"Who’s Really Placing Limits on Free Speech?"

Conservatives is the answer in a NYT op-ed written by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Donald P. Moynihan.

[N]o student has ever demanded that my classes include a trigger warning or asked for a safe space. But my colleagues and I have been given much more reason to worry about the ideological agendas of elected officials and politically appointed governing boards....

Faculty members conducting research on social or environmental issues that does not align with views of the party controlling the State Legislature may prefer to keep their heads down rather than speak out...

On both private and public campuses, instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups like Media Trackers or Professor Watchlist. Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests. The ultimate audience for such trawling is lawmakers, who set the rules for public institutions....

Trawling is the right word there, by the way. The image is of fishing with a net. You might think, isn't it trolling?

I got distracted from the topic of this post into the distinction between the 2 verbs, trawl and troll. Trawling is done with a net. The literal meaning is fishing with a net, and we may used the fishing-with-a-net metaphor when speaking about searching documents.

Troll, the verb, has a lot of meanings. I could lose the rest of the morning in the OED entry on this word (just the verb, not the noun). But one of the meanings really is about fishing, and it's why you stumble over the question whether the right word is trawling or trolling in the context seen above.

To troll in fishing is to fish with a running line. That's used figuratively too. But the image is of some bait dragged along to attract the some being that may succumb to the temptation to bite. That's not how a net works. I'd rather be trolled than trawled.

The oldest appearance of troll in this sense has God using this fishing method:

1606   S. Gardiner Bk. Angling 28   Consider how God by his Preachers trowleth for thee.

That makes me think of Jesus saying to his disciples, "I will make you fishers of men." He meant by trolling of course. Not trawling!

I invite you to say what I've heard you say before: Althouse is trolling us!

The "extraordinary arrogance and presumption" of the "the recent letter signed by 1,100 law professors urging the U.S. Senate not to confirm attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions"

According to Stephen B. Presser, legal history professor emeritus at the law school at Northwestern University. (He's written a book, "Law Professors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law," the last chapters like "The American Law Professor as Aloof Olympian," "Changing the Legal Fabric of the National Government Towards Libertarian Paternalism," and "The Law Professor as President.")

From Presser's column about the lawprof letter:

The pious pontification of the law professoriate has become cliche in modern America, leading many pundits (correctly in my view) to criticize our current president for his tendency to think like a law professor, and to view the world in the abstract, removed and unrealistic way in which it is seen from the faculty lounge....

The exaggerated self-importance of the teacher of law is buttressed by immersion in an ideology very different from what most senators and most Americans believe about the law in particular and the world in general.....

That ideology is a culmination of a century of the ascendance in the law school of a set of beliefs that seem to convince most professors that the law is really no different from politics and that it is infinitely malleable. For too long, they say, the law has has [sic] been used as a tool of the rich and powerful to oppress women, minorities and the powerless. It should be the task of judges, legislators, and lawyers alone, they say, to interpret the Constitution and laws and to use that malleability to redistribute power and resources to the oppressed....

Their ideological zeal and the inevitable tendency of ideologues to believe in the insincerity and malice of those who disagree with them have led them to believe the spurious charges that torpedoed Sessions' judicial nomination decades ago, and to see him as an enemy to the groups they favor.

Presser has a big critique of lawprofs that goes beyond the immediate question whether Sessions should be confirmed. He even ends with a call to teach "law as a repository of timeless truths." I'd love to see the letter the 1,100 lawprofs could write against the notion that the law ought to be taught as timeless truth. 

Presser's column includes material that appears in the first 2 pages of his "Law Professors" book, such as a quote. You can read the pages in the book, here. It's put like this in the column:

One law professor, Harvard's Duncan Kennedy, nicely limned the problem, when he declared, as a law student at Yale, that his teachers were "either astoundingly intellectually self-confident or just plain smug." He went on to state that their classroom gestures seemed to say, "I am brilliant. I am famous in the only community that matters. I am doing the most difficult and most desirable thing in the world, and doing it well. I am being a Law Professor." Kennedy published those words in 1970, but the problem is even worse now.

