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Catnip for the media: Bill Clinton's tangential tie to an appalling sex scandal

Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex abuser, is a billionaire with a lot of celebrity friends.
They included Mick Jagger, Ivana Trump, Mike Bloomberg, Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert…oh, and Bill Clinton.
Who do you think is getting the most media attention?
That’s right, the former president is now “tied” to a guy who allegedly was surrounded by a number of underage girls and spent 13 months in prison for solicitation of prostitution. The Epstein scandal has been drawing big headlines in the British press because one woman charges that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew, which Buckingham Palace denies.
“Bill Clinton drawn into Prince Andrew sex scandal,” says a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Now it’s perfectly fair to question Clinton’s judgment in hanging around with a man who turned out to be a sleazebag. Between 2002 and 2005, Clinton sometimes flew on Epstein’s jet to the tycoon’s private Caribbean island, where Epstein is alleged to have kept underage girls as sex slaves, according to press reports that followed a lawsuit against Epstein.
A tantalizing story line—but here are some other details.
Clinton apparently broke off his friendship with Epstein after the police investigation of him was reported, a probe that led to the 2008 conviction.
And the woman who charges that Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew and other men says she never had sex with Clinton, and doesn’t think anyone else associated with Epstein did.
Still, the salacious tale has led to all kinds of chatter, along the lines of Will This Affect Hillary’s Campaign? And Clinton’s history with the likes of Monica Lewinsky naturally arouses suspicion.
But is it fair for media outlets to imply or insinuate that Bill was up to his old hanky-panky, even if it’s with a wink and a nod? Wthout so much as an allegation to that effect?
Another Epstein friend, Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, is in a very different situation, since an unnamed woman in the lawsuit (Jane Doe No. 3) alleges that she had sex with him. The high-profile lawyer is filing a defamation suit, denied the allegations on the “Today” show, and told the Wall Street Journal that this was a “totally fabricated, made-up story…I have never had sex with an underage woman. They made up this story out of whole cloth. I’m an innocent victim of an extortion conspiracy.”
Needless to say, there are lots of charges and countercharges flying here. And the British part of the scandal is fascinating.
For instance, it emerged three years ago that Epstein gave Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, Fergie, 15,000 pounds to help pay off her debts.
The digital list of Epstein’s contacts (which includes not just Clinton but 20 of his aides and associates) was used in an attempt to subpoena him for questioning in the lawsuit, but that effort failed.
If a serious allegation against the 42^nd president surfaces in this mess, that is fair game for the press. But we ought to be careful about plunging into guilt by association.

Econ book acclaimed by left based on faulty premise, factual errors, study finds

A book by a French economist who became a darling of 99 percenters and his lefty peers is riddled with errors, cherry-picked data and flawed premises, according to two new studies.
Thomas Piketty's “Capital in the 21^st Century,” which New York Times columnist and Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman called “the most important economics book of the year — and maybe of the decade,” calls for an 80 percent income tax to stop wealth inequality from increasing. The book earned its author an invitation to the White House to meet with Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
But it contains more than 10 factual errors, according to one new study accepted by the Journal of Private Enterprise and conducted by economists Phillip Magness of George Mason University and Robert P. Murphy of the Institute for Energy Research. The errors they report range from relatively simple mistakes such as getting several historical dates wrong to mis-attributing a massive tax increase to President Franklin Roosevelt that was actually passed by President Herbert Hoover, to incorrectly claiming that the minimum wage never increased under either George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush, who both oversaw increases.
The authors write that they see a pattern in the errors.

