WELCOME TO BARACK OBAMA’S AMERICA: Barack Obama’s political legacy is the rise of Donald Trump.
Just think of Trump as a funhouse mirror version of the bombastic 2008-era Obama roaring away in front of the Styrofoam columns, in much the same way that Colbert was a spoof of Bill O’Reilly, and you can’t go wrong.
CONFUSED ELDERLY WOMAN THINKS ALL REPUBLICANS LOOK ALIKE.
Obviously, the exoskeleton is long overdue for an upgrade to the heads-up display.
WELL, LIKE COMPUTERS, GUNS ARE ANOTHER TECHNOLOGY THAT EMPOWERS INDIVIDUALS: Pew poll says millennials support gun rights, WaPo calls this “mysterious.” Also, anti-gun hysteria was a specific boomer phenomenon, and the people affected by it are as old as Hillary and Bernie now. Later generations are reverting to the American norm.
Related: Why Geeks Love The AR-15: It’s Not Just A Gun, It’s A Gadget.
THAT DOESN’T FIT WITH HIS — AND OBAMA’S — “ANTI-COLONIALIST” MINDSET: Kirsten Powers: John Kerry Should Recognize Christian Genocide.
ASHE SCHOW: Restoring Campus Free Speech:
In an article for National Review, Stanley Kurtz, a Harvard graduate and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, proposes “A Plan to Restore Free Speech on Campus.”
Kurtz’s plan includes five parts. The first involves adopting a policy based on Yale’s 1974 Woodward Report, which stated the importance of intellectual freedom.
“While the Woodward Report forthrightly acknowledges the importance of solidarity, harmony, civility, and mutual respect to campus life, it unmistakably marks these values as subordinate in priority to freedom of expression,” Kurtz wrote. “In accordance with this, the Woodward Report rejects the proposition that members of an academic community are entitled to suppress speech they regard as offensive.”
The second part of Kurtz’s plan would encourage colleges and universities to “systematically educate members of their community in the principles of free expression.” He suggested using freshman orientation as a means to do so.
Third, Kurtz suggests holding students who try to disrupt free speech on campus accountable. He points to recent examples of a Yale student who disrupted a speaker and was dragged out of a lecture hall by police when he refused to leave. Upon being dragged from the lecture he began screaming. His actions violated Yale policy, but since his actions were coming from the “politically correct” side of the current campus revolt, he has faced no punishment.
One can’t imagine the same rules applying if the tables had been turned.
“We will not see freedom of speech on our campuses until disruptors face discipline for silencing, or attempting to silence, others,” Kurtz wrote.
True. Congress and state legislatures need to make universities liable for abuses of power in this regard.
A PACK, NOT A HERD: Top Cops Warm to Idea of Armed Citizenry to Confront Terrorists.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Troubling Climate At Yale. “I don’t know whether Stone is right or not, though it is telling that his letter is signed almost entirely by natural and social scientists. From the humanities, there was no similar supportive word for the kind of dialogue that is the lifeblood of higher education. It is certainly to the administration’s credit that they did not capitulate to demands to punish the Christakises. But it would be heartening if they were at least as concerned with the worries about barriers to a free exchange of views expressed by people like Stone as they are with meeting the protesters’ demands. To these they have already directed the university’s energies and some fifty million dollars. Can they spare a dime for liberal education?”
I was deeply disappointed that not a single faculty member from Yale Law School signed that letter, even though it was the home of free-expression pioneer Thomas Emerson. When I wrote Yale Law Dean Robert Post about it, he did not seem to share my concerns for free speech.
“WORKPLACE VIOLENCE:” San Bernardino shooting planned a year in advance: report.
Last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14 was reportedly planned up to a year in advance.
The suspected killers began practicing with guns and making financial preparations in 2014, according to NBC News.
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik began honing their firearms skills last year at a shooting range in Riverside, Calif., NBC said, citing two sources.
Couterterrorism officials said the pair began making monetary savings for their child and Farook’s mother during the same period.
“[They wanted to] take care of both Grandma and the baby,” one official told NBC News, referencing the couple’s six-month old daughter and Rafia Farook, 62.
“They had purposely thought through that problem,” they continued. “[Some transactions] would be consistent with them making preparations for grandma and the kid.”
“There were other indications of preparation,” the official added, not specifying further details.
