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New York University Professor Michael Rectenwald was suspended two weeks ago for a Twitter account he ran which repudiated political correctness. Legal Insurrection readers know that's a form of heresy on college campuses today. He has now been reinstated and with a raise in pay. FOX News reports:
NYU brings back professor who blasted PC culture, gives him a raise Liberal studies professor Michael Rectenwald, the man behind the controversial @DeplorableNYUProf account, has been promoted by prestigious New York University and given a raise days after the university had put him on a paid leave for criticizing politically correct culture on campus.

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Israel's President Reuven Rivlin received a ceremonial welcome at the presidential palace in New Delhi, earlier today. Prime Minister Narandra Modi and senior members of his cabinet where present at the occasion as the visiting Israeli Head of State was given a Guard of Honour by the three services of Indian military. Hundreds of Israeli and Indian flags could be seen waving side-by-side along the route taken by the presidential motorcade in New Delhi. The grand ceremony accompanied by a thundering 21-gun salute is a fry cry from the dead-of-the-night  incognito "stop over" by the then Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan on a tarmac in Delhi, 40 years ago. Israel-India bilateral contacts in those days sounded more like Cold War spy thrillers than everyday diplomacy. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have indeed come a long way.

Morning Joe spent its opening segment scalding the notion of either Rudy Giuliani or John Bolton as Secretary of State in the Trump administration. Giuliani was described as completely unqualified for the job, and someone who has personally profited off national security matters, a la the Clintons. Bolton was blasted as a "neo-con on steroids" whose views are out of sync with Trump's, and is "donor-driven," with Sheldon Adelson's name being dropped. So who's Scarborough and company's pick for SecState? Joe and Mike Barnicle called the selection of Tennessee Senator Bob Corker a "no-brainer." Maybe so, but not necessarily in the way they meant it. Corker is infamously the man who facilitated President Obama's disastrous Iran deal. Corker has been castigated across the conservative spectrum, as here, here, here and here.

It is never ever a Clinton's fault when they fail. Never. Of course Hillary has pointed the finger at FBI Director James Comey while others blame outside forces. The only person who has actually pointed the finger at the Democrats and Hillary? President Barack Obama. Hillary told major donors that Comey's letter to Congress a week before the election cost her the presidency:
“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”

I'm Libertarian. I voted for Gary Johnson. But I live in Oklahoma, which is as conservative as you can get and the GOP candidate will always win no matter how I vote. That does not stop people from accusing others like me for ruining the election for their candidate. Of course people accuse Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein of costing Hillary Clinton the election against Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal looked through the evidence and found that neither one hurt Hillary.

The federal government gets much of attention for being The Worst™, and rightfully so. But oftentimes local governments and their officials are truly as awful as they come. The latest tale of sorry and woe comes to you from Kansas City. There, Health Department officials poured bleach on 700 lbs of BBQ that was set aside for the needy, rendering it inedible. Worse still, thousands who showed up for a BBQ lunch were turned away because there was nothing left to feed them.

Anti-Israel activists, usually acting under the banner of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, repeatedly try to hijack unrelated causes to turn them against Israel. We have documented such actions many times, including with regard to Ferguson (Michael Brown) and Baltimore (Freddie Gray) riots, Eric Garner protests, the Standing Rock Sioux pipeline protest, domestic U.S. police shootings, Reclaim MLK marches, and the Black Lives Matter movement, among others. None of this is solidarity. It's conquest of other peoples and movements to redirect them to and focus attention on the BDS anti-Israel agenda. It is a form of Settler Colonialism, BDS is a Settler Colonial Ideology. Not surprisingly, BDS groups are attempting to inject themselves into and dominate the anti-Trump protests and riots.

Wanda Sykes performed at 22nd annual Comics Come Home fundraiser in Boston, MA, when she decided to go off on President-elect Donald Trump:
“I am certain this is not the first time we’ve elected a racist, sexist, homophobic president,” said Sykes during her set, a video of which is below. “He ain’t the first one. He’s just the first confirmed one.” Within a matter of seconds, the crowd and Sykes turned on each other. “F— you, motherf—ers,” Sykes said as the crowd’s boos intensified. “F— all y’all. F— all y’all.”
The audience responded with jeers and boos, which led Sykes to flip them off.

Remember when, at the beginning of his administration, President Obama made Valerie Jarrett his closest advisor, and how CNN went on the attack because of her far-left roots? Neither do I. But now that President-elect Trump has named Steve Bannon as a senior advisor, CNN is in full inquisition mode. Chris Cuomo and Poppy Harlow, co-hosts on today's New Day, cross-examined Trump spox and former Sen. Tom Coburn, respectively. References to the alt-right, anti-Semitism, etc. flew as the CNNers combatively questioned their guests.

I just blogged that Donald Trump picked Myron Ebell, Director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute and a noted climate change skeptic, to head his transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency. The current head of that agency is feeling the chill wind of change, and is heating up the implementation of environmental regulations ahead of Trump's inauguration.
"As I've mentioned to you before, we're running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama's presidency," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a staff memo obtained by the Washington Examiner after Trump was declared the winner of Tuesday's election.

Since the presidential election last week, there's scarcely a corner of the internet free of nasty contentiousness. Thankfully, not everyone has lost their sense of humor. A handful of memes imagining President Obama and VP Biden's White House departure are easily my most favorite things on the internet right now. Especially since they play on Uncle Joe as well...Uncle Joe. Most of the memes show Biden suggesting ways to prank the incoming presidential crew, but all of them are lol-worthy. Enjoy:

The push back against the progressive left's agenda that culminated in the election of President-elect Trump had been gaining steam for a while now and not just on this side of the Atlantic. Faced with poor economic growth, an influx of refugees, a sense of losing their national identity, and a variety of country-specific reasons, the entire Western world seems on the verge of the same sort of election-revolution we just witnessed in America. Heralded as the "the liberal West's last defender," Angela Merkel has been under intense pressure based on her open door policy to refugees, and she now finds herself feeling the growing dissatisfaction of the German people even more powerfully than before Trump's victory.

Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin, Ohio, has been in business since 1885. It sells a variety of baked goods along with wine and other foods. On November 9, 2016, Gibson's employees noticed what they thought was a person shoplifting two bottles of wine hidden in his jacket. That alleged shoplifter was a black Oberlin College student. When they attempted to stop and photograph him, they were attacked by several other people accompanying the student. The police were called. The Oberlin town police department has posted the Incident Report online, reflecting the arrest of the alleged shoplifter and two others involved in the scuffle. Here is the first paragraph of the police report:

Love it or hate it, Facebook is an inescapable part of modern social engagement. As the public grapples for any variable that would explain the Trump presidency, Facebook is the recipient of at least some of the blame, justly or not. The complaints are rather silly -- users are blaming the social media platform for content others post, in particular, fake news stories. Of all the factors that determined last week's electoral outcomes, I doubt fake news stories even moved the needle, alas...