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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas.  It's here.

JULY 25-26,  2023

A BRAVE VIEW FROM THE ACADEMIC WORLD:  Will this scholar's voice be silenced?  From College Fix: 

To restore Americans’ low confidence in higher education, colleges should dismantle the diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucracies and showcase their potential to transform students’ lives, one contrarian political scientist argued in the wake of a poll that found the nation’s confidence in higher ed has plummeted.

“The DEI machines must be dismantled, and litmus and loyalty tests must immediately end,” Samuel Abrams, a political scientist at Sarah Lawrence College, told The College Fix in an email.

Colleges “need to demonstrate why investing in a degree is worthwhile and how they truly transform and help students achieve particular goals,” said Abrams, a fellow with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

According to the latest Gallup poll results, published earlier this month, just 36 percent of the sample of Americans polled this year said they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education.

The results are based on random-sample telephone interviews conducted June 1 through June 22 of about 1,000 adults across America. In 2015, 57 percent of Americans said they had confidence in higher education; in 2018, 48 percent said they did, previous surveys found.

The latest results represent a 21-percentage point drop in confidence in higher education over the last eight years.

“This is the second consecutive year of record lows,” Gallup education researcher Zach Hrynowski told The College Fix via email, adding no gains have been made in institutional trust since the early 2000s.

To change course, colleges must not only dismantle DEI but also “sign the Chicago Principles and accept that the bedrock of higher education is viewpoint diversity and debate,” Abrams said in his email.

The results are based on random-sample telephone interviews conducted June 1 through June 22 of about 1,000 adults across America. In 2015, 57 percent of Americans said they had confidence in higher education; in 2018, 48 percent said they did, previous surveys found.

The latest results represent a 21-percentage point drop in confidence in higher education over the last eight years.

“This is the second consecutive year of record lows,” Gallup education researcher Zach Hrynowski told The College Fix via email, adding no gains have been made in institutional trust since the early 2000s.

To change course, colleges must not only dismantle DEI but also “sign the Chicago Principles and accept that the bedrock of higher education is viewpoint diversity and debate,” Abrams said in his email.

The Chicago Principles, adopted initially by the University of Chicago in 2014, call for a commitment to “free, robust, and uninhibited debate.”

Additionally, higher education institutions must also “showcase their values to Americans,” Abrams wrote.

“They need to demonstrate why investing in a degree is worthwhile and how they truly transform and help students achieve particular goals,” he said.

“Higher education does so much, but many schools are terrible at illustrating just what they do to help students and the communities in which they are located and they could do a lot better.”

Another professor consulted by The Fix emphasized the considerable value of colleges has been obscured by “understandable” criticism.

“There’s a constant drumbeat of criticism against higher ed, accusations of indoctrination, reverse racism, and ideological conformity,” Peter C. Herman, professor of English at San Diego State University, told The Fix.

“All of which are valid,” Herman said.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  It is well worth it.  I hope Professor Abrams will be permitted to survive at Sarah Lawrence, one of the most liberal schools in the country.  What is encouraging here is that some academics are starting to speak out against the wrecking of higher education by the political left.  One of the results of this leftward surge is that many families are doubting the value of college.

We have, as a nation, had serious debates in the past about higher education.  The legacy news magazines, TIME and Newsweek, often participated in these debates, many of which were held in the 1950s.   And their participation was thoughtful.

We are starting to see some new ideas come from the current debates.  One idea is circulating – we reported it here – proposes that students eligible for federal college loans instead be permitted to apply for grants to start small businesses, avoiding college altogether.  Not a bad place to start. 

July 26, 2023       Permalink

EVEN DADDY CAN'T FIX THIS:  Hunter Biden went to court today, and he didn't win the "get out of jail free" card that he'd been expecting.
From Fox: 

Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart during his first court appearance Wednesday morning and he pleaded "not guilty" as federal prosecutors confirmed the president's son is still under federal investigation. 

Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of plea deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge.
But Judge Maryellen Noreika did not accept the plea agreement, questioning the constitutionality — specifically the diversion clause and the immunity Hunter Biden would receive.

Hunter Biden was also expected to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement regarding a separate felony charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

The judge pressed federal prosecutors on the investigation and questioned whether there was the possibility for future charges, and asked prosecutors if Hunter Biden was currently under active investigation. Prosecutors said he was, but would not answer specifically what the president's son is under investigation for.  

Prosecutors on Wednesday, though, said Hunter Biden pleading guilty to the two misdemeanor tax offenses would not immunize him from future charges. 

COMMENT:  I'm not a lawyer, but I listened to plenty of them today as part of the TV coverage.  Bottom line, Hunter's case continues, with the strong possibility that his father's name will be dragged into it.  That, of course, is the most intriguing angle. 

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is already talking about a possible impeachment inquiry regarding the president, McCarthy's comments driven by information and charges brought forward
by IRS whistleblowers and other witnesses alarmed by what they consider to be improper business activities by Hunter that also involved his father. Some of those activities were conducted with hostile foreign nations, like China.  There are also charges, so far reported but not proved, that the Bidens solicited bribes.  We note that bribery is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as an impeachable offense.

