Archive for 2017
March 2, 2017
SPEAKING OF CRAZY TALK:
WAIT, I THOUGHT TERRORISM IN SWEDEN WAS JUST MORE OF TRUMP’S CRAZY TALK: German Government Issues Travel Warning for Sweden Because of Terrorism Risk. “It looks like Germany doesn’t believe refugee violence is merely a right-wing talking point: That government on Wednesday released a statement warning its citizens about travel to Sweden due to the ‘increased threat levels of terrorism.'”
ACHTUNG, BABY: The Very Drugged Nazis.
Fascinating book review. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad.
STILL TRUE: Democrats can’t win until they recognize how bad Obama’s financial policies were.
Obama can’t place the blame for Clinton’s poor performance purely on her campaign. On the contrary, the past eight years of policymaking have damaged Democrats at all levels. Recovering Democratic strength will require the party’s leaders to come to terms with what it has become — and the role Obama played in bringing it to this point.
Two key elements characterized the kind of domestic political economy the administration pursued: The first was the foreclosure crisis and the subsequent bank bailouts. The resulting policy framework of Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department was, in effect, a wholesale attack on the American home (the main store of middle-class wealth) in favor of concentrated financial power. The second was the administration’s pro-monopoly policies, which crushed the rural areas that in 2016 lost voter turnout and swung to Donald Trump.
Yep.
OOPS: ICE nabs young ‘dreamer’ applicant after she speaks out at a news conference.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the 22-year-old’s father and brother, Argentines who were living in the country illegally, amid the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation effort that has riled immigrant communities across the country.
Although Vargas was in the process of renewing her status as a “dreamer” to remain in the United States legally — a status she had allowed to lapse — she feared that immigration officials would come after her next.
But those fears did not stop Vargas from speaking out at a news conference Wednesday at Jackson City Hall, alongside immigrant rights advocates.
“Today my father and brother await deportation, she said, “while I continue to fight this battle as a dreamer to help contribute to this country which I feel that is very much my country.”
Whatever moral authority Vargas feels she has, it is not the same as legal authority.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, KANGAROO COURT EDITION: Judge: School’s sexual assault proceeding suggests ‘bias and inaccuracy.’
Another judge has ruled that a school’s disciplinary proceeding against a student suspended for sexual assault was unfair, and has denied the school’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the student.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer listed a litany of problems in Colorado State University-Pueblo’s proceeding against former student and football player Grant Neal, concluding the school’s Title IX officer, Roosevelt Wilson, likely erred in his investigation, which led to an erroneous finding of responsibility.
“Wilson’s alleged failures to (among other things) consider that Jane Doe told Wilson the sexual encounter was consensual, the physical or documentary evidence in which she consistently said the same thing, her motivation to not be disciplined by her department for her prohibited relationship with a football player … Wilson’s failure to question any witnesses favorable to Plaintiff (e.g., Coach Wristen), and Wilson’s failure to identify to Plaintiff the witnesses against him before completing the investigation all suggest bias and inaccuracy in the outcome,” Shaffer wrote in his 58-page decision.
The decision came in a lawsuit brought by Neal and stemmed from an October 2015 sexual encounter with a fellow student, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe. Neal was a football player, while Doe was in the school’s athletic training program. As an athletic trainer, Doe was prohibited from entering into a relationship with Neal. The two did so anyway.
The difference between Neal’s case and dozens of other sexual assault accusations is that both Neal and Doe maintained the sex was consensual. It wasn’t Doe who made the accusation against Neal, but one of her peers, who noticed a hickey on her neck and asked Doe about it. Doe acknowledged she had sex with Neal, but gave no indication that it was not consensual. The peer reported the incident as rape to CSU-Pueblo’s director of athletic training anyway. . . . From this third-party accusation, however, an investigation ensued that would lead to Neal’s suspension that would last until Doe graduated.
The “peer” should face consequences for this officious intermeddling.
