SPENGLER: Trump’s Unsung Success in the Middle East.

CAPITOL HILL: $15 Million ‘Paid Out by the House on Behalf of Harassers in the Last 10 to 15 Years.’

Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier (Calif.) said on Tuesday that around $15 million in settlements has been paid out by the House of Representatives on behalf of those who have been accused of sexual harassment in the past 10 to 15 years.

MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked about the taxpayer money that has been used to cover up sexual harassment allegations against members of Congress.

“If the taxpayer is involved, don’t we have the right to know?” Todd asked the congresswoman.

“Well, I think you do have the right to know, but right now, under the system, you don’t have the right to know,” Speier said.

Accountability is just another word for you don’t have the right to know.

SURVEILLANCE STATE, JUNIOR EDITION: These 3 Student Data Bills Could Ruin Your Kid’s Life.

Sadly, states have had only varying degrees of success stopping some of the unbelievable amounts of data being collected on public school students. When I say “unbelievable amounts,” I have actual screen shots from the National Center for Education Statistics’ “National Education Data Model” (no longer online, incidentally), which provided model data points to be collected from students for very important educational information like “routine health care procedure required at school,” “number of teeth,” “orthodontic appliances,” “voting status,” “religious affiliation” (these two being big no-no’s in the world of data collection), “weeks of gestation,” and “weight at birth.”

The Common Education Data Standards, a one-stop A-Z data collecting shop where anyone can see the possible data collection titles populating public school SLDS, are still online. Here, a cursory search of the letter “I” will return 133 main records, from “IDEA Disability Type” through “Itinerant Teacher.”

I was most interested in the category of “Incident Behavior.” Here one can find 30 different sub-category data tags for school officials to use in describing any number of ways students can misbehave on campus, including “Sexual Harassment,” “Obscene Behavior,” and “Threat/Intimidation.” Thank goodness the government has spent so many taxpayer dollars finding ways to label accused students with subjective and often juvenile behaviors that will follow them throughout their academic careers—and, thanks to some new bills in play, especially, possibly their adult lives.

Read the whole thing.

IT’S A TAX! Sen. John Thune drops the mic on Dems objecting to adding individual mandate repeal to tax bill.

Joseph Lawlor of the Washington Examiner noted that some Democrats objected to the individual mandate being included in the GOP’s tax bill; for that to happen, the Supreme Court would have had to have decided that the individual mandate was a tax … oh, wait.

John Roberts just can’t seem to make anyone happy these days.

HORSE, BARN DOOR: New Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Training for Congress as Lawmakers Accuse Colleagues.

PARTY OF YOUTH: The Democrats’ old-people problem.

Democrats are rethinking their future — but doing it with the leadership of old men and women deeply rooted in the past. The top three House Democrats in leadership are all nearly 80 years old.

By the numbers: The average age of Democrats serving under them is 61. Three of the most talked-about 2020 contenders are Sen. Bernie Sanders, 76; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 68; and former Vice President Joe Biden, 74.

Why it matters: Older Democratic leaders are unwilling to give up their seats, even as younger Democrats call for “a new generation of leaders,” as top House Democrat Linda Sanchez said when she asked for Nancy Pelosi to step down. And former DNC Chair Howard Dean told MSNBC: “Our leadership is old and creaky, including me.”

Yeah, but that’s nothing compared to his party’s ideas.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela just defaulted, moving deeper into crisis.

Venezuela has no other meaningful income other than the oil it sells abroad. The government, meanwhile, has failed for years to ship in enough food and medicine for its citizens. As a result, Venezuelans are waiting hours in line to buy food and dying in hospitals that lack basic resources.

If investors seize the country’s oil shipments, the food and medical shortages would worsen quickly.

“Then it’s pandemonium,” says Fernando Freijedo, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research firm. “The humanitarian crisis is already pretty dire … it boggles the mind what could happen next.”

Apparently the only thing Venezuela hasn’t run out of is Unexpectedlys.

Also, this being CNN, “This story has been updated to characterize Venezuela’s government as socialist.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Wikileaks, RUSSIA, Hannity and Much, Much Moore.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Zimbabwe’s army said it has Robert Mugabe and his wife in custody.

“Their security is guaranteed,” Major General Sibusiso Moyo said Wednesday in an address after military forces took control of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).

“We wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover,” he added in an address to the entire country.

“We are only targeting criminals around [Mugabe] who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice.”

Moyo also urged other security forces in Zimbabwe to “cooperate for the good of the country,” warning that “any provocation will be met with an appropriate response.”

That doesn’t sound at all like a military takeover.

More seriously, whatever follows Mugabe, it will be difficult to top him for corruption and oppression and ineptitude.

THIS SEEMS UNWISE: 30,000 visas issued to people from terror-sponsoring countries since 2007.

KEEPING PORTLAND WEIRD — AND ADDICTED: Portland City Club Quashes Addiction Report Because ‘Every Member of the Committee Was White.’

