cry. Subordinates fawningly praised her in emails obtained by Judicial Watch. “You are my new hero,” wrote one federal prosecutor. Another department colleague emailed: “Thank you AG Yates. I’ve been in civil/appellate for 30 years and have never seen an administration with such contempt for democratic values and the rule of law.” Andrew Weissmann—a career department lawyer, then head of the Criminal Fraud Division and later on the staff of special counsel Robert Mueller—wrote: “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much.” Ms. Yates set an example to rebels throughout the government: If she can defy the president, why can’t I?

That mentality fed the stream of leaks that has flowed ever since.

The civil service laws aren’t working. Time to return to the spoils system, where “bureaucratic diffusion of responsibility” was less of a thing.

I’M NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THEIR CHOICE: Georgetown University must decide whether it is a university or a hostage to censors.

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