Judge Andrew Napolitano was apparently right about British surveillance on the American election.

He was openly mocked — and suspended from Fox News — but now, it seems, he was right.

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendell said: "There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women. People take that stuff personally."

The ex-governor and former DNC chairman was trying to explain why more women will vote for Clinton than for Trump. Later the same day he called his own comment "incredibly stupid and insensitive"... which is kind of a gaffe in itself, no? He's not saying it's untrue, just the kind of truth you shouldn't say. It's a Kinsley gaffe, right?

I found that via Scott Adams, who's "Evaluating the Political Chess Board" today and observed:

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendel [sic] said something that was probably harmless in person, and in the proper context, but taken out of context by outragists it sounded like he was saying Clinton supporters are mostly ugly women. That didn’t help.

Ha. I like the word "outragists." Nice coinage from Adams.

Anyway... this story reminded me of something I said 3 days ago after the NYT published its rather bad exposé "Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private" — you know, the one where they interviewed 50+ women and came up with basically nothing but pumped it up embarrassingly? I was trying to imagine how the NYT would defend itself after its prime informant, Rowanne Brewer Lane, said the Times distorted her story, making it seem as though Trump had demeaned her when in fact she felt flattered. I said:

I can imagine the NYT defending itself by saying that often young women do not understand the way they are being manipulated and exploited. Within that explanation, to say "I was actually flattered" is to reveal your naivete. That's how the manipulation works. He got her into a bathing suit and then, presenting her to the crowd, said "That is a stunning Trump girl, isn’t it?" How was she a "Trump girl"? Ah, but it felt flattering. Even now, she feels the relationship was very nice, very rewarding, but she doesn't know the import of her own words, the NYT will (I suspect) say. It will say, I predict, that her story was not distorted at all. The facts are all true. They are just viewed from a more sophisticated perspective.

Now, there's a big problem with that explanation. It's saying the woman doesn't understand the meaning of her own experience. That feels like a putdown — a putdown and a stereotype: Women are simpleminded and can be bought off with pretty clothes and flattery. There's a way to say that without provoking the ire of the great masses of women who matter when it comes to an election: Only the young and very pretty women are segmented off and treated so well they only have good feelings about it, and only they are being put down.

See how that connects back to Ed Rendell? The young and very pretty women who hope to be segmented off and treated well by rich/powerful men may — in Rendell's view — gravitate toward Trump because they think they have the kind of power that works within a Trump regime, but most women see themselves as losers in a competition like that and they're going to look to Hillary to save them from the depredations of the patriarchy. But poor Ed! He didn't know how to talk about that sort of thing.

Meanwhile, here's Camille Paglia enthusing about the power of the beauty of Rowanne Brewer Lane:

Small and blurry in the print edition, the Brewer-Trump photo in online digital format positively pops with you-are-there luminosity. Her midnight-blue evening dress opulently cradling her bare shoulders, Rowanne is all flowing, glossy hair, ample, cascading bosom, and radiant, lushly crimson Rita Hayworth smile. The hovering Trump, bedecked with the phallic tongue of a violet Celtic floral tie, is in Viking mode, looking like a triumphant dragon on the thrusting prow of a long boat. “To the victor belong the spoils!” I said to myself in admiration, as seductive images from Babylon to Paris flashed through my mind. Yes, here is all the sizzling glory of hormonal sex differentiation, which the grim commissars of campus gender studies will never wipe out!

I'm making a tag for Ed Rendell and going back and adding it to old posts, like this one from December 2008: "'Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family, perfect.' What Gov. Ed Rendell said about Gov. Janet Napolitano."

How could Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California system, lead by example?

The NYT reports on the incident at the University of California, Berkeley, in which the dean of the law school, Sujit Choudhry, received a confidential and mild punishment after his executive assistant, Tyann Sorrell, complained that he had sexually harassed her. Sorrell was told to look for another job, while Choudhry kept his. The dispute became public when Sorrell filed a lawsuit. 400+ alumni signed a letter calling the punishment "feeble" and "threaten[ing] to withhold future donations until he was fired."