It feels very Trumpian to scoff at lawprofs' "extraordinary arrogance and presumption," but Kennedy was speaking from the radical left. Kennedy is associated with the Critical Legal Studies movement, which utterly rejected the idea of "law as a repository of timeless truths."

Is this all to intra-lawprof?

We're about to end our formal relationship with the lawprof President. Some throes are involved. Perhaps it's best to avert our eyes.

"During nearly two decades in the Senate, Jeff Sessions had never endorsed anyone in a presidential primary."

"But last January, the Alabama Republican, afraid that his party was floundering, sent a five-point questionnaire to all its presidential contenders to determine who might deserve his support. Just one answered: Donald J. Trump. Mr. Sessions is in many ways Mr. Trump’s antithesis: reedy-voiced, diminutive and mild-mannered, a devout Methodist and an Eagle Scout who will soon celebrate a golden wedding anniversary with his college sweetheart... But... Mr. Sessions shared one trait with Mr. Trump: He was an outsider, dismissed by much of the Republican Party as a fringe player on all but his signature issue, immigration. The two men unexpectedly bonded over their willingness to buck the establishment and the unlikely hope that lower-middle- and working-class voters would carry a billionaire to the White House."

From the NYT article, "Jeff Sessions, a Lifelong Outsider, Finds the Inside Track."

Here are the 5 questions (and how Trump answered them):

"On Yom Kippur in 1937, the Day of Atonement and fasting, the 12-year-old Nat sat on his porch on a street leading to a synagogue and slowly ate a salami sandwich."

"It made him sick, and the action outraged his father. He had not done it to scandalize passing Jews who glared at him, he said in a memoir, 'Boston Boy' (1986). 'I wanted to know how it felt to be an outcast,' he wrote. 'Except for my father’s reaction and for getting sick, it turned out to be quite enjoyable.'"

From the NYT obituary for Nat Hentoff. The "author, journalist, jazz critic and civil libertarian who called himself a troublemaker" was 91.

While his sympathies were usually libertarian, he often infuriated leftist friends with his opposition to abortion, his attacks on political correctness and his criticisms of gay groups, feminists, blacks and others he accused of trying to censor opponents. He relished the role of provocateur, indirectly defending racial slurs, apartheid and pornography.

He had a firebrand’s face: wreathed in a gray beard and a shock of unruly hair, with dark, uncompromising eyes. Once a student asked what made him tick. “Rage,” he replied. But he said it softly, and friends recalled that his invective, in print or in person, usually came wrapped in gentle good humor and respectful tones....

In “Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other” (1992), he attacked not only school boards that banned books but also feminists who tried to silence abortion foes or close pornographic bookstores; gay rights groups that boycotted Florida orange juice because its spokeswoman, Anita Bryant, crusaded against gay people; and New York officials who tried to bar South Africa’s rugby team because it represented the land of apartheid.

ADDED: Here's Nat Hentoff writing about Bob Dylan in 1964 in The New Yorker. Read the whole thing. Here's the first paragraph. They don't let you publish big bulky paragraphs like this anymore:

"'Mom, are you on acid?' her daughter asked sarcastically. Ms. Waldman froze. It was not yet the moment, she decided, to answer 'yes.'"

From a NYT article about the writer Ayelet Waldman — wife of novelist Michael Chabon. Waldman is taking microdoses of LSD to treat depression.

The teenager caught her erstwhile-depressed mother humming, talking about the blue sky, making banana-strawberry smoothies, and offering to braid the daughter’s hair.

Waldman has a new memoir: "A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life."

From the NYT article:

The idea behind microdosing is to take regular “sub-perceptual” doses of hallucinogens (in the case of LSD, about 10 micrograms, roughly one-tenth of a standard recreational dose) once every four days. The levels ingested are intended to be too small to inspire Technicolor hallucinations, but large enough to enhance a sense of mental flow.

No hallucinations? I'm out. I'm not in the market for enhanced mental flow — or a mere sense thereof. Do you lack "mental flow"?

Anyway, the stuff is illegal. And, by the way, Waldman is/was a lawyer. She went to Harvard Law School with Barack Obama. And she worked as a public defender, so she has an enhanced sense of the reality of criminal prosecution. How does she get to be an out-and-proud LSD user?

