REMEMBER, WE NEED HIGHER EDUCATION SO PEOPLE WILL LEARN TO THINK CRITICALLY AND DRAW FINE DISTINCTIONS: Prof who co-founded Black Lives Matter: ‘I.C.E= Gestapo.’
Archive for 2018
December 17, 2018
The assembly forecasts that Venezuela would even hit 4.3 million percent by the end of this month. Econoanalítica, a Venezuelan private financial firm, affirmed that hyperinflation would reach at least 2 million before December ends, local reports indicated.
With such a staggering rate, it’s no wonder Venezuelans like Diaz have rushed to spend money before prices continue their increase. Last month, after Maduro announced its sixth minimum wage increase in 2018, the price of a cup of coffee went up 285,614 percent—which is equivalent to 400 sovereign bolivars or $0.76—and the black market exchange rate, considered the real measure to know real costs in Venezuela, dropped to 526 bolivars per dollar from the previous 460, Bloomberg’s Cafe Con Leche Index reported early this month. Pan de jamón, a bread filled with raisins and ham (a staple food for Venezuelans during Christmas) increased 52 percent in late November, Bloomberg added.
“You can’t have savings in the bank,” Díaz told Newsweek in a video interview from Caracas. “The central bank is doing this because they’re printing and covering the money that the government of Nicolas Maduro is not producing. Hyperinflation is the culprit of this phenomenon and we, the population, are the victims.”
Victims of what, exactly, is up for debate apparently, as Newsweek couldn’t bring itself to use the S-word even once in a 1,650-word report.
SOME GENDER GAPS MATTER, OTHER GENDER GAPS DON’T: Men die on the job more often than women, but no one cares. “The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that, in 2015, men dominated the 20 most dangerous occupations in the United States. Logging is the most dangerous job in the U.S., followed by fishing. Mining is the 20th most dangerous profession. More men than women occupied these jobs by anywhere from 85.4 to 99.9 percent. Still, very few feminists, or anyone really, make a stink about the gender gap in casualties on the job. Perhaps because men earn so much doing it? Or they don’t deserve recognition because the patriarchy discovered logging and it’s getting what it deserved? Whatever the reason, it’s rarely mentioned, certainly not by feminists. I didn’t see ‘safety at work’ anywhere in the #HumanRightsDay memes or tweets — but I did see calls for healthcare, contraception, and awareness of global warming as human rights.”
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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Comey Back on Hill, Farewell Obamacare? and Much, Much More. “Lordy, ex-FBI deep-stater James Comey the Redeemer is back on the Hill today to twerk and freak for the Justice and Oversight committees.”
That was a bit vivid for this early in the day.
CHANGE: New Armed Services Chair Says He Will Fund Military, Not Drive Foreign Policy ‘Like McCain Did.’
Since his death in August, the one-time presidential candidate has been eulogized as a statesman, a lawmaker deeply involved in U.S. policy abroad and known for his often blistering opinions on foreign affairs. McCain played a particularly outsized role in international politics under President Trump, traveling abroad to reassure jumpy allies and publicly critiquing the president’s isolationist doctrine.
Inhofe, an Army veteran who previously had served as ranking minority member of the committee when Democrats last controlled the Senate, sees his role in more narrow terms: ensure that the U.S. military is adequately resourced, and leave foreign policy to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“My job is to make sure that when we get the information from the ones who are smarter than I am as to where our threats are, my job is to make sure we have the resources to build the military to confront that,” he told Defense One in an interview. “I try not to get into debates with people on the threat that they view. What I can do is say, okay, if that threat is correct, these are the resources we need.
Refreshing.
OUR MORAL BETTERS IN HOLLYWOOD: Disney actor fired after arrest for allegedly attempting to meet 13-year-old for sex.
SACRAMENTO HAS A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF DERANGEMENT: California Drops Plan To Tax Texting.
Here’s the essay, entitled Donald Trump Is A Good President. I can imagine the shock that must have inspired. Though you probably won’t like it.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL: Mexico aims to boost crude output by 45 percent before 2025.
Speaking from Ciudad del Carmen, a Gulf coast city 50 miles (85 kilometers) from an oil field that sustained Mexican public finances for decades, Lopez Obrador said the goal is for Petroleos Mexicanos to raise crude output to 2.4 million barrels per day, from the current 1.65 million barrels per day.
“We are going to invest where we know there’s petroleum and where it costs us less to extract it,” he told a jubilant crowd of oil workers.
Lopez Obrador previously announced plans to invest 75 billion pesos ($3.65 billion) of savings from a government austerity program into Pemex.
The company has struggled to come up with funds in recent years amid mounting pension obligations, high tax rates, rampant fuel theft and inefficiencies.
If he were really serious, he’d push for privatizing Pemex.
2018: No one wants to ban your guns.
SLIGHTLY LATER IN 2018: Pittsburgh Mayor Trying To Pass Illegal And Unconstitutional Gun Ban.
BECAUSE SHUT UP, PEASANTS: Why are Tijuana residents being ignored about caravan?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College Bloat Meets ‘The Blade:’ Mitch Daniels, America’s most innovative university president, tells how he’s kept tuition from rising and how acquiring Kaplan University will expand educational access.
