WHAT COULD GO WRONG? The EU’s Banking Ruse to Create a United States of Europe.
Archive for 2018
February 9, 2018
THE NEXUS OF AUTISM AND TITLE IX.
The call came from a former colleague who coaches college students on the autism spectrum. “We’ve got someone who’s in trouble, and we could use some advice. It’s one of those Title IX things.” She told me the story. The student loves punk music and wanted to start a band. He put up fliers on the campus, which in itself was an issue because he violated the institutional posting policy.
But even in today’s climate, I thought, that doesn’t usually rise to a Title IX complaint. She continued. “He wrote something in Morse code on the flyer, a message directed to women, because he was trying to recruit some to join the band. It was a little ‘stalky-creepy’ — OK, pretty creepy — but this guy is totally harmless and clueless and just doesn’t know how to meet women.”
My first reaction was to smile. Morse code? How many college students even know what it is? But it didn’t surprise me to learn this about a student with Asperger’s syndrome, the commonly used term for those with high-functioning autism. Indeed, this kind of situation, I have come to realize, exemplifies a disastrous nexus of two trends on college campuses: the increased awareness of Title IX’s expectations for student behavior and institutional response, and the growing number of students with a diagnosis (or simply just characteristics) of autism who are attending college.
I imagined the student had learned Morse code at the age of 5 and was no doubt still fluent in it. In his mind, a wondrous place created by the distinct neural connections common among those with this diagnosis, the use of Morse code to signal his interest in meeting women made perfect sense. To those who know him, it is one of many quirky characteristics — some of them sweet, some of them annoying — that require a bit of translation for him and about him as he moves within the world of higher education.
Or, you know, we could have better, less-stupid rules, and not involve the university bureaucracy in the dating behavior of undergraduates.
BATTLESWARM BLOG: Another conservative voice silenced for Tweeting While Conservative.
I’m not on Twitter much anymore, which is a shame because it used to be a lot of fun.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Dartmouth student accused of ‘violence’ for op-ed on diversity.
Cost of Attending Dartmouth: $72,853 per year.
and DAN MARKEL UPDATE: New Charges Filed Against Two Suspects In Dan Markel’s Murder.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Shut Down Averted, the Latest RUSSIA Collusion, and Much, Much More. “This guy is a bigger disappointment out of office than he was while he was in office. He kept his mouth shut while Obama weaponized the government and targeted conservatives. He kept is mouth shut when Obama paid Hezbollah Iran almost $2B and basically greenlighted thei Iranian nuclear program. He kept his mouth shut when former AG Eric Holder ran guns to narcoterrorists in Mexico. But during the Trump administration, he’s going to open his yapper. Overseas.”
You can probably guess who Liz is talking about.
IS THE NAME WAR FINALLY ENDING?: Greece versus Macedonia. Life in the Balkans. (bumped)
VIETNAM WAR PHOTO RETROSPECTIVE, THE TET OFFENSIVE: Hue City, February 11, 1968 – Marines of “A” Company, 1st Engineers, fire at North Vietnamese Army snipers across the Perfume River.
“THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE TOLD YOU ARE THE SUBJECT OF AN OPR OR OIG INVESTIGATION.” Via Hugh Hewitt, an explanation of why the resignation of Deputy Asst. Attorney General for National Security David Kaufman is a very big deal.
SO WHY WAS HE KEPT ON SO LONG? Kelly knew before abuse reports that Porter would be denied security clearance.
And: Dozens at White House lack permanent security clearances.
Staffing remains a weak spot in this Administration.
“CALIGULA PARTY” IS NOT A GOOD LOOK: Top Oxfam Staff Paid Haiti Quake Survivors For Sex. Some of them may have been kids.
WEIRD HOW THINGS DEMOCRATS HAVE CALLED FOR FOR YEARS ARE HAPPENING UNDER TRUMP BUT THEY’RE STILL NOT HAPPY: CVS to hike wages, introduce paid parental leave with windfall from new tax law.
DANIEL HENNINGER: The Trump Panic: It was the belief that the elected president was unacceptable and had to be stopped.
The Washington press corps has kept the Trump-Russia collusion story before the American public for a year, and the president himself, speaking through his Twitter account, says he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”
How did this spectacle happen? Two salient and related events occurred on Nov. 8, 2016. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton for the U.S. presidency. Within hours, the Trump Panic went viral.