We should be cautious. The investigation of Hunter Biden's activities is being conducted by Joe Biden's Department of Justice.  Don't expect much zeal there.  The real investigative burden will be carried by the Republican majority in the House. 

This is, potentially, a major scandal, involving possible kickbacks and embarrassing transfers of money.  But much of the mainstream media will try to minimize the charges.  Some outlets, like The New York Times, have barely covered the Bidens' curious activities up to this point. 

Explosive testimony is expected on the Hill starting Monday.  This could be the beginning of a beautiful crisis.

July 26,  2023     Permalink

JULY 23-24,  2023

TELL IT, TELL IT LOUD:  Glenn Reynolds, one of the founders of internet political reporting, has a theory on what has happened to the United States.  Our leaders, he says, have simply gone mad.  I'm inclined to agree.  Here it is, from the New York Post:   

“Suppose we got it all wrong and the real crazies are the TV people in nice suits and $300 haircuts?”

That’s an observation by Richard Fernandez on Twitter, and he has a good point.

There’s a lot of craziness in the air these days.

But for the most part it seems to be flowing from the top down, not bubbling up from the bottom.

It wasn’t farmers and factory workers who came up with the idiotic COVID responses — nor was it they who originated the more or less criminal idea of conducting “gain of function” research on making dangerous viruses more dangerous.

It wasn’t shopkeepers and bus drivers who thought the way to deal with burgeoning urban crime was to get rid of police and release criminals without bail.

It hasn’t been landscapers and auto mechanics championing the notion that a child in the single-digit age range can make a lifetime choice about his or her genitalia or maintaining that even criticizing that idea is itself a species of “violence.”

Ordinary Americans haven’t been claiming the way to promote free speech is to censor people or the way to end racism is to classify everyone by race and consequently treat them differently.

It’s not the working class that wants to “save the planet” by blocking traffic, starting forest fires or banning pickup trucks or gas stoves (though private jets remain surprisingly free from criticism).

All these crazy ideas and more are the product of our allegedly educated and intelligent overclass, the experts, policymakers and media types who in theory represent the thinking part, the brains, of our society.

But there’s something wrong with these people — the “brains” of our society are basically crazy. 

Crazy is when you believe and do things that obviously don’t make sense or fit with the facts.

It’s important to have an intellectual class.

Exactly how important is open to question — in his recent book “How Innovation Works,” Matt Ridley argues that most 19th- and 20th-century innovations actually came from tradespeople and industry, not academics doing abstract research — but important enough.

There are dangers to an intelligentsia, though.

Communism and Nazism started as intellectual movements; so did such fads as eugenics and lobotomies.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  Very enjoyable and convincing stuff.  Many of the best academics and writers I've known over the years have had a decidedly mixed view of the intellectual world.  They've seen and heard too much absurdity from people with many diplomas on their walls.  They've been to faculty meetings where childish ideas are made into policy.

Remember that Lincoln had one year of formal schooling, but that the people who botched Vietnam were sometimes called "the best and the brightest."  Never judge the quality of an idea by the background of the chap who invents it.  William F. Buckley Jr. famously said that he'd rather be governed by the first 700 people in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, phone book than by the Harvard faculty.  He had a point.

July 24, 2023       Permalink

ANOTHER WARNING FOR RON:  The excellent Florida governor is having unexpected difficulty drumming up popular support.  From Conservative Treehouse: 

This poll seems to align with the previous forecast predictions.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has spent a great deal of time in South Carolina over the past two weeks.  The result, he’s dropped from second to third place.  The more voters get to see DeSantis, the lower his in-state polling becomes.

DISCLAIMER – South Carolina is an open primary, vulnerable to Big Club shenanigans.

President Trump has a clear lead in the Palmetto state at 48% according to the latest Fox (Shaw Research) poll.   Nikki Haley has entered first loser position at 14%, followed closely by Ron DeSantis at 13% and Tim Scott at 10%.

Candidate I Don’t Know (4%) is now ahead of Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson. While Gas Station Sushi is polling ahead of Doug Burgum, Larry Elder, Will Hurd and Francis Suarez

At 48%, President Donald Trump is 16 points higher in the polls than he was when he won the South Carolina primary in 2016.

NATIONAL OUTLOOK – The latest Harvard Harris national poll shows Donald Trump beating Joe Biden 45% to 39%, which includes President Trump holding a massive 18-point advantage with independent voters 45% to 27%.

COMMENT:  A number of political journalists are now, rather conspicuously, turning their attention from DeSantis to other candidates, who might or might not score a breakthrough.  Many eyes are on Tim Scott, the African-American senator from South Carolina, one of the most attractive of the GOP contenders. 

Much depends on the political condition of Donald Trump, and whether it changes with his legal winds.  More legal challenges are coming.  The piling on has begun.  And much also depends on the medical condition of Joe Biden.  We are not sure that he will be the nominee.

In a few months, all this speculating will be ancient history.  Right now it's fun.  But things are not good in the United States, and the fun could descend into bitterness very quickly.

July 24,  2023     Permalink