Mr. Daniels, 69, is the most innovative university president in America. Like his counterparts at other schools, he believes higher education has been “a competitive advantage” for the U.S.—“a nice little export industry, if you add up all the dollars that come here to purchase the education of students from other places.” He regards the rumbling in Washington about curbing visas for foreign students to be “very shortsighted.” But he also thinks American higher education has grown fat and complacent. He’s making inventive, even radical changes in the way his institution finances itself and imparts an education.
Mr. Daniels kicks off our conversation with a morality tale: “I’ll speak to an audience of businesspeople and say: Here’s the racket that you should have gone into. You’re selling something, a college diploma, that’s deemed a necessity. And you have total pricing power.” Better than that: “When you raise your prices, you not only don’t lose customers, you may actually attract new ones.”
For lack of objective measures, “people associate the sticker price with quality: ‘If school A costs more than B, I guess it’s a better school.’ ” A third-party payer, the government, funds it all, so that “the customer—that is, the student and the family—feels insulated against the cost. A perfect formula for complacency.” The parallels with health care, he observes, are “smack on.”
Mr. Daniels takes a different approach. In 2001-03, he ran the White House budget office for President George W. Bush, who dubbed him “The Blade” for his cost-cutting skills. Mr. Daniels brought his paring knife to Purdue. Examples of his efficiencies include replacing full-time dining-hall employees with student workers, scrapping the vast fleet of university-owned buses in favor of a private contractor, and saving $61 million on capital projects through what the university calls “innovative construction management.”
His most eye-catching achievement has been to keep costs down for students. By graduation day in 2020, tuition won’t have risen in eight years. “We’re able to say,” he says, “that the total cost in nominal dollars of going to Purdue will be less in 2020 than it was in 2012.”
Mr. Daniels says widespread adoption of Purdue’s “affordability campaign” would improve higher education. “Everybody is worried,” he says, furrowing his brow. “What are we at? A trillion and a half of student debt, twice as much as the total credit-card debt. It’s a social and economic problem.” He offers up a list of life’s milestones that people delay because of college debt: “marriage, household formation, child raising, homeownership, business-start formation—all of these things are being pressed down by college debt.” The “obvious first step,” Mr. Daniels replies, “is don’t charge so darn much in the first place.”
I dunno, if that kind of thinking catches on, it could threaten the whole feedlot.
UNDER THE PRECEDENTS SET UNDER THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION, CONGRESS MAY BE SAFELY IGNORED: Trump Will Likely Face ‘Subpoenas Every Week’ After Democrats Take Over House in January, Journalist Warns.
Julie Davis joined a panel of Congressional and White House correspondents on CNN Sunday morning to discuss the growing number of allegations against Trump, as well as the conviction of numerous top associates. The journalist pointed out that Democrats will be much more enthusiastic to push the investigation forward than their Republican counterparts.
After host John Hill listed numerous investigations already ongoing into Trump’s and his associates’ suspicious dealings, Davis jumped in to suggest there are even more on the way.
“This is not even counting all the investigations they’ll be confronting from the House Democrats when they take over in January,” the journalist said. “I mean, this is a whole other can of worms that they know they’ll have to deal with.”
They’ve got a bad case of Impeachment Fever.
THE FINE EUROPEAN TRADITION OF HOLDING AS MANY VOTES AS REQUIRED TO PRODUCE THE DESIRED RESULT? EU Leaders Dig in Against May’s Brexit Plan While She Mulls Second Referendum. “Holding another ‘leave’ vote may be the only way that May can win approval of her Brexit plan.”
FIRED OVER SOME SORT OF “DIVERSITY” FOLDEROL THE UNIVERSITY ISN’T EVEN WILLING TO TALK ABOUT: Hundreds Rally for USC Dean Fired by School President, Who Cited Lack of Diversity.
“Of these complaints, only about 10% — an amount you can count on both hands — were deemed sufficiently worthy of being passed on to the dean for further investigation,” wrote Lloyd Greif, a USC benefactor who also sits on the school’s board. “Jim dealt with all those [diversity] complaints timely and appropriately. None of the complaints alleged any egregious conduct, and none of them involved inappropriate behavior by Jim,” Greif added.
“To this day,” wrote Greif, who sat in on meetings about Dean Ellis’ removal, “Jim has not been allowed to see the Cooley report, despite repeated requests to do so by him, his legal counsel, a trustee, and me.”
What are they hiding? You can bet it’s not something that will make USC president Wanda Austin look goodl.
VANISHED: On this day in 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach. He was presumed to have drowned.
Holt was apparently not the cautious type. Cheviot Beach was notoriously dangerous for swimmers. And although he’d had near drowning experiences there before, he insisted that he should continue to go there. When his press secretary warned him that his swimming habits were too dangerous, Holt responded, “Look Tony, what are the odds of a prime minister being drowned or taken by a shark?”
On the day of his disappearance, most of his companions declined to join him in the water on the ground that the swells were too high and there were obvious cross currents and eddies. Interestingly, a newspaper had carried a headline that day of “PM Advised to Swim Less.” It’s not clear that he ever saw it.
There are, of course, conspiracy theories about his disappearance. According to one story, he was picked up by a submarine, so he could defect to China. The truth seems to be a bit more mundane: He was an over-confident swimmer–to the point of being a fool. Note that over-confidence is a common failing among politicians.
MICHAEL LEDEEN: Michael Flynn’s Ordeal and Ours.
Read the whole thing.