TED CRUZ: Tax Reform Should be Used to Repeal One of ‘Most Damaging’ Bills ‘in Modern Times.’

ASHE SCHOW: DeVos Ditches Obama-Era Campus Assault Rules, But Problems Lie Ahead. “Even with the new guidance, some college presidents and states have declared they will continue to follow the Obama-era guidelines. In January, a panel of college presidents agreed with the parts of the Obama-era guidance that have become so controversial. John Jasinski, president of Northwest Missouri State University, said his school would continue to use the Obama-era guidance regardless of what DeVos did. Just last week, the California legislature passed a bill that would codify the Obama-era guidance for the state. Gov. Jerry Brown will likely sign.”

Yes, it’s a war on male college students out there. Which perhaps explains declining male enrollment. And getting rid of a bad policy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for change. DeVos will have to force fairness, not merely permit it.

MICHAEL BARONE: A split in the party, a return to normal.

For the first time in nearly 20 years, the president seems out of alignment, on policy and political goals, with his party in Congress. This strikes many as an anomalous, even alarming situation. But if you look back in history, it’s more like the norm, even if Donald Trump isn’t.

The current presidential/congressional alignment began in January 1998, when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke into the news. For several years before that, President Clinton engaged in what was called triangulation, positioning himself on issues between his party’s liberal congressional leaders and the conservatism of Speaker Newt Gingrich.

His collaborations with Gingrich resulted in serious bipartisan legislation — welfare reform, a child’s healthcare and Medicare package, and balanced federal budgets. In the process, Clinton pointedly ignored House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. That ended when Clinton needed solid Democratic support on impeachment for lying under oath about his Lewinsky affair.

A lot ended then.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Astonishingly, the 2016 Clinton campaign conducted no state polls in the final three weeks of the general election and relied primarily on data analytics to project turnout and the state vote. They paid little attention to qualitative focus groups or feedback from the field, and their brief daily analytics poll didn’t measure which candidate was defining the election or getting people engaged.

The models from the data analytics team led by Elan Kriegel got the Iowa and Michigan primaries badly wrong, with huge consequences for the race. Why were they not then fired? Campaign manager Robbie Mook and the analytics team argued, according to Shattered, that the Sanders vote grew “organically”—turnout was unexpectedly high and new registrants broke against Clinton. Why was that a surprise?

Campaign chair John Podesta wanted to fire Mook, but Clinton stood by him. She rightly admired previous campaigns in which big data and technology were big winners, yet in 2008 it was the candidate and his appeal more than the technical wizardry that pushed Obama over the top. David Axelrod told me that analytics adds a “great field-goal kicker”—no substitute for a strategy and compelling message.

* * * * * * *

 

Clinton and the campaign acted as if “demographics is destiny” and that a “rainbow coalition” was bound to govern. Yes, there is a growing “Rising American Electorate,” but Page Gardner and I wrote at the outset of this election, you must give people a compelling reason to vote and I have demonstrated for my entire career that a candidate must target white working-class voters too.

I’m sure if the campaign had gone with the “Because It’s Her Turn” slogan that would totally sold the deal.

THE HILL: Poll: Trump’s approval rating rebounds. “President Trump’s job approval rating has rebounded off its lows, as voters approve of the government’s response to a series of devastating hurricanes and the White House’s efforts to work with Democrats.”

I think the UN speech is a plus for him, too, though it was too late for this poll, I think.

IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: “The South revolted to defend the indefensible of chattel slavery, and deserved its defeat. But once the war was won, the victors (both Northern and Southern Unionists) had to win the peace as well. It was not a given that the South would be reconciled to the Union; there was lots of precedent for the statesmen and the people of the era to look back on that suggested otherwise. The South could have become a running sore, a cauldron of low-level insurrection and guerilla warfare that blighted the next century of U.S. history. Instead, it is now the most patriotic region of the U.S. – as measured, for example, by regional origins of U.S. military personnel. How did this happen?”

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT MONOPOLY STATES SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM? California’s Sexual Assault Law Will Hurt Black Kids.

USA TODAY’S FRONT PAGE WENT CRAZY OVER TRUMP’S SPEECH YESTERDAY, but Peggy Noonan sees it differently: Trump Gets Blunt at the United Nations Will bracing clarity make things better or worse? We’ll know soon enough. But he said things the world needed to hear.

It has been charged that Mr. Trump virtually ignored Russia, mentioning it only once, in thanks for supporting sanctions against North Korea. But he also said: “We must reject threats to sovereignty, from the Ukraine to the South China Sea.” That is not ignoring Russia. “We must uphold respect for law, respect for borders, and respect for culture,” he said. “We must work together and confront together those who threaten us with chaos, turmoil, and terror.”

