ROBERT SPENCER: Dem Who Claimed Murdered Girl Startled Killer Wants You to Know She Herself is the Real Victim.

One of the most revolting aspects of the terrible story of the murder of Sheridan Gorman was the reaction of Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden, who is, of course, a Democrat. Gorman was a freshman at Loyola University Chicago who was walking on the beach with her friends when an illegal migrant named Jose Medina-Medina approached her and shot her in the head. In response, Haddon did her best to shift the blame from Medina-Medina to Gorman, claiming that she “startled” him, as if that justified murder, and completely ignored the fact that Medina-Medina was an illegal migrant who should never have had a gun or been in the country in the first place.

Now, however, Hadden wants you to know that the real victim of this episode is neither Sheridan Gorman or Jose Medina-Medina, but… Maria Hadden.

Because of course.

I READ THIS A FEW YEARS AGO AND AM RE-READING. It holds up:   Christopher DiGrazia The Director’s Cut.

“I wanted a job. I got a murder.”

When makeup artist Toby Swanson joined the Fox Film Corporation in 1914, he hoped to sneak a kiss from the studio’s newest star, the seductive vamp Theda Bara. But when a scene goes horribly wrong, Bara’s film is cancelled and her dreams of stardom crushed. Unless. . .she can prove that what looks like an accident is really murder.

So together, Theda and Toby dive into showbiz New York, from dancing with a young Rudy Valentino to sharing the vaudeville stage with Sophie Tucker and learning lockpicking secrets from Harry Houdini, all leading up to a mysterious church crypt with a deadly secret.

HOW MUCH OF WHAT WE’RE SAYING IS MISDIRECTION:  Also, Don Lemon is Still a loser:  Iran Strikes: Day 27.

OPEN THREAD: Because I love you and want you to be happy.

FLASHBACK: RANDY BARNETT ON LIBERTARIANISM’S FAILURES:

I see five distinct ways that libertarian theory needs to up its game.

First, the need for natural law ethics in addition to natural rights; second, the need to distinguish between libertarian ideal theory and second-best libertarianism in a world of governments and competing nations; third, the need for a libertarian theory of citizenship and civil rights; fourth, the need to separate the public-private binary from the government-nongovernment binary; and fifth, the need for a more refined theory of corporate power and corporate rights.

Let me offer a few words about each.

Read the whole thing.

NUKE THE FILIBUSTER, PASS A BUDGET AND THE SAVE ACT: