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JUNE 17,  2018

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        Permalink

A FATHER'S DAY STORY – I LOVE IT – AT 12:33 P.M. ET:   Bernie Sanders provides us with more proof that, even on Father's Day, he's a bit out of touch with the rest of the country.  From Fox: 

If Bernie Sanders doesn’t receive a Father’s Day card on Sunday, the reason might not be hard to figure out.

The U.S. senator from Vermont has declined to endorse his son Levi Sanders, 49, a candidate for a U.S. House seat in New Hampshire, according to reports.

“He’s on his own,” the elder Sanders told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday night, adding that he doesn’t like “dynastic politics.”

Some say they are not surprised, because the elder Sanders has a long history of being stingy with political endorsements.

In the mid-1980s, for example, Sanders declined to do more to aid what has evolved into Vermont's Progressive Party. Then last winter he declined to help his stepdaughter, Carina Driscoll, run for the mayor's office in Burlington, Vt., which Sanders himself once held.

“This is a fancy dance that Bernie has done, but it's not recommended for anyone else," said Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor emeritus. “This is a testament to Bernie’s uniqueness as a political actor.”

For his part, Levi Sanders -- a legal services analyst who is one of 11 seeking the Democratic nomination to fill the seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter -- has joked that rather than being Bernie Sanders' son, he is the son of the fourth cousin of Larry David, the co-creator of “Seinfeld” who has portrayed Bernie Sanders on “Saturday Night Live.”

COMMENT:  Ah, family values.  As the old saying goes, Bernie is the kind of guy who'd see someone drowning 20 feet out, throw him a 16-foot rope, and shout, "I've met you more than halfway."

June 17, 2018       Permalink

FATHER'S DAY – AT 12:08 P.M. ET:  Happy Father's Day to all fathers.  Now, of course, we must be chic and modern, and agree that we are useless and superfluous, and the butt of legitimate jokes on TV sitcoms.

I propose a solution to our sorry state.   Promise me that by midnight today you will make up a powerful list of grievances and anti-father oppressions, which will, tomorrow morning, be turned into a movement.

We will have a million-daddy march.  We will wear silly hats.

We will appear before Congressional committees to outline our resentments, our horror at microaggressions like, "So's your old man."

We will form academic departments.  The Department of Dad Studies.  We will demand that Hollywood filmmakers replace the damsel in distress with the dad in the doghouse.

We shall overcome.

So make this a Father's Day filled with anger toward a society that forces us to drive the car while everyone else is having ice cream and letting it drip over our new leather seats.  Can you just imagine a world free of that?

Oh, and make sure you get out and clean the barbecue.

June 17,  2018     Permalink

JUNE 16,  2018

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

OUT WITHOUT HONOR – FROM DAILYWIRE.COM:  After months of silence, we have finally learned the fate of the West Point graduate who infamously declared "Communism Will Win" and decried Defense Sec. James Mattis as "the most vile, evil f**k in the current administration." Former U.S. Army Infantry Officer Spenser Rapone has been "other than honorably" discharged.  The news of Rapone's discharge came via the announcement that he would be one of the speakers at the Socialism 2018 conference in Chicago in July.  Good riddance.  His behavior, and participation in politics, violated his oath, and a number of regulations.  He has no place in the Army.  The issue is how he ever got a commission in the first place.

PLEASE, PLEASE GO AWAY – FROM FOX:    Blame it on the bullies?  In a surprise appearance Friday, Hillary Clinton delivered a commencement address to graduates of San Francisco's exclusive Hamlin School.  Media reports said Secret Service personnel whisked the former Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. secretary of state into the all-girls private school -- where tuition is $34,500 per year.  "Tuition includes lunch and snack," the school's website says.  Once inside, Clinton spoke about her own experiences being bullied while growing up in suburban Chicago, as well as the need to be “courageous in a world dominated mainly by men,” graduate Alexa Tabibian told San Francisco's KGO-TV. The event was closed to the media.  “I never thought I’d ever get to see her in person and it was just so great,” Tabibian said.  As Clinton recalled of her youth, in a YouTube video posted by the school: "As I would go out looking to play, the kids who were already there would circle around me, bully me, knock me to the ground, and I would get up and run crying into the house. This went on for weeks. It was a pattern of our lives."  I wonder if it was anything like the time she was under fire in Yugoslavia, or someplace, or the time she tried to enlist in the Marine Corps, or somethin'.  Please take this woman to a movie.