The problem, however, was procuring the LSD. Initial, furtive inquiries among New Age friends in Berkeley proved fruitless.

Then, unexpectedly, a mysterious friend of a friend reached out — a man who said he was a professor who was nearing the end of his life and no longer had use for his remaining LSD. A short time later, a brown-paper package arrived from “Lewis Carroll.” It contained a tiny cobalt-blue bottle.

Well, good luck to her — with the depression and the teenage kids who know she's "on acid" and the memoir and the government and maintaining the supply after she's drink-me'd all that's in the tiny cobalt-blue bottle.



If we could all get access to microdosing, what would stop us from moving above the "sub-perceptual" level. How can the government deny us perception?

The NYT tells us that the microdose — 10 microgram — is "roughly one-tenth of a standard recreational dose." I found a Reddit discussion detailing the steps up to and beyond that standard. I'm linking to it not as medical information to be relied upon, but to get you to think about the perceptions the government denies us. Excerpts:

60 mics... Lights are brighter, colors are slightly enhanced and some after imaging and trails....

Legal Insurrection, your headline is embarrassingly misleading.

The headline is: "Young Americans for Freedom Labeled ‘Hate Group’ at UW Madison."

I thought maybe something new had happened here at my school, but it's just a link to a College Fix story about how a student group, The Student Coalition for Progress, is petitioning the UW to label Young Americans for Freedom a hate group.

I doubt if there's any chance that the UW will respond positively to this petition. It's ridiculously deceptive to make it look as though the UW had "labeled" YAF a hate group.

Yes, you've covered your ass with that "at" (instead of "by"), but few readers will resist jumping to the conclusion that the University took some action against the conservative group. Things happen at universities all the time. It's called freedom of speech. It's utterly dull and hardly worth mentioning that a group called The Student Coalition for Progress wants to stifle Young Americans for Freedom.

The College Fix story is new, but the petition is 3 weeks old. I blogged it here (on December 23rd.) Nothing new has happened. In fact, if you read past the first 5 paragraphs cut and pasted into Legal Insurrection — you'll have to get all the way to paragraph 17 over at College Fix — you'll see that a UW official is quoted saying:

"I do want to clarify that the petition itself does not represent the university position on the group or constitute a formal complaint against YAF."

Come on, Legal Insurrection! How many people are writing over there under a brand I associate with Cornell lawpro William A. Jacobson? The misleading article is by someone identified by first name only: Aleister. What's going on?

ADDED: And here's Roger Kimball, fooled by the headline and switching the preposition to "by":

YAF labelled “hate group” by UW Madison. What they hate is the despicable PC campaign against freedom on campus. https://t.co/8h6xVLXaN4

— Roger Kimball (@rogerkimball) January 7, 2017

Glenn Reynolds also passed along the Legal Insurrection headline, but fortunately a commenter over there caught the problem. The most up-voted comment, by willbilson, is:

Um... somebody started a petition. YAF was never 'labeled as a hate group' by UW Madison. I mean, come on. Don't publish misleading headlines. I get clickbait, I guess, but come on...

Kim Du Toit pushes back forcibly:

Feel free to take remedial reading lessons. The headline states that the YAF was labeled a hate group AT the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Not by.

Would Kim Du Toit like to speak that nastily to the estimable Roger Kimball? The headline invites misreading, and we all need to keep our bullshit detectors tuned up.

And I suspect that Glenn himself read the headline to mean "by" and not just "at," because he introduces it with "TAXPAYER-FUNDED MARGINALIZATION."

AND: There's some debate in the comments here about how much Aleister simply passed on bad text written by College Fix and how much he contributed. In the course of that debate, Meade points out that Aleister begins with his own words: "This would be the same UW Madison which is currently offering a program about the problem of whiteness."

Aleister says that as if the UW were favoring the left over the right. But there is no inconsistency. Allowing a professor to teach a race studies course that examines what he chooses to call the problem of whiteness demonstrates UW's commitment to academic freedom. That commitment is consistent with support for the free speech of YAF and the rejection the Student Coalition for Progress's request that YAF be punished for its speech.

