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JULY 12,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:04 P.M. ET: 

DUE PROCESS?  WHAT A STRANGE CONCEPT? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   For too long, colleges and universities have ignored the sacred American principle of due process, refusing to allow students accused of sexual offenses to confront and cross-examine their accusers. That may be changing, however: Just recently U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled that, at the University of Michigan, a student who has been accused of rape must be allowed to confront the alleged victim as part of a “live hearing.”  Oh dear.  An actual hearing?  With rules that respect civilized concepts of law?  Is this the end of "safe spaces"?  I sure hope so.

THE MAN STANDS CONDEMNED – FROM DAILYWIRE:   According to the Left, Brett Kavanaugh is unqualified for the Supreme Court not because he lacks the credentials or even because he's conservative, but rather for the intersectional crime of being straight, white, and male.  Even though the Left fervently opposed the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas to the point of slandering his good name and would have raged against whomever President Trump nominated no matter their color or sex, leftists from late-night to the NY Daily News are all saying that Brett Kavanaugh is just 50 shades too white for the SCOTUS job.  Over at CBS, Stephen Colbert joked that Kavanaugh passed President Trump's "white guy bingo" for the nomination.  Pulling a BINGO card from his pocket, Colbert exclaimed, "You see, all the squares say 'white guy.'"  Jimmy Kimmel played the exact same hand over at ABC, saying that Kavanaugh was the "white man for the job" after President Trump narrowed the picks.  Do these so-called "comedians" understand that they're not funny?  That they do damage?  That they increase racism, rather than diminish it?  When I worked on The Tonight Show, in the Carson years, we thought "entertainment" and "comedy."  Politics only played a role when we could legitimately laugh at something happening.  Johnny kept the show in line, and lasted 30 years.

FAMILY PORTRAITS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME – FROM AFP:  Paris (AFP) - New Zealand scientists have performed the first-ever 3-D, colour X-ray on a human, using a technique that promises to improve the field of medical diagnostics, said Europe's CERN physics lab which contributed imaging technology.  The new device, based on the traditional black-and-white X-ray, incorporates particle-tracking technology developed for CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which in 2012 discovered the elusive Higgs Boson particle.  "This colour X-ray imaging technique could produce clearer and more accurate pictures and help doctors give their patients more accurate diagnoses," said a CERN statement.  Soon they'll develop makeup for organs.

July 12, 2018       Permalink

IT'S ALL THE RAGE – AT 4:14 P.M. ET:  Socialism I mean.  Come and get it!  Free this, free that.  Just trade in those useless freedoms. 

It's the rage among Democrats.  A great day is coming. Just bring your backpack and fill it up.

What's happened?  For our quote of the day, we turn to Jonah Goldberg, who, I think, nails it.  From Fox: 

National Review writer Jonah Goldberg said the increasing trend of young people embracing socialism and far-left policies is partially attributable to the fact they have little memory of the Cold War.

The number-four House Democrat was recently unseated by a 28-year-old socialist Democrat from The Bronx, N.Y. in a district where the Republican economics professor she faces in November is a long shot to beat her.

"The Cold War is so far behind us... that socialism has lost its connotation and association with the rivers of blood that were spilled in its name," Goldberg said, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens) in New York's 14th Congressional District primary.

Goldberg said on "The Story" that prominent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont plays up socialism as "basically... in favor of all nice things."

"Economics shouldn't be about trade-offs, it shouldn't be about cost," Goldberg said of how Sanders and his followers view the subject.

Goldberg said a troubling aspect of Ocasio-Cortez' brand of socialism is that she is "basically an open-borders socialist."

"You can't have a view that everybody is welcome here no matter what... and still have any chance of handing out any of these goodies [that you promise]," he said.

COMMENT:   Well said.  A talented actress friend of mine observes that the young generation has never seen strife.  She's right.  They haven't had to meet the great challenges, the threat of death, the specter of extermination.  They've been handed educations based on leftist politics and low standards.

The cultural chickens are indeed coming home to roost.

July 12, 2018       Permalink

WHERE THE PRESIDENT STANDS – AT 10:17 A.M. ET:   The president seems to be in a polling rut.  He did recover from his recent decline during the "family separation" non-scandal, but he only rose to about 48% in Rasmussen, and stayed there.  This week, despite the Kavanaugh nomination, he has slipped a bit more.  From Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 31% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 44% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13.

COMMENT:  Polls are snapshots in time.  It is summer.  Many people aren't focused on politics.  We don't know what the numbers really mean.  But the president must start gaining again if he is to lead his party to victory in the November midterms, now only four months away.

