† TSA (Thieving Security Agent): This latest incident involves Transportation Security Administration security officer Paul Yashou, 38, who has been indicted on two felony and three misdemeanor theft counts for (allegedly) stealing four watches and a pre-paid debit card from luggage at Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles Times reports:

Yashou is alleged to have stolen the items from luggage going through security at LAX’s Terminal 1, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office said. According to the indictment, one of the watches was valued at about $15,000, another at $5,000 and two at $1,000. The pre-paid debit card was valued at $1,000.

If convicted, Yashou faces up to 10 years in federal prison for each felony count, and up to a year in prison for each misdemeanor count.

† The Sounds Of Silence?: In a post for National Review Online Tevi Troy, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from 2007 to 2009 and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, reacts to an article by John Tierney about conservatives avoiding advanced degrees in the social sciences or humanities because they need to “suppress their convictions, an effort that is typically hard to sustain for very long”:

I saw this phenomenon first hand in my own Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Austin. … [A] friend and classmate … asked in a nervous whisper if it was true that I had written for National Review. … His response: “I’m a conservative too, but I don’t let anyone know.” I was glad to have the co-conspirator, and would often privately talk to him about conservative politics, but I was careful never to reveal his secret. 

My friend is now teaching at a large state university. As far as I know, he has not confessed his political leanings to any of his colleagues, and a Google search on him does not reveal his conservative predilections in any way. This is the odd “success story” for conservatives in academia.

[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal]

† Pomp And Parade: A Harvard study recently clued leftie parents to keep their kids home on Independence Day, lest they happen upon a parade and become inculcated with Republican values of duty, honor and country. Another study finds that “a single exposure” to an American flag can swing Democrat and Republican voters with similar views to the Republican candidate, Discover reports:

Travis Carter from the University of Chicago has found that when people think about voting decisions, the mere sight of the American flag can subtly shift their political views … towards Republicanism.  It’s an effect that holds in both Democrats and Republicans, it affects actual votes, and it lasts for at least 8 months.

In the run-up to the 2008 US presidential election, Carter recruited a group of around 200 volunteers and asked them about their political views. A month or so later, he split them into two groups that were comparable in terms of their political beliefs, voting intentions and other variables. Both groups rated how likely they were to vote for either the Democrat Barack Obama or the Republican John McCain on an online questionnaire. The questionnaires were identical except for one small detail - in the top left corner of the screen, one group saw a small American flag and the other saw nothing.

That tiny difference was enough to swing their voting preferences. Carter found that the volunteers who saw the tiny flag became more likely to vote for McCain than Obama (relative to their answers at the start of the experiment). They claimed to feel more positive towards the Republicans and even when Carter tested their unconscious atittudes [sic], a small Republican bias still came through.

After the election, Carter contacted the volunteers again and asked them who they actually voted for. He found that those who saw the flag were less likely to have voted for Obama than those who didn’t (73% versus 84%). They were also more likely to think that the media were unduly harsh in their treatment of McCain. Remember that there were no differences in the political leanings of the two groups before one of them saw the flag-bearing questionnaire.

Finally, in July 2009, Carter caught up with his volunteers one last time. Even though eight months had passed since half of them saw the tiny flags on-screen, these recruits still showed some Republican bias. They were less happy about Obama’s job performance than their peers, less warm about other liberal leaders, and even held slightly more conservative views.

This puts Obama, who began wearing an American flag lapel pin in May 2008 only after Republicans questioned his patriotism, in a bind. If he eschews the pin, he opens himself up to criticism. But if he wears the pin, in theory he subliminally encourages Americans to vote Republican in 2012. On the other hand, his policies have proved out so disastrous for the country that people have an ample factual basis to vote Republican, pin or no pin.

[Hat Tip: RedStateNews]

† What Our Treatment Of Trig Palin Says About Us: Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi rips men's fashion mag GQ for being “a magazine with style, but no taste” for referring to her city as “a kind of Style Down Syndrome, where a little extra ends up ruining everything’’ and quotes from a blog post, “Mock my pants, not my sister’’ by Brian Skotko, a physician at Children’s Hospital Boston’s Down Syndrome Program, whose sister, Kristin, has Down syndrome:

“Go ahead, GQ, and mock my blue whale-emblemed Nantucket red pants. Laugh if you want at the loud argyles that I prefer to wear with my black suit, ’’ wrote Skotko. “… But whatever you do, do not mess with my sister.’’

Skotko then went on to explain from a very personal perspective “what Style Down Syndrome really is.’’