“He cherry-picks, the data sometimes don’t match the sources that he cites, and he changes the data to make the charts look better without accurately documenting it.”- Kevin Hassett, American Enterprise Institute

“[The errors] serve to paint ostensibly market-friendly Republican presidents as ogres, while liberal Democrats are the heroes of the working class,” they write.
They also conclude that, in building some of his charts, Piketty switched between data sets in a way that was biased in favor of his argument. In his graph on wealth in the U.S., for instance, Piketty relied on data from one study going up until 1950, then for 1960 he switched to another study, and then for 1970 he went back to relying on the first study again.
The authors conclude that Piketty used “cherry-picked data points to construct a trend line that mirrors his predictions.”
The authors also found that, in one Piketty graph about US historical tax revenue, he only had data going back until 1900; yet he made the graph go back to 1870 by assuming those years were the same as 1900 and by adding or subtracting a seemingly arbitrary number to make the data appear plausible.
Asked about the above issues, Piketty told FoxNews.com that there may be some typos in the book but said he did not think they affected his central conclusion.
“I am really sorry if I attributed one specific tax decision to FDR instead of Hoover, etc.; many readers do mention typos of this sort, and of course they will be corrected in future editions; but I really do not see anything here that's affecting any conclusion,” Piketty told FoxNews.com.
But a new study claims to find errors that affect Piketty’s fundamental premise. It was done by University of California Berkeley economics professor Alan Auerbach and American Enterprise Institute economist Kevin Hassett, and was presented Saturday at a session of the American Economics Association.
Piketty, in his book, makes the case that the rich constantly get richer using a graph that illustrates that it has increased steadily in the United States over the last half-century.
But the study finds that the graph is largely wrong. For instance, when Piketty’s graph refers to the year “1980”, the number actually comes from data from the year 1989. The authors also found that Piketty simply left several data points off of his chart without explanation.
After revising the chart, the economists found that the proportion of wealth owned by the rich “no longer rises without interruption” and that in fact, “inequality appears to be declining at the end [of the graph].”
Piketty told FoxNews.com that, even using the American authors’ graph, his ultimate conclusion remains intact.
“The increase in inequality would look less steady, but it would still be there,” he said. A comparison of the two graphs is on page 6 of the American authors’ study.
Hassett reponds that the new chart makes the case for measures like an 80% tax rate to stop increasing wealth inequality a lot less clear.
“The trend towards higher inequality would look weaker… [inequality] would have fallen from its 1995 peak,” Hassett said.
But Piketty counters that a recent study found that wealth inequality actually rose even faster than he had reported in his book.
“Everybody recognizes that the Saez-Zucman series are indeed the best series on US wealth inequality we have so far, and that they show an even bigger increase than what I report in my book,” he told FoxNews.com.
Yet many economists do not recognize that.
“There are other recent papers, one… by Kopczuk (a co-author of Piketty’s in the past), plus another based on Fed survey data, by Bricker et al., which argue that other methods of analysis are more accurate and do not show such a trend,” Auerbach of UC Berkeley said.
Piketty said he has been up front that more data collection is needed.
“I made perfectly clear in my book and in my presentation on Saturday that we still know too little about income and wealth distribution… and that we need more democratic and financial transparency about income and wealth dynamics,” he said.
The recent criticisms come on top of issues discovered last year by the Financial Times. Hassett says that, in the end, so many things are off in the book that it affects the conclusion.
“He cherry-picks, the data sometimes don’t match the sources that he cites, and he changes the data to make the charts look better without accurately documenting it,” Hassett said.

