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JUNE 10,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:31 P.M. ET: 

ONCE A GREAT COLLEGE – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:   Princeton University officials are encouraging male students to join a bi-weekly discussion group that aims to make them “tremendously vulnerable.”  Led by licensed psychologist Jean Semelfort, The Men’s Allied Voices for a Respectful & Inclusive Community (MAVRIC) Project recruits male-identified students to help them resist “traditional gender norms” and cultivate a more “healthy masculinity."  "We can’t dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy if we’re not willing to ask hard questions of ourselves about the privilege we’ve been granted in our own lives."  “We as men can unpack our own internalized ideas about what it means to be a man,” writes Carl Adair, the Princeton English professor who runs the blog for the MAVRIC Project.  Some of these sensitive souls should take a walk through Arlington National Cemetery, note the ages on most of the headstones, and ask themselves how much male privilege those young men had.

IMMIGRATION GETS A BAD NAME – FROM BREITBART:   The majority of white Americans and swing voters in 2018 swing districts say that change has made life “worse” in the U.S.  In the latest CBS News/YouGov poll, nearly 60 percent of white likely voters who see changes in their neighborhood from mass immigration said that immigration made their community “worse.” Only 15 percent of these voters said immigration has made American life “better.” These likely voters live in swing districts which could be swayed towards either the Republicans or Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections.  Likewise, the majority of swing voters in swing districts say immigration has been a detriment to their community, rather than a benefit, as immigration is often described by the political elite.  It's been said often that we are a nation of immigrants.  That's true, but immigration policies must be implemented carefully, and with respect for the population already here.  That hasn't been done in recent years, and the backlash is inevitable.

EVERYBODY'S GOTTA BE SOMEWHERE – FROM PAGE SIX:  Dennis Rodman — who Page Six reported this week has had an employee e-mailing online groups pitching Rodman as a start-up spokesperson leading up to his Singapore trip — has found a dope sponsor.  The former NBA star is going to Singapore during the President Trump-Kim Jong-un summit on the dime of marijuana cryptocurrency, Potcoin.  Rodman announced the news on Twitter Friday, saying, “I’ll give whatever support is needed to my friends, @realDonald Trump and Marshall [sic] Kim Jong Un.”  The image shows both world leaders pasted together with Rodman wearing sunglasses and a pink feather boa.  Aw, give the man a break.  At least he's being respectful, unlike the "celebrities" at the Tony Awards who cursed the president while he's on an overseas mission of peace.

June 10, 2018       Permalink

MITT PLANS – AT 7:16 P.M. ET:   Mitt Romney is a curious fellow.  We thought he was out of politics, now he's back in, running for the Senate from Utah.  He's savaged Donald Trump with some of the worst comments made about Trump, now he says that Trump will easily win in 2020.  And it appears that Romney himself has big plans.  From the Daily Mail: 

Mitt Romney is preparing to become a major figure in the Republican Party next year, laying the groundwork to become spokesman of the Republican Party establishment that's been steamrolled since the election of President Donald Trump.

The former presidential candidate is widely expected to win Utah's Senate election in November and has already let party leaders know he intends to make a splash upon his taking of the oath of office in January, Politico reported.  

He's expressed an interest in joining the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and wants to work on spending issues. 

But the most delicate issue he's likely to deal with is relationship with President Donald Trump. 

Romney, who failed to win the Republican presidential primary in 2008 and then failed to win the presidency in 2012, was a vocal 'Never Trumper' voice during the 2016 race and criticized the now-president on multiple occasions.

During the height of the Republican presidential primary, Romney called Trump a 'phony' and a 'fraud' during a March 2016 speech in Utah where he also argued that Trump's policies would lead to a recession.

And...

Romney has balanced his criticism of the president with praise as of late.  

He said in May that he didn't think Trump was a good role model for his 18 grandchildren, saying 'some of the things he has said are not ones that I would aspire for my grandkids to adopt.'

Romney explained the president's tendency to not tell the truth is the main reason Trump is not a paragon of virtue for children to follow.

'I don't think that I would point to the president as a role model for my grandkids on the basis of his personal style. He has departed in some cases from the truth, and has attacked in a way that I think is not entirely appropriate,' he told NBC News. 'I think that his policies have been by and large a good deal better than I might have expected. But some of the things he has said are not ones that I would aspire for my grandkids to adopt.'

But he predicted last week Trump will 'solidly' win a second term.

'I think that not just because of the strong economy and the fact that people are going to see increasingly rising wages,' he said.  

'But I think it's also true because I think our Democrat friends are likely to nominate someone who is really out of the mainstream of American thought and will make it easier for a president who's presiding over a growing economy.'

Romney also predicted Trump would 'easily' see off any challenger in the Republican nominations, for the same reasons. 

COMMENT:  I'd imagine there'd be immediate tension between Romney and Trump.  Despite what Romney says, he'll certainly look for any opening that can allow him to run in 2020.  He'll be 74 that year, probably his last chance.