The former president has set up an office on the West End of the national’s capitol, where he recently hosted an open house for his White House staff – including Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Josh Earnest and Jarrett.
But the office, part of his post presidency perks, cannot be used for political purposes. The rent on his home is paid by him personally.
On Tuesday, former Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that Obama is indeed getting closer to making his public reappearance in politics.
‘It’s coming. He’s coming,’ Holder said speaking to reporters. ‘And he’s ready to roll.’
According to the family source, Obama was at first reluctant to assume the role of leader of the opposition.
‘No longer the most powerful man in the world, he was just observing Trump and not liking what he saw,’ said the source.
That last bit seems more than a little contrived.
THE DARTMOUTH REVIEW interviews Christina Hoff Sommers.
On some campuses, activists have assumed the role of thought police. When they heckle speakers or shut down events, they set themselves up as arbiters of what others can hear and say. Who put them in charge? They are free to not attend events they don’t like or to protest peacefully. What they can’t do is to shut down discussion. Legally, the First Amendment applies only to the government, but the moral principles on which it is based ought to apply to private universities as well. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a legendary champion of liberal causes, called restrictions on free speech “dangerous subversions” and “the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” Why un-American? Because in our free and open democracy—there is no Ministry of Truth.
No one put them in charge. But, like all tyrants, they will seize as much power as people will allow.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Will Conservatives Punish Trump-Hating Hollywood?
Interviews with John Nolte, Roger L. Simon, Jim Treacher, and more.
Hollywood has been producing primarily for overseas markets for so long, it makes you wonder if they’ve forgotten how to be Americans.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS! Oh, wait, that’s not the country they’ve got in their hands. . . Nearly 100 bureaucrats caught viewing ‘copious’ porn at work. ‘In one case, the employee acknowledged watching porn for up to six hours a day for ‘several years.'”
MIKE RAPPAPORT: Has Originalism Been Tried?
HOW CAN WE KEEPING MISSING HIM IF HE WON’T STAY AWAY? George W. Bush warns against ‘isolationist tendency’
SJWISM EXPLAINED: Moral Outrage Is Self-Serving, Say Psychologists: Perpetually raging about the world’s injustices? You’re probably overcompensating.
When people publicly rage about perceived injustices that don’t affect them personally, we tend to assume this expression is rooted in altruism—a “disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.” But new research suggests that professing such third-party concern—what social scientists refer to as “moral outrage”—is often a function of self-interest, wielded to assuage feelings of personal culpability for societal harms or reinforce (to the self and others) one’s own status as a Very Good Person.
Outrage expressed “on behalf of the victim of [a perceived] moral violation” is often thought of as “a prosocial emotion” rooted in “a desire to restore justice by fighting on behalf of the victimized,” explain Bowdoin psychology professor Zachary Rothschild and University of Southern Mississippi psychology professor Lucas A. Keefer in the latest edition of Motivation and Emotion. Yet this conventional construction—moral outrage as the purview of the especially righteous—is “called into question” by research on guilt, they say.
Well, SJWs have a lot to feel guilty about, as they’re usually awful people.
MEXICAN AMBASSADOR: Mexico Will Take Mexican Deportees, But Not Others.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION DIVERSITY EDITION: Jonathan Adler: What Is The Association of American Law Schools Afraid Of?
Most law school faculties lack meaningful viewpoint diversity, and this has consequences for legal education. Training lawyers requires teaching students how to understand and get inside the arguments of those with differing interests, outlooks and orientations. It requires developing the ability to understand and articulate points of view that one does not believe. Doing this effectively requires exposure to differing points of view, and this is more difficult to achieve when faculties are ideological monocultures and echo chambers. At many law schools, students rarely encounter the forceful articulation right-of-center views. Indeed, most major law schools have fewer conservatives or libertarians on their faculty than can be found on the U.S. Supreme Court.
While right-of-center views may be hard to find in much of legal academia, they are commonplace in the legal profession, in particular on the federal bench. The lack of meaningful exposure to alternative views leaves law students less well prepared to advocate for their clients. This is why some of us have urged the Association of American Law Schools to pay more attention to the causes and consequences of the lack of viewpoint diversity — a lack which is also evident in much of the AALS’s own programming.
The existence of ideological imbalance has been documented in numerous studies, including this analysis by Northwestern’s James Lindgren, in addition to studies of law school hiring, political contributions and legal scholarship that also find left-right disparities. While most law schools have a few token right-leaning professors, these scholars are often relegated to “private law” subjects (e.g., business, contracts, IP), and are less prevalent in “public law” subjects (e.g., constitutional law). . . .
One way to help resolve the dispute over whether there are meaningful ideological or partisan disparities in law school hiring would be to study the question, such as by analyzing data from the AALS Faculty Appointments Register (FAR). Analysis of such data in the past has produced interesting findings on racial disparities in law school hiring. An analysis of ideological factors in hiring might likewise be illuminating — whether or not it confirms the hypothesis that ideological hiring bias exits. Unfortunately, the AALS has denied researchers access to the FAR data for this purpose. While the AALS allowed other researchers to look at racial and other factors in hiring, for some reason it refuses to allow a similar inquiry into the role of ideology.
The AALS styles itself as a learned society. It’s stated mission is “to uphold and advance excellence in legal education.” Further, the AALS proclaims that “In support of this mission, AALS promotes the core values of excellence in teaching and scholarship, academic freedom, and diversity, including diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints, while seeking to improve the legal profession, to foster justice, and to serve our many communities–local, national, and international” (emphasis added). On what basis, then, does the AALS refuse to allow researchers access to FAR data to conduct legitimate academic research? The AALS cannot claim this data is inviolate for, as already noted, it has allowed researchers access to this data before. It is almost as if the AALS is afraid of what such research might find.
Ya think?
READING DAVE FREER’S BOOKS IS AN HAZARDOUS UNDERTAKING: And not just because they’re written by a man who has been known to cuddle sharks professionally (never asked him if sharks are good tippers), go diving in rocky caves and/or climbing cliffs as if there weren’t perfectly good stairs, in perfectly good buildings, in perfectly good cities. No. The problem with reading Dave Freer’s books is that they grab and won’t let go. On behalf of management I want to emphasize we are not responsible for lost sleep, whether or not it results in failed exams, chilly marital relations or any other ills. And if some writers (okay me) start reading a Freer book on the plane to a conference, and can’t stop, so they (okay, me) end up reading the book under the panel tables and giving (even more) disjointed answers than usual to any questions, this is also NOT the management’s fault.
Oh, yeah, and Dave Freer’s Changeling’s Island is now in mass market paperback. There is also, of course and still the handy dandy kindle edition. You could be reading it in minutes. Okay, maybe half an hour if Amazon is still stuttering. Um… on second thought, wait till the morning to start reading. Or you won’t sleep. You’ve been warned. Management is NOT responsible. Which is why the image below is a link.
COMEDY, THEY SAY. IT’S LIKE FLASHBACKS TO GRADING MY STUDENTS’ PAPERS WHEN I TAUGHT ESL: How a Portuguese-to-English Phrasebook Became a Cult Comedy Sensation. I need my grammar, and my stuffed eagle.
THREE WORDS: BOOBS, GUNS, BOOBS: Why this woman’s extremely boring videos still go viral
STATISTS APPALLED AND DISGUSTED:Deconstructing the Administrative State.
DOESN’T MATTER; HE MUST BE A NARCISSIST BECAUSE HE DOESN’T FLATTER THEM:Trump references self 60 percent less than Obama in first joint session speech.
THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK ANYONE CAN DO:Media Perplexed: Four Children are “Work”.
DO THOSE WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW WE GOT HERE DESERVE A VOICE IN WHERE WE’RE GOING? How Historical Illiteracy Fuels Political Polarization.