WHY OBAMA LET IRAN’S GREEN REVOLUTION FAIL: Eli Lake at Bloomberg News discusses a new book by The Wall Street Journal‘s Jay Solomon, The Iran Wars.
Excerpt:
…Obama wasn’t just reluctant to show solidarity in 2009, he feared the demonstrations would sabotage his secret outreach to Iran…Behind the scenes, Obama overruled advisers who wanted to do what America had done at similar transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and signal America’s support.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1204.
ISLAMIC JIHAD’S MOST EFFECTIVE WEAPONS: Ignorance and complacency are the west’s undoing, David Solway writes.
Read the whole thing.
One thing I’ve learned about the power of “mainstream” media is that while they can no longer keep stories out of the public eye, their power to gin up, or quash, public outrage remains enormous.
UPDATE: So true:
KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: The real scandal of EpiPen pricing.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t have the first clue how an EpiPen works or what went into developing it, but he’s sure he knows what one should cost, and he’s sure who should decide — him. You know what Bernie Sanders is? He’s a bum. He was damn near 40 years old before he ever found his way into a full-time job, and that was in elected office; before that, he collected benefits, sold his creepy rape fantasies for left-wing newspapers at $50 a pop, and never lifted a finger toward any genuinely productive enterprise. He’s been suckling greedily at the public teat since way back when he could remember where his car keys are. Funny thing, though: Now he’s a bum with a third home on the waterfront of a Vermont island worth the better part of a million dollars. Every good apparatchik eventually gets his dacha.
Mrs. Clinton is a bum and a crook who used the State Department as a funnel to guide the money of favor-seeking business interests at home and abroad into the Clinton Foundation, a sham charity that exists to pay six-figure salaries to Clintons (Chelsea is full-time executive there) and their courtiers.
These people are parasites. They make: nothing. They create: nothing. They produce: nothing. But they feel perfectly justified — they positively glow with moral frisson — standing between the people who create and build and the people who benefit from those creations.
Besides, the money to pay for ObamaCare’s medical device tax has to come from somewhere.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: “Safe Spaces” Are For Losers.
Academics around the country are embracing the relatively new trend of using trigger warnings to shield students from ideas that might be discomforting or trauma-inducing. These ideas often include topics that touch on “racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression.”
Though there is some debate surrounding how widespread the use of trigger warnings actually is, a survey conducted last year by the National Coalition Against Censorship found that a majority of educators had used trigger warnings at one time or another.
Similarly, many universities are creating “safe spaces” where students can relax free from ideas that might be stressful or anxiety-inducing. Among these is Brown University, which last year created a room “with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies” because a debate on sexual assault was taking place on campus.
Other universities have canceled “controversial” speakers—Condoleezza Rice, George Will, Jason Riley, and Michelle Malkin, among them—under pressure from faculty or students.
Apparently not all universities are on board with this trend. The University of Chicago recently made it clear to its crop of incoming students that academic freedom and inquiry remain pillars at the institution, and that the university does not support “so-called” trigger warnings or offer safe spaces that allow students “to retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own. Here is how the university welcomed its incoming class of 2020:
Welcome and congratulations on your acceptance to the college at the University of Chicago. Earning a place in our community of scholars is no small achievement and we are delighted that you selected Chicago to continue your intellectual journey.
Once here you will discover that one of the University of Chicago’s defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression. … Members of our community are encouraged to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn, without fear of censorship. Civility and mutual respect are vital to all of us, and freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to harass or threaten others. You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort.
And then, the coup de grace:
Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.
This is how a university should act.
COULTER TURNS ON TRUMP: Woman Who Wrote ‘In Trump We Trust’ Goes on Tweetstorm About Why We Can’t Trust Trump.
She’s also threatened to cancel her book tour.
AMERICAN BREXIT? NIGEL FARAGE JOINS TRUMP IN JACKSON, MS: Farage’s Brexit surprised all the pollsters. Could Trump do the same here?, asks Roger Simon, who’s on the road, camera in hand, at Trump’s latest rally.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely Within Five Years — But Lacks The Money To Prepare.
Senior Army officials are circumspect about discussing the danger in open forums — they don’t want to advertise U.S. vulnerabilities — but it seems clear that the Obama administration’s “pivot to the Pacific” announced in 2012 has created a geopolitical vacuum stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf that Russia and Iran are trying to fill. Meanwhile, the unpredictable government of North Korea continues its bellicose behavior toward the South, which the U.S. is pledged to defend.
The “pivot” hasn’t amounted to much, but the vacuum left in Europe and the Mediterranean is quite real.
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Hillary Clinton’s Cash-For-Access Diplomacy.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK:
ONE MAN’S HEADLINE WRITER IS ANOTHER MAN’S TERROR-EXCUSING ANTISEMITE:
Palestinian attacks Israeli soldiers from car, then gets out, stabs one, and is shot. This is @Reuters' headline. pic.twitter.com/QhN21QMpvz
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) August 24, 2016
YES, THE PUBLIC OPTION IS A ‘TROJAN HORSE’ TO DESTROY PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE: The “father of the public option” said on video that his plan is to eventually create a single-payer health care system. We should believe him.
RAPE VICTIM: Stop Watering Down Rape.
Chad Felix Greene says he was raped a decade ago after he agreed to meet a man at a hotel room expecting to then go to dinner and a movie. He says the man overpowered him and raped him, and that the rape was calculated.