GAME OVER: Russia posts video game screenshot as ‘proof’ of US helping IS.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence has posted what it called “irrefutable proof” of the US aiding so-called Islamic State – but one of the images was actually taken from a video game.

The ministry claimed the image showed an IS convoy leaving a Syrian town last week aided by US forces.

Instead, it came from the smartphone game AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.

The ministry said an employee had mistakenly attached the photo.

Uh-huh.

MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT: Senate GOP Tax Plan to Include Repeal of Health Law Individual Mandate.

GOP leaders have been cautious about bogging down the tax bill with controversial health-care provisions, but have been suggesting they could include the repeal because it would generate revenue that could be used to pay for tax cuts elsewhere.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said it would be part of the tax bill. “The Senate Finance Committee has decided to include that,” Mr. McConnell said.

Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said Republicans intend to use the savings generated by repealing the individual mandate to lower taxes for middle-income households. “It’ll be distributed in the form of middle-income tax relief,” he said.

Mr. Thune and Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) pitched the idea of including the measure to Finance Committee members Monday night and again at a luncheon for Republican senators Tuesday, a Senate GOP aide said.

Mr. Thune said he didn’t anticipate that adding the repeal of the individual mandate would prompt many GOP defections from the tax package. Republicans, who hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, can afford to lose no more than two GOP votes if all Democrats vote against the tax bill as expected. Vice President Mike Pence could break a potential 50-50 tie.

“It’s been whipped,” Mr. Thune said, referring to the process of rounding up and counting votes.

The question remains whether some of the Senate’s provisions can make it through the House, or if Paul Ryan will be forced into a position where he has to push through the Senate bill by the end of the year, or chalk up another legislative defeat.

WASTE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Somebody wrote an email bot to waste scammers’ time.

Introducing Re:scam – an artificially intelligent email bot made to reply to scam emails. Re:scam wastes scammers time with a never-ending series of questions and anecdotes so that scammers have less time to pursue real people.

If you think you’ve received a scam email, forward it to and we’ll take it from there. We’ll even send you a summary of the conversations Re:scam has had with the scammer – sometimes they can be quite funny!

I’m in.

I BLAME ALL THE ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC FROM THE LEFT: SPLC Hate Map Arson? North Carolina Church Burnt and Spray Painted ‘Anti-Gay Hate Group.’

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Don Jr., WikiLeaks Communicated Through Critical Stage of Campaign.

RON RADOSH: The GOP Prepares to Die, as the Alabama Republicans Stick by Judge Roy Moore.

JEAN-LOUIS GASSÉE HAS A Dare To Congress: Go Ahead, Vote A Golden Key Encryption Law.

Above all else, politicians play the crowd, it’s how they keep their jobs. The ostentatious plea for “responsible encryption” is mere grandstanding aimed at gaining Law and Order votes from people who justifiably don’t like the idea of Bad People being able to hide their communications from authorities.

The grandstanding often takes the form of a hackneyed hypothetical: A terrorist is hiding the location of a dirty bomb on his smartphone. Who wouldn’t want a trusted government agency to unlock the device and save a city?

The hypothetical isn’t just painful, it’s dishonest and manipulative.

Instead of arguing, let’s issue a dare to Congress: Stop dickering already and enact a law that would compel any entity that makes, sells, or uses encryption to place the one and only decryption key for their product or service — the Golden Key — in escrow with a newly created REA, the Responsible Encryption Agency.

Congress, will you stop the posturing and vote for such a law?

No. They would come to their senses and see the ugly consequences of the legislation.

I’m less sanguine about the wisdom of the elected masses.

WELL, GOOD: Inside the Decades-Long Fight for Better Emergency Alerts.

Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced the commission would move forward with an Obama-era order calling for wireless carriers to pinpoint emergency alerts down to the cellular tower level. Until recently, these alerts have targeted entire counties, an area so vast that, typically, people either receive alerts that are irrelevant to them, or emergency managers forgo alerts altogether—with potentially disastrous consequences. The alerts will also include embeddable links that can redirect people to additional information.

For public safety and communications experts, including Wheeler, these upgrades represent a crucial step in a multiyear battle with the cell phone industry.

“It is great the FCC has announced they’re going to do something,” Wheeler says. “Too bad it took tragedies to get that to happen.”

It usually does.

FAITH MOORE: Why Would Anyone Want to Do This? Paris Opens First Nudist Restaurant.

Ask for extra napkins. Lots of extra napkins.

NO. The Fanny Pack Has Returned. Now Cheer. Or Cringe.

In July of 2014, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the actor, former pro wrestler and hulk with a heart of gold, posted a self-mocking throwback photo on Instagram. There he was in all of his dated ’90s attire: a Steve Jobsian-black turtleneck, washed jeans and—slung around his waist—a brown leather fanny pack. A fanny pack on the Rock?! How absurd! Instantly, “Fanny Pack Rock” became a meme pinging about the internet.