White House issues veto threat over Keystone pipeline bill

The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto fresh legislation approving the controversial Keystone pipeline, setting up a likely showdown between President Obama and the new GOP-controlled Congress over one of Republicans' top agenda items. 
"If this bill passes this Congress, the president wouldn't sign it," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday, stressing that the president wants to wait for a State Department review process to finish. 
Republicans, with several Democratic supporters, were introducing the Keystone legislation on Tuesday as their first order of business for the new Congress. 
The White House, which until now had stayed mum about whether President Obama would sign the bill, issued the veto threat within minutes of the 114th Congress convening. 
On the Senate side, sponsors Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said the bill has 60 co-sponsors, and uses Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce to green-light the Canada-to-Texas pipeline. They predicted at least 63 senators, and possibly more, ultimately will vote for the bill -- more than enough to pass. 
The House is expected to vote and pass a bill approving the $5.4 billion project, which was first proposed in 2008, on Friday. 
Should the bill pass and face a presidential veto, the big question is whether congressional leaders, then, could muster the two-thirds majority needed to override. Manchin also suggested Congress could respond to a veto by attaching the Keystone measure to another bill. 
Hoeven and Manchin blasted the White House for the veto threat Tuesday afternoon. 
"Instead of a veto threat, the president should be joining with Congress on a bipartisan basis to approve the project for the American people, rather than blocking it on behalf of special interest groups," Hoeven said in a statement. 
Manchin, who is often at odds with the administration, said he was "disappointed that the president will not allow this Congress to turn over a new leaf and engage in the legislative process to improve an important piece of legislation." 
The head of the American Petroleum Institute, Jack Gerard, said Tuesday after his annual speech on the state of U.S. energy that the president had failed to make a simple decision that would put people to work, but he predicted the pipeline would eventually be approved. 
"It doesn't bode well for relationships between the White House and Capitol Hill," Gerard said of the veto threat. 
The bill is identical to one that failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in November, when Democrats were in control and Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana pushed for a vote to save her Senate seat. She lost to Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, who sponsored the successful House bill approving the pipeline. 
But now the odds of passage are much improved with the Republican takeover of the Senate. The bill will also test Republicans' commitment to more open debate. Hoeven and Manchin said they welcomed additions to the bill, which they hoped would increase support. 
In recent months, Obama has been increasingly critical of the project, and has resisted prior efforts to fast-track the process. At his year-end news conference, Obama said the pipeline would benefit Canadian oil companies but would not be a huge benefit to American consumers, who are already seeing low prices at the pump thanks to oil prices, which on Monday dipped to a nearly six-year low and were sharply down again Tuesday. 
In addition, the outcome of a Nebraska lawsuit over the pipeline's route through that state is still pending. Another challenge to the pipeline is being waged by a South Dakota tribe over renewal of an application for a permit. 
The project by Calgary-based TransCanada would move tar sands oil from Canada 1,179 miles south to Gulf Coast refineries. Supporters say it would create jobs and ease American dependence on Middle East oil. A government environmental impact statement also predicted that a pipeline would result in less damage to the climate than moving the same oil by rail. 
Critics argue that the drilling itself is environmentally harmful, and said much of the Canadian crude would be exported with little or no impact on America's drive to reduce oil imports.

EEOC: School wrong to fire teacher who gave Bible to student

A New Jersey school district violated the law when it fired a teacher who handed a Bible to a student, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled on December 15, 2014. The ruling was made public Tuesday.
The EEOC determined there was reasonable cause to believe the Phillipsburg School District discriminated against Walt Tutka, a substitute teacher. The EEOC also said religion and retaliation played a factor in Tutka’s firing.

The Phillipsburg School District owes Walt his job, back pay and an apology. They waged a disgusting public war against this fine, upstanding man simply because he gave a child a Bible.