Greene, as a survivor of rape, disagrees with the current culture that equates drunken hookups to what happened to him. He further disagrees with current feminist doctrine that drunken women cannot consent to sex, but drunken men can.
“Furthermore, asserting women alone cannot consent while intoxicated greatly undermines the concept of female sexual independence,” Greene wrote. “We treat women like children when we demand they can choose to intoxicate themselves but cannot choose any action afterwards when it comes to sexuality. Men cannot be expected to hold both authority roles while equally intoxicated.”
Greene insists that no one is pro-rape, but that feminists now label as an “apologist” for rape anyone who suggests a regretted drunken hookup is anything but rape.
He also echoes what many due-process advocates have been saying, that broadening the definition of rape and suggesting that women who have been drinking cannot consent actually hurts female sexual liberation. Many schools have policies now that an accuser (who is usually a woman) can be too drunk to consent to sex but the accused (almost always a man) is responsible for his actions even if drunk.
The analogy of drunk driving is often used, but only against the accused. A person who gets behind the wheel of a car while drunk is not excused of their actions.
Thus reducing women to the status of objects. A car is an object: It does not act, it is acted upon.
GULP: Illinois submits Obamacare insurance premium increases to feds.
The Illinois Department of Insurance said Wednesday it has submitted rate increases to the federal government that for some types of plans average 43 percent to 55 percent.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services will decide rates. But the numbers released Wednesday confirm the fears of consumers, who’ve already watched a number of insurance companies withdraw from the Obamacare exchange because of financial losses, limiting choices as people prepare to enroll for 2017.
Rates could increase by an average of 44 percent for the lowest-priced bronze plans, 45 percent for the lowest-priced silver plans and 55 percent for the lowest-priced gold plans, according to a preliminary analysis released by the state Wednesday.
That means it’s working.
SHOCKER: 21-Year-Old Man Arrested For Copenhagen Car Fires. “Police spokesman Jens Møller Jensen told TV2 News that the 21-year-old man is a resident of Amager and is of ‘a different ethnicity than Danish’.”
IT’S NOT SO MUCH BLACK LIVES MATTER, AS IT IS THE ADMINISTRATION’S SPINELESS RESPONSE TO BLACK LIVES MATTER: Black Lives Matter Has Officially Cost Mizzou 2100 Students.
The University of Missouri’s (MU) flagship Columbia campus has officially lost a staggering 23 percent of its freshman class this year, an even worse figure than administrators initially predicted in the wake of major racial strife.
The big enrollment drop at MU has been brewing for months, but finally became a reality this week with the start of fall term on campus. MU’s freshman class this year has some 4,799 students, a drop of over 1,400 from last year, when freshmen numbered 6,211. Overall enrollment is down by over 2,200, a drop of about 7 percent, according to preliminary numbers released by the school.
The drop is even worse than officials at the school were predicting last spring. In March, interim chancellor Hank Foley warned the school was facing a drop of 1,500 students.
The decline is wreaking havoc on the school’s budget, which has a hole of about $30 million. To contain costs and reflect its shrinking population, the school has already shuttered several dormitories.
Who could have seen this coming?
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT PROTEST MOVEMENTS SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM? ‘You’re Asian, Right? Why Are You Even Here?’, a Black Lives Matter protestor bellows at Politico’s Aaron Mak in Milwaukee:
As race and police violence become a higher-profile issue in America, many Asian-Americans are still trying to figure out where—or if—we fit in to the movement. Black Lives Matter is the highest-profile effort to push for minority rights in America right now. It was born of grievances just like those we’re seeing in Milwaukee; at each killing, whether Milwaukee or Baton Rouge or St. Paul, BLM emerges as the voice pushing for police accountability, for the full dignity of Americans who’ve been deprived of it. It’s also, explicitly, an African-American cause. Should Asian-Americans like me count ourselves part of the same effort to fight for minority rights, or are we at odds with it?
It’s also almost entirely a blue-on-blue protest movement. Of the cities quotes above, Milwaukee’s last Republican mayor left office in 1908. Saint Paul’s last GOP mayor left office a half century ago in 1966. Baton Rouge’s last Republican mayor left office over a decade ago, in 2004.
FOLLOW THE MONEY: I-35 bridge collapse survivor becomes 11th Twin Cities man charged with supporting ISIL.
Mohamed Amiin Ali Roble, the young I-35 bridge collapse survivor thought to have used thousands of dollars in settlement money to travel to Syria and join ISIL, has become the 11th Twin Cities man charged with providing support to the terror group.
Roble was 10 years old when he became one of 145 people injured in the August 2007 bridge collapse. He collected $91,654 in settlement money on his 18th birthday. According to federal charges filed Wednesday, those funds financed his 2014 travel to join the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and helped pay for cars and weddings for fellow jihadists in Syria.
Federal authorities believe that Roble, who previously lived in south Minneapolis, is still alive in Syria.
Whatever happened to young men blowing easy money on cars and women for themselves?
LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Congressional Staffer Charged With Failure To File Tax Returns On $170,000 Salary For Five Years. “According to the criminal information and affidavit, Isaac Lanier Avant of Arlington, Virginia, is a staff member employed by the U.S. House of Representatives since approximately 2002. For tax years 2009 through 2013, Avant earned annual wages of over $170,000, but did not timely file a personal income tax return for any of those years. In May 2005, Avant filed a form with his employer that falsely claimed he was exempt from federal income taxes.”
Plus: “Oddly, the DOJ press release does not name Avant’s employer: Bennie Thompson (D-MS).”
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