Janet Napolitano — who was President Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013 — is the president of the University of California system. She "said she was upset that she had learned of his case from the news media barred Choudhry from campus for the rest of the term and ordered disciplinary proceedings that could ultimately result in stripping him of tenure."

Choudhry's lawyer sent a letter to Napolitano charging that he'd been deprived of due process and that the school had "lumped" his case in with other sexual harassment problems at Berkeley, making him "a scapegoat for any shortcomings, real or perceived, in the university’s handling of sexual harassment claims and related policies and procedures."

Napolitano gave an interview to the NYT, which gives us scant information about what was said. We're told "she stood by her order to keep Mr. Choudhry off campus." And we get this distanced quote: "I think our society at large has undervalued sexual harassment in the workplace...It’s gone on in many professions for decades. We are a public university, and we ought to be leading by example, not by mistake."

You want to set examples? You are the president of the system. Why hadn't you already figured out how to handle accusations of sexual harassment adequately? Why did you only hear of the case through the news reports? If you're upset about how little you yourself knew, and if the system over which you preside has been inadequate to handle complaints, what "example" should be set against yourself?

Napolitano is both too general and too specific. She says: "our society at large has undervalued sexual harassment in the workplace" when it should be "The University of California has undervalued sexual harassment." And she takes a severe action against Choudhry, but only after his case became an embarrassment to her. She says she's "leading by example," but what's the example? Undervaluing due process to deflect attention away from systemic failure?

University of California President Janet Napolitano says "Let’s just break. Let’s go, let’s go. We don’t have to listen to this crap" into a hot mike.

"Napolitano was sitting next UC regent Chairman Bruce Varner as a group of about two dozen protesters shouted loudly, denouncing potential tuition hikes...."

To make their point loud and clear, a group of the protesters... pulled their clothes off down to their underwear during the demonstration, revealing the words “Student Debt” written on their bodies.

“I don’t know where she’s coming from, but I’m assuming she’s never had to deal with these issues personally. So I can understand why there would be a disconnect there,” [student protester Kristian] Kim said after learning about the “crap” comment.

I think the "crap" comment is fine. I don't like rude protesting at a meeting where the students were given an opportunity to be heard and where Napolitano had addressed them saying "I want to commit to them that their voices are being heard." It's not as if she's 2-faced, saying one thing when she knows she's the students are hearing her and another when she thinks they are not. She said one thing about a group that she thought would engage in a polite colloquy and something else to 2 dozen half-dressed shouters.

Tina Brown's war on men: "End the Damn Dickmanship!"

She's not just railing against sexting, but against "testosterone," generally, as a driver of bad behavior.

The no-secrets era of social media makes one consider the built-in risk factor of nominating high-testosterone men to positions of power at all.... Perhaps we need some kind of sexual DUI test developed to tell us what is likely to happen when middle-aged libido meets a whiff of power.

And politics is not the only arena to require this test. 

She goes on to talk about some boat and train accidents, caused by cock, in her view. By contrast, there are women:

Think about some of our prominent women in Washington right now. Can you ever even imagine—forgive me, Secretary—Katherine Sebelius uploading a crotch shot of herself on Instagram? Or Janet Yellen ordering up male hookers during downtime at the Federal Reserve? It’s preposterous.

Can we imagine females causing sexual wreckage? A year ago, we were imagining Janet Napolitano "turning the department [of Homeland Security] into a female-run ‘frat house’ where male staffers were banished to the bathrooms and routinely humiliated." I would have forgotten that had Tina Brown's screed not reminded me.

Brown's pushing the old female superiority theory, which is the sexism that was once used to keep women out of politics and business. We're too delicate and too prissy to do what needs to be done. And what if it were a substance like testosterone — a liquid squirting through ducts — that could be extracted and measured and reported to voters and employers? Tina Brown says she wants that information, so we can discriminate. Imagine the world she suggests but doesn't really want us to imagine. Everyone gets a masculinity score, and we judge his/her fitness for power accordingly.