The Trump Panic of 2016-17 was the belief that the U.S. presidency had fallen into the hands of an unacceptable person—who had to be stopped, or resisted by any means.
Historians will record that the Trump Panic gripped all Democrats, some Republicans, scores of intellectuals (such as those who signed documents declaring their refusal to work in the Trump foreign-policy agencies), foreign leaders, journalists, and members of U.S. security agencies.
On election day, two FBI officials— Peter Strzok of the bureau’s counterintelligence division and Lisa Page —exchanged text messages.
Page: “OMG THIS IS F***ING TERRIFYING.” Strzok: “Omg, I am so depressed.”
Recall how routine it was then to hear or read that the new U.S. president resembled Hitler or Mussolini. Democracy was “at risk”—even as such non-Hitlerian pillars as Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn joined the government.
Let us stipulate it is not beyond imagining that individuals at the FBI’s Washington headquarters or at the Justice Department are Democrats. This is Washington, and the sky is blue. Historically, though, it has been possible to believe a functional distinction existed in these sensitive bureaucracies between political impulse and professional responsibility.
Because of the Trump Panic, professional discipline eroded.
And it hasn’t recovered yet. One of Trump’s major accomplishments has been to reveal the lack of civic virtue and self-control across our elite institutions.
THE DERP STATE: Feds Scrambled to Redact Information Showing Top Secret Spy Abuse. “Newly unearthed info confirms Nunes memo on FBI spying.”
Federal authorities scrambled to redact and keep classified key information revealing major abuses of the U.S. surveillance apparatus that targeted President Donald Trump’s associates in the lead up to the 2016 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation who said the latest information corroborates findings recently made public by House Intelligence Committee officials.
On the heels of the release of a classified memo by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee disclosing that the FBI relied heavily on a widely discredited anti-Trump dossier to carry out unwarranted surveillance on Trump allies, Senate investigators this week made public their own findings that appear to corroborate the events.
Somewhere between “Lavrentiy Beria” and “Keystone Cops” lies a close-enough estimation of this mess.
SPENDING: House holds 5:30 am vote to end brief shutdown, sends spending bill to Trump.
The House early Friday morning passed a bipartisan bill to keep the government open, several hours into a partial government closure and despite division within both parties over the legislation.
Dozens of Republicans and Democrats voted against the bill, which provides government funding until March 23 and sets a marker for federal spending levels for the next two years. The legislation also suspends the nation’s borrowing limit for one year, and provides nearly $90 billion in disaster relief for states and territories devastated by recent wildfires and hurricanes.
Despite the opposition from Republicans opposed to new spending, and Democrats who wanted to include an immigration deal that doesn’t exist, the bipartisan support supplied enough votes to ensure House passage.
Most Democrats added some drama by not voting until the very end, but more than 70 of them ultimately joined the GOP majority to support the bill. In the final vote, 67 Republicans rejected the bill, which passed 240-186.
I’m not happy.
IT NEEDS CONSTANT UPDATES BUT HERE’S PELOSI’S LATEST TOP 10 DUMBEST QUOTES: There are so many to choose from, but somebody has to do it, so LifeZette’s Jim Stinson steps up to the plate.
ENJOY YOUR CRUMBS, PEASANTS: $20 Billion Hidden in the Swamp: Feds Redact 255,000 Salaries.
Recently, Open the Books filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (pictured) for all federal employee names, titles, agencies, salaries, and bonus information. We’ve captured and posted online this data for the past 11 years. For the first time, we found missing information throughout the federal payroll disclosures. Here’s a sample of what we discovered from the FY2017 records:
254,839 federal salaries were redacted in the federal civil service payroll (just 3,416 salaries were redacted in FY2016).
68 federal departments redacted salaries. Even small agencies like the National Transportation Services Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation redacted millions of dollars in salaries.
$20 billion in estimated payroll now lacks transparency.
A 7,360 percent increase in opacity hides one out of every five federal salaries.
Who’s the bureaucrat in charge? Not a Trump appointee – the president doesn’t even have a current nominee at OPM. So, the buck stops with new acting Director Kathleen McGettigan, a 25-year staffer who assumed the position because she was the next in line, not because the White House appointed her.