The most publicized section of the speech was on North Korea. He characterized its regime as “depraved,” “twisted,” a “band of criminals.” True enough. North Korea’s “reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles” cannot be allowed to continue. In the speech’s most famous flourish: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” The U.S. “has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

Is this too hot, or helpful, or both? During the Cold War colorful candor produced a great deal. When Ronald Reagan was drop-dead blunt about the nature of the Soviet Union, foreign affairs was a high-stakes chess game between two superpowers. The context now is a less clearly demarcated world in which anyone with a weapon of mass destruction is, for the moment, a “superpower.” It’s hard to know if blunt talk will excite nuts into greater activity, or if bracing clarity about the risks they’re taking will slow them down, make them question their ambitions and intentions.

But the U.N. needed to hear clearly and unequivocally the gravity with which the American president views North Korea. Ultimately, as Mr. Trump noted, confronting this question is “what the United Nations is for.”

A great line—because it spoke a great truth—was this: “The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.” Mr. Trump then paused and looked at the audience. It struck some as a “please clap” moment. It struck me as a stare-down: I’m saying something a lot of you need to hear. You’re not going to like it, and I’m going to watch you not like it.

Two final points: One is that Mr. Trump is on a roll, a sustained one the past few weeks, and this is new. All levels of government performed well in the hurricanes. Mr. Trump showed competence, focus and warmth. His bipartisan outreach, however it ends, went over well with core supporters and others. He had a strong speech at the U.N., in fact a successful U.N. week, beginning to end. His poll numbers are inching toward 40%.

Which gets us to point two: This is a very important moment for him. History suggests he will ruin it any minute with intemperate statements, wiggy decisions or crazy tweets.

Is that what history suggests?

SCARY BEYOND ALL REASON:   Prehistoric ‘devil toads’ with Pac-Man mouths ate dinosaurs.

SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED:  Princeton’s campus newspaper disbands editorial board after string of right-leaning opinions.

SO WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SEXLESS, PAINTED ROBOTS?   The rise of genderless beauty.  I think this is once again a case of an industry — cosmetics — seeking a minuscule buying public in the name of social justice… or something.  Also, the left’s provincialism and historical ignorance strikes again.  I mean, seriously, what about using cosmetics means you’re gender fluid?  All the manly men of the Elizabethan age wore cosmetics.  I wouldn’t mind these self-proclaimed intellectual elites half as much if they weren’t ignorant nincompoops.

ONE PERSON’S HARMFUL IS ANOTHER PERSON’S REALISTIC:  10-year-old kids around the world already know harmful gender stereotypes.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO… AW HECK, JUST LOCK THIS COW AWAY:  Teacher allegedly slept with 4 teen students, 2 in same night.

THE MORE REPUGNANT PART OF THIS WOULD NOT BE THAT THEY’RE CORRUPT, BUT THAT THEY’RE STUPID:  The FBI Still Stonewalling.

AT LEAST SOME STUPIDITY IS NOT ETERNAL:  Obama’s “Dear Colleague” Demand for No-Due-Process Rape Courts Rescinded.

BUT… BUT MUH TRIGGERS:  Banana Peels and Cotton Bolls and Free Speech, Oh My!

MUELLER’S RABBIT HOLE:  Tapped Out: The Manafort Mess.

AND YET THEY PERSISTED: Fannish Miscellany: Podcast #6/Diversity & Comics/SJB’s Against Aspirational Storytelling.

21st CENTURY (NON-) RELATIONSHIPS: Japan’s Lonely Single Men Are Settling For Virtual Reality “Wives Of The Future.”

One inventor who build a virtual-reality platform said he aims to create a virtual partner who brings greater satisfaction to Japanese men and women than a human companion would. That’s bad news for the Japanese economy, which, thanks to the looming demographic crunch as the population rapidly ages, will need to increasingly rely on the Bank of Japan’s “stimulus” to avoid a deflationary spiral.

I’d say, give them a few centuries, and a holographic/flesh and blood relationship could be surprisingly common — but then there’s that pesky demographic death spiral thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4hC76IzxNg

SO I’VE GOT A BUNCH OF RELATIVES: All blue-eyed people have a single ancestor in common.

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

Also, Storm Preparedness Essentials.

Plus, an Earthquake Preparedness List.

FIRST THEY RUIN FOOTBALL, NOW THIS: Group of 45 men dressed like Magnum, P.I. kicked out of Detroit Tigers game. If they’re a distraction from the game, you need to play more amusingly.

JOHN HINDERAKER: The FBI, Still Stonewalling. “I can’t imagine why Speaker Ryan wouldn’t want to get to the bottom of the apparent misuse of the FBI by Barack Obama and his corrupt Department of Justice. But this is what I really don’t understand: the FBI is part of DOJ, which is run–in theory, at least–by the Attorney General. Why doesn’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions simply order the FBI to comply with the House Intelligence Committee’s subpoena, promptly?”

Why, indeed?

OPIATE OF THE MASSES: “When young people started mobilising online against Togo’s president, the state switched off the internet. In the week that followed, people talked more, worked harder and had less sex – all of which proved bad news for the government.”