MATT VESPA: In the end, it was just a cabal of elderly Democratic women. “I know some media outlets are calling McDaniel ‘the defeated Tea Party candidate that won’t go away,’ but we shouldn’t fault his campaign for being furious about these ads; their candidate was being compared to the KKK and saying that he will go backwards on ‘race relationships between blacks and whites and other ethnic groups.’ It’s outrageous.”
Archive for 2014
August 5, 2014
VIDEO: 5-Year-Old Takes Over Local TV Newscast. “I’ve never been on live TV before.”
I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER GODDAMN THING ABOUT MY CARBON FOOTPRINT: Senators spent $1 million on charter flights last year.
Last summer, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., embarked on what his office trumpeted as a four-day, 1,000-mile trip across his state, with press releases noting he “woke up early to hit the road,” making stops at a minor league ballpark, a craft brewery and a Roanoke rail yard, among others.
But for several hundred of those miles, Warner was not hitting the road — he was flying a chartered plane at a cost to taxpayers of $8,500.
Warner was one of two dozen U.S. senators who flew taxpayer-funded charter airplanes to, from or around their home state last year at a total cost of just under $1 million, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Senate spending records compiled by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation.
They need to be asked repeatedly — since they’re mostly Democrats — how they square this with their support for “climate change” policies that would limit travel for ordinary Americans who can’t get taxpayers to pay for their jets.
HOW ONLINE COURSES ARE BECOMING EDUCATION’S NEW WAVE.
MOOCs may lack a certain human dimension, but there is a sense in which they are brilliantly democratic. The classes offered through edX (which are—and hopefully always will be—free) are designed to bring content from storied institutions like Harvard and MIT to the masses. Unlike Coursera or Udacity, edX is a non-profit that receives most of its money from its university partners, charging only for verified certificates. The university partners, meanwhile, receive promises of future revenue generated from several sources with which edX is experimenting, including charging fees for verified certificates, licensing course content to other institutions, and offering executive education. For the time being, however, companies like edX are simply making elite-level courses available for free to people all over the world.
It’s not clear, though, whether MOOCs can ever really democratize the Ivy League. After all, what makes Harvard Harvard is not what its graduates know; it’s the ultra-strict admissions standards, the gilt-edged brand. An avid MOOC-taker can spend four years taking the most challenging classes that Harvard and MIT have to offer—and can totally excel at them—and still come away with nothing more than a pile of certificates.
Which makes clear what Harvard is really selling.
A ROUNDUP OF NEWS DEVELOPMENTS in the murder of Dan Markel.
MICHAEL BARONE: Decentralizing Transportation Policy In The Internet Age.
MICKEY KAUS: Obama’s Corporatist Constitution.
One sturdy obstacle to corporatism, you’d think, would be the U.S. Constitution. It’s written down, relatively hard to change, and incorporates several specific anti-corporatist ideas, like the notion of equal protection, universal (equal?) rights and democracy.*** That is why it’s alarming when the “constitutional scholar in the White House” seems to advance a novel constitutional argument that is grounded quite explicitly in corporatism. Here is President Obama from his press conference last Friday, explaining why he feels justified in making an end run around the House of Representatives and imposing his own immigration policies through executive action.
Yeah, his scholarly credentials are looking increasingly iffy.
ASHE SCHOW: Chuck Grassley’s spokeswoman responds to questions on campus sexual assault bill. “My concerns have not been alleviated. Gerber’s response about colleges only being able to find students guilty of violating campus policy doesn’t diminish the fact that accused students are often not allowed to contribute to their defense. . . . As one of my astute readers questioned, will men receive a discounted tuition since they won’t be receiving any of the support services this bill requires?”
K.C. JOHNSON: A Depressing Year For Campus Due Process. “The 2013-4 academic year featured a steady assault on campus due process, resulting from a loose alliance between the Obama administration (especially its Office for Civil Rights) and self-appointed ‘activists,’ their faculty supporters, and a handful of higher-ed journalists. The year concluded with some pushback from an unexpected source—the federal courts—likely previewing major controversy between the academy and civil society for coming years.”
I’m so old, I can remember when the academy was part of civil society.
“BENITO-TASTIC:” A call for “corporate loyalty oaths.”
THE REPUBLIC CAN BREATHE EASY: Congress Takes August Recess, Avoids Recess Appointments. “After the House adopted an adjournment resolution that runs through Sept. 8, a senior Senate GOP aide said an agreement had been reached with the White House that there will be no recess appointments during the recess period. That means Republicans won’t force pro forma sessions.”
FUNNY AND SAD AND ANGERING ALL AT ONCE: Flashback to 2008: Obama The Lightworker.
Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn’t have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.
Dismiss it all you like, but I’ve heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who’ve been intuitively blown away by Obama’s presence — not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence — to say it’s just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.
Yeah, how’s that working for you now?
WHITE HOUSE: US won’t turn back flights over Ebola.
PEOPLE KEEP YAMMERING ABOUT HOW THE HOUSE ISN’T DOING ANYTHING, BUT THERE ARE ALL THOSE BILLS SITTING ON HARRY REID’S DESK: Harry Reid’s reign of paralysis.
The Senate has not voted on jobs bills sent by the House, any “fix” for Obamacare or a domestic energy development bill. The Senate will not take up a real vote on the Keystone XL pipeline. It will not take up Iran sanctions. It did pass Veterans Affairs legislation and Iron Dome funding, not exactly difficult votes. Other than that, not much of consequence has gone on in the Senate, but not because of Republican objections. The GOP would love to take up many of these subjects, debate them and offer amendments; it is Reid who either won’t take up meaty issues or won’t allow any minority amendments, a practice he has taken further than any modern Senate leader. Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said succinctly: “Well, if you look at the last six years, the president and his people, I think, believed they got just about everything they wanted legislatively the first two years.”
In essence, the Senate has become an adjunct of the White House. Reid’s side comes up with no innovative (or even non-innovative) initiatives of its own and doesn’t allow any from the GOP. It changed the Senate rules to rubber-stamp Obama appointees and won’t allow votes on things that will make the White House uncomfortable. It is not that the Senate has been unproductive; that would be an improvement. Rather, it has been counterproductive time and again. It propagates nasty partisanship.
Indeed it does.
ANOTHER LAWSUIT: Male student sues university, accuses gender bias in rape case. “The suit goes so far as to name a dean at the university who Peloe claims was biased against him.” That’s how it’s done.
THE PRICE OF NOT-SO-SMART DIPLOMACY: Jonah Goldberg: The World Is Still Paying For World War One.
August 4, 2014
TEA PARTY DOESN’T DO THIS, GETS CALLED NAZIS ANYWAY. ARABS DO THIS, MEDIA COVERS IT UP. Pro-Palestinian Protesters In Calgary: “All Hail Hitler.”
Her story about the rally mentions the counter-protesters, but not their “All Hail Hitler” chant. See, because that might cause problems for the good guys. The ones using children as shields. We wouldn’t want to paint them or their supporters as unreasonable, would we?
These young fellows are the designated victims, and therefore they can say whatever they want. They need to be protected. Journalism 101.
That’s how it works.
YOU SPELLED “SCANDAL-GOALIE” WRONG: Eric Holder: “Proud To Be An Activist.”
IT’S REALLY LIKE SOMETHING FROM SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: Josh Earnest has no idea why Obama didn’t pursue immigration reform in 2009, when he had the votes. “Even Politifact, which cannot bring itself to label virtually any of the president’s failed promises regarding immigration reform ‘broken,’ has singled out this one as a clear and unequivocal broken promise.”