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JUNE 13,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

HOW SAD – From Breitbart:  "In the midst of a heated lawsuit alleging Harvard holds Asian students to a much higher standard during its admissions process, some college admissions counselors in California and elsewhere are coaching Asian American students to appear 'less Asian' in an attempt to help them be accepted into the nation’s most elite schools.  The Wall Street Journal recently dubbed Asians 'The New Jews of Harvard Admissions,' referring to the antisemitism the school practiced in order to keep Jews out of the school during the early 20th century.  'I try to do things [to] steer away from the stereotype of the piano-playing, tennis-playing Asian applicant,' James Chen, the founder of Alameda-based Asian Advantage College Consulting, said in an interview with Sacramento-area ABC News affiliate News10."  I find this outrageous – one of most accomplished communities must compromise its identity because they're so excellent that "too many" are getting into the best colleges.  What have we come to?

CRAZY – Just how far left can the Democratic Party go?  From The Politico:  "After holding prominent positions in the House Democratic caucus for 17 years, California Rep. Barbara Lee is hoping to make the jump to leadership.  The lawmaker told POLITICO on Friday that she’s formally launched her campaign for the No. 5 position among House Democrats — even though the election is nearly 17 months away.  The vice chairman position will come open after the 2016 elections, as its current occupant, New York Rep. Joe Crowley, is term limited from serving a third term and will likely move up in the ranks. The race will attract a significant number of contenders as many rank-and-file members are eager to advance in a caucus that has been dominated by more senior leaders."  Barbara Lee is a Marxist, a supporter of Fidel Castro.  She was the only member of Congress to vote against military action after 9/11.  And she keeps moving up the leadership ranks.  The Dems are going nuts.

GUIDE TO BAD TELEVISION – From The Hill:  "Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton finally launched her 2016 campaign on Saturday after months of anticipation.  A day later, she will have a surrogate on all five Sunday talk shows, as pundits will analyze the attention-grabbing event and its impact on next year’s presidential election."  We just wanted to warn you.  Television to avoid.  We're happy to perform a public service.

HILLARY FLOPS – There are many reviews of Hillary Clinton's performance on Roosevelt Island, relaunching her campaign.  This is my favorite quote, from Roger Simon at PJ Media:  "Forget that she lies incessantly and stands for virtually nothing that’s discernible other than her own self-interest, Hillary Clinton is one of the most boring public speakers extant. I have heard better speeches at high school, maybe even grammar school, graduations than HRC gave in New York Saturday in the second — or is it the third — debut speech of her campaign.  It was problem after problem, cliché after cliché until you couldn’t listen anymore. Needless to say, there wasn’t a fresh idea. No new solutions to these problems on offer, only generalities. (In case you didn’t know it, she’s for equal pay for women and supports people with disabilities.) This was a generic speech out of the last twenty years. I kept wondering who were these automatons waving their flags in the audience. Maybe they were worried about the high cost of Ambien. Elect Hillary and we won’t need a sleeping pill ever again."   That says it.

June 13, 2015       Permalink

OUR NEWS MEDIA – ALWAYS RIGHT – AT 12:14 P.M. ET:   It's very hard to make this stuff up.  However, this story should be posted above the desk of all journalists in America, to remind them that good journalism begins with humility, an understanding of what you don't know.  From Newsbusters:

New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Welcome to June 12, 2015. Or at least that was the wildly-inaccurate version of 2015 predicted by ABC News exactly seven years ago. Appearing on Good Morning America in 2008, Bob Woodruff hyped Earth 2100, a special that pushed apocalyptic predictions of the then-futuristic 2015.

The segment included supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, "It's June 8th, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99." (On the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39.) Another clip featured this prediction for the current year: "Gas reached over $9 a gallon." (In reality, gas costs an average of $2.75.)

On June 12, 2008, correspondent Bob Woodruff revealed that the program "puts participants in the future and asks them to report back about what it is like to live in this future world. The first stop is the year 2015."

As one expert warns that in 2015 the sea level will rise quickly, a visual shows New York City being engulfed by water. The video montage includes another unidentified person predicting that "flames cover hundreds of miles."

