IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING: “Total Chaos” – Cyber Attack Feared As Multiple Cities Hit With Simultaneous Power Grid Failures. Sure hasn’t gotten a lot of news coverage, though.
If you’re worried, you’ll want a generator, an inverter, a solar battery charger — and plenty of storable food, water, and water filtration.
IF IT WEREN’T FOR FAKE HATE CRIMES, HOW MANY HATE CRIMES WOULD THERE BE? ISU professor arrested, accused of making up threats and attack. “Azhar Hussain, an assistant professor at ISU has been arrested on charges alleging he made false reports of anti-Islamic threats against him and even reported an attack authorities say did not happen.”
Carlos Slim isn’t getting his money’s worth.
HACKALICIOUS: So THIS is embarrassing: Glenn Thrush makes dig at Hannity giving ‘political advice’, trips over Podesta. Think of him as an especially obvious and clumsy Democratic Party operative with a byline, and you won’t be wrong at all.
ANOTHER TAKEAWAY FROM THAT WAPO POLL THAT DESERVES MORE ATTENTION: “Democrats have lost considerable ground on this front. The 28 percent who say the party is in touch with concerns of most Americans is down from 48 percent in 2014 and the biggest drop is among self-identified Democrats, from 83 percent saying they are in touch to just 52 percent today.”
Only 28% of Americans think Democrats are in touch with the concerns of most Americans. And remember, 2014, when the number was 48%, wasn’t exactly a banner year for Democrats.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:
● Are Democrats About To Reopen The Party To Pro-Lifers?
—The Federalist, April 21st.
● Unity or else: DNC Chair Tom Perez demands ‘ideological purity’ on abortion from candidates.
—Twitchy, April 22nd.
As Progressive role model Frank Burns once said on M*A*S*H, individuality is fine, as long as we all do it together.
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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Cal State Can’t Explain Why It Needs So Many Bureaucrats.
The California State University system has increased its hiring of managers at a steeper rate than its hiring of other employees over the past 10 years, according to a new state audit.
And in a report on the audit released on Thursday, the state auditor, Elaine M. Howle, wrote that the system could not sufficiently explain why it needed all the new managers, including deans, head coaches, and vice presidents, among other positions. […]
The audit also found that the system’s 23 campuses did not have policies for periodically comparing their spending levels or reviewing their budget limits.
Plus:
In other words, administrators have been hiring more administrators for make-work positions and giving each other raises without sufficient accountability in a self-perpetuating cycle of bureaucratic decay that is sadly endemic to academia at large.
These findings should give pause to those who think that larger and larger state subsidies are the answer to higher education’s woes. Much of the public money spent on “free college” schemes championed by left-wing populists would end up being pocketed by the ever-expanding bureaucratic class of student services directors, Title IX coordinators, and HR managers, raising costs while steadily diluting quality.
But they all vote and donate Democratic, and organize protests, etc. to boot.
WAPO: Trump Polling Badly — Except With His Base, Which Loves Him.
There are no signs of major slippage in support among those who voted for Trump. His approval rating among those who cast ballots for him stands at 94 percent. Among Republicans, it is 84 percent. Asked of those who voted for him whether they regret doing so, 2 percent say they do, while 96 percent say supporting Trump was the right thing to do.When asked if they would vote for him again, 96 percent say they would, which is higher than the 85 percent of Hillary Clinton voters who say they would support her again.
Trump is also satisfying the substantial share of the electorate that voted for him with some reservation. Among Trump voters who say they were “somewhat enthusiastic” or less excited about supporting him, 88 percent approve of his current performance and 79 percent say he understands the problems of people like them.
Wow.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Crisis Sends In Its Calling Card. “The problem the election is trying to solve, Spengler explains, is recovering Europe from a spin that traditional political parties are powerless to fix. Voters are desperate to pull out and may try something desperate. Desperate may be ugly. . . . A France where “a quarter of French teenagers are Muslims, and one-third of them hold fundamentalist views” and the old working class is facing extinction is unsurprisingly one where anything can happen.”
When “mainstream” politicians refuse to fix obvious problems, people eventually look elsewhere.
WAR ON COLLEGE MEN: Professor Says Male Student’s Paper Was So Triggering She Had Trouble Distinguishing Him From Her Rapist. “The student cited a men’s rights advocacy group, referenced a case where a woman raped a man, questioned whether feminism was relevant, and said that concerns about gender inequality were overblown. . . . She said she was so upset that she could no longer grade papers or read. . . . She recounts screaming ‘Zero! You get a f*cking zero!’ at the computer screen as she graded the student’s two-page paper, saying that she also felt that simply by writing the paper, he had undermined her authority as an instructor.”
If your mental health is that fragile, and leads to such sexist reactions, you probably shouldn’t be teaching. And by “probably,” I mean “definitely.” The behavior is inexcusable, and that she would write about it in anything other than a tone of abject self-criticism is unforgivable.
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WELL, YES: Time For The GOP To Get Moving.
