CHRISTIAN TOTO: Rob Schneider: The Free Speech Hero We Need. “Hollywood is deathly silent about the battle to clamp down on free speech. This comic actor is a glorious exception.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
June 10, 2019
DANIEL MCGRAW: Oberlin College’s identity crisis led to its Gibson’s Bakery train wreck.
Oberlin College, in the minds of the jury, wasn’t guilty only of what they did, but also what they didn’t do. They had opportunities early on to see the bullshit flying in their faces — thrown by the social justice warrior students – and didn’t have the good sense to see a basic problem and recognize the simplest of solutions.
What happened here is that Oberlin College and many universities have lost the understanding of their identity and basic purpose, and when that happens with most of us, when we don’t know who we are, we tend to do stupid things. That’s what happened here.
A few years ago, they had students saying they wanted finals cancelled because they were protesting minority men being shot by police in nearby Cleveland; in Dec. of 2015, the school’s black student union published 14 pages of racial accusations against the school with 58 demands to fix them; and the school had students thinking that the sushi in their cafeteria was “cultural appropriation” and unfit for eating because of that.
Instead of the school telling their students, “You are all crazy, and get back to studying,” they took on the “these poor snowflakes need our support” attitude.
It was the tail wagging the dog in the end, and ended up how most things like that do.
If there’s a difference between “the inmates running the asylum” and “the students running the school,” it’s only in the wording.
THEY’RE SHIFTING ALREADY: Joe Biden: The Evitable Nominee. “Joe Biden leads in the major polls because people think he’s going to win, and people think he’s going to win because he’s leading in the major polls — but all it takes to puncture his Cloak of Inevitability is a shift in perceptions.”
I HAD BEEN ASSURED THIS HAD ALL BEEN SETTLED: Great Lakes Reveal a Fatal Flaw in Climate Change ‘Science.’
THAT WOULD BE NICE: Trump Says Twitter Should Reinstate All Of The Conservatives It Banned.
LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: With Venezuela in collapse, towns slip into primitive isolation.
With bank notes made useless by hyperinflation, and no easy access to the debit card terminals widely used to conduct transactions in urban areas, residents of Patanemo rely mainly on barter.
It is just one of a growing number of rural towns slipping into isolation as Venezuela’s economy implodes amid a long-running political crisis.
From the peaks of the Andes to Venezuela’s sweltering southern savannahs, the collapse of basic services including power, telephone and internet has left many towns struggling to survive.
The subsistence economy stands in stark contrast to the oil boom years when abundance seeped into the most remote reaches of what was once Latin America’s richest nation.
“The fish that we catch is to exchange or give away,” said Yofran Arias, one of 15 fishermen who have grown accustomed to a rustic existence even though they live a 15-minute drive from Venezuela’s main port of Puerto Cabello.
“Money doesn’t buy anything so it’s better for people to bring food so we can give them fish,” he said, while cleaning bonefish, known for abundant bones and limited commercial value.
If you think money is evil, try living on barter.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Should the US Sell Saudi Arabia $100 Billion in Weapons?
CYBERSECURITY: Google confirms that advanced backdoor came preinstalled on Android devices. “After Google successfully beat back Triada in 2017, its developers found a new way in.”
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: House Democrats Start Fake Impeachment Hearings.
NICE OF YOU TO NOTICE: I Helped Obama Win in 2012. Now Trump Is Using the Same Playbook.
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY: My London Driver Knows Donald Trump.
I first met Roger last year when Prime Minister May invited me to Blenheim Palace for her dinner honoring President Trump and the First Lady.
The hotel organized a car for me and Roger was my driver.
Roger is English. I noted a slight American inflection in his accent.
He explained he once lived in the U.S. and worked for a limo service in West Palm Beach, Florida.
It was the late ’90s and early 2000s and, as it turned out, his car company had the account for Mar-a-Lago on Palm Beach Island.
He soon got to know its proprietor, “Mr. Trump,” as Roger refers to him in a reverential tone.
A nice coincidence, I thought as we talked.
Of all the drivers, I get the one who worked for Mar-a- Lago, where I am a member, and he even knows the owner!
Roger was fairly glib about his interactions with Mr. Trump.
He liked him.
This is a charming piece.
STUCK IN THEIR HIGH SCHOOL GLORY DAYS: Democrats Give John Dean Another ‘Big Thrill.’
Dean’s misconduct hardly began with Watergate. In 1966 he was fired from the Washington law firm of Welch & Morgan for “unethical conduct” that was “grounds for disbarment,” columnist Jack Anderson reported in April 1973. Dean had apparently tried to make a private deal for a TV broadcast license when he was supposed to be negotiating it on behalf of one of the firm’s clients.
During the Reagan Administration, seeking a new thrill, Dean — by now apparently beholden for life to the liberal Democrats who bestowed both 15 minutes of fame and a Get Out Of Jail Free card — declared in Newsweek that “The Iran-Contra inquiries involve matters of national security,” while “Watergate, on the other hand, involved the political security of Richard Nixon. These are Major-league matters versus Little League.”
In 2004, his big thrill was claiming that the crimes of President George W. Bush — chiefly liberating Iraq — were worse than Nixon’s, warranting Bush’s impeachment.
Read the whole thing.
THAT’S A FEATURE, NOT A BUG: Crazy pork barrel projects are one more exhibit of reckless spending.
HMM: How Vietnam may curb China’s ambitions.
Now the global situation is more complicated and the relations among global powers, namely the United States and China and Russia has worsened. It’s now approaching three years since the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued its landmark ruling in the Philippines vs. China case, resulting in a nearly unanimous victory for Manila and a call for the role of international law in settling South China Sea disputes peacefully.
“China and Vietnam have overlapping claims in the South China Sea and over the past decade or so Beijing has stepped up its pressure on Vietnam by reclaiming and militarizing islands and pressing Vietnam not to exploit oil and gas resources in areas near Vietnam’s coast but where China also has claims. Hanoi hopes that building out its diplomatic ties will prompt Beijing to be more cautious in its dealings with Vietnam,” claims Murray Hiebert, a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
While freedom of navigation operations has increased in the South China Sea, signaling America’s right of transit, Vietnam could be forced to show its hand if the Trump administration decides to assert itself further. This week’s somewhat muted announcement by the United Stats that it is selling unarmed surveillance drones to Vietnam, has placed China on notice.
It’s the new containment.
THE BEST OF TIMES: Deaths from Cancer Continue to Decline Worldwide.
Globally the improvement is about 10% since 1990, but this county has seen an improvement of double that.
Weird that the curve for the US bottoms out around the same time ObamaCare started kicking in.
WHEN AMERICA WINS, THEY LOSE: Top Democrats ‘Disappointed’ Mexico Tariff Threat Worked, Accuse Trump of Caving to Pressure.
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: Dyke March bans Israeli and Jewish Pride flags; Palestinian flags still OK.
I GET THE FEELING THAT SOMETHING IS ALMOST BOUND TO: Will Joe Biden’s Flip-Flop on the Hyde Amendment Doom His Presidential Bid?
