MY USA TODAY COLUMN: A Turning Tide In The War On College Men?
Archive for 2016
January 29, 2016
JOHN SCHINDLER: Why Hillary’s EmailGate Matters: In casually disregarding basic security, Secretary Clinton harmed our country and helped our adversaries.
Her disregard wasn’t casual. It was a conscious and involved scheme to avoid the Freedom of Information Act, and possibly also Obama Administration scrutiny of her actions. She put the nation as a whole at risk, along with individual lives of intelligence sources, for political reasons: to avoid accountability.
WASHINGTON AND EU TO ISRAEL: MAKE THE LAND SAFE FOR TERROR.
BUT IF THE NEXT PRESIDENT’S A REPUBLICAN, THE RECESSION WILL BE HIS FAULT FROM DAY ONE: US economy slowed to scant 0.7 pct. growth rate last quarter.
WHAT IF THE REFUGEES ARE NOT JUST IGNORANT SAVAGES?, Bookworm asks:
Here’s what I think is going on: The refugees are acting as they are, not because they see themselves as charity cases, but because they see themselves as conquerors. They know perfectly well that one doesn’t defecate in a pool in which people (especially children) are swimming. They’re doing it because they are performing the literal equivalent of the expression “I don’t give a shit about you.” They know you’re not supposed to rape women . . . that is, unless those women are the products of conquest, in which case raping them is one of Mohamed’s commandments.
It’s almost funny seeing Europeans trying politely to teach their conquerors how not to treat those whom they have conquered. I wonder how long it will take before the Europeans figure out that they’re no longer in the driver’s seat. And then I wonder whether they’ll be able or willing to mount a counter-strike, or whether the twelve-hundred year-long Islamic jihad against Europe will finally have succeeded.
(Headline by Ace of Spades co-blogger Maetenloch)
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED INSTITUTIONS SUCH HOTBEDS OF CORRUPTION? The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes that current PA AG Kathleen Kane “faces criminal charges, and since October has been running the attorney general’s office with a suspended law license,” and “now faces a second legislative initiative to potentially remove her from office after a House committee Tuesday approved an investigation that could lead to impeachment.”
And she’s the leader amongst the four Democrats competing in the primaries next month in at least one poll.
I TALK ABOUT LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING, on the Politinerds podcast with Jazz Shaw and Doug Mataconis.
WOMEN ARE OBVIOUSLY TOO FRAGILE TO FACE THE CRUEL WORLD WITHOUT A PROTECTOR: Richard Dawkins disinvited from conference for offending feminists.
Outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins says a lot of things that people find offensive, but apparently the last straw came when he dared to share a parody video that criticized feminism.
Dawkins’ retweeting of the video caused him to lose his invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism. The invitation was rescinded “in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving retweet of a highly offensive video.”
The NECSS didn’t specify that it was the video focusing on feminism that had done Dawkins in, but is the most likely culprit. In the video, feminists are compared to radical Islamists. Never once does the video suggest feminists are violent, however.
It also seems unlikely that Dawkins would have been disinvited had he retweeted something comparing Islamists to, say, Republicans.
Of course not. That would have been hilarious.
Since the senator from Vermont and avowed democratic socialist announced his campaign for the Democratic nomination last May, he has drawn crowds ten times the size of Hillary Clinton’s. He’s received a record number of small-dollar donations—more than Barack Obama in 2011. As I write, in mid-January, a poll has him tied with Clinton in Iowa. He’s ahead of her in New Hampshire.
And yet, as far as the traditional media are concerned, Sanders is a nonentity. Zaid Jilani of The Intercept searched the Lexis-Nexis database for mentions of Sanders on news shows during a 30-day period. Sanders, he discovered, had been discussed 20 times. Donald Trump was discussed 690 times over the same period.
What, and risk quoting Bernie on how awful the economy is under Obama’s watch, thus (a) making the media look like fools for being such throne-sniffing cheerleaders since the middle of 2007 and (b) making it that much more difficult for Hillary to run as his designated successor?
WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE IRANIANS DO?
Related: James Lileks adds:
If there’s anything that feels like a cold thumb pressed on the heart, it’s stories like this: Italy covers up nude statues for Iranian president visit. (I was disappointed that no one responded to tweets about the story with ancient swipes about John Ashcroft. C’mon, guys, this moral relativism isn’t going to relavatize itself.) Here you have a government whose leaders exhibit antipathy to every achievement of the West from the least to the greatest, and Italy — seat of it all, in so many ways — cringes and whimpers. At least France canceled a dinner over the issue of wine, and while you could say “that’s all they care about,” I doubt the French would cover up the odd unholstered bosom, particularly if the artist was French.