Then-GMA co-anchor Chris Cuomo appeared frightened by this future world. He wondered, "I think we're familiar with some of these issues, but, boy, 2015? That's seven years from now. Could it really be that bad?"

COMMENT:  No.

June 13, 2015       Permalink

ANOTHER ONE? – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  Governor John Kasich of Ohio is preparing to enter the race for the Republican presidential nomination.  He's an effective campaigner, and he brings with him the prospect of carrying the key state of Ohio for his party.  From The Hill:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said Friday he’s getting “closer and closer” to making a decision about whether to run for president.

“I wouldn’t be out here if I wasn’t interested, and we’re getting closer and closer to making a decision. It’s a discipline process because I don’t want to do this just for the sake of it. I need to know that I could win and look at what I bring is a record that’s unique,” Kasich said in an interview on Fox Business Network.

Kasich expressed confidence he has the necessary qualifications to lead the White House by touting his records in Congress and as governor of Ohio on both defense and fiscal issues.

“I served on the Defense Committee. I was Chairman of the Budget Committee in Washington when we balanced the budget, and Ohio has had a massive turnaround, and I was in the private sector for 10 years. No one has all of that," he said...

...The Ohio governor is hinting further at a 2016 run with a June 24 trip to the early-voting state of Iowa.

COMMENT:  There'll soon be more Republican candidates than voters.  But there won't be more Republican candidates than Clinton scandals.  That's a relief.

Kasich is a man to watch.  He's very effective and is a fine communicator.  He did a stint as a Fox News contributor.  A recent poll matchup showed him beating Hillary Clinton in Ohio.  Not bad.

June 13, 2015       Permalink

WE AWAIT – AT 11:14 A.M.  ET:  We await Hillary Clinton's big appearance today in New York.   I'm not sure if it has a formal name.  We're told she's "kicking off" her campaign.  But wait, didn't she do that already.

Yeah, she did.  Several months ago.  And it was a disaster.  All she does is slip in the polls.  Even Bernie Sanders, a socialist, is gaining on her.  Even in a "no name" poll matchup against a generic Republican, she's slipping.  She not only needs a second kickoff, she needs an occasional touchdown.  A field goal maybe?

I saw her communications director on Fox News this morning.  This woman couldn't communicate with a grocery clerk.  She mumbled and stumbled, and had nothing to say.

The danger is great for Hillary.  There's a rule-of-thumb in politics that, if you're very well known and slipping, it's disastrous...for there is no up side.  You're already well known.  Hillary is one of the best-known people in America.  She's been a national figure for as many years as Franklin D. Roosevelt was on the day of his death.  She must create an up side, and there is no evidence that she can do it.

If truth be told, she's a terrible campaigner.  You can't listen to her for more than a few minutes.  I heave earmuffs at the ready in case Hillary shows up.   Today she will speak on Roosevelt Island in New York City.  It's supposed to be a "symbolic" location because of the name.  Not a good idea.  Hillary, you're no FDR, and everyone knows it.

We will examine the kickoff.   What she needs is the game.

June 13,  2015    Permalink

JUNE 12,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

GREAT MOMENTS IN LEARNING – From London's Telegraph:  "One of the world's best universities is planning to hire a professor - of Lego.  The lucky candidate will be the head of their own research department at prestigious University of Cambridge.  Officials say the role is expected to be created within the Faculty of Education after the university received £4 million of donations from the Lego Foundation.  Cambridge's general board has recommended for the Lego professorship 'of play in education, development and learning' to start in October 2015.  The professor will be director of the Research Centre on Play in Education, Development and Learning."  A professor of play.  I love it.  We should have more professors of play here, and maybe professors of nursery rhymes as well.  It will keep the professors from doing more damage than they're currently doing.

