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When officers categorize wallets or cellphones as evidence, getting them back can be nearly impossible—even if the owner isn’t charged with a crime.

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Walmart is currently running an election-themed back-to-school promotion in which students can nominate their teacher to be a “commander-in-teach.” Winners of the contest will receive $490 to pay for school supplies in their classroom.

And that has the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) irate. The union, which represents over 5,000 current and former teachers in D.C., says that it’s wrong for Walmart to help teachers when members of the Walton family have also donated money to support charter schools.

Fine. Don’t take the money. But don’t pretend that you’re working for the students.

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Message: He cares.

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Oh, ya think?

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An Oberlin College student has taken to the page of the Washington Blade — the nation’s oldest newspaper specializing in news for gay people — to tell America why she “chose the gayest college in America” and why she is really sad that some students won’t stop using anatomically-correct pronouns.

Oh, the humanity!

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ — Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

 

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The Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz highlights this factor in his “time for a change” forecasting model of presidential election outcomes. “When a party has held the White House for two or more terms,” he writes, “voters will be more likely to feel that it is time to give the opposing party an opportunity to govern than when a party has held the White House for only one term.”

 Mr. Abramowitz finds that the party in power performs approximately five percentage points worse in the popular vote after two or more terms in office in a model that controls for the current president’s approval rating and the state of the economy. The sample size of post-World War II elections is very small, but Mr. Abramowitz’s model dominates the field in its forecasting accuracy.

Both Mr. Abramowitz’s model and a similar one from the political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck (an Upshot contributor) would characterize Republicans as the favorite in this election with an estimated probability of winning of approximately 60 percent. As Mr. Sides notes, the G.O.P. edge is due in large part “to the White House’s greater tendency to change hands the longer the incumbent party has been there.”

But of course Trump is the new Hitler so obviously this model won’t work this time and we’re all safe. Phew!

Jim Goad doesn’t see any difference.

Over the weekend in Milwaukee, a black cop shot and killed an armed black man. In response, throngs of howling blacks rioted, looted, committed arson, and randomly attacked whites.

If that makes no sense to you, that’s because you’re not an idiot.

Justice is justice. Shenever you see a qualifier in front of it (‘social justice’, ‘economic justice’, ‘environmental justice’, etc.) it means that the term ‘justice’ is being hijacked by proponents of a political agenda who are hoping nobody will notice. Far too often, they’re right.

None of the Milwaukee rioters was victimized by the shooting. According to reports, the victim had a long criminal history and was turning around to point an illegally acquired gun at the black cop when he was shot dead in his tracks.

Excuse me for having oodles of grey matter and almost no melanin, but I fail to see the injustice here. Was the cop expected to simply allow himself to be murdered in the service of some dimwitted mob’s reptilian notions of “justice”? I’m not a mind reader, but I suspect his family would have considered that to be very unjust.

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Two years ago, the Antiplanner predicted that self-driving cars would put most transit agencies out of business. So it’s not surprising to see push-back against self-driving cars from transit supporters. What’s surprising is that it took so long.

Entrenched public transit bureaucracies (and unions) resisting technological change that empowers individuals? Who could have seen that coming?

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A civil disturbance developed on a beach in Corsica yesterday when the cultural sensitivities of Maghrebins — immigrants from North Africa — led to a violent attack against Corsican natives. The trouble reportedly began when a non-Muslim took photos of a Muslim woman in a burkini. The Muslims took umbrage, and the encounter escalated from there.

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Tens of thousands of people across Venezuela are working in illegal mines tucked away in the nation’s jungles to provide subsistence for themselves and their families. So many have lost their jobs, with an unemployment rate reaching 8 percent this year, that mines are the only option for employment. In addition to payment, workers are contracting malaria that has long been dormant in these mines. After picking up the virus in the mines, workers return to their homes in the cities where the disease is spreading at an alarming rate.

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The one beneficial result of Home Owner Associations is that they give people a foretaste of life under socialism.

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Good. It’s a stupid idea, and a prime example of how government inconveniences everybody in order to favor a special interest lobby.

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The way most colleges teach general education to undergraduates is hopelessly broken, according to a group of professors and administrators at Southern Utah University.

…

Wyatt and a team of faculty members last year hatched a plan to reinvent how general education works at the university. Their solution, dubbed Jumpstart GE, began this fall with 43 students. It’s certainly a different approach. And while the experiment is too young to show any real learning outcomes, experts said the concept shows plenty of promise.

The first-year students are taking the full 34 credits for their general education requirements this year — the equivalent of 13 courses. But all that material has been converted into one course that eight professors from different disciplines are teaching jointly.

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I have always been puzzled by the term ‘McMansion’. This clears things up a bit.