And it should be noted that The Student Coalition for Progress is engaging in free speech when it calls YAF a "hate" group and when it petitions the authorities to do something about YAF. The Student Coalition for Progress has important free speech rights. But we should observe and criticize what is bad about the speech of The Student Coalition for Progress, and that is the idea that government authorities should suppress speech.

Students in the Coalition should think harder about free speech, throw off their repressive enthusiasm for government control, and switch to using substantive arguments about whatever it is they don't like about what YAF is saying.

I am trying to encourage them to do this. The left used to be very enthusiastic about free speech. That's something that was likable about the left. The Student Coalition for Progress may think the way to win support for their ideas is to suppress other ideas.

That's not going to work, and they shouldn't want it to work. I predict that as long as they keep trying to make that work, they will fail to win much serious support from other people, even if they succeed in eliciting some genuflection when they bullshit about "hate."

"Mountain gave birth to a mouse: all accusations against Russia are based on ‘confidence’ and assumptions. US was sure about Hussein possessing WMD in the same way."

Tweeted Alexey Pushkov, a member of the defense and security committee of the Russian Parliament’s upper house, quoted in the NYT in "Russians Ridicule U.S. Charge That Kremlin Meddled to Help Trump."

Also, this tweet, from Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of the state-funded TV network RT:

“Aaa, the CIA report is out! Laughter of the year! Intro to my show from 6 years ago is the main evidence of Russia’s influence at US elections. This is not a joke!”

"As I talked to people about inclusiveness, and having a place for a variety of cultures and ethnicities to come together, people got more and more interested in the project."

Oh, really?

Either they got more and more interested or they became conscious of the need to look interested. I would expect people, here in Madison, Wisconsin, to be aware of the importance of not looking bored or uncaring when someone comes at you with talk of "inclusiveness" and the "com[ing] together" of "cultures and ethnicities."

The quote comes from Amanda White, a "fundraising consultant" hired by the city's Public Market Development Committee. The city seems to have already allocated $13 million to this project but is trying to figure out how much additional funds it can raise through donations.

This "public market" project has been going on since at least 2012. (It's now projected to open in 2019, but there's still a dispute over whether they've got the right site.)  I've never been able to understand it. Here's Progressive Dane's presentation of the idea, which says it's a way to "address racial disparities." Here's the Facebook page for Friends of the Madison Public Market. Here's the City's page on the project, where I found a report analyzing the market as a "Racial Equity & Social Justice Tool." ("Deploying strategies that can make opportunities in the food sector into pathways to a careers [sic] and businesses and transform the food economy a ladder [sic] to the middle class is critical to Madison making progress on racial economic equity.")

"Yes, we were highly critical of Hillary Clinton in the runup to Election Day. But that was the race for the White House..."

"Not so in New York, where she’d be dead-center in the city’s Democratic majority. Progressive, but not obsessed with proving it.... The incumbent has handed the work of running the city off to one or two deputies, while he spends his time on politics and p.r. stunts.... Clinton is a fighter and a problem-solver... What’s in it for her? Well, her presidential run shows her appetite for continued public service. And while Gracie Mansion isn’t the White House, it’s no consolation prize: New York’s mayor is famously 'the second-toughest job in America' — and you traditionally have your own foreign policy, too."

Say the editors of The New York Post. 

I've got another answer to "What's in it for her?": She can antagonize Donald Trump from that position.

The NYC mayoral race is this year. The incumbent, Bill de Blasio, is eligible to run and has said he's running. Wikipedia has a nice list of declared and potential candidates. I'll just highlight the ones that got my attention. From the potential Democrats, in addition to Hillary:

Anthony Weiner, former U.S. Representative for New York's 9th congressional district and candidate for Mayor in 2005 and 2013

Yes! What could go wrong? There's no further depth of humiliation. Anthony, anything you do will feel like redemption. Say yes!

From the potential Republicans:

Donald Trump Jr, businessman and son of President-elect of the United States Donald J. Trump

Oh, yes! The time is ripe. Building a dynasty is not something you drag your heels on. And what if the Democratic nominee is Hillary? The Trump vs. Hillary show was a big hit last fall. I want to watch another season. Make it happen, people. It's a slow year for election action. The spotlight is on you. Bill de Blasio richly deserves a big challenge. Come on, New York City. We political spectators need some variety. The Washington show is worth watching: President Trump, Trump's Congress, the Democratic Party in Trumpland. But all that governing can get tiresome. A nice active NYC mayoral campaign would be great.