Especially if the artist was French.
Heh, indeed.™
IT’S AS IF IT’S ALL JUST CHEESY PARTISAN POLITICS: Lawmakers Who’ve Led on Heroin Epidemic Get Hit on It Anyway.
The mood in the Senate hearing room Wednesday morning was somber as lawmakers pledged bipartisan support to combat the scourge of heroin and prescription drug addiction. But with two of the Senate’s most vulnerable Republicans testifying, the hearing offered the opportunity to demonstrate some passion for an issue voters care about intensely. It also gave Democratic opponents a chance to criticize them.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, has been working for years to combat the drug crisis as his state has been one of the hardest-hit. At the Judiciary hearing, he urged his colleagues to support his legislation to combat the epidemic. “I truly believe it can make a difference in the lives of the people I represent,” he said.
While the hearing was still going on, the Ohio Democratic Party sent out a press release accusing Portman of “D.C. double speak,” on the issue, noting he voted against the year-end spending package that included additional funds for drug programs.
“Not only has Rob Portman voted to slash funding for substance abuse programs, he tried to take credit for drug abuse treatment programs that he actually voted against,” Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Daniel van Hoogstraten said.
“I think it’s really sad. Really sad,” Portman said of that statement. “This has been totally bipartisan from the start. I’ve been working on this issue for over two decades, and I’ve never been attacked politically on it. It’s kind of absurd.”
In Wednesday a conference call, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., who testified at the hearing and is also facing a tough re-election bid, said, “We rose above politics today, and we’re going to continue to when it comes to addressing this opiate crisis.”
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party also used the hearing as an opportunity to take a swing at GOP Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, who didn’t testify with the other senators. Democrats asserted that Toomey, who is facing re-election “may portray himself as sympathetic to this issue when he’s up for re-election, [but] his record tells a different story.”
Toomey’s campaign spokesman Steve Kelly pointed out that Democrats have praised Toomey’s work on this issue. “Toomey has repeatedly stated that the scourge of opioid abuse should not be a partisan issue,” Kelly said, “so it’s disappointing that the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is attempting to politicize such an important public health crisis.”
It’s the same way on race, criminal justice reform, etc.
FRANK LUNTZ SEES PATH TO VICTORY FOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG.
Why not? One way or another, America seems destined at the moment to elect a left-leaning Big Government-loving zillionaire New York plutocrat to the White House.
GEE, WHICH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BENEFITS FROM THIS ARTICLE? “We Keep Electing Outsiders; How’s That Working Out?”, Jonathan Allen asks at Roll Call:
Jimmy Carter kicked off the trend with a promise to restore honor to the White House. Ronald Reagan, the tough-talking movie star and California governor, vowed he’d get Washington’s spending and taxing under control. Bill Clinton, who had never worked in Washington, ran as the man from Hope. George W. Bush, despite being the son of a president, managed to come off as more Texan than political elite. Most recently, Barack Obama’s message and historic 2008 candidacy made it impossible for anyone to view him as an insider.
And yet, after electing this caravan of outsiders, voters still see Washington as a swamp of dysfunction, decadence and corruption. I readily admit I have more faith in our government and its leaders than most Americans do. But if you truly believe that Washington is getting worse, why keep electing the same kind of candidate?
If this sounds like an infomercial for Hillary Clinton, that’s likely not a coincidence. In December of 2009, NewsBusters spotted “another entry for the revolving door file: Politico’s Jonathan Allen…formerly of Congressional Quarterly and former Sen. Paul Sarbanes’ [D-MD] office, will take over as the top staffer at Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s DWS PAC,” Ken Shepherd wrote. “For his part, Allen, whose wife works as the communications director for freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), found it an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
In February of 2010, when Allen returned to the Politico after admitting that he preferred pack journalism to working in a PAC, he sheepishly claimed:
I am a registered independent. My political views, like those of many Americans, are not neatly defined by anyone’s platform. I love the power of a good idea and get frustrated when I see the political system distorted by inertia or hypocrisy. I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats and even some third-party candidates. I am not by temperament a partisan or an ideologue. But there is no doubt that I have voted more often for Democrats, and when I decided to indulge my curiosity about life on the other side of the notebook it was most natural for me to align with them.
And judging by the above article, he’s still a Democrat operative, whether it’s with or without his byline.