The Dems and the media will throw everything they have at Trump.  I'd like to see his numbers five points higher.

July 12, 2018       Permalink

THE REALITY – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  A good illustration of how dangerous it is to speak out on behalf of conservatives on an American college campus.  From Fox: 

A liberal law professor who taught Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh in college received harsh backlash for writing an opinion editorial in the New York Times that defended the jurist.

Akhil Reed Amar, who teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., wrote that Kavanaugh is more than qualified for the Supreme Court bench.

Amar told Brian Kilmeade on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that he challenges anyone to find a better name on President Trump's list.

He said that he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and wanted Judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Scalia, but that under the American two-party system, the Republicans are in power and therefore will nominate someone they like to replace Justice Kennedy.

Kilmeade said GQ Magazine crudely slammed Amar's arguments for Kavanaugh, and other left-wing publications also ripped the professor.

"Maybe [the blowback] was a little more than I expected," Amar said. "But I love the fact this country has robust uninhibited debate."

Amar said Kavanaugh has made some mistakes but that a good judge has made mistakes in his past and admits them.

COMMENT:  Many professors are reluctant to get involved in this viciousness.  I know one distinguished scholar who told me that when he makes a speech defending a conservative or pro-American cause he gets calls from other faculty members saying things like "Thank you for saying what I'm afraid to say."

It's that bad.  It's a new McCarthyism.  And a good part of the press is on the side of the McCarthyites.

July 12,  2018     Permalink

JULY 11,  2018

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

BETRAYAL!! – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:   Students at Princeton University are outraged over an online job listing advertising a position with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  The controversial listing was featured on Handshake, a third-party recruiting platform provided to students by Princeton’s Career Service...According to the Princetonian, several Hispanic students discovered the job posting and found it controversial in light of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.   Eva Kubu, the interim executive director of Princeton’s Career Services, told the newspaper that the job listing was originally posted by Handshake in the fall of 2017.  Samuel Santiago, a student at the school, came across the listing in late June, proclaiming in a Facebook post that “Handshake is helping ICE recruit Princeton University students to become Border Patrol Agents.”  I don't know what we do about something this serious. 

OUR WORST-RUN CITIES – FROM CBS LOCAL:  Washington D.C. may be the nation’s capitol, but a new survey is also calling it the “worst-run” city in America.  Personal finance website WalletHub has released its rankings for the worst big cities in the country and found that several high-profile places are at the bottom of the list when it comes to city management and operating efficiency.  Here are the 10 worst-run cities according to WalletHub’s July 9 release:  Washington D.C.; Detroit, Michigan; New York City; San Francisco; Gulfport, Mississippi;. Oakland, California; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Flint, Michigan; Cleveland;
and Hartford, Connecticut.   The presence of the Democratic Party is prominent on that list.

THE HORSE RACE – FROM BLOOMBERG:  Democrats turned out more voters overall than Republicans in 14 of the most competitive congressional districts that have had primaries so far, signaling the eagerness of the party’s base to confront Donald Trump in the first midterm election of his presidency.  While the turnout numbers are positive for the party, they don’t indicate a decisive edge in the November congressional elections that will determine whether Democrats gain a majority in the House.  The advantage also isn’t spread evenly. Democrats tallied more total votes than Republicans in just half of the 14 the districts, and they’ll need to win in many of those places to gain at least 23 U.S. House seats to take control of the chamber.  Republicans will have to fight harder than ever before to keep control of Congress.  Odds are they will keep the Senate, where judicial nominations are confirmed, but the House is in doubt.

July 11, 2018       Permalink

CINDERELLA HAS ARRIVED – AT 8:14 P.M. ET:  At least I think she has.  I refer, of course, to the new fairy-tale princess, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won a Dem congressional nomination in New York by getting the votes of about eight percent of her district's registered Democrats.  A famous victory it was not, but you'd never know it from the scribblings of fawning journalists, taking a page direct from the "Obama come to save us" playbook.  From The Hill: 

Democrats are racing to figure out how to handle Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose primary win over a longtime incumbent is set to shake up the party’s Washington establishment.

I don't think they'll be shaken that quickly. 

Ocasio-Cortez’s shock victory over Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) made the 28-year-old an overnight sensation in the Big Apple and across the country, leading Democrats to bombard her with messages of congratulations and offers to cooperate in the future.

I guarantee you that most New Yorkers would not recognize her name. 

“The entire spectrum of House Democrats, party leadership, [campaign] leadership, is trying to assess what she wants to do and how ready she is to play ball,” said one Democratic source.
They want to know “how does her coming to Washington change my plan, or even help my plan?”