And I'm saying that as someone who reacted to the 2016 election by saying at least Hillary will go away.

"Dear celebrities... dear celebrities... dear celebritites... how many of these lame-ass videos have you made that look exactly like this... like this... like this..."

"Muslim woman who voted for Trump asks Georgetown to intervene over professor’s ‘hateful, vulgar’ messages."

The Washington Post reports on the harassment that has befallen a former Georgetown professor, Asra Q. Nomani, who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post — "I’m a Muslim, a woman and an immigrant. I voted for Trump."

On Thursday, Nomani filed a formal complaint with the university, alleging discrimination and harassment after comments made by Christine Fair, an associate professor in Georgetown’s School for Foreign Service....

“I’ve written you off as a human being,” Fair wrote in one message detailed in the complaint. “Your vote helped normalize Nazis in D.C. What don’t you understand, you clueless dolt?” Fair wrote, later adding: “YOU publicly voted for a sex assailant.” She went on to say that Nomani “pimped herself out to all media outlets because she was a ‘Muslim woman who voted for Trump.’ ”

Fair called Nomani’s appeal to her employer a “very dangerous trend.” She said Nomani, a former professor at Georgetown, has no standing at the university to complain.

“I am most concerned about the increasing appeal to employers to silence the criticism of citizens made in their private capacity as citizens,” [Fair] wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “Because most of us need our jobs, as few of us are financially independent, this is the most pernicious form of bullying of critics.”

Who's the bully here? The bully may be the one who's crying "bully."

“I am writing to share with you that, as a result of my column, Prof. Fair has directed hateful, vulgar and disrespectful messages to me, including the allegations that I am: a ‘fraud'; ‘fame-mongering clown show'; and a ‘bevkuf,’ or ‘idiot,’ in my native Urdu, who has ‘pimped herself out,’ ” Nomani wrote in a Dec. 2 email included in the complaint to Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown’s Center for Security Studies. “This last allegation amounts to ‘slut-shaming.’ ”...

“She has no right to decry criticism . . . even criticism that is in language that offends her fragile sensibilities,” Fair wrote in a Facebook post. “ ‘F–k off’ and ‘go to hell’ and ‘pimping yourself out’ for media coverage offended her . . . but not ‘I can grab their p—–s’ or the various misogynist, racist, xeonophobic [sic] race-baiting bulls–t espoused by her candidate of choice.” Fair concluded: “So again, Ms. Nomani, ‘F–K YOU. GO TO HELL.’ ”

Well, Fair has gone pretty far, but I side with her free speech rights and interests. Nomani had her say and Fair reacted to it, with vivid speech. Fair could be fancily articulate, but sometimes what you have to say really is "Fuck you. Go to hell." Form is part of the expression, as Justice Harlan fancily articulated in Cohen v. California (the "Fuck the Draft" case)(and, yes, I know Georgetown is a private institution):

To many, the immediate consequence of [freedom of speech] may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and even offensive utterance. These are, however, within established limits, in truth necessary side effects of the broader enduring values which the process of open debate permits us to achieve. That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense not a sign of weakness but of strength. We cannot lose sight of the fact that, in what otherwise might seem a trifling and annoying instance of individual distasteful abuse of a privilege, these fundamental societal values are truly implicated. That is why "[w]holly neutral futilities . . . come under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats' poems or Donne's sermons," Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 333 U. S. 528 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting), and why, "so long as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of acceptability," Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415, 402 U. S. 419 (1971).

And let me just focus on Nomani's charge that Fair committed "slut-shaming" when she said that Nomani "pimped [her]self out." That's Nomani engaging in some vivid, hostile speech, leveraging the liberal meme "slut-shaming." Is the metaphorical use of "pimped yourself out" really so bad? Writing for personal gain is often analogized to sexual prostitution, and we know that calling someone a whore for selling out his or her intellectual work product is not sexual. It's no more sexual than "fuck you" to express anger. It's no more literal than "Go to hell." It's just coarse, hyperbolic speech.