It’s “smiling when everyone prefers to frown. It’s spending three summers, in sheer determination, learning to ride a bike because you want the freedom to be like everyone else. It’s singing tunes from ‘Grease’ at the top of your lungs with your friends. It’s celebrating a third-place victory at a swim meet with as much gusto as a gold medalist. Style Down Syndrome is strong-willed, persevering, and forgiving - because it has to be.’’

Skotko said he is amazed by the response to his post, which has had more than 40,000 hits. “Parents, brothers and sisters and grandparents have said, ‘We will not take it anymore,’ ’’ he said. “I think the disability community has been insulted one too many times.’’ He also sent a letter to the editor to GQ, and received what he describes as a private apology.

GQ removed the offensive line from its website after complaints poured in. But it did not publicly apologize for it, nor explain why it was originally deemed fit for inclusion.

For their part, the slightly rotating group of five FOX pundits who have taken over Glenn Beck’s timeslot ripped Bill Maher a new one for referring to Sarah Palin’s family as “inbred,” Mediaite reports:

Greg Gutfeld opened the floor on the matter with a scathing monologue attempting to figure out what Maher was up to with his comments. “I’m sure that slur is a lurid explanation for a family with a disabled child,” he noted, though argued that Maher would never admit it– as he has similarly done with other comments. If Maher contends that his opinion’s [sic] aren’t sexist, he asked, “are they just hate?” Gutfeld left that question unanswered, but went further to examine Maher’s character. “So what do you make of a guy who says wrong things and then runs scampering from them?” he asked.

His initial answer was “a coward,” but he passed that label on to his audience for listening to his say what he said without protest– in fact, with applause. For them he had his harshest words: “After all, his awful statements fester unchallenged in an echo chamber, and effusive slophouse of flapping, approval-seeking seals. So let’s keep him there, just to remind us that they still exist.”  

It’s encouraging to see opinionmeisters on both sides of the political divide call out people who denigrate and dehumanize people who are developmentally challenged or have brain damage as a result of a congenital condition or a neurological disease. Such people struggle valiantly to accomplish everyday tasks that we absentmindedly perform while we are multi-tasking and should be respected and lauded for their determination and courage. It behooves us all to remember that we are all but one car accident, stroke or thuggish LA Dodger fan away from joining the club of physically and mentally disabled people.  

† Pundits To The Left! Pundits To The Right!: CNN's Wolf Blitzer must think there is a shortage of former presidents and failed candidates to prognosticate about the 2012 election, so he outsourced the job to former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, who had recently met with Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), so Blitzer asked him whether thought Perry would throw his hat in the ring,

Wolf Blitzer: Did you get the impression he’s thinking of running for president?

Pervez Musharraf: I did, yes.

WB: So you think he will.

PM: You need to ask him, but I think, I thought, I did get that impression.

WB: I mean, I agree with you. I think he will run for president, too, but I haven’t met with him personally. You did. You came away from that meeting thinking he’s going to run?

PM: Yes.

[Hat Tip: Mediaite]

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, The TSA Emperor Wears No Clothes: Part II): It’s bad enough the Transportation Security Administration treats people who have medical conditions or are disabled with insensitivity that too often crosses the line to cruelty, but the agency either can’t or won’t learn from its mistakes.

Case in point: After bladder cancer survivor Thomas Sawyer was humiliated by a TSA agent’s manhandling breaking the seal on his urostomy bag – in full view of other passengers – and forcing him to board his flight soaked in urine, TSA invited him to D.C. for a confab and apologetically promised to revise its procedures. Well, it’s déjà vu all over again, Mediaite reports: 

“Before I could even get (out) the words, ‘I want this done privately,’ the TSO agent began patting me down in public,” said Sawyer. “I said ‘Whoa! I have a medical condition.’ He said, ‘I know,’ and continued the pat-down.” As MSNBC reports, Sawyer filed a formal complaint:

“I just don’t get it. Why can’t the Detroit TSO agents follow the procedures? This pat-down was rough and not done appropriately,” said Sawyer. “The screener squeezed my bag several times and they are not supposed to even touch it.” …

TSA spokesperson Greg Soule said the agency takes every passenger’s claim seriously. “We are reviewing the circumstances surrounding this passenger’s screening to determine if the proper procedures were followed,” he said. 

Fortunately the seal on the urostomy bag remained intact this time.

As for the TSA, either the agency glad-handed Sawyer in its meeting with him and the screening procedure had not been changed – meaning that the procedure had been properly followed in this latest incident - or the procedure was changed and had had been disregarded by the agent. Either way, it does not reflect well on the TSA.

His adrenaline pumping, Cancel scooped up the man - who was at least four inches taller and weighed about 200 pounds - and tossed him on the subway platform like a rag doll.