Archive for 2018
September 27, 2018
NEW CIVILITY WATCH: DC restaurant receives death threats after Cruz, wife forced out by protesters.
THE MAN WHO RUINED AMERICAN EDUCATION: Creator Of U.S. News Rankings Dies At 89.
DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD: I Came Forward Because Reporters Were ‘Trying to Talk to My Dog Through the Window.’
WORST WARMONGER EVER: Trump Says Two-State Solution ‘More Difficult Because It’s a Real-Estate Deal’ But Better for Peace. “The President says he wants a deal between Israelis and Palestinians before the end of his term so ‘it will start moving pretty soon, pretty rapidly.'”
On the outside chance the Palestinians are willing to sit down for genuine negotiations, it will be because Trump was the first U.S. President willing to disabuse them of their notion that all of Israel could be theirs for the taking.
A REMINDER THAT BEIJING IS STILL RUN BY COMMUNISTS: China’s Muslim Detention Camps Spark Protests in Islamic World.
Muslim groups in India and Bangladesh held protests over the Chinese camps for the first time this month after former inmates began to talk publicly about their treatment, including being bound to chairs for hours on end and forced to renounce Islamic beliefs.
In Kazakhstan, many people were also outraged, and local lawyers and activists say hundreds of people have lobbied their government for help, following the detention of several Kazakh citizens and many more ethnic Kazakh Chinese nationals in the camps.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that claims a million members in 40 countries, called on Muslims this month to be wary of Chinese investment and to oppose Chinese rule in Xinjiang.
On Saturday, the group accused Pakistan’s government of betraying the Uighurs for the sake of China’s infrastructure program in the country, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC.
“Should the Muslims of Pakistan quietly observe the persecution of Uighur Muslims for the sake of CPEC and China?” it asked.
The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands pretty much anywhere else.
SILENCING WOMEN: This professor wrote ‘Three Cheers for White Men.’ She’s been defamed as a violent ‘alt-right’ leader since. “They want me not to be able to have a voice.”
It’s only listen to women when those women are parroting the Party Line.
SUSTAINABILITY: As Debt Rises, the Government Will Soon Spend More on Interest Than on the Military. “Tax cuts, spending increases and higher interest rates could make it harder to respond to future recessions and deal with other needs.”
The run-up in borrowing costs is a one-two punch brought on by the need to finance a fast-growing budget deficit, worsened by tax cuts and steadily rising interest rates that will make the debt more expensive.
With less money coming in and more going toward interest, political leaders will find it harder to address pressing needs like fixing crumbling roads and bridges or to make emergency moves like pulling the economy out of future recessions.
Within a decade, more than $900 billion in interest payments will be due annually, easily outpacing spending on myriad other programs. Already the fastest-growing major government expense, the cost of interest is on track to hit $390 billion next year, nearly 50 percent more than in 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Tax cuts are the least of our debt problem given that Washington still enjoys record revenues, year after year. What Washington has is a spending problem, and zero appetite for addressing it.
I HAVEN’T BEEN ON THE CONLAWPROF EMAIL LIST FOR YEARS, but perusing it today would not likely boost your opinion of legal academe’s critical thinking skills.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sanctuary city college rescinds ICE career fair invitation. When taxpayers tire of subsidizing this stuff, we’ll be told it’s because of “anti-intellectualism.”
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: It’s SCOTUS Showtime in the Senate and Much, Much More. “Creepy Porn Lawyer Avenatti’s client came forward. She claims that for a few years when she was in college or of college age, she went to around 10 (TEN!!) high school parties where Kavanaugh was plowing chicks full of nite-nite drugs and booze so they were easy to rape. Who goes to high school parties once they are in college? Who goes to TEN rape parties where men were lined up, ready to rape?”
Admittedly it’s been a few decades, but in my experience high school girls went to college parties but never, ever the other way around.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, VICIOUS RACISM EDITION: Yale University Under Federal Investigation for Use of Race in Admissions Practices: Justice, Education Departments looking into allegations of discrimination against Asian-American applicants.
The Justice Department and Education Department have opened an investigation into whether Yale University illegally discriminates against Asian-American applicants, according to people familiar with the matter.
The investigation marks an escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to challenge the longstanding consideration of race in the admissions decisions of elite colleges. Last year, the Justice Department opened a similar civil-rights investigation into whether Harvard University discriminates against Asian-American applicants.
The new probe into Yale is based on a complaint filed in 2016 with the Justice and Education departments by a group of Asian-American organizations, led by the Asian American Coalition for Education.
The complaint alleged Yale, Brown University and Dartmouth College were illegally discriminating against Asian-American applicants by treating them differently during the admissions process based on their race.
The complaint said Ivy League universities hold Asian-American applicants to a higher standard than students of other races and use an illegal quota to cap the number of admitted Asian-American students.
EAGLE OVER THE MARIANAS: A USAF F-15D Eagle flies above the Mariana Islands, Sept. 18, 2018.
REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: Suppressed Blasey Ford Yearbooks Reveal Fast Times at Holton-Arms. And a nickname. Scrubbing these was a mistake, since it simply highlights them as important, and relevant to her credibility. If not, why suppress them?
Ford claims the reason she didn’t tell her parents about almost being “raped” is that she didn’t want to get “in trouble” for drinking at a party.
“I did not want to tell my parents that I, at age 15, was in a house without any parents present, drinking beer with boys,” she said.
But classmates said the former cheerleader, who was known as “Chrissy,” was part of the underage drinking tradition that was no secret among Maryland prep schools in the early 1980s, when the drinking age was 18.
Her own school yearbooks (in which parents took out paid ads) celebrated “boys [and] beer” and pictured beer bottles and beer cans and scenes of boys and girls drinking at parties. One published a photo of Ford and other girls at a Halloween party alongside a caption boasting of “pass[ing] out” after playing “Quarters” and other binge-drinking games. Her father, Ralph Blasey, was president of the local country club.
Neither her parents nor her two siblings have come out to voice support for Ford, and they did not sign a family letter of support for her and her claims circulated by her husband.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: From the comments: “Her father, Ralph Blasey, was president of the local country club. So what we have here is Lacey Underall accusing Danny Noonan of improprieties while Al Czervik has ascended to the Presidency. Life imitates Caddyshack.”
WHILE WASHINGTON YAMMERS, THERE’S THIS NEWS: “The average FICO credit score has risen to a record high of 704. That’s up from a low of 686 following the Great Recession in 2009. This is consistent with other data showing that U.S. household wealth grew to an all-time high in the second quarter of this year—$106.9 trillion.”
THESE GUYS STICK TOGETHER AGAINST THEIR CRITICS, I GUESS: Amy Dryden: Banned From Facebook For Sharing Truth About CNN’s Kavanaugh Investigation. So much for “listen to women.”
WELL, GOOD: Latam nations, Canada ask ICC to probe Venezuela government.
The seven-page letter cited evidence gathered by a range of international experts and organizations, and asked for investigation of crimes said to have been committed after Feb. 12, 2014.
Foreign ministers from the countries said the experts had found that the Venezuelan government bore responsibility for crimes ranging from torture, murder and rape to forced disappearances and violations of due process.
“There is a large and growing body of evidence that the Maduro regime has committed gross human rights violations against its own people,” Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told a news conference with her counterparts during the annual United Nations General Assembly.
This “for the people” act has finally worn thin — until the next time.