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There was serious trouble at the border between Serbia and Hungary last September during the height of the migration crisis. Back then Hungary instituted border controls and started building a fence to try to stem the flood that was crossing from Serbia on the way to Austria and Germany. In one of the worst incidents, a mob of migrants, egged on by a man with a megaphone, reacted violently and stormed the new fence. The Hungarian police responded with tear gas and water cannons directed at the rioters, even when they were on the Serbian side of the border.

Beginning last Wednesday there was a reprise of last year’s ructions. Rioting immigrants broke down part of the fence at the Röszke border crossing, and Hungarian police responded once again with water cannons, without being too finicky about whether the water crossed over into Serbian territory.

It’s important to remember the political context of these events: the current Serbian government is pro-EU, and eager to complete the procedures necessary for it to join the bloc. Serbian politicians are anxious to curry favor with Brussels, and thus follow the EU party line on “refugees”. Hungary, on the other hand, staunchly resists the diktats from Brussels concerning migrants. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is determined to maintain his country’s national sovereignty. This difference of opinion on immigration is currently a source of tension between Serbia and Hungary.

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The Hillary Clinton campaign on Sunday announced a voter registration effort led by illegal immigrants on the four year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s executive action to protect illegal aliens from deportation.

Democrats: Party of Criminality. Hillary is their perfect candidate.

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The researchers considered the vegan diet, two vegetarian diets (one that includes dairy, the other dairy and eggs), four omnivorous diets (with varying degrees of vegetarian influence), one low in fats and sugars, and one akin to the modern American dietary pattern.

Based on their models, the vegan diet would feed fewer people than two of the vegetarian and two of the four omnivorous diets studied. The bottom line: Going cold turkey on animal-based products may not actually be the most sustainable long choice for humanity in the long term.

Not to mention the scientific fact that we evolved as omnivores and vegetarianism is just another intellectual fantasy like astrology. (I’ll bet you find an amazing overlap between the two.)

Read it.

I certainly associate the two.

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Eh, what does he know?

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Thank God for those strict gun control laws, or the place would be another Texas.

Read it. And watch the video.

And politicians, civic leaders, and civil rights icons across the nation immediately swamped the airwaves condemning this racism.

Just kidding….

Read it.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

Even in our age of ever expanding federal power, the breadth of this statute (and the discretion it lodges in prosecutors) is awesome. Congress has regulated so many areas of our lives and federalized so many functions that the reach of Section 1001 is virtually boundless. This is what caused many federal courts to create an “exculpatory no” doctrine, holding that falsely answering “no” to an inquiry from a federal agent was, standing alone, not a crime under Section 1001. In 1998, however, the United States Supreme Court rejected this doctrine (as being inconsistent with legislative intent) in Brogan v. United States , 522 U.S. 398, 805 (1998). Thus, the only avenue for reform with respect to Section 1001 is in Congress, where politicians seldom get brownie points for narrowing the reach of federal criminal statutes.

Two words: Martha Stewart. So zip it.

It may be true that most federal agents and prosecutors are decent people who would not intentionally abuse Section 1001. Moreover, it is very important from a law enforcement perspective for federal agents to be able to informally question witnesses during the initial stages of an investigation. And certainly citizens are under no obligation to speak to a law enforcement agent in the first place, although, as shown below, it is essential to learn how to decline to speak to government officers. But power corrupts, and the potential for abuse of this statute is great, especially during periods of public outcry over corporate and other white-collar crimes. When we reflect upon how many petty rules and regulations get broken and how many white lies are told during the course of an average American business day, it is apparent that Section 1001 can easily be applied and misapplied to normally upstanding folk.

If power can be abused, it will be abused. Don’t volunteer to be the victim.

If You Want Me To Stay

Read it.

There’s no word yet on how this is Donald Trump’s fault, but sources say they’re working on it.

C’mon, guys, get with the program.

Read  it.

Many reporters are confused about how to report on events in Venezuela. Isn’t socialism supposed to be good? That is what they were taught in college. And isn’t Bernie Sanders a socialist? Surely there must be some other explanation for Venezuela’s humiliation, like a decline in the price of oil. The Associated Press gives us two news stories in one.

…

For a surprisingly realistic account of how socialism has destroyed Venezuela, see this Los Angeles Times article.

Read it.

In the civilized world, summer camp means hiking, swimming, campfires, maybe learning how to tie knots. But in Gaza, where Hamas rules, summer camp means learning how to murder Jews. MEMRI has pictures of the camp activities that are going on under the supervision of Hamas’s Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.

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In a cogent analysis of the MGTOW phenomenon, author Kay Hymowitz writes that such young men “find the young women they might have hoped to hang out with entitled, dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling — and did I mention gold-digging?”

And who can blame them? Were I in college today, I would refuse to be in the same room with a female student for fear of being brought up on trumped-up charges before some kangaroo court of ‘progressive’ functionaries.

Read it.

Even Voice of the Crust the Denver Post has had enough.

