SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

WHERE IS SHERLOCK? – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Less than one in 20 street robberies and burglaries are being solved in the UK, shocking new figures have revealed.  Official police data shows that just four per cent of robberies and three per cent of burglaries were solved in England and Wales in 2017. 
The figures will fuel concerns that there is a crisis in the nation's policing, with one MP describing London as 'the Wild West'.  In more than 1,000 neighbourhoods with at least 30 crimes, the police failed to catch and punish any of the suspects, The Sunday Times report.  Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire, south Buckinghamshire, south Cambridgeshire, Blackpool and Preston had the lowest rates of solved crime, according to figures.  Meanwhile the most crimes, 26 per cent, were solved in Uttlesford in Essex last year, followed by Boston, Merthyr Tydfil, Darlington and County Durham.  The figures also reveal that only nine per cent of suspects in all crimes are caught and punished - a reduction of more than 50 per cent in the past five years.  This is pretty serious stuff, and an example of Britain's decline.  Margaret Thatcher would never have tolerated this.  I am guessing that part of the problem is the reluctance of the police to take on "new" populations, lest they be called racists.

BIGOTRY OF THE LEFT – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  At Ball State University, mandatory fees collected from students have funded events such as a Planned Parenthood rally and a “God is Dead: Life without Religion” event, while pro-life students seeking funds to educate peers on pregnant and parenting resources are refused support.  For that, Students for Life at Ball State University has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the public, Indiana-based institution.  “All Students for Life is asking for is equal access to the same funds that they pay into,” Caleb Dalton, an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the students, said in a phone interview with The College Fix.  Dalton said the $300 Students for Life requested earlier this year was sought from a pool of money consisting of mandatory fees all students pay into. For the 2017-18 school year, every student paid $1,318 in mandatory fees, collected in addition to tuition, according to the lawsuit.   I hope they win.  The bigotry on college campuses has reached breathtaking proportions.

WE KNEW IT ALL ALONG – FROM THE JERUSALEM POST:    The director of the American Civil Liberties Union has now acknowledged what should have been obvious to everybody over the past several years: that the ACLU is no longer a neutral defender of everyone’s civil liberties; it has morphed into a hyper-partisan, hard-left political advocacy group. The final nail in its coffin was the announcement that for the first time in its history the ACLU would become involved in partisan electoral politics, supporting candidates, referenda and other agenda-driven political goals.  The headline in the June 8 2018 edition of the New Yorker tells it all: “The ACLU is getting involved in elections – and reinventing itself for the Trump Era.” The article continues: In this midterm year, however, as progressive groups have mushroomed and grown more active, and as liberal billionaires such as Howard Schultz and Tom Steyer have begun to imagine themselves as political heroes and eye Presidential runs, the ACLU, itself newly flush, has begun to move in step with the times.  For the first time in its history, the ACLU is taking an active role in elections. The group has plans to spend more than $25 million on races and ballot initiatives by Election Day, in November.  I think the problem goes back much further than several years ago.  It was in the 1960s when the ACLU, which used to boast both liberals and conservatives among its members, started it march to the left.  Some years ago a disgusted former national board member told me there were members of the board who didn't believe in free speech.  It's pathetic, but I hope this step into partisan politics marks the end of a dishonest, deceptive organization.

June 17, 2018