Huh.
GIVEN HOW MUCH AUTOCORRECT SCREWS UP, THIS WON’T EVEN BE GOOD AT CENSORSHIP: Google Chairman Wants ‘Hate-Speech Spell-Checker’ to Filter Internet.
I think the next President needs to launch an antitrust investigation of Google. They seem to have amassed too much monopoly power.
ROGER SIMON: Forget Trump — What Really Should Be Done about Muslim Immigration:
Assuming we don’t want to follow Trump’s lead and violate the principles of our nation, how do we separate the wholesome wheat from the mass-murdering chaff?
Marco Rubio and others have suggested taking the brakes off our intelligence services. Given the inadequate vetting, I don’t think we have a choice. But there as several other things.
Most of all, we must outlaw Sharia.
Read the whole thing.
FLASHBACK: When Jimmy Carter Banned All Iranians From Entering America. “Fourth, the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.”
BIPARTISAN SENTIMENT: House votes overwhelmingly to restrict visa waivers for travelers.
The House voted Tuesday to restrict a program that allows people from some countries to come to the U.S. without a visa, responding to growing fears about the threat of terrorism from overseas.
Lawmakers easily approved the measure in a bipartisan, 407-19 vote. All 19 votes against the measure were from Democrats.
The waiver program allows tourists from 38 countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain and France, to stay in the U.S. for up to 90 days without a visa. About 20 million tourists use the program each year.
Concerns about the program’s security have spiked following reports that all of the identified attackers in Paris were European nationals. Tourists who use the visa waiver program are already screened against American security databases, but are subject to less restrictive checks than other travelers.“We simply cannot give people from other countries special access to our country if we don’t have all of the information that we absolutely need to ensure that they are not a threat to national security,” said Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), the bill’s author.
Under the legislation, citizens from countries that qualify for the program would be denied visa-free entry to the U.S. if they have visited Iraq, Syria or other countries deemed to be terror hotspots in the last five years, or if they are citizens of those countries. Those individuals would instead have to pass through a more stringent security process.
Wow, this doesn’t sound super-different from what Trump has suggested, only super-popular.
FUNNY HOW THIS KEEPS HAPPENING: Oops: Major Donor To Hillary Clinton Campaign Faces Criminal Profiteering Charges.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Texas A&M University Lowers and Locks Tuition for Law School. “Texas A&M University has announced it will lower its full-time resident tuition and fees for the School of Law by more than 15 percent, beginning with the fall 2016 semester.”
SCOTT ADAMS: “I propose that instead of calling fellow citizens racists or idiots we do a deeper dive into the risks and put a price tag on our preference for religious []tolerance. If the risk of future terror attacks is tiny, most of us would prefer maintaining our respect for religious differences. But if the risk is more than tiny, can you put a price on your love of religious tolerance? In other words, how many dead Americans are you willing to accept? I’ll go first.”
I ASSUME IT’S BECAUSE THE DRINK-CART BABES ARE AWESOME: Why Hasn’t Bill Clinton Resigned from Trump National Golf Club – Westchester?
YEAH, THIS IS PRETTY MUCH THE THEME OF MY USA TODAY COLUMN TOMORROW: Bob McManus: Trump’s bluster fills the void left by other leaders’ PC silence.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Afghan flight training members missing from Moody AFB. “Two male Afghan air force students did not report for duty yesterday at their regular maintenance training at Moody AFB in Valdosta, Georgia. Both are assigned to the 81st Fighter Squadron. They have been at Moody since. February 2015 and were screened prior to their arrival in the United States more than a year ago. The students have trained alongside American counterparts for the entirety of 2015 and do not pose any apparent threat. There is a well-coordinated process among federal agencies to locate the individuals as quickly as possible and return them accordingly to the proper authorities to manage their present situation.”
COINCIDENCE? HMM. SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Gun buyer, shooter’s brother married to Russian sisters. Seems a bit . . . suspicious.
JOHN HINDERAKER: Venezuela: Hasta La Vista, Socialism! “Venezuelans were appalled not only by the poverty that socialism caused, but also by the corruption that accompanied the Chavez/Maduro regime. This is no surprise: as Glenn Reynolds has said many times, leftists hate free market policies because, while they enrich the ordinary citizen, they provide insufficient opportunities for graft among the political elite.” Yep.
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