POLITICS Comments turned off

Charles Lipson :The question isn’t if Joe Biden will screw up: it’s when Can anyone win the 2020 Democratic primary without destroying their chances in the general election?

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://spectator.us/joe-biden-three-plusses-three-minuses/

Joe Biden seems on the verge of announcing he will run for president. He begins in a strong position, leading his primary opponent in the polls. His numbers, which are just shy of 30 percent, reflect his high name-ID and years as a party stalwart. When he does jump in, the first question is whether his lead will grow or shrink as competitors begin attacking his record and garner name recognition of their own.

Biden must smack his head every time he thinks about 2016. He would have been a stronger candidate than Hillary — not a very high bar — which means he might well have won the presidency. That’s far less likely this time around, and not only because Donald Trump has the advantages of incumbency and smooth sailing through the primaries. It’s also because Biden is no cinch to win the Democratic nomination.

Within the party, Biden holds three huge advantages, three disadvantages, and one major question mark. Let’s sort them out.

Two of his advantages are obvious: his association with President Barack Obama and his ability to relate to blue-collar voters. Although the party has moved left since Obama’s day, the former president is still the most popular Democrat, by far. That helps Biden since he is the candidate most closely associated with Obama. That’s a big f***ing deal, as Joe would put it. He also benefits from Obama’s legacy as a proven national winner.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Unmasking the College-Admissions Fraud The real scam has less to do with the wealthy cheaters who got caught than with the university system itself. Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/college-admissions-cheating-scandal

The celebrity college-admissions cheating scandal has two clear takeaways: an elite college degree has taken on wildly inflated importance in American society, and the sports-industrial complex enjoys wildly inflated power within universities. Thirty-three moguls and TV stars allegedly paid admissions fixer William Singer a total of $25 million from 2011 to 2018 to doctor their children’s high school resumes—sending students to private SAT and ACT testing sites through false disability claims, for example, where bought-off proctors would raise the students’ scores. Singer forged athletic records, complete with altered photos showing the student playing sports in which he or she had little experience or competence. Corrupt sports directors would then recommend the student for admission, all the while knowing that they had no intention of playing on the school’s team.

None of this could have happened if higher education had not itself become a corrupt institution, featuring low classroom demands, no core knowledge acquisition, low grading standards, fashionable (but society-destroying) left-wing activism, luxury-hotel amenities, endless partying, and huge expense. Students often learn virtually nothing during their college years, as University of California, Irvine, education school dean Richard Arum writes in Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. They may even lose that pittance of knowledge with which they entered college. Seniors at Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Duke, and Berkeley scored lower in an undemanding test of American history than they did as freshmen, according to a 2007 study commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. College is only desultorily about knowledge acquisition, at least outside of the STEM fields (and even those fields are under assault from identity politics).

EDUCATION Comments turned off

TWO ON EDUCATION…..

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/14/do-you-want-your-kids-to-go-to-an-elite-college-or-get-an-education-theyre-not-the-same-thing/

Do You Want Your Kids To Go To An Elite College Or Get An Education? They’re Not The Same Thing Mark Hemingway
College entrance has become the primary, all-consuming educational goal for far too many parents, at the expense of understanding what constitutes a good education and what it should accomplish.

The Biggest Higher Education Scam Isn’t Hollywood Fraud, It’s Academia Itself By Inez Feltscher Stepman

The justifications for propping up universities, which often act as little more than elite sorting mechanisms as well as left-wing indoctrination centers, are growing thin.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/14/biggest-higher-education-scam-isnt-hollywood-fraud-academia/

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Parliament against Everything By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/parliament-against-everything/

In the wake of the Parliament’s second rejection of Theresa May’s negotiated withdrawal agreement, the House of Commons is voting on many amendments that are meant to determine what Parliament would like to see happen. The answer turns out to be: almost nothing.
1

Parliament already narrowly expressed its wish not to leave the EU without a deal. And today the action is swift. A vote supportive of delaying Brexit and carrying on a second referendum, was defeated resoundingly. Only 85 MPs voted for it. A vote to give parliament more control over the Brexit process-the Benn amendment-taking things out of Theresa May’s hands, was also defeated. The “EEA” or Norway option, of retaining economic ties to the European Union was defeated. Leaving the political project but remaining in the customs union, defeated. And the “Malthouse compromise” which had been promoted by arch-Brexiteers like Jacob Rees Mogg has also been defeated. A plan to allow “indicative votes” — that is, where MPs express support for different options, rather than follow a party plan and the guide of party whips — was also rejected. One of the only things that was approved was an amendment that urged seeking an extension of Article 50 to June 30 if Parliament approves May’s Brexit deal by March 20.

