That is the topic of today’s newsletter for the Constitutional Vanguard: November 16, 2016: Preventing a Runaway Article V Convention: Can It Be Done?

Justice Scalia’s views on Article V are also referenced. He has an interesting view on Article V.

On Friday, we discuss what an Article V convention could be used for.

You can sign up for the group here. If you do, the private forum for members can be found at this catchy URL: ConstitutionalVanguard.com. (If you have not already signed up and logged in, you’ll get a 404 error.)

One request for members: if you have not gotten an email this week, please check your spam filter. I noticed today that Gmail was actually putting MY emails into the spam filter — and if it was happening to me, it’s probably happening to others.

I send emails only to people who ask for them, and MailChimp has an opt-out feature in every email, as required by law. So it’s not spam. If you see it in the spam folder, and mark it as not spam, that will help teach Gmail that it’s not spam, and more people who actually signed up to receive the letters will . . . actually receive them. So I would greatly appreciate it if anyone who has not received an email could take that extra step and mark it as not spam.

And let me know if you think the arguments — and Justice Scalia’s! — are convincing!

[guest post by Dana]

Like most of you, I have grown weary of the endless wailing and gnashing of teeth by the perpetually self-absorbed who have refused to accept the results of our democracy at work. Instead of maturely accepting that Trump won the election, these individuals would rather nurse their pain and miserably wallow in Steps 1 and 2 of the 5 stages of grief. Instead of mustering up a fighting spirit and work to build a stronger party and push for a more robust candidate in 4 years, they would rather hold onto their pain. Given that the Natural Man is basically a big, self-indulgent baby, this misery actually feels good to those who believe they’ve been done wrong. It validates them and their existence, and gives meaning to their wanting lives. Their hurt is today’s new shiny badge of honor. And they wear it with great pride. But, while this feasting at the table of self-indulgence and nursing at the massive teat of denial keeps reality at bay and fuels a collective tantrum, it also renders the individual weakened and lost in a swirling vortex of hyper-charged emotion.

This past week, I’ve been keenly aware of the collective response to Hillary’s loss by her loyal sisterhood of true believers. Their cringe-inducing histrionics are daily setting women back untold decades. Pearls clutched? Check! Fainting couches (wo)manned? Check! Welcome to 21st century womanhood: that time in history where women **had it all, and it still wasn’t enough to enable them to accept that they did not get their way. Petulance is such an unattractive quality.

And they continue to embarrass themselves:

“All In” host Chris Hayes noted that, while women of color voted “overwhelmingly” for Clinton, the former secretary of state did only “a point better” among white women than President Barack Obama did in 2012.

Hayes asked McIntosh why Clinton failed to get more white women supporting her.

“Internalized misogyny is a real thing, and this is a thing we have to be talking about,” McIntosh replied.

“We as a society react poorly to women seeking positions of power,” she continued. “We are uncomfortable about that, and then we seek to justify that uncomfortable feeling because it can’t possibly be because we don’t want to see a woman in that position of power.”

Because Hillary Clinton is more than just a president wanna-be. Uh-huh:

Hillary Clinton’s name belongs on ships, and airports, and tattoos. She deserves straight-up hagiographies and a sold-out Broadway show called RODHAM. Yes, this cultural canonization is going to come after the chronic, constant, nonstop “On the other hand” sexist hedging around her legacy. But such is the courage of Hillary Clinton and her supporters; we reverse patriarchal orders. Maybe she is more than a president. Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself. The presidency is too small for her. She belongs to a much more elite class of Americans, the more-than-presidents. Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander Fucking Hamilton.

Hillary Clinton did everything right in this campaign, and she won more votes than her opponent did. She won. She cannot be faulted, criticized, or analyzed for even one more second. Instead, she will be decorated as an epochal heroine far too extraordinary to be contained by the mere White House. Let that revolting president-elect be Millard Fillmore or Herbert Hoover or whatever. Hillary is Athena.

And just when you think they can’t embarrass the gender any more than they already have, another cringe-inducing wounded howl of anguish is heard:

Wow, I have to admit Silverman is way funnier than I ever realized. But, if they could, I think any number of women would beg to differ with her about that Great Depression she and her pals believe they are experiencing:

**Well, had it all, except for the presidency…

–Dana

USA Today:

Twitter suspended high-profile accounts associated with the alt-right movement, the same day the social media service said it would crack down on hate speech.

Among those suspended was Richard Spencer, who runs an alt-right think tank and had a verified account on Twitter.

I’m torn on this one.

On the one hand, Twitter certainly seems to target voices from the right. I’m no fan of provocateur Milo Yiannawhatever, but his account seemed to be suspended, not for what he did, but for ugly stuff his fans did. Glenn Reynolds was temporarily suspended after he made a comment that — while he apologized for it, and it probably could have been phrased better — seemed, when read charitably and in full context, to advocate a sensible policy of self-protection.

Twitter also seems to take its cue from leftists with agendas. Anita Sarkeesian, a militant feminist, was made part of Twitter’s “Trust and Safety council.” Next thing you know, Robert Stacy McCain was suspended, after having done . . . I don’t know what he supposedly did, but I do know he had criticized Sarkeesian.