Maybe you remember back during the 2008 presidential primaries, when a reporter — MSNBC's David Shuster — got in trouble, for saying "Doesn't it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"

After Shuster made the remark on "Tucker," Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines contacted him and said the reference was offensive. Shuster e-mailed back that he was referring to the fact that Chelsea Clinton is making calls to convention superdelegates but refusing to talk to the press. After Shuster continued to defend himself, Phil Griffin, MSNBC's top executive, called Reines yesterday to apologize.

[Clinton campaign communications director Howard] Wolfson noted that MSNBC's Chris Matthews expressed regret last month for suggesting that Hillary Clinton's political success can be traced to sympathy stemming from her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky. "At some point you have to question whether there is a pattern at this particular network," Wolfson said.

That was back when Tucker Carlson was on MSNBC and it was possible to argue that MSNBC had a plan to use sexism to thwart Hillary Clinton. Times change.

And here's where I realize I need to use my "civility bullshit" tag. Calls for civility are always bullshit. That's what I always say. It's particularly interesting when — as in the case of Nomani v. Fair — both sides are purveying civility bullshit.

The right remedy, as ever, is more speech. That goes for women too. Stop running to the paternal authority for help. Return fire as a free and fully empowered human being. You don't like her speech? Show me that your speech is better. Don't try to get the other person fired.

You know, Nomani purports to be for Trump. How about asking: What would Trump do? When hit with verbal criticism, he hits back with words. He's shown us how to verbally joust and not crumple. Take a cue.

Here's video of Shuster making the "pimped out" remark and then apologizing in case anybody took it literally:



ADDED: I'm just now looking back at what I wrote at the time about the Shuster remark. I like looking back 9 years and seeing how consistent I've been:

Really, how bad is it to say "pimped out"? Is it "nappy-headed hos" bad? Did anyone think Shuster was literally calling Chelsea a whore or even making any reference to her womanly virtue? "Pimped out" is a common colloquialism these days. According to the Urban Dictionary, which gives a good read on how young people use words, the connotations having to do with exaggerated fashion and style predominate.

Even if the clear associations with prostitution remain, we often make figurative references to prostitution in speech, and the cause of feminism is not served by requiring special limitations when we're talking about women. We ought to be able to call a female publicity hound a "media whore."

I've never watched "Tucker," the show Shuster was guest-hosting when he made the supposedly offensive remark, but if the conversation there is casual and slang is the norm, then saying "pimped out" about Chelsea should be taken in stride. Otherwise it looks as though NBC caved to the Clintons.

ADDED: Ugh! Here's Shuster groveling...

Ha! I've got exactly the same video embedded. 

"All Americans should be proud of Chelsea Clinton"? Why? Because, sublimely privileged, she went to work for a hedge fund? And, generally, why should anyone be "proud of" someone else's children? Plus, Chelsea isn't a kid anymore! I think saying "All Americans should be proud of Chelsea Clinton" is offensive. Please fire David Shuster.

AND: Out in the real world today, I had an encounter with the word "pimp." Plus, the dominant meaning of the word today — relating to style — may be the original meaning, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

pimp 1607, perhaps from M.Fr. pimper "to dress elegantly" (16c.), prp. of pimpant "alluring in dress, seductive." Weekley suggests M.Fr. pimpreneau, defined in Cotgrave (1611) as "a knave, rascall, varlet, scoundrell." The word also means "informer, stool pigeon" in Australia and New Zealand and in S.Africa, where by early 1960s it existed in Swahili form impimpsi. The verb is attested from 1636. Pimpmobile first recorded 1973.

MORE: The Moderate Voice has a big roundup of the commentary, which does not just break down along partisan lines. For example, Jane Hamsher said:

