Archive for 2016

JIM BENNETT ON TRUMP VS. HILLARY: Preferring the Pirate. “A Trump administration may well see needed reforms left undone and unneeded populist measures promoted. As this most unlikely of candidates draws closer to the GOP’s nomination, one thing is certain: Whatever the mogul’s flaws, and they are many, he is less dangerous than Hillary.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Students From Top Colleges Avoiding Law School In Droves. “What looked like a leveling off last year was apparently only a brief respite. Graduates from top schools increasingly view law school as a poor option for post-graduate studies.”

All is proceeding as I have foretold.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT THE WAY I HAD BEEN PROMISED: Trump Supporter Who Made Nazi Salute Explains Why She Made the Gesture:

Ms. Peterson, who was born in West Berlin in 1946 and became an American citizen in 1982, said she took offense to the comparison of Mr. Trump to Hitler.

“They said Trump is a second Hitler,” Ms. Peterson said. “I said do you know what that sign stands for? Do you know who Hitler really was?”

“I make the point that they are demonstrating something they had no knowledge about,” she said. “If you want to do it right, you do it right. You don’t know what you are doing.”

That is when she made the Nazi salute — a gesture that is banned in Germany — as a form of counterprotest. But that is all it was, she said.

“Absolutely I’m not a Nazi, no,” she said. “I’m not one of those.”

The couple said they had not yet seen the photo, but they had received calls from family members about it.

I’ll bet.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ ON CHICAGO: “Still, it is doubtful the Left has actually shut the Donald down.  They’ve most likely supercharged him. Saul Alinsky taught his disciples that confrontation — of precisely the kind that just transpired in Chicago — radicalized people far more efficiently than speeches, and exhorted organizers to seek every opportunity, not to ‘get along,’ but to let it all hang out.  By that standard the Trump supporters have been given a master class in radicalization.  Because the rally has merely been postponed or relocated, it’s better than even odds that [last night’s] fireworks will attract as many people for the rematch as it repels.”

Read the whole thing.

YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:

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CHRIS MATTHEWS AT CENTER OF NEW NBC SCANDAL AS IT EMERGES GUESTS ON HIS SHOW HARDBALL GAVE HIS WIFE AT LEAST $79K TO FUND HER POLITICAL CAMPAIGN:

  • Kathleen Matthews is running as a Democrat for Congress in Maryland’s eighth district.
  • Husband Chris Matthews assured viewers last summer he would maintain fair coverage and transparency on his show Hardball.
  • But guests on Hardball have contributed to Kathleen’s campaign without him mentioning it.
  • Revelation comes months after news anchor Brian Williams was suspended for making up details of stories he covered.

As Glenn likes to say, just think of them as Democratic Party operatives with bylines and you won’t go far wrong.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Blaming Trump For Leftist Disruptors: For Once, I Am On Trump’s Side.

Protesters have a right to attend rallies held by candidates they oppose, but they have no right to disrupt them. If they do so, they should be removed, forcibly if necessary. If they hit someone, they should be hit back–twice as hard, as a notable American once said.

As Paul noted earlier, Trump’s rally in Chicago was postponed due to a threat of violence by pro-Bernie Sanders protesters and other assorted lefties. Actual violence seems to have been minimal, and canceling the rally may have been an excess of caution. Still, knowing how Trump’s left-wing opponents have behaved, it may have been prudent.

Weirdly, in my view, many critics have blamed Trump for the violent and disruptive antics of the extremists who have infiltrated his rallies. See, e.g., Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. MSNBC applauded the borderline violent demonstration that shut down Trump’s Chicago event, and Chris Matthews and his guests suggested that Trump had it coming. Even Ted Cruz laid blame at Trump’s feet for the fact that scuffles have broken out at his rallies.

Blaming Trump for inflammatory rhetoric would make sense if his followers were roaming the streets attacking passers-by, or infiltrating Clinton and Sanders rallies and attacking Democrats. But they aren’t. Not a single such instance has occurred. On the contrary, every violent or disruptive event has involved people associated with the Democratic Party trying to prevent Trump from being heard. Whose inflammatory rhetoric has inspired them? Certainly not Trump’s. The brownshirts are all on the left, as usual.

It’s particularly disappointing to see people who should know better — like Cruz, Rubio, and a lot of GOP pundits — jumping on the blame-Trump bandwagon just because they’re desperate to stop him.

1988: THE YEAR OF SPENDING DANGEROUSLY. At the early peak of his success, Donald Trump pulled the trigger on a manic series of deals that nearly brought him down.

The article reads like a real-life version of Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko character from Wall Street, including this vivid denouement:

In 1990 and 1991, as Trump came out with the sequel to The Art of the Deal, titled Surviving at the Top, as his affair with Maples and his divorce from his wife became a major tabloid story, and as his total debt topped $3 billion, $900 million of which he had personally guaranteed, his lenders took back the yacht, the shuttle, the Plaza Hotel. The only thing that saved Trump from personal bankruptcy and permanent financial ruin: loans from his rich father and his siblings, and the severity, strangely, of his fiscal straits. The money was so big, the loans so brazen, that not only was he beholden to the banks—the banks were beholden to him. “Leverage: Don’t make deals without it,” Trump has said, and here his leverage was we’re in this together. The banks had been just as irresponsible as he had.

“I have a great relationship with the banks,” he told Time in 1991.

I’m not locked in here with you, youre locked in here with me.

Note this, though: “Trump’s frenzied 1988 matched the country’s ostentatious and indulgent mood at the end of the Reagan administration.” Which is pretty remarkable, because I vividly remember sitting in a business class in college the day after Black Monday in October of 1987 in which the professor and students pondered if this was the onset of a new Great Depression. As with what financial author James Grant described as The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself, it’s almost as if government doing nothing or comparatively little during a financial crisis is the best policy.

(Via Maggie’s Farm.)

“SMART DIPLOMACY:”

The fallout from President Obama’s indiscreet remarks in Jeffrey Goldberg’s landmark Atlantic article has begun. One day after the article dropped, reports of the President dissing major world leaders and close allies fill the London papers, which highlight Obama’s belittling of David Cameron. The Times of London‘s headline blares, “Obama Lays Blame for Libya Mess on Cameron,” . . .

Expect more shoes to drop—and the anger in London and Paris will be less damaging than the fallout in other parts of the world. For instance, the Iranians are starting to weigh in. . . .

The Iranian trumpeting of Obama’s position will almost certainly not be warmly received in Riyadh, Dubai, and Amman.

This sets up an odd duality: the President in the interview is reflective, thoughtful, making a strong case for why he is wiser and more far seeing than other people. But on the other hand, running your mouth and being openly contemptuous and dismissive of fellow leaders to a journalist is the mark of a careless and clumsy amateur. As so often is the case with this President, there’s a wide gap between the cerebral processes and the ill-considered actions. This would be somewhat explicable in the rookie year of a presidency, but it’s very hard to understand in the final year of an Administration.

Obama is a failed president, and the consequences of his failed presidency will fall upon many innocents. He, however, will always find someone else to blame.