“This is a great indication the EEOC is taking religious liberty seriously and they are going to enforce the law — and in this case make sure Walt’s rights are protected,” Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser told me.
Liberty Institute is a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases.
“This sends a message to school districts that their natural allergic reaction to religion is misplaced, and not only is it wrong — but it’s also an egregious violation of the law,” Sasser said.
As I first reported, Tutka was working as a substitute teacher on Oct. 12, 2013, when he ran afoul of school policies. He told a straggling student at the end of a line, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”
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The student asked on a number of occasions where the line was from, and Tutka told him it was from the Bible. When he discovered the child did not have a Bible, Tutka gave him his personal copy. It was not all that unusual because Tutka is a member of Gideons International, a ministry known for providing Bibles to school children across the world.
On Oct. 18, Tutka was summoned to the principal’s office, where he was accused of violating a school policy that bans the distribution of religious materials and another that directs teachers to be neutral when discussion religious material.
He was fired on Jan. 14.
Sasser said he hopes the school district will reinstate Tutka.
“If they don’t do the right thing, they will face some serious consequences,” he told me. “They are going to be liable for damages.”
I reached out to George Chando, the superintendent of the Phillipsburg School District. He declined to return my call.
My advice to him is to do the right thing, or Liberty Institute will go after him like a pit bull going after a pork chop.
Sasser said the EEOC ruling should serve as a warning to other school districts around the nation.
“You can’t just fire people because they happen to hand a Bible to somebody while they are at work,” he said.
Sasser said he believes the school district was out to get Walt because he is a Gideon. I obtained a copy of an email from Phillipsburg Middle School Assistant Principal John Stillo that suggest the school district had an issue with the well-known religious group.
“It has been brought to the administration’s attention that Gideons may be near our campus to distribute literature to our students,” Stillo wrote in a memo to the school’s staff. “Please make sure they DO NOT step foot onto our campus at any time. There will be added police and security presence at dismissal.”
Gideon International has a long history of providing Bibles to public school students, but many districts have banned the religious society in recent years. Ironically, the Gideons are welcome to distribute Bibles and deliver speeches in Russian schools.
The Phillipsburg School District should rehire Walt. And it owes him a big apology. They waged a disgusting public war against this fine, upstanding man simply because he gave a child a Bible. Shame on you, Phillipsburg School District. Shame on you.

Tail of AirAsia plane located in Java Sea, Indonesian official says

An Indonesian official confirmed Wednesday that divers and an unmanned underwater vehicle had spotted the tail of missing AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea.
The find is particularly important because the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, are located in the aircraft's tail. It is the first confirmed sighting of any wreckage 10 days after the plane disappeared en route to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia with 162 passengers on board. Small pieces of the plane, such as seats, have previously been spotted.
Strong currents had forced search and rescue operations to expand the search area for debris, bodies, and suspected chunks of the plane's fuselage on the ocean floor. National Search and Rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told reporters that the tail was identified from a photograph of the debris taken by searchers. One released image appears to show an upside down "A" painted on a piece of metal, while another grainy shot depicted some sort of mechanical parts.
The debris is located about 6 miles from where Flight 8501 lost contact with air traffic controllers Dec. 28 and was originally detected by an Indonesian survey ship. 
Soelistyo said the top priority remains recovering more bodies along with the black boxes. So far, 40 corpses have been found, including an additional one announced Wednesday, but time is running out.
At two weeks, most corpses will sink, said Anton Castilani, head of the country's disaster identification victim unit, and there are already signs of serious decomposition.
The Airbus A320 went down Dec. 28, halfway through a two-hour flight, killing everyone on board. It is not clear what caused the crash, but bad weather is believed to be a contributing factor.
Just before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control he was approaching threatening clouds, but was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic. No distress signal was issued.
Finding the black boxes will be key to the investigation. They provide essential information including the plane's vertical and horizontal speeds along with engine temperature and final conversations between the captain and co-pilot. The ping-emitting beacons still have about 20 days before their batteries go dead, but high surf had prevented the deployment of ships that drag "ping" locators.
Ships equipped with sonar devices have also identified what they believe to be the fuselage of the plane. Several other big chunks have been found, the largest measuring 46 by 13 feet, though they have not yet received visual confirmation.
In addition to heavy rain and wind, the monsoon weather has turned the Java Sea into a slush bowl.
But in some ways, it is one of the best places to look for a missing plane, especially when compared to the extreme depths of the Indian Ocean where searchers continue to hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared last March with 239 people aboard.
The water at the Indonesia site is shallow, but this is the worst time of the year for a recovery operation to take place due to seasonal rains that have created choppy seas and blinding mud and silt from river runoff.
"Because the Java Sea is such an enclosed basin, and there's not really big currents passing through it, everything just stays there for quite a while and the waves make it so that the sediment doesn't slowly just sink to the bottom," said Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. "It continuously keeps churning it up."
He said the conditions also make it particularly dangerous for divers because the water is dark and murky, making it easy for them to cut themselves on jagged wreckage or even become snared and trapped. During the dry season, he added, it would likely be easy to see the plane underwater from the sky.