June 10, 2018       Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL – AT 1:43 P.M. ET:   One of the best essays I've seen recently, written by the distinguished African-American economist, Walter Williams.  It is good to see a scholar with an appreciation of the good things in America's past.  From dailywire.com: 

People have changed. Behavior that is accepted from today's young people was not accepted yesteryear. For those of us who are 65 or older, assaults on teachers were not routine as they are in some cities. For example, in Baltimore, an average of four teachers and staff members were assaulted each school day in 2010, and more than 300 school staff members filed workers' compensation claims in a year because of injuries received through assaults or altercations on the job. In Philadelphia, 690 teachers were assaulted in 2010, and in a five-year period, 4,000 were. In that city's schools, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, or victims of other violent crimes. That doesn't even include thousands more who are extorted, threatened, or bullied in a school year."

Yale University legal scholar John Lott argues that gun accessibility in our country has never been as restricted as it is now. Lott reports that until the 1960s, New York City public high schools had shooting clubs. Students carried their rifles to school on the subway in the morning and then turned them over to their homeroom teacher or a gym teacher — and that was mainly to keep them centrally stored and out of the way. Rifles were retrieved after school for target practice. Virginia's rural areas had a long tradition of high school students going hunting in the morning before school, and they sometimes stored their guns in the trunks of their cars during the school day, parked on the school grounds.

COMMENT:  By all means read the whole thing.  There's much here I didn't know.  No one is claiming that everything was better in the good old days.  We've improved in some areas.  But some things were better, including adherence to standards of behavior.  We have to be honest and determine what has gone wrong, and then we must correct it.  But how can we do that when one of our two political parties won't admit there's a problem in the first place?

June 10, 2018       Permalink 

TAKING ON JUSTY – AT 1:18 P.M. ET:  The president has arrived in Singapore.  He left the G7 early, and its participants are furious with him.  How dare he disagree with them, and try to protect American workers? 

The worst was Justin (my daddy was prime minster) Trudeau of Canada, who appears to have the intellectual maturity of a twelve-year-old.  Trudeau's father was the anti-American Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, so the apple is falling close to the tree.  The Trump administration has had its fill of Trudeau.  From Fox: 

There is a "special place in hell" for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because of his decision to slam the U.S. in a post-G7 press conference, White House Director of Trade Policy Peter Navarro said on "Fox News Sunday."

"There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door," Navarro said. "And that's what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That's what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One."

Shortly after Trump left the G7 summit, where the world leaders had reached a tentative agreement on a joint statement, Trudeau held a press conference in which he said that Canada will not be "pushed around" by the U.S.

Navarro reiterated that his sentiment was shared onboard Air Force One after the summit, as it headed toward Singapore for the planned meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

And I'll tell you this, to my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of a Canadian leader in modern Canadian history," Navarro continued. "All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win. President Trump did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things on his plate in Singapore.

COMMENT:  Is the president picking an unnecessary fight with young Justy?  I don't think so.  I believe there's a method to Trump's apparent madness.  He is signalling to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whom he will meet on Tuesday, just how tough he is, how unyielding he is when dealing with America's national interest.

What a week this will be.  If Trump can pull off a serious agreement with North Korea, it will be one of the great diplomatic achievements of the age.  But it's a big "if."

June 10,  2018     Permalink

JUNE 9,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET:

TRUMP BESTS OBAMA AND EVEN RON – FROM GATEWAY PUNDIT:   According to the latest FOX News poll President Donald Trump has a better rating than Presidents Obama and Reagan at the same point in their presidencies.  President Trump’s approval is now at 45%.  And that is with 90% negative coverage from the far left mainstream media.  Of course, other polls differ.  But the point here is that, despite attempts to portray the president as unpopular, he's holding his own with past presidents.  If he can pull off a good deal with North Korea, his numbers are likely to rise even more.

CNN IS THE TITANIC OF NEWS NETWORKS – FROM BREITBART:  Far-left cable channel CNN suffered a massive ratings collapse in May. June is shaping up to be worse.  CNN stumbled out of May with a massive -25 percent ratings collapse when compared to the same month last year. Because Fox News actually experienced total viewer growth and MSNBC’s loss was a negligible two percent, we know the problem is CNN and not the news cycle or Americans tiring of the news.  To understand just how awful a week CNN just had, you have to understand just how bad the entire month of May was for the anti-Trump cable channel.  Average Total Primetime Viewers in May 2018  Fox News: 2.38 million;  MSNBC: 1.65 million;  CNN: 835,000.  CNN is simply the anti-Trump network, dressed up as a news operation.  It is often unwatchable.  It has little or no credibility left.