It may surprise everyone but I actually wasn't bothered by [what Shuster said]. The phrase is ubiquitous, I use it all the time and although it is a loaded term my initial impression was that in the wake of all the truly awful sexist stuff that's come down the pipeline from MSNBC over the course of this campaign, much of which I have personally railed about, this just didn't fall into that category. At first I thought it might be because I know Shuster and don't think he has the women's issues that many on MSNBC seem to have, and maybe that was affecting my assessment of the situation. But I wrote a post recently about Ben Affleck appearing at a press conference for the SEIU in Boston, and shortly after it went live someone involved in helping me put together the story sent me an email wondering what the hell I was thinking linking to a headline that said something on the order of "Boston Mayor Pimps For Healthcare Workers." I wasn't sure what they were upset about either at the time, but after a moment I realized that the term probably didn't strike others as being as inert as it did me so I changed the link. I understand that this situation is different, we're talking about a young woman and Hillary Clinton has been on the receiving end of a lot of really misogynistic and disrespectful shit from MSNBC and that on the heels of that, a comment which overtly compared her daughter to a prostitute probably did not sit too well. Still, if you asked me, I'd say that while I certainly understand that others might feel differently, for me this was a minor infraction.

And if anyone thinks my comment here is partisan, remember that I just defended Randi Rhodes (and I've been arguing the free speech side of nearly every dispute over the 4-year life of this blog).

4 years. It's 16 years now. I've been staunch!

"The 27-year-old former rickshaw driver is one of only four people in the world ever to be diagnosed with epidermodysplasia verruciformis... 'tree-man disease.'"

This genetic condition had huge tree-bark-like warts growing from his hands and feet. He's been relieved of these horrific growths through multiple surgeries.

Amazing before and after pictures at the link.

Speaking from his bed at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, which has been treating him free of charge, [Abul] Bajandar said the pain of his condition had been "unbearable".

"I never thought I would ever be able to hold my kid with my hands," he said, showing a bandaged hand. "Now I feel so much better, I can hold my daughter in my lap and play with her. I can't wait to go back home."...

He met his wife Halima Khatun before he contracted the disease, but it had taken hold by the time they married, against her parents' wishes.

Because of his disease, Bajandar became a celebrity and — we are told — "probably the most loved and longest-staying patient" at the hospital.

"It is over."

Said Joe Biden.

It happened today: The victory of Donald Trump in the Electoral College was certified in a joint session of Congress. 

Freshman Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) also tried to raise objections, but Biden cut them off. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) attempted to voice protests as well.

As Jayapal tried to make her case, Biden cut in: "There is no debate, and if it's not signed by a senator the objection cannot be entertained."

ADDED: Video:

"American intelligence officials have concluded that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, 'ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election'..."

"... and turned from seeking to 'denigrate' Hillary Clinton to developing 'a clear preference for President-elect Trump,'" the NYT reports.

The conclusions were part of a declassified intelligence report, ordered by President Obama, that was released Friday afternoon. Its main conclusions were described to Donald J. Trump by intelligence officials earlier in the day, and he responded by acknowledging that Russia sought to hack into the Democratic National Committee, but said nothing about the conclusion that Mr. Putin had sought to aid his candidacy, other than that it had no effect on the outcome.

You can read the report PDF here. 

"Tori Amos released her first solo album, Little Earthquakes, on January 6, 1992 — 25 years ago today."

My son John Althouse Cohen writes:

Although she's an American, the album was released only in the UK at first; the US version was delayed until late February. Apparently the thinking was that she might not be as appealing to Americans. The concern was unnecessary.

It's hard to express what a brilliant artist Tori Amos is. She does three things and is stellar at each one: songwriting (alternating between frankly confessional and slyly cryptic), singing (at its most mellifluous on this album but capable of being much more raw) and piano playing (classically trained but with pop and jazz sensibilities).

More — with videos — at the link.

"Five people are dead and a shooting suspect is in custody Friday after a lone gunman opened fire at a baggage claim area in Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport..."

"... shooting some people in the head without saying a word, witnesses and investigators said."

The suspect in custody was identified as Esteban Santiago...

"The shooter was a passenger on a Canadian flight with a checked gun," Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca wrote on Facebook. "He claimed his bag and took the gun from baggage and went into the bathroom to load it. Came out shooting people in baggage claim."...

"It was very surreal," John Schlicher, a witness, told Fox News. "He did not say a word." He described the shooter as a slender man with dark hair, likely in his 30s, wearing a Star Wars T-shirt.

ADDED: "In Nov. 2016, Santiago-Ruiz walked into an FBI office in Anchorage and claimed he was being forced to fight for ISIS, law enforcement sources told CBS News. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital after police were called, sources said."