Far more daunting for GOP prospects is the vibe of the Trump movement. His rallies were/are more akin to revival meetings. But high octane rhetoric produces high expectations. The customers now expect a return on their emotional (and voting) investment. And a fever pitch is difficult to maintain over four years. What to do?
Well, one sure way to beat an unfriendly demographic tide is to do something productive. Newly sworn in Justice Neil Gorsuch was a nice first step. A willingness to use U.S. military might against the world’s miscreants is also a welcome change from Obama era disengagement and the slow start to tax reform. But reducing healthcare premiums and growing the economy are the real “have to’s” this term.
Few will stress over the not-ready-for-prime-time Obamacare “replace” effort once legislation actually moves. Remember: Really big things tend to get done in hyper-partisan Washington when one party possesses the cards.
But is Paul Ryan up to the job?
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DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE IS WHAT UNIONS ARE FOR! Union defends American Airlines worker after fight with passenger.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants is urging that the benefit of the doubt be given to a suspended American Airlines employee involved in an altercation with a woman carrying an infant.
The employee allegedly hit the woman with the stroller she brought on the plane, and video posted of the incident’s aftermath has gone viral on social media.
I’m not sure what additional facts might come out that would make hitting a woman with a stroller okay.
WELL, THAT WAS ONE OF MANY THINGS NOT TO TRUST HER ABOUT: NYT: Comey distrusted Lynch on Clinton.
FBI Director James Comey distrusted former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and senior officials at the Justice Department, believing they might provide Hillary Clinton with political cover over her email, according to a new report published Saturday by The New York Times.
The Times described Comey’s “go-it-alone strategy” in the Clinton probe as emerging largely from his suspicions that Lynch and others at Justice might seek to subtly downplay the Clinton investigation.
As an example, the Times reported that Lynch, during a meeting in September 2015, called on Comey to use the word “matter” instead of “investigation” when publicly discussing the case, three people who attended the meeting told the Times.
Lynch reportedly reasoned that the word “investigation” would raise a number of other questions. Furthermore, she argued that the department should maintain its policy of not confirming investigations.
After referring to the FBI the question of whether classified information had been improperly handled by Clinton through her use of a private server, a step toward a criminal investigation, Justice clarified that it was not a “criminal referral.”
This also raised suspicions at the FBI, according to the Times. Clinton seized on the wording to say that what the FBI was conducting was “not a criminal investigation.”
Lynch came under pressure to recuse herself from the investigation entirely after she had a discussion with former President Bill Clinton in June 2016 on he plane as it sat on the tarmac of Phoenix’s airport.
Lynch did not recuse herself, but the situation did lead her to say she would accept what ever conclusions career prosecutors and the FBI reached.
The DOJ under Lynch (and Obama) was corrupt and politicized. And most of the people who were there then are there now.
WHEN THE SCIENTISTS SUCCESSFULLY PERSUADE THEM: Ilya Somin: When should voters march to the beat of scientists?
Note: Condescension isn’t persuasion.
SALENA ZITO: How Trump Voters Feel About His First 100 Days.
And now? “Nothing has changed,” said Rob Hughes, a registered Democrat and retired businessman from Bulger, Pa., who I met on my cross-country trip, told me last week. “Well, that’s probably not entirely true. I think I like him more now that he is the president.”
As I went back to the people on US 30 to ask them how they feel about the man they voted for, Hughes’ sentiment rang true.
Trump’s supporters are unfazed that a new health-care law is not in place (yet), thrilled with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, weary of the constant accusations of his ties to Russia, supportive of his strike against Syria for using chemical weapons against its people and dismayed that House Republicans and Democrats are unwilling to compromise. To them, the president remains disruptive, unconventional, defiant and willing to change his mind — appealing attributes to his supporters, but not so to the press. . . .
When I called him recently, Hughes picked up his phone from the gun range. “I could not be more optimistic about the future than I am right now,” he told me. “Honestly, I am still on cloud nine that he won and is our president.”
Why is that? Hughes cites Trump’s unconventional approach to politics, his dismissal of political games and his willingness to compromise to get things done: “I am thrilled he has an open dialogue with China, not just on foreign affairs but on trade issues as well, and I am very pleased about how he responded to the atrocities in Syria.”
Estel, 77, who had just finished mowing 10 acres of farmland when we spoke last week, is also “very pleased” with President Trump so far: “I am very concerned about the fragile state of the world right now, but that was not of his doing. That has been decades in the making.”
Read the whole thing.
THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE: Socialist Death Squads Rule Venezuela.
BECAUSE NO SANCTUARY CAN BE LEFT FOR MASCULINITY:Why All-Men’s Colleges Are Still Under Siege.
I CAN MAKE A FEW GUESSES: Why Is the Obama Administration Trying to Keep 11,000 Documents Sealed?
WHEN CAN THEY BE WRONG ENOUGH? 18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year.
MOSTLY BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT BEING TAUGHT WHAT COMMUNISM REALLY IS: Communist Party membership numbers climbing in the Trump era.
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