Democrats are largely thrilled to welcome the telegenic rising star to their ranks, though she is already ruffling some feathers.

Telegenic is the key word here.  She's attractive.  She's vibrant.  If she looked like Woody Allen and talked about socialism, the story would have been over in ten minutes.  And she certainly is rustling feathers.  It turned out her biography isn't quite as "poor girl makes good" as she first told us, some of her associations are troubling, and she really doesn't know what she's talking about.  She's getting her 15 minutes of fame.   Some in the press will cover for her.  But it's a manufactured story.

Ocasio-Cortez plans to hit the campaign trail for at least three other Democratic candidates in primary races this year who are backed by Justice Democrats, a PAC that supports progressives. 

Some of those "progressives" are actually regressive in their views, and are way outside the mainstream. 

Read the whole piece.  It's summer, and newspapers have to fill their columns with ink.

July 11, 2018       Permalink

THE JOURNEY – AT 11:44 A.M. ET:  Judge Brett Kavanaugh has started his journey toward a confirmation vote in the U.S. Senate.  Soundings from his first day on the grand tour are pretty positive.  From The Hill:

With President Trump overseas, Vice President Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) — the designated Senate “sherpa” —  are guiding Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh around Capitol Hill in search of the 51 votes he needs for confirmation in the upper chamber.

Throughout the whirlwind day following Kavanaugh’s East Room debut, Senate Democrats faced an immovable fact: With only 49 seats in their caucus, they don’t have the votes to block the 53-year-old judge’s path to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

The Hill tracked down three Democratic senators who are seeking reelection in November in states Trump carried in 2016 — Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.). How will they vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination? Each went out of their way to avoid reporters’ questions, but one Democratic senator was blunt:

“We have to lower the expectations of our base. We can’t defeat the nominee on our own.” – a Democratic senator who requested anonymity.

Instead, the goal of the Democrats, according to reporting by The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, is to “inflict as much political damage on the GOP as possible ahead of the November midterm elections.”

Liberal voters want Democratic senators to do more than delay and create temporary hurdles for Trump and Republicans. But if the Senate majority works together, Democrats are boxed in.

“If they keep all their votes together, there’s nothing we can do.” – Senate Democratic aide, speaking on background.

COMMENT:  I don't see what damage the Dems can inflict on the GOP over the Kavanaugh nomination.  This is a quality choice.  If the Democrats oppose Kavanaugh on principled grounds, and behave like adults, they might be able to improve their own sorry image, even as they are defeated in the nomination vote.  That would be a real accomplishment for a party that sometimes seems to think it's part of a student government.

July 11, 2018       Permalink

GREATNESS – AT 11:06 A.M. ET:  I often listen to music and research the composer, and, if a song, the lyricist, while listening.  I did that last night and realized that today is the 81st anniversary of the death of George Gershwin.  Gershwin died on this date in 1937, at the tragically young age of 38.

What a loss.  Had he lived even a normal life span, he would have left us in the 1970s.  We not only would have heard decades more of his music, we would have known him through television.

When we think of Gershwin we think of the pinnacle of American popular and theater music.  And we think of orchestral compositions like "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris."  We think of music that is civilized, with melodies we remember and pass on to our children.

In the the time Gershwin lived, teenagers danced to his music, and loved it.  Consider please, what kids are given today, not only in music, but in the lyrics that accompany it.  Melody?  What melody?  Lyrics?  Remember any?  I was in Staples a while back, and the store's sound system played a song with one line of lyric, repeated over and over.  Not exactly Rodgers and Hart. 

I think you can tell a great deal about a country by its popular music.  Ours has gone down the tubes, along with other elements of our popular culture. 

The superb songs, the ones that have lasted, are generally called The Great American Songbook, and some authorities say the songbook began about 1910 and ended in the early 1960s.  That doesn't mean fine songs weren't written after the 60s.  They were, but the number diminished rapidly.  The giant composers – Rodgers, Berlin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and their peers, were retiring or passing on.  Johnny Mercer, one of our greatest lyricists, called the songwriters of the late sixties "child philosophers."  I'm afraid it fits.

Will there be another golden age of American music?  No one knows.   But it does strike me that the golden ages of American song, movies, theater, recording, and broadcasting, all occurred during roughly the same period.  I wonder why.  If you have any theories on that, let us know. 

Meanwhile, try to subscribe to one of the better streaming music services, and listen to the classic songs.  You'll love it.  Tell the kids.

July 11,  2018     Permalink