Ironically, Tina would probably score very high. How much testosterone fueled the headline "End the Damn Dickmanship!?

"The University of California... regents opted for a political hack of no academic merit whatsoever."

"Their pick, Janet Napolitano, has presided over one disaster after another at the Department of Homeland Security."

There's every reason to think Napolitano would bring what was once considered the world's finest public university system to a new low. Her record at Homeland Security was a series of failures, stemming from a slavish devotion to her boss in the White House and an adherence to political correctness.

And they could have had Condoleezza Rice.

The top 12 "Big Sis" banners from Drudge.

Assembled in honor of Napolitano's departure as Secretary of Homeland Security. My favorite is #12:

"Big Sis: Bye."

Says Drudge, deploying an old nickname which he may never find reason to use again, as Janet Napolitano resigns her post as Secretary of Homeland Security to become president of the University of California system. Why do they want her out there for that?

[Napolitano is] an unusual choice that brings a national-level politician to a position usually held by an academic, the Times has learned. Her appointment also means the 10-campus system will be headed by a woman for the first time in its 145-year history.

It's not as though there aren't women among the academics, if the idea is Must. Have. Woman.

"So, what happens if Hillary Clinton doesn’t run in 2016? It is hard to imagine the presidential field without a woman contender..."

"... and here’s one to keep your eye on: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Napolitano is quietly making it known that she is considering the race, and there is reason to take her seriously...."

"Will Obama Free the Blind Sheik?"

A WSJ op-ed by Michael B. Mukasey, who presided over the trial of Omar Abdel Rahman and sentenced him to life in prison.

Abdel Rahman was convicted in 1995 of participating in a seditious conspiracy that included the [Meir] Kahane murder, the 1993 WTC bombing, and a plot to blow up other landmarks in New York and to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak when he visited the United Nations....

In 1997, members of Abdel Rahman's organization... murdered more than 60 tourists at Luxor, Egypt, and inserted notes in the body cavities of several victims demanding the Blind Sheik's release. Also in the mid-1990s, Abdel Rahman contrived from jail to issue the fatwa that Osama bin Laden cited as authorization to carry out the 9/11 attacks. The sheik's confinement was on bin Laden's list of grievances meant to justify that atrocity.

... Abdel Rahman has been a totemic figure to Islamists since 1981, when his pronouncements gave a group of Egyptian army officers the spiritual justification for assassinating President Anwar Sadat. The officers were hanged, but Abdel Rahman successfully defended himself at trial by arguing that he had simply been opining on issues of Islamic law and should not face censure for that in a Muslim country.

Mukasey reviews the evidence that the Obama administration is contemplating releasing him, including the "excruciatingly lawyered" sounding statement of officials. For example, Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who, before Congress, asked "whether there is an intention 'at any time to release the Blind Sheikh,'" said, "Well, let me just say this. I know of no such intention."

"A veteran US law-enforcement official has filed a blockbuster discrimination lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano..."

"... charging she pushed him aside to make way for a less-qualified woman who’s 'enjoyed a long-standing relationship' with the anti-terror chief."

The lawsuit... identifies the woman as Dora Schriro, who was later appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as commissioner of the city Department of Correction, a post she still holds.

The court papers also allege that Suzanne Barr, Napolitano’s chief of staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has engaged in “numerous” acts of “sexually offensive behavior” intended to “humiliate and intimidate male employees.

Barr’s alleged acts include calling one man “in his hotel room and screaming at him that she wanted his ‘c--k in the back of [her] throat.’ "

ADDED: Blogger Debbie Schlussel broke the story — and is irked that major newspapers didn't credit her.

"Rob Portman had flowing locks. Rand Paul dissects a cat."

Pictures of politicians, when they were in high school. Don't miss Scott Walker "the Desperado."

My favorite is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:

"Today we are thrilled to unveil DHS’s new website, StudyintheStates.dhs.gov."