[Trump’s] support in the polls, much of it from blue-collar men, has not wavered for months despite him insulting Mexican immigrants, threatening to deny Muslims entry to the United States and fighting with Republican establishment figures like Senator John McCain.
Oh yeah, no doubt those three items will crush Trump’s standing with blue-collar voters. In other words, the Butterfield Effect strikes again!
HE’D RATHER BE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE U.N. — MORE TRAVEL, LESS WORK: WH: Obama doesn’t want Supreme Court appointment.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Thursday threw cold water on the idea President Obama would accept an appointment to the Supreme Court after he leaves office.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton floated the possibility this week, calling it a “great idea” to nominate Obama to the nation’s highest court. But Earnest said the 44th president has other plans after he leaves office.
“My guess is that his aspirations for his post-presidency extend beyond a Supreme Court appointment,” the spokesman said of Obama.
Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, “would have plenty of ideas for how he would do a job like that,” Earnest said. But he added Obama would prefer to handle a wider range of issues after he leaves the White House.
Speaking at an Iowa campaign rally Tuesday, Clinton herself acknowledged the idea was a long shot. “He may have other things to do,” she said.
The president himself downplayed his interest in a court appointment in 2014.
He lacks a scholarly mind.
ROGER SIMON: It’s Not the Debate. It’s the Focus Group.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE LEFT? “The progressives go from bad to worse,” James W. Ceaser writes in new issue of the Weekly Standard. (Love the accompanying cover illustration):
“Modern progressivism has driven much of American politics for the past seven years. It now fully owns the Democratic party. President Obama failed to achieve the general electoral realignment that many anticipated after 2008, but he succeeded in creating an ideological realignment within his own party. The result was attained by subtraction. Advocates of rival positions — New Democrats, “blue dogs,” pro-lifers — were either sacrificed or induced to sacrifice themselves. The Democratic party is now divided between a progressive wing and a more progressive wing, one that openly wears the label of socialist.”
I’d joke that once you go full Weimar, adding a soupçon of nationalism to your socialism is the next logical step — but Bernie Sanders is way ahead of me!
BOB WOODWARD’S SINS OF OMISSION:
More recently, we have learned that among those harboring deep skepticism about Woodward’s account of Deep Throat—so critical to the Washington Post’s coverage of Watergate, and to the Woodward legacy—was the man to whose memory The Last of the President’s Men is dedicated: Ben Bradlee, the executive editor who oversaw that coverage.
Rummaging through Bradlee’s papers for an authorized biography, Jeff Himmelman—himself a trusted former researcher to Woodward—came across an unpublished 1990 interview in which Bradlee had confided his misgivings about Woodward’s reliability. “Did that potted [plant] incident ever happen?” Bradlee mused about the notion that Woodward moved a flowerpot on his balcony to signal for meetings with Deep Throat. Likewise, about the purported rendezvous in the garage, Bradlee wondered: “One meeting in the garage? Fifty meetings in the garage? I don’t know how many meetings [there were] in the garage.” He added: “There’s a residual fear in my soul that that isn’t quite straight.”
Himmelman exposed half a dozen lies, evasions, deceptions, misrepresentations, and other journalistic sleights of hand on a single page of All of the President’s Men.* * * * * * *
The final product was Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee (2012). Were it up to Woodward, the book’s explosive contents would have been suppressed. Writing in New York magazine, Himmelman recorded how Woodward sought to intimidate his former protégé:I had worked for [Woodward]; he had given an impromptu toast at my wedding. You know me and the world we live in, he said. People who didn’t like him and didn’t like the Post—the “fuckers out there,” as Ben had called them—were going to seize on these comments. “Don’t give fodder to the fuckers,” Bob said, and once he lit on this phrase he repeated it a couple of times. The quotes from [Bradlee’s 1990] interview…were nothing more than outtakes from Ben’s book, he said. Ben hadn’t used them, and so I shouldn’t use them, either.
That argument didn’t make sense, and I said so. Bob told me it was his “strong recommendation” that I not use the quotes, then that it was his “emphatic recommendation.” Then, when that got no truck: “Don’t use the quotes, Jeff.”
Read the whole thing.
NEW FRONTIERS IN INEQUALITY: U.S. Colleges Raised Record $40.3 Billion In 2015 — 0.5% Of Colleges Raised 25% Of The Money.
More support for my notion that we should end tax exemptions for institutions with over $1 Billion endowments. At some point, you’ve raised enough money.
HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: Don’t Act Like You’re Not Oppressed.
JUST A DIFFERENT TYPE OF PSYCHIC PORN: Forget Cat Videos: YouTube is Powered by Schadenfreude.