There is no venue today more politically correct and sanctimoniously liberal than higher education, replete with academic departments “studying” and glorifying every conceivable ethnicity, race and gender.  Nonetheless, the current generation of student activists is overcome by some imaginary insensitivity that surrounds them. With self-righteous indignation inflamed by hyper-narcissism they demand a college campus be “a warm, caring, welcoming, safe place.” An ideological sanctuary from ideas and expressions that might hurt their tender feelings, invulnerable to even the most infinitesimal “microaggression.”

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What did he know that you don’t know?

(Probably not much. Any rational adult could tell that it was rigged.)

Read it.

Fancypants Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts is fighting racism by allowing students to segregate themselves by race — and sexuality — in neo-Jim Crow dorms.

Hampshire refers to the literally segregated dorms as “identity-based housing communities,” reports Campus Reform.

Well, that’s what Identity Politics leads to.

“These residential spaces give support to members of our community with social identities that have been historically marginalized in this country,” the Hampshire website says. The website notes that the idea behind the system of rank segregation is to be “socially just” and “inclusive.”

So where ought we to put ‘marginalized’ students? ON THE MARGIN! What a brilliant idea.

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Fortunately, being hipsters who read Mother Jones, this is the most important thing we have to worry about.

Bite is Mother Jones‘ new food politics podcast.

Yup. You heard that right: food politics. With Mother Jones, everything is politics, even food.

Read it.

Vis-A-Vis Trunk. This is more entertaining than useful, but still.

FarmBot. This is amazing.

Gopher Goo. If you have a gopher problem, you know who you are.

Read it.

The following op-ed by a Norwegian policeman was posted at a Norwegian blog after its original publication in Haugesunds Avis as a letter to the editor. Many thanks to Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer for the translation.

Read it.

A prominent Black Lives Matter activist said celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry and Chrissy Teigen are misappropriating black style and disrespecting the black community when they wear their hair in “boxer braids.”

The horror!

“Banking on blackness is a shameful enterprise, and the Kardashians are no better than racist judges, prison officials and corporations who make money off the incarceration of black bodies,” Matthews told The Daily Caller.

Matthews said black hair is “ritualistic, a sacred experience black women share with one another dating back to pre-colonial times.”

Hey, she’s married to a black guy. Maybe she’s ‘passing’.

Read it.

“We seen what went on with City Hall. We’re not happy about it. We’re not knocking Black Lives Matter. We’re not knocking anybody … We don’t care about your color. We don’t care about where you come from — all lives matter,” post Commander Dave Chamberlain told the Boston Herald.

Steven Hayward at Powerline peers at the tea leaves.

Those who suffer the handicap, like myself, of having a Ph.D and writing for a living—the kind of people who actually sit in bars discussing, for example, Eric Voegelin’s injunction against “immanentizing the eschaton” (there’s a reason Voegelin devotees don’t get dates, and it’s not hard to figure out)—don’t understand that one reason for Trump’s appeal is that to a great many Americans he talks like they do—in sentence fragments, summary emotive thoughts, and imprecise terms. He’s the first prominent political figure in a long time who doesn’t use the certified official vocabulary and public demeanor of the political class. This, as much as anything, makes him anathema to the denizens of the Acela corridor. (Aside: I rode the Acela from Washington to New York not long ago, and had forgotten how precious—as in ludicrous—and utterly unreal are most of the conversations you overhear.)

That’s one theory anyway. Another is to recall the way Mitt Romney in 2012 “spoke conservatism as a second language,” Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg put it (there’s some dispute as to which of them came up with that observation first, but never mind). One of the Juice Voxers, as I call them, pointed out yesterday that Trump gets into the most trouble when he tries to talk conservative.

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Security theater at your expense.

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Mel Gibson’s ex-wife Oksana Grigorieva just lost tens of millions of dollars in her divorce settlement. Grigorieva was originally set to receive a whopping $15 million, but that number was cut all the way down to $250,000 due to the domestic abuse claims she brought up during an interview on “The Howard Stern Show” in 2013.

Loose lips lose chips.

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Sure, open up the borders, let ’em all in — what could possibly go wrong?

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Until somebody flies a plane into it….

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Hillary Clinton has always pushed for a steep Death Tax on the American people. But when it comes to her own finances, it is a different story. Clinton’s newly released tax returns show she still uses tax avoidance strategies to shield their Death Tax liability.

According to a 2014 report by Bloomberg News, the Clintons created trusts in 2010 and shifted ownership of their New York home to it in 2011. In doing so, they will avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in future death taxes.

‘We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.’ — Leona Helmsley

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A well-known Bulgaria opera singer was attacked and injured during an attempted robbery while she was making appearances in the Austrian city of Innsbruck. Her attackers may have been “refugees”, or they may have been “New Austrian” citizens of long standing. In any case, they were part of the glorious rainbow of diversity that has so enriched Modern Multicultural Austria.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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But nobody gives a shit, because they aren’t Muslims.

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Let’s see — I take it out of the back pocket and put it in the front pocket — and I get a tax deduction! How cool is that?