The viral sensation reached a new peak when the Rock hosted “Saturday Night Live” last May: In promo photos, he gamely posed in an identical outfit, right down to the lookalike fanny pack at his waist. Sure, laughter ensued, but the fanny pack’s reputation was being transformed. Legitimately stylish people began to reevaluate the lumpen, pancreas-shaped bag, most typically seen tied to tourists in Bermuda shorts, ’80s ravers in Burning Man tie-dye or—most damning of all—your mom out for a jog. The fanny pack started showing up in luxe leathers and sleek nylons at designer labels such as Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton.

That came as a surprise, even to trend forecasters. “Fanny packs, or ‘waist bags’ as we now call them, are the fastest-growing segment in the men’s accessories market,” explained Marshal Cohen, an analyst with the NPD Group, a market research firm. Between September 2016 and this September, sales of the category increased by over 10%, reaching $100 million.

This is not a part of the ’90s I was hoping we might relive.

ROGER KIMBALL: Why I Have Given Up on Trumpism.

Donald Trump’s real tort, I believe, was to have somehow gotten himself elected despite the objections and without the permission of people like Max Boot.

Max confided that he went “to bed late on the evening of Nov. 8, 2016, in a daze, incredulous that my fellow citizens could elect a man so unqualified for the presidency.” The American people really let Max down. And they persist in their outrageous behavior. According to Max, “Trump doesn’t really believe in much beyond his own awesomeness. He didn’t run for office to get anything done; he ran to stoke his own ego and pad his own bank account by increasing his visibility.”

While you are waiting for evidence of these claims, Max wants you to know that he thinks “Trump has been utterly incompetent. Even if he wants to achieve more of his agenda, he doesn’t know how to do it.” He is, you see, “ignorant, petulant, unethical, avaricious, conspiratorial, nasty, shameless, bullying, egomaniacal.”

Quite a litany. But what this really means, I think, is that while Donald Trump’s election was supposed to be impossible, it is still utterly unacceptable. The fantasy of “Trumpism” is an expression of that state of affairs. Even before Trump was elected, some academic historians, fired by nostalgia for the radicals of the 1960s and their protests against the Vietnam War, created a group called “Historians Against Trump” to protest the “dangerous ideology of Trumpism.” “The lessons of history,” they intoned, “compel us to speak out against a movement rooted in fear and authoritarianism.”

Where is the fear? Where the authoritarianism?

The Left projects, always.

BRUCE BAWER: Islam, Women, and Phyllis Chesler.

Phyllis Chesler’s new collection of articles, Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing a Veiled War against Women, is shot through with a notes-from-the-front-lines urgency and a righteous rage. The earliest of these pieces date back to 2003; the most recent are a few months old. Together, they form a chronicle of the post-9/11 era as observed by the only top-tier second-wave American feminist who – as the pernicious patriarchy of the Muslim world was increasingly introduced into the West – remained true to her values, consistent in ideology and in principles. Other feminists, including the entire academic Women’s Studies establishment, have linked arms with the sharia crowd. They’ve preached that it’s wrong for Westerners, operating from positions of post-colonialist privilege and power, to profess to “save the brown woman from the brown man.” They’ve made a heroine out of the vile, hijab-clad Linda Sarsour, a booster of sharia and apologist for jihad whose star turn at the Women’s March on Washington last January catapulted her to international fame. Even to suggest that such a person can be a feminist in any reasonable sense of the word is, of course, right out of 1984: war is peace, freedom is slavery, Sarsour is a feminist.

Read the whole thing.

MOLON LABE: Hand over your weapons.

At a New Hampshire forum in the fall of 2015, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke approvingly of an Australian gun buyback program that collected more than 650,000 weapons — a buyback that, she neglected to mention, was compulsory.

And just a few months earlier, then-President Barack Obama offered coded support for the same confiscatory approach. “When Australia had a mass killing — I think it was in Tasmania — about 25 years ago, it was just so shocking, the entire country said, ‘Well, we’re going to completely change our gun laws,’ and they did,” he said.

Democrats have even let the word “confiscation” slip out, on occasion. After the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. in 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a radio interview that when it came to assault weapons “confiscation could be an option, mandatory sale to the state could be an option.”

It was an option Cuomo didn’t pursue. But five years after that slaughter of schoolchildren — and with fresh tales of murdered kids on the floor of a Texas church — might gun-control advocates expand their agenda?

The logic of gun control lies, at bottom, in substantially reducing the number of deadly weapons on the street — and confiscation is far and away the most effective approach. Is there any conceivable turn of events in our politics that could make confiscation happen? And what would a mass seizure look like?

It would not look the way David Scharfenberg thinks it would look.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER: Prehistoric, Dinosaur-Era Shark with Insane Teeth Found Swimming Off the Coast of Portugal.