HILLARY, THE POLITICAL "TITANIC" – From London's Daily Mail:  "As Hillary Clinton gears up to reboot her historic but underwhelming presidential campaign with a dramatic New York City speech on Saturday, poll numbers show she might need more than a Big Apple skyline to motivate voters next year in key swing states.  Polling data collected this month by Vox Populi Polling in the six battleground states most likely to determine the 2016 presidential election show that Clinton trails a generic Republican candidate by 1 percentage point overall.  The 46–47 showing for the former secretary of state is a departure from nearly every poll since March that asked voters to choose between Clinton and a specific GOP candidate. Only Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, has posted a winning margin against Clinton, and that was a month ago in a Fox News poll."  Hillary will now make her mother the centerpiece of her "reason for being in the race."  And if that doesn't work, maybe she'll try a cousin.

KERRY WALKING – From ABC:  "Secretary of State John Kerry emerged from the Massachusetts General Hospital today walking on crutches, remarking that it was great to finally get outdoors in the summertime.  He’d been there for over a week recovering from surgery to set a femur that he broke in a cycling accident outside Geneva on May 31.  He thanked his medical workers in Switzerland and in Boston for their efforts and even thanked his fellow foreign ministers for their well wishes. 'I’ll tell you ... when you’re feeling a little down, that’s nice,' Kerry said."  Yeah, when I'm down I yearn for a greeting from the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.  Kerry has odd tastes, don't you think?

June 12, 2015       Permalink

OH PLEASE – AT 1:14 P.M. ET:  The administration and its press boosters are becoming desperate to justify the upcoming Iran nuclear deal, which looks as if it will have more holes than Swiss cheese.  The latest member of the choir to sing is the well-known Fareed Zakaria, a sometime adviser to Barack Obama  From IBD: 

Of the many unnerving aspects of the Middle East's future, a nuclear arms race would top the list. And it is to feed that unease that Saudi Arabia has been periodically dropping hints that, if Iran's nuclear ambitions go unchecked, it might just have to get nuclear weapons itself.

Last week, the Saudi ambassador to London made yet another threat, warning that "all options will be on the table."

Oh, please! Saudi Arabia isn't going to build a nuclear weapon. Saudi Arabia can't build a nuclear weapon. Saudi Arabia hasn't even built a car. (By 2017, after much effort, the country is expected to manufacture its first automobile.)

Saudi Arabia can dig holes in the ground and pump out oil, but little else. Oil revenue is about 45% of its GDP, a staggeringly high figure, much larger than petrostates like Nigeria and Venezuela. It makes up almost 90% of the Saudi government's revenues. Despite decades of massive government investment, lavish subsidies and cheap energy, manufacturing is less than 10% of Saudi GDP.

Where would Saudi Arabia train the scientists to work on its secret program? The country's education system is backward and dysfunctional, having been largely handed over to its puritanical and reactionary religious establishment. The country ranks 73rd in the quality of its math and science education, according to the World Economic Forum — abysmally low for a rich country. Iran, despite 36 years of sanctions and a much lower per capita GDP, fares far better at 44.

COMMENT:  Under the logic of Zakaria's argument, we can ask how Pakistan got the bomb?  Money buys a lot, and experts can be hired.  The financing is there.  Nuclear knowledge is fairly easy to come by.  Building a nuclear bomb isn't a scientific project, it's an engineering project.  (Researchers knew how to build at atomic bomb before World War II.  They just didn't have the engineering programs and facilities to test their ideas.)

If the Saudis want a bomb, they'll get one, with foreign help, for which they'll pay lavishly.  Zakaria is parroting the line that a bad nuclear agreement with Iran won't lead to a Mideast arms race.  I wouldn't bet on that.

June 12,  2015     Permalink

COMMON SENSE – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:  And a political milestone.  The Iowa GOP straw poll is no more.   From the Washington Times:

The Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee dealt the final fatal blow to the 2015 Iowa Straw Poll, unanimously voting Friday morning to cancel the event.

The party had been working to overhaul the format of the event, an Iowa staple since 1979 that has presented an unofficial kickoff to the presidential campaign season in the early caucus state.

“I’ve said since December that we would only hold a straw poll if the candidates wanted one, and this year that is just not the case,” party chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement. “This step, while extremely distasteful for those of us who love the Straw Poll, is necessary to strengthen our first in the nation status and ensure our future nominee has the best chance possible to take back the White House in 2016.”