Personnel is policy, and this is still one of the Trump Administration’s weak spots even going into its second year.
Bigger picture: Washington either gets cleaned up and stops robbing us blind, or the backlash is going be unpleasant enough to make our political class beg and plead for more Trump instead.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN STATES SUCH CESSPITS OF HYPOCRISY AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION? #MeToo movement lawmaker investigated for sexual misconduct allegations: California legislator cut national profile as activist against sexual harassment.
California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia — whose high-profile advocacy of the #MeToo movement earned her national media notice — is herself the subject of a state legislative investigation in the wake of a report that she sexually harassed and groped a former legislative staffer.
In December, when Time magazine announced that “Silence Breakers” who spoke out against sexual harassment were its Persons of the Year, Garcia’s face was prominently included in the art accompanying the cover story.
But Daniel Fierro of Cerritos told POLITICO that in 2014, as a 25-year-old staffer to Assemblyman Ian Calderon, he was groped by Garcia, a powerful Democratic lawmaker who chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus and the Natural Resources Committee.
He said she cornered him alone after the annual Assembly softball game in Sacramento as he attempted to clean up the dugout. Fierro, who said Garcia appeared inebriated, said she began stroking his back, then squeezed his buttocks and attempted to touch his crotch before he extricated himself and quickly left.
Fierro said he never reported the incident, which occurred years before the current #MeToo movement and new whistleblower legislation to protect legislative staffers. But after he mentioned the issue last January to Calderon, his former boss, the matter was then referred to the Assembly Rules Committee, which launched an investigation.
Fierro is not the only one claiming improper advances by Garcia. A prominent Sacramento lobbyist says she also accosted him in May 2017, when she cornered him, made a graphic sexual proposal, and tried to grab his crotch at a political fundraiser. He spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals.
Read the whole thing.
THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Chuck Schumer Called For Military Parade In 2014.
Contrary to fake news reports, the United States has held massive, flashy military parades since at least 1865. Subsequent public displays of military might, including tanks, missiles, and hundreds of thousands of troops occurred in 1919, 1942, 1946, 1953, 1957, 1961, and 1991.
Also contrary to mainstream media headlines, it wasn’t so long ago that military parades ranked among the few issues to draw bipartisan support. No less a Democrat than Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) vocally supported a military parade on American soil as recently as 2014. The camera-happy senator’s call to arms stirred even New York’s Bolshevik Mayor Bill De Blasio, who proclaimed, “The brave men and women who have selflessly served our nation with courage and skill in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve a recognition for their sacrifice. I stand with Sen. Schumer in his call for a parade to honor our veteran heroes, and New York City would be proud to host this important event.”
Of course, Sen. Schumer has never been known for his consistency.
That’s not entirely true. Schumer says whatever is politically expedient, consistently, over a span of decades.
ACTUALLY, “MANDATORY DIVERSITY TRAINING” WILL PROBABLY MAKE IT WORSE: GWU adopts mandatory diversity training after racist social media post.
HMM: Russia Embarks on Military Buildup in the Far East.
Indeed, within the past several months, the Russian side has repeatedly complained about the presence of the United States in the region. Russia’s main concerns are related to the U.S. military bases (especially, the Air Force component) located in Alaska along with the significant potential (including six aircraft carriers) of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (RIA Novosti, December 18, 2017). Another area of concern for Moscow has been the increasing number of military exercises held by U.S., South Korean and the Japanese naval forces, which is “aggravated” by the growing U.S. military presence in the Pacific region (for instance, the expanding U.S. military potential in South Korea—see EDM, July 22, 2016).
And yet, Russia denies (which frequently occurs in other theaters as well) any attempts to embark on the militarization of the Far East. According to prominent Russian military expert Mikhail Khodarenok, “We are not starting any sort of arms race in the Far East, we are not pursuing saber rattling or preaching war […] we are merely trying to take back what used to be ours.” He further stated that the creation of the new army unit in the Far East and the buildup in local military capabilities is nothing but a “return to common sense” and “the patching up of the old ramshackle hedge—not the creation of a new wall” (RIA Novosti, December 19, 2017).
It’s curious that Russia claims to be so concerned about a few air and naval bases when there are major formations of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army just on the other side of the border from resource-rich-but-sparsely-populated Siberia.