Also, Twitter and other companies may be taking their cue for the dishonest, nutty, and untrustworthy Southern Poverty Law Center. The USA Today piece says:

Heidi Beirich, spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told USA TODAY that the center had asked Twitter to remove more than 100 accounts of white supremacists who violated Twitter’s terms of service. She also pointed to two alt-right accounts that had been verified by Twitter, Spencer’s and Heimblach’s.

Ugh. Keep them out of anything having to do with . . . anything.

On the other hand, Twitter has every right to ban who they want. It’s a private company. They’re subject to criticism for it, but they have the right. And I certainly want to control who posts here. Generally, that would include racists — a description that seems to fit Richard Spencer, who wants to ship minorities out of the country:

“I don’t think people have fully recognized the degree to which he’s [Trump] transformed the party,” said Richard Spencer, a clean-cut 38-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, who sipped Manhattans as he matter-of-factly called for removing African-Americans, Hispanics and Jews from the United States.

I would not be thrilled with having such people post here, although I might hear them out, at first. Mostly to make fun of them.

And I recognize a couple of the other names on the list of the banned: “Paul Town, Pax Dickinson, Ricky Vaughn and John Rivers.” Pax Dickinson and John Rivers are jackasses. I ban them on Twitter.

But, you see, I choose to do that.

So it’s not as easy an issue, in my view, as many on both sides make it out to be.

In general, though (and I say this as no fan of the alt-right): I think this is a bad move for Twitter — and one of many.

The L.A. Times this morning published an article about a list of misleading Internet sites to avoid, put together by a Massachusetts college professor.

During the election, many people fell prey to fake news stories on social media — even the president-elect ended up retweeting fake statistics. A professor of communication has created a list of unreliable news sites to help people do better.

Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, put together a publicly available Google doc cataloging “False, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources.” It’s been making the rounds on social media as people seek to cleanse their newsfeeds of misinformation.

The usual suspects are there: Breitbart, Drudge Report, etc. [CORRECTION: Drudge is not listed; a Drudge knock-off is. Coffee BEFORE blogging, Patterico!] (No Gateway Pundit. I guess Jim Hoft has the professor’s seal of approval.) Oddly enough, there are barely any left-leaning sites on the list — the main exception being openly satirical sites, like the Borowitz report. Missing from the list is, for example, the L.A. Times itself . . . an organization that I spent years revealing as fact-challenged. Andrew Breitbart once asked me to count up how many corrections I had obtained from them over the years. I stopped counting around 42. And that was years ago — and that’s just the stuff that a) was bad enough for me to write them about and b) they agreed with me about after reading my email correcting them.

But here’s the part that really made me laugh. The professor has different categories for inclusion, including irresponsible outrage sites, unreliable sites, openly satirical sites, and sites that “sometimes use clickbait-y headlines and social media descriptions.” Guess which site was tagged for clickbait-y headlines?

That’s right. One RedState.com.

Guess which site was not tagged for clickbait-y headlines?

Buzzfeed.

I think my point is clear enough. Don’t you?

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

NBC News reports that Trump is seeking a security clearance for son-in-law Jared Kushner, who played an influential role in Trump’s campaign:

Donald Trump has taken the unprecedented step of requesting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, receive top-secret clearance to join him for his Presidential Daily Briefings, which began Tuesday.

Multiple sources tell NBC News Trump received his first briefing on Tuesday and designated both Kushner and Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn as his staff-level companions for the briefings going forward.

While Flynn has the necessary security clearance, Kushner does not, and it could take weeks — or even longer — for him to receive it.

Meanwhile, Trump has denied the story that he is seeking a top secret clearance for his kids:

I am not trying to get "top level security clearance" for my children. This was a typically false news story.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016

Note that he did not say “son-in-law.”

That story about Trump seeking a clearance for the kiddos was first reported by CBS News based on anonymous sources, and then denied by an anonymous official with the transition team. Then the transition team (through an anonymous “top aide”) admitted that the request had been, but blamed an anonymous “low-level staffer” who was supposedly no longer with the team . . . although we don’t know who it was.

If your head is spinning, I don’t blame you.

Kushner is married to Ivanka, who will participate in running Trump’s businesses. Like the kids, he cannot be appointed to official positions due to an anti-nepotism law. (He still could be an unpaid adviser.) The kids have said they won’t be involved in government in any way, but Kushner has not made that promise, that I can tell — despite the fact that he stands to benefit financially if the Trump Organization does well:

Trump is already facing questions about how he will avoid conflicts with his vast business interests. The billionaire has said he plans to fully turn his companies over to his adult children — Ivanka, as well as sons Don Jr. and Eric — but the arrangement he’s described does not appear to legally wall him off from information regarding the operations.

Kushner is directly tied to Trump’s business interests through Ivanka, who oversees domestic and global expansion of the Trump Organization’s real estate interests. And Kushner also has deep business ties of his own, serving as CEO of his family’s New York-based real estate company and publisher of the New York Observer, a Manhattan-based newspaper read largely for its high society and real estate coverage.

It is worth noting that even the NBC report is based on anonymous sources. The only name we have on the record is Trump’s himself.

If Donald Trump denied it happened, you can take that to the bank.

Of course, if the bank is familiar with Trump’s reputation for veracity, they probably won’t accept it.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]