COMMENT:  It was also silly, and of no great value to anyone.  I happy to believe in the primary system because it tests candidates and tells us much about them.  It takes time for the public to get to know a presidential contender.  But when an event becomes burdensome, silly, or superfluous, it ought to go.  Goodbye Iowa Straw Poll.  It was nice while it lasted.

June 12, 2015      Permalink

MAJOR EDUCATIONAL STORY – AT 10:53 A.M. ET:   It is rare for a major American university to be subjected to this kind of scrutiny.  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of the most prestigious public institutions in the country.  Now its accreditation is being threatened by corruption within its walls.  From Fox: 

RALEIGH, N.C – An accreditation agency important to colleges receiving federal funds put the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on probation Thursday for a year over its academic fraud scandal.

The board of Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' Commission on Colleges stopped short of imposing the harshest penalty, which would have blocked the country's oldest public university from receiving federal funds including student loan proceeds.

At a meeting in Portsmouth, Virginia, the group determined that UNC-CH failed to comply with seven key operating principles for member universities, among them: integrity, program content, control of intercollegiate athletics and academic support services.

The practical effect of the sanction is that "they just have to send us more documentation to show their compliance with seven of these principles," commission President Belle Wheelan said.

The agency previously opted against punishing UNC-CH, but acted after learning last fall of the scope of fake classes and artificially high grades in one academic department. A report revealed that the fake classes in the African studies department had gone on between 1993 and 2011. About half the 3,100 students who took the classes were athletes.

"Most of the students here aren't athletes and a lot of them go to class and work hard in class," senior psychology student Merrick Osborne said as he crossed the Chapel Hill campus Thursday. "I think the biggest concern I would have is the probation would affect people who don't really have anything to do with the incidents."

COMMENT:  There are so many things wrong with our universities – from academic corruption, to left-wing takeovers, to speech codes, to political correctness, to phony departments set up to keep this or that group happy. 

So why do we see so little coverage of these things in the mainstream media?  Because the most dubious relationship in journalism today is the relationship between journalists and universities.  We will be exploring that.

June 12, 2015       Permalink

THIS IS TOO MUCH – AT 9:24 A.M. ET:  I wish to issue a trigger warning:  Please have seasickness pills available before reading this story. 

It appears that Mr. Clinton is now embracing the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton, and expressing his deep affection for her.  His testimony, which is very removing, reminds us of other testimony he has given:  "I did not have sex with that woman..."  From The Hill:

Former President Bill Clinton credits a large part of his political success to his marriage with Hillary Clinton.

“I trust her with my life, and have on more than one occasion,” he told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” in excerpts of their interview released on Friday.

“Whenever I had trouble, she was a rock in our family,” he added during the pair’s talk in Denver.

"Oh Bill, I understand your lust for interns.  I truly do."

Clinton said that his wife, the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner, helped him navigate formative years in politics “plagued by self-doubt.”

He said that he was consumed by insecurity upon losing the Arkansas governor’s office in 1980.
“I was the youngest former governor in American history in 1980 on election night,” he said of his loss to former Gov. Frank White (R).

“I got killed in the Reagan landslide,” he added. “People I had appointed to office would walk across the street, they were so afraid of the new regime in Arkansas, and would not shake hands with me. My career prospects were not particularly bright.”

“And she never blinked,” Bill Clinton added of Hillary Clinton. “She just said, ‘Hey, it’ll turn around. I believe in you. You’ve got this.’”

Can you imagine her saying that?

The former first couple has been married for 40 years with one daughter, Chelsea.

“We built a life together based on the things that we cared about, the things that we loved,” Bill Clinton said. “We were blessed with a daughter who turned out very well, I would say. We have been very blessed.”

I can't take much more of this.

The Clintons faced scrutiny over their relationship during Bill Clinton’s second term upon revelations that he had an affair with Monica Lewinksy, then a 22-year-old White House intern.

Hillary Clinton has described the scandal and its related fallout as one of her biggest challenges thus far.

COMMENT:   Yes, I'm sure the Lewinsky scandal enhances Hillary's qualifications to be president.  Because her tenure in public office certainly doesn't.

My pills, my pills!

June 12,  2015     Permalink