BANISHED, AS IN THE GOOD OLD USSR – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:  The Harvard University Medical School has removed portraits of former department chairs from a lecture hall because the individuals pictured are not sufficiently diverse.  School officials confirmed Friday afternoon that the portraits of 31 medical school deans—which formerly hung in the school’s Bornstein Family Amphitheater—have been “dispersed” to various lobbies and conference rooms.  All 31 individuals depicted in the portraits are men, and while one is Chinese, the other 30 are also white.  Dr. Betsy Nabel, the hospital’s president, told The Boston Globe last week that the portraits do not reflect the diversity of students at the medical school, and suggested that so many portraits of white males may make medical students uncomfortable.  “I have watched the faces of individuals as they have come into Bornstein,’’ Nabel explained. “I have watched them look at the walls. I read on their faces ‘Interesting, but I am not represented here.’ That got me thinking maybe it’s time that we think about respecting our past in a different way.”   I really think people are getting tired of this Soviet-style stuff.  By all means honor people of different backgrounds, but don't start taking down the portraits of deserving men.

June 16,  2018     Permalink

CONSERVATIVES IN HOLLYWOOD – AT 3:30 P.M. ET:  You would think, with all the noise, that virtually everyone in Hollywood is on the left, and often the far left.  But in fact there are conservatives in the film and TV industries.  There used to be more, and they were very public.  Names like John Wayne, Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan stand out.  Major executives like Louis B. Mayer were Republicans.  Indeed, Mayer had been head of the California Republican Party.

Today, because of the McCarthyistic methods of the left, conservatives in Hollywood are less public and more guarded.  One organization of industry conservatives won't even keep a formal membership list because it could be used to blacklist members.  From Fox: 

A former sitcom star said on "Fox & Friends" that in the midst of the anti-Trump hysteria among Hollywood liberals, many would be surprised to learn of the amount of anonymous conservative celebrities.

Zachery Ty Bryan, who starred in the hit 1990s sitcom "Home Improvement," said Saturday that liberal Hollywood celebrities had expected Hillary Clinton to succeed former President Barack Obama in the White House, and that President Trump's election caught them off guard.

"It’s been fun to watch," Bryan said.

Famed actor Robert De Niro went on a profanity-laced tirade about President Trump last weekend during the Tony Awards...

...Bryan said that although there is a perception that everyone in Hollywood is expected to be anti-Trump, conservative celebrities don't talk much about their stance.

"Surprisingly, there's a lot more conservatives in Hollywood than you would expect," he said. "They stay more anonymous."..

...Bryan added that the political divide in Hollywood reminds him of high school cliques.
"The party of tolerance and acceptance is only accepting if you agree with them," he said.

COMMENT:  It's unlikely we'll see much change in the public face of Hollywood in the immediate years ahead.  I'm hoping that generational change will produce some benefit.  The feature-film industry is largely a memory,  It cares little for the American audience, preferring the much larger international audience. 

However, television has much of value because of the sheer number of channels available to us.   Fox News is an island of sanity.  People of any set of beliefs can find something.

But the Golden Age of Hollywood, with patriotism worn on the sleeve, is gone.

June 16, 2018       Permalink

A GROWING STORY – AND A VERY IMPORTANT ONE – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:  Harvard University is being sued for admissions discrimination against Asian-Americans.  It's about time.  It's been clear for years that Asian-American students, among the most accomplished students in our country, face a higher hurdle in being admitted to prestigious universities than do more trendy minorities.  The truth is coming out. 

This is a growing issue, and is forcing an awakening among Asian-Americans, who've been discriminated against despite their accomplishments...or maybe because of them.  From Powerline:

I wrote here about the class action lawsuit that accuses Harvard of discriminating against Asian-Americans. The court has denied Harvard’s motions to dismiss, and the case is moving forward, which caused the university to defend its admissions practices in an email to its alumni.

In denying discrimination, Harvard says it relies on a “whole-person admissions process.” That is, Harvard “considers the whole person, not just an applicant’s grades and test scores.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but if one ethnic group consistently needs higher grades and test scores to be admitted, that necessarily means it is being rated lower on other aspects of being a “whole person.” That reality is now coming out, as the New York Times reports:

Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race on personal traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday in federal court in Boston by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.

Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found.

COMMENT:  It is, sadly, a familiar picture.  During the days when anti-Semitism dominated the Ivy League and many highly ranked universities, admissions officers would write disparaging remarks about what they saw as personal shortcomings in Jewish applicants, as a way of diminishing the chances for those candidates to be accepted, despite glowing academic records.

I have no doubt that similar remarks are made today, not only about Asian-American applicants, but about observing Christians, especially those who are pro-life. 

It has been often said that if the University of California at Berkeley had an honest admissions system, every student at Berkeley would be Asian-American – to which I say, more power to them.  If they are doing the job others refuse to do, and achieving excellence, they should be rewarded, not driven away in the interest of some corrupt notion of "diversity." 

Read the whole story.  Not a pretty picture. 

June 16,  2018     Permalink