Libertarian: Pity the Poor TSA Worker

Seemingly everyone hates the TSA. But spare a thought for the guardians of the sky, pleads Joe Seyton at Reason: A congressional report finds a “toxic” TSA work culture “where senior officials’ misconduct goes unpunished and those who threaten to speak out face retaliation.” The committee has been investigating for two years, and paints a picture of sexual harassers being protected by management and racists and bullies acting with impunity, among other abuse. Whistleblowers were punished in a way that meant “they often had to move hundreds of miles away,” though the TSA finally change its official reassignment policy. Says Seyton: “Whether it’s the surveillance, the stalking, or the fondling, this isn’t an agency with a great track record when it comes to treating people well.”

Urban wonk: Don’t Inflate Another Lending Bubble

Elizabeth Warren understands that, as Howard Husock writes at E21, “Low-income homeowners, especially minority owners, saw the value of their homes plummet during the financial crisis.” But she’s wrong about the solution. Warren wants to build affordable housing by relaxing zoning rules, and to pressure banks to lend to lower-income applicants. But, Husock points out, “decades of pressure on banks to lend in poor neighborhoods made matters worse” by making risky loans that pulled other land value down when the homeowners defaulted: “Any policy that encourages lending based on low-income status, rather than credit-worthiness, harms more than it helps by sending the message that need, rather than accomplishment and savings, should matter most.”

Law prof: Russia Inquiry Will Survive a Rosenstein Exit

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia probe, probably won’t be fired — yet. But all bets are off after the midterms, says Harry Litman at the LA Times, which is likely to bring a changing of the Justice Department guard, including a new attorney general. If so, what happens to the Russia probe? It survives: “Trump would face pressure even in a majority-Republican Senate to pick a nominee who would provide assurances that Mueller could complete his work.” And if Trump fires Rosenstein, American citizens can sue over the replacement choice, meaning “courts could reject the president’s choice, and depending on whom he might tap, an avalanche of lawsuits is almost guaranteed.” Meanwhile, “It wouldn’t be surprising if there are already contingency plans in place to counteract any change of oversight.”

From the right: Avenatti Is the Lawyer for Our Time

Michael Avenatti “hit pay dirt” with his client Stormy Daniels, the porn star who had an affair with Donald Trump “and got paid for her silence” — payments that came back to bite the president, notes Rich Lowry at Politico. Since then, Avenatti has looked for ways to bask in the spotlight. He succeeded by “coming up with the single most implausible and lurid allegation in the already incredibly tawdry Brett Kavanaugh confirmation battle”: the idea that Kavanaugh was part of a rape-gage that would assault its victims at parties “with no one apparently bothering to report it to the police.” As unlikely as this is, Democrats nonetheless rallied to Avenatti’s side: “The lawyer has met his moment, and his interests merged with a party happy to join him in the gutter.”

Space beat: The Moon Is Open for Business

Governments are slowing their longtime monopoly on space access, notes Marina Koren at The Atlantic, and the private sector’s advance is about to move to a whole new level: “No company has ever placed a spacecraft on the moon, but if a few key players have their way in the next decade, the lunar surface may soon be littered with them,” she reports. The US firm Astrobiotic aims to put a roveron the lunar surface “in 2019, in time for the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.” Israel’s SpaceIL plans a launch next year, while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has targeted 2023 and SpaceX has contracts for a 2021 landing. NASA, meanwhile, has scrapped its own lander program while “soliciting proposals from contractors seeking to develop technology for payload transportation to the moon.” Koren’s “one request” for the first to pull it off: “Don’t accidentally drive over Neil Armstrong’s footprints.”

— Compiled by Seth Mandel