Great moments in government website creation:

Today we are thrilled to unveil DHS’s new website, StudyintheStates.dhs.gov.

It’s with great pleasure that I was fortunate to attend the unveiling of the Study in the States website by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at the University of Wisconsin – Madison today.

Together with our partner agencies...

You can read more about the Study in the States initiative on the DHS blog.

The crossed-out link in the post title and the "partner" link only trigger a drop-down box that demands a name and password. If you try to go in without the name, you're informed that you lack authorization. All the strikeouts above are on the web page that Janet Napolitano came to Madison yesterday to publicize.

I refrained from attending the big event. But Meade was there and he snapped this pic:

Janet Napolitano speaks in Madison today.

She's going to talk — and answer questions — about "innovative ways to encourage the 'best and brightest' international students and scholars to study and remain in the U.S."

2­–3 p.m. in Varsity Hall at Union South, on campus. The UW website says: "All faculty, staff and students are invited to attend."

2 Harvard law students sue Janet Napolitano and the TSA administrator over the airport scanning and groping.

They say it violates the 4th Amendment.

IN THE COMMENTS: lyssalovelyredhead said:

On a related note, I heard from a lawyer today... that his client, an employer, is being sued by a frequent flying employee, who is alleging forced flying under these conditions constitutes hostile work environment.

I'm searching for video of Janet Napolitano doing a decent job of explaining the new TSA procedures.

I'm working on the thesis that such video does not exist. Please disprove it if you can. I came up with this video, which is interesting for a lot of reasons. Napolitano appears at 1:22 and is laughably unconvincing:



(Most of the video is about San Mateo County's Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe threatening to prosecute for sexual assault. Love the name "Wagstaffe" in this context.)

"Don't touch my junk." It's the new "Don't Tread on Me."

Says Charles Krauthammer.

Don't touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare - get out of my doctor's examining room, I'm wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don't touch my junk, Google - Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me....

Do you remember how the government presented this newly intensified bodily search? Why did the Obama administration — which I associate with opposition to enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorists — adopt enhanced pat-downs on ordinary citizens to protect us from terrorists? Was it done because of the introduction of the enhanced imagining scanners? I really don't know. Did the government explain this to us when I wasn't paying attention? Because I monitor the news for hours every day, and I don't know the explanation.

It seems to me that these 2 things happened together: new machines that see you naked and newly intense body searches. Am I wrong to believe that the new groping procedure was intended to get more people into the scanners they would otherwise resist? Someone, at some level of the Obama administration, decided that the only way to channel people into the see-you-naked machines was to make the alternative more offensive to nearly everyone. Personally, I'd take the grope over being seen naked, but I did a poll yesterday, and I see that the scanner is significantly more popular than the grope.  I suspect that was the calibration. And I suspect that if too many people choose the grope over nakedness, the plan is to intensify the grope until they get the scanner acceptance rate they need.

But why were the scanners introduced when they had to know people didn't want them? With healthcare reform, the Obama administration became associated with ramming things down our throats. The government knows what we should want and doesn't bother to find out what we do want or even to persuade us to want what they think we should. The scanners are the ultimate graphic example of forcing something on us without asking. We're only asked: Well, would you prefer to have us feeling all around your genitals? That's the kind of consent of the governed we're facing these days.

But why push the scanners on us? Do you remember hearing Obama or Janet Napolitano or anyone say anything persuasive about why these machines were bought? (Suddenly, I want to follow the money. For that, I will  move to a new post.)

(In my unscientific poll, 73%  of those who would keep flying, picked the scanner over the grope. I suspect the government needs a better acceptance rate than that to keep the lines flowing and justify the investment in the machines. But most of those of us who picked the grope haven't been groped yet, and if being seen naked becomes the norm, more of us may fall into that brain-dulled line that shuffles into the machine.)

A late night Drudgtaposition.

It's all in the hands:



What is Drudge trying to say about Janet Napolitano?