MEDIA Comments turned off

When Cabin Boys Attack By Julie Kelly

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/13/

Victor Davis Hanson is about as accomplished and credentialed a commentator you can find. He’s an author, a military historian, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a farmer in California. President George W. Bush awarded Hanson the National Humanities Award in 2007. By all accounts and appearances, he is a decent, humble man who spends a great deal of time analyzing our current political moment and discussing what it portends for the future.

Hanson also is a supporter of President Trump. This heresy has earned him scorn from quarters on the Left and the so-called Right. His new book, The Case for Trump, has generated a barrage of criticism from the cabal of NeverTrumpers. Embittered by their humiliating miscalculation of Trump’s candidacy and shamelessly contorting their previous views to be able to contradict the president, these anti-Trump “conservatives” viciously attack anyone who dares to support the president. This includes Hanson.

In a particularly vile hit piece posted on The Bulwark, the new blog of Weekly Standard refugees who were left unemployed after the publication was shuttered in December, Gabe Schoenfeld accused Hanson of defending evil—that evil being President Trump. Bulwark editor Charlie Sykes recently threatened to “raise the opportunity costs” for pro-Trump commentators, Hanson specifically. To do so, Sykes enlisted the facile services of Schoenfeld, an advisor for the failed Mitt Romney presidential campaign, to pretend to write a book review that was little more than an ad hominem attack on Hanson.

Schoenfeld intimates that Hanson is a racist, an anti-Semite, and a Nazi sympathizer.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bombshell: Strzok Told Congress Robert Mueller Never Asked Him About Anti-Trump Texts By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/bombshell-strzok-told-congress-robert-mueller-never-asked-him-about-anti-trump-texts/
On Thursday morning, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) published a transcript of a June 2018 interview FBI Agent Peter Strzok gave to members of Congress before he was fired in August 2018 over anti-Trump texts between him and his lover, Lisa Page. Strzok had worked on three important investigations: the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails, the FBI investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion, and the Trump-Russia probe headed by special counsel Robert Mueller.

After the anti-Trump texts came to light, Mueller booted Strzok from the special counsel probe, but according to the FBI agent’s testimony, Mueller’s team never asked him whether the anti-Trump bias revealed in his text messages impacted his investigation of alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.

In the June 2018 hearing, Strzok repeated over and over that Mueller’s team never asked him about the anti-Trump bias in the texts or whether that bias impacted his work. This news seems particularly damning since it suggests the special counsel’s team did not care whether Strzok’s work was colored by anti-Trump bias.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) asked the FBI agent a long series of questions about the Mueller probe. Strzok told him that the FBI investigation began in late July of 2016, that he was “one of the senior leaders” on that team, and that he joined the special counsel investigation “within a month” after its inception in May 2017.

The FBI agent discussed “the existence of the text messages” in an August 2017 discussion with Mueller and another lawyer, he said.

“There was a sense that special counsel Mueller absolutely wanted to run an investigation that was not only independent but also presented the appearance of independence, and the concern that these texts might be construed otherwise,” Strzok said.

Ratcliffe pressed him, “Do you think it’s fair, as these texts have been characterized, do you think it’s fair to say that they were hateful texts with respect to Donald Trump?”

“I wouldn’t call them hateful. I would call them an expression of personal belief in an individual conversation with a close associate,” the FBI agent responded.

BOOKS Comments turned off

A Dissident’s Testimony: Vladimir Bukovsky’s ‘Judgment in Moscow’ Now in English By Bruce Bawer

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/a-dissidents-testimony-vladimir-bukovskys-judgment-in-moscow-now-in-english/
It’s the United States of America, and the year is 2019, and a hard-bitten old Commie named Bernie Sanders is, for the second time in a row, a popular candidate for the presidency. Meanwhile, the youngest and most high-profile new member of Congress is a staggeringly callow woman whose fatuously utopian rhetoric has made her a media darling. At the same time, the Democratic Party center itself is quickly lurching leftward, with once sensible politicians now spouