Archive for 2017
June 26, 2017
OUT ON A LIMB: Conservatism Is the New Punk.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Despite Lost Gigs, Pat Boone Has ‘No Regrets’ as Conservative in Hollywood.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Paper ballots are hack-proof. It’s time to bring them back. “Perhaps it’s time to mandate paper ballots, and to also legally require other steps to ensure election integrity. Vote-counting systems should be transparent, and regularly audited. Voter ID should be strictly enforced, as it is in all advanced democracies to ensure that only eligible voters vote. And voter registrations should be audited frequently to ensure the removal of voters who have died or moved away. Maybe we should even dye voters’ fingers to prevent revoting, as is done in many other countries. There’s no way to hack that.”
CHANGE? 58% of Democrats Say Their Party Needs New Leadership.
Related: Democrats Finally Face the Pelosi Question.
My advice? Don’t swap asses midstream!
DAVID HARSANYI: The GOP Senate Health Care Bill Isn’t Great, But It’s Better Than Obamacare.
Republicans should ask themselves what the alternative looks like. Listen, I wish Mike Lee were writing a market-based Obamacare repeal bill and that we had a president who was interested in reforming welfare, but at some point conservatives are going to have to take a page from Democrats and occasionally embrace incrementalism. Idealism is empowering and necessary. Yet pragmatism can’t always be treated as a transgression. You’re going to see the bill change — provisions in the bill might need to be altered once we get a Congressional Budget Office score and the parliamentarian vets it — but you’re not going to see a market-based iteration of reform. It’s going to have to be achieved piecemeal.
If the House couldn’t cobble together a genuine repeal, there is little chance that senators who have to go home to statewide electorates would be in a position to do so. In fact, it’s surprisingly “conservative.” For one thing, voters like parts of Obamacare—forcing coverage of preexisting conditions, for instance—that make a full repeal impossible. For another, some senators simply won’t sign on to immediate Medicaid rollbacks.
The Obamacare debate was also an intramural affair, crafted to allay the concerns of moderate Democrats, not Republicans. What Democrats correctly understood was that they were engaged in a war of attrition. Even the Affordable Care Act (ACA), until very recently the most unpopular major reform in American history, is astoundingly difficult to repeal.
So it is what it is.
Most of the complaints I’m reading from Senate Republicans have so far been about the bill’s timing (Medicaid expansion rollback) and expense (keeping the ObamaCare exchanges afloat for a while longer). There have been far fewer worries expressed about the bill’s structure. That might give McConnell the wiggle room to pass what it is, with just a few changes.
Or, as Harsanyi suggests, the whole thing might be legislative kabuki and designed to fail.
IN THE MAIL: From Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Paper ballots are hack-proof. It’s time to bring them back.
V.A. SECRETARY: Agency Should be ‘Open’ to Medical Marijuana to Help Vets.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: The Number Of Law School Applicants With 160+LSAT Scores Has Declined 61% Since 2010.
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT! Feds Spend $20,000 on Musical About Illegal Immigrant Lesbian.
The San Francisco Mime Troupe, a self-described socialist theater group, received the funding in the first round of grants awarded under the Trump administration. Jane Chu is the current chairman of the NEA, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama in 2014.
The musical is entitled “WALLS!” and stars a “bad hombre,” mocking a phrase used by Trump to describe criminal illegal aliens during a presidential debate.
The musical does not only address issues of immigration, but a host of other liberal and political topics.
“Using the Mime Troupe’s signature style of broad, physical theater, the work will explore immigration, gun violence, the opioid epidemic, depression, the public education system, and racial tensions, and how they relate to societal health,” according to the grant for the project. “Portions of the work will be developed through playmaking workshops in California’s Central Valley with low-income youth, inmates, and migrant workers.”
“WALLS asks the question: How can a nation of immigrants declare war on immigration? The answer: FEAR!” the San Francisco Mime Troupe states on their website.
Mimes performing in a musical?
VIRGINIA POSTREL IS PRO-IMMIGRATION, but she still has some sharp words for Bret Stephens’ stupid deport-native-born-Americans piece:
Now, I should be a sympathetic audience. I support substantially higher legal immigration levels, appreciate the contributions of those here illegally, and back efforts to regularize the status of undocumented workers and the children they brought with them. I detest Donald Trump. I liked Bret Stephens when we met.
But here’s the problem. The Swiftian part of the column was the idea of mass deportation. (I get it — you don’t really want to eat Irish babies or deport their great-grandchildren.) The rest of the comparison, however, was serious: People like Stephens and his family are good for America, it argued. People like me and mine are a drain.
Like most southerners, black and white, I don’t take kindly to disrespect. Although I’m hardly a hillbilly, that argument got my dander up.
Who is this prep-school-educated child of a high-level corporate executive to condemn as “complacent” and “entitled” the children of postal workers and engineers, schoolteachers and stock clerks? How can he be so ignorant and unappreciative of the innumerable small contributions that built the country that he now calls home? Who is he to tell the descendants of slaves and indentured servants that they don’t belong here because they don’t win enough science prizes? Where was he when I was sweltering through mediocre South Carolina public schools?
If that was my reaction, imagine how people who already have their doubts about large-scale immigration would respond — especially those with deep American roots. A child of privilege lecturing his fellow Americans on how they don’t deserve to live here is a prescription for Trumpian uprisings. And Stephens is hardly alone. Protected by the canopy of satire, he’s just more blatant about his disastrous message.
As I wrote long ago, “Americans care, of course, about their economic interests. But they care first about their identities. … If voters feel personally attacked — because they are Latinos, or working women, or housewives, or evangelical Christians, or gays — they will bolt the party that serves their economic interests.” Or, given the opportunity, back a presidential candidate who promises to blow it up.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that a lot of pro-immigration people really just don’t want America to be its traditionally exceptional self, and would like to import more tractable, and less distinctly American and ornery, voters. But they keep letting the mask slip.
YA THINK? Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike May Have Gone Too Far.
In January 2016, Seattle’s minimum wage jumped from $11 an hour to $13 for large employers, the second big increase in less than a year. New research released Monday by a team of economists at the University of Washington suggests the wage hike may have come at a significant cost: The increase led to steep declines in employment for low-wage workers, and a drop in hours for those who kept their jobs. Crucially, the negative impact of lost jobs and hours more than offset the benefits of higher wages — on average, low-wage workers earned $125 per month less because of the higher wage, a small but significant decline.
$125 a month — or $1,500 a year — is not a “small” decline for someone making minimum wage.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: People Who Don’t Identify as a Man or Woman Want to Know: Why Isn’t Anyone Hooking Up With Me?
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Paper ballots are hack-proof. It’s time to bring them back. “In some ways, paper and ink is a super technology. When you cast a vote on a voting machine, all that’s recorded is who you voted for. But a paper ballot captures lots of other information: Ink color, handwriting, etc. If you have access to a voting machine that’s connected to the Internet, you can change all the votes at once. To change a bunch of paper ballots takes physical access, and unless you’re very careful the changed ballots will show evidence of tampering. Paper ballots aren’t fraud-proof, of course, as a century of Chicago politics demonstrates, but they’re beyond the reach of some guy sitting at a computer in a basement halfway around the world. And there are well-known steps to make Chicago-style fraud harder.”
THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: 41% of US Counties Could Have Only One Obamacare Insurer Next Year.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Retired U.S. Tax Court Judge Sentenced To 34 Months In Jail For Tax Fraud Committed While She Sat On The Court. Honestly, that sounds like a pretty light sentence, considering.
WHEN LEFTIST BS GETS SO BAD EVEN COMMITTED LEFTIES CAN’T TAKE IT:
ADVANCED PETARD-HOISTMENT, DEMS/RUSSIA EDITION: Focus turns to Obama role. “Months of harping on President Trump’s purported ties to Russia may end up backfiring on Democrats as the White House turns the focus to former President Barack Obama’s failure to address Russian hacking, operatives from both sides said.”
Related: Adriana Cohen: Time To Investigate Democrats’ Russia Behavior.
Not only has there been zero credible evidence to warrant any of the costly investigations to date — despite a year of digging by anti-Trump forces — we now learn the widely debunked dossier published by BuzzFeed — with an assist by CNN — was commissioned by a pro-Hillary Clinton oppo research group to take down Trump.
The slanted dossier not only sparked the whole Russiagate investigation, it also provided a bogus excuse for the Obama administration, DOJ and intel agencies to engage in improper surveillance of Trump associates, unmasking of Trump officials as well as the illegal leaking of sensitive information gathered from the sketchy spying to complicit media in a deliberate attempt to smear Trump.
If this doesn’t scream corruption and collusion at the highest echelons of our government — what does? . . .
Worse, the FBI reportedly paid the discredited British spy Christopher Steele — whose report full of false rumors about Trump were spread to the media — $50,000 and then may have relied on Steele’s fake dossier to advance its Russian/Trump investigation.
Forget the fake Russian collusion. Congress and the special counsel should turn their attention to what the Democrats — from the Obama administration to the Clinton campaign — have been doing to undermine democracy in America.
What we know so far stinks to High Heaven.
Perhaps Rudy Giuliani would be willing to accept an appointment as special counsel.
PLASTICS: The Shale Revolution’s Staggering Impact in Just One Word.
That boom in drilling has expanded the output of oil and gas in the U.S. more than 57% in the past decade, lowering prices for the primary ingredients Dow Chemical Co. uses to make tiny plastic pellets. Some of the pellets are exported to Brazil, where they are reshaped into the plastic pouches filled with puréed fruits and vegetables.
Tons more will be shipping soon as Dow completes $8 billion in new and expanded U.S. petrochemical facilities mostly along the Gulf of Mexico over the next year, part of the industry’s largest transformation in a generation.
The scale of the sector’s investment is staggering: $185 billion in new U.S. petrochemical projects are in construction or planning, according to the American Chemistry Council. Last year, expenditures on chemical plants alone accounted for half of all capital investment in U.S. manufacturing, up from less than 20% in 2009, according to the Census Bureau.
Integrated oil firms including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are racing to take advantage of the cheap byproducts of the oil and gas being unlocked by shale drilling. The companies are expanding petrochemical units that produce the materials eventually used to fashion car fenders, smartphones, shampoo bottles and other plastic stuff being bought more and more by the world’s burgeoning middle classes.
“It’s a tectonic shift in the hemispherical balance of who makes what to essentially feed the manufacturing sector,” said Dow Chief Executive Andrew Liveris, referring to the growth of production in the U.S. His company now plans to double down on its U.S. expansion with a $4 billion investment in a handful of projects over the next five years.
That feels like winning.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. 45 years after Title IX, America’s boys need equal protection.
Title IX became law in 1972, and it ostensibly forbids discrimination against students on the basis of their gender. But try telling that to students like Kaiden and his parents, for whom Title IX offers no relief.
At the time of its passage, there was little doubt that the nation’s colleges and universities failed to afford equality of opportunity to young women. Back then, only 42 percent of the students enrolled in American colleges were female.
Forty-five years later, the reality is quite different. Gender ratios for college enrollment have flipped 180 degrees, with males comprising the 42 percent minority.
That’s not the only major change in the last 45 years. Women now earn the majority of post-secondary degrees at every level. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, 52 percent of doctorates, 57 percent of master’s degrees, 57 percent of bachelor degrees, and 61 percent of associate degrees are awarded to women.
The gender disparity among minority students attending historically black colleges and universities is even more extreme.
I think the federal Department of Education needs to investigate this thoroughly.
BOY, A LOT OF THINGS CHANGED WHILE I WAS OFF THE GRID: Donald Trump is Not Under an FBI Investigation. Bernie Sanders Is.