SOLUTION – FROM FAST COMPANY:   Thanks to a brilliant design decision, no one at the Bairui Plaza shopping mall in Xi’an, China, will ever again get stuck behind a slow walker, blocking the path while they watch a MuchDank video on their phone. Some genius has added a pedestrian lane just for people who can’t stop staring at their phones.  According to the New York Times, the new lane of traffic was intended to address the needs of the so-called “heads down tribe,” people who find the world around them so dull that they can’t bear to look up from their phones, even when crossing the street. Their distracted walking is part of a growing number of traffic-related deaths, with the World Health Organization estimating that around 68,000 pedestrians are killed every year in China. While there are undoubtedly large-scale solutions to the problem (education campaigns, fines, etc.) the easiest solution might be the one used at the mall: Pedestrian lanes specifically for cellphone users.  I think we should make special lanes for liberals, who haven't looked up in decades. 

June 9,  2018     Permalink

THE AFTERMATH – AT 1:46 P.M. ET:   The press is often too quick to leave a story and "move on" to the next one.  What gets missed, though, is the aftermath of a story, which can include critical information on what actually happened, why it happened, and how to avoid having it happen again.

Ben Bradlee, the late, legendary editor of the Washington Post, said that journalism is history's rough first draft.  The problem is, there is rarely a second draft.

There is new information out on the recent school shooting in Florida, and it is important.  It reveals what many people could see as negligence on the part of school authorities.  How often is this repeated throughout the United States?  From the South Florida Sun Sentinel: 

Two months before the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School, a retired Secret Service agent warned administrators that the school could be vulnerable to a gunman.

Gates were unlocked. Students did not wear identification badges. A fire alarm could send students streaming into the halls. Active-shooter drills were inadequate, he said.

The retired agent, Steve Wexler, said he made his point by strolling through the school with Post-it notes, attaching them to places his bullets or knife would land if he were an intruder. No one stopped him, he said.

In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Wexler said he was invited to analyze the school’s security and presented his recommendations to four staff members.

“I said, ‘This stuff is blatantly obvious. You’ve got to fix this,’” Wexler said.

He never heard another word from the district, he said.

COMMENT:  There are simple, available, inexpensive ways to strengthen schools against attacks.  Fact is, we protect jewelry stores better than we protect children.

But the ideologists aren't interested.  They believe that guns, apparently the kind that aim themselves and fire themselves, are the real culprits.  There are legitimate gun issues to discuss, but may we just apply some common sense to our schools and take the necessary defensive steps Agent Wexler recommended?  And there are many more steps that can be taken, from armed security guards to quick lockdown systems. 

Solutions, not ideology.  That is where to begin.

June 9, 2018       Permalink

THEY ARE GOING CRAZY, AS USUAL – AT 11:58 A.M. ET:   The president has left the G7 early and is on his way to Singapore, to confront the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, aka Rocket Man.

But many in the European and American press are going nuts.  How dare the president not stay at the G7 to hear all about climate change.  Is the man not with it, not hip?  Has he no respect for the Georgetown party circuit?  What have we elected?  A man who thinks for himself?  It's a dark day for the dry cleaners who polish the stripes in the diplomats' pants.

Tranquilizers have been given out at the G7, where Mr. Trump got a cool reception because he had the nerve to understand that he represents the United States.  So crude.

Christiane Amanpour was positively beside herself last night, ridiculing the president for stirring up disagreement with our allies.  Why, she exclaimed, they aren't even enemies.  They're allies!  Isn't it our place to genuflect before our European betters?  Why, they speak foreign languages!  And Ms. Amanpour, Christiane of Tehran, smugly ridiculed Mr. Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.  After all, the Iranians are abiding by it.  Yes, Christy, they are...because it's a one-sided deal in their favor.  Get that, Ms. British accent? 

The Singapore conference will be one of the most important foreign meetings an American president will have had in years.  It's all business.  All negotiations.  Mr. Trump said today that he will know within two minutes if the conference has a chance at success.  He isn't bragging.  A skilled negotiator knows how to read his opponent.  The president is making it clear he expects progress, and will outline what that progress must be.  His example will be Ronald Reagan, who walked away from an arms control deal with the Soviet Union because it wasn't good enough. 

There are some in the Democratic Party who are probably wishing that the president will fail.  Most Americans wish him success.

We do.

June 9, 2018       Permalink

STILL THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE – AT 11:34 A.M. ET:  Occasionally it's delightful to start on a positive note.  A new survey by Rasmussen shows that, despite the militant efforts of the hard left in education and journalism, Americans are still mighty proud of their country and its past: 

Americans overwhelmingly are proud of their nation and its past.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 85% of American Adults are proud to be an American, little changed from previous surveys. Just nine percent (9%) say they are not proud to be an American.

The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on June 5-6, 2018. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

COMMENT:  The leftist academy and press will always emphasize the dissenters, and dissent is important.  But we should remember that people respond, not only to educators and journalists, but to what they see around them, and to their own family histories.

America is a continuing revolution.  Not all results are good.  But, as Churchill said about the United States, we will try everything and eventually get it right.  We get it right, sometimes after years of debate and anguish, because most Americans care about getting it right.  That cannot be said of every country.  In too many, including our "enlightened" allies in Europe, getting it right means getting by for another day.

As the Reagan revolution put it, it's always morning in America.  It's what we do with the rest of the day that will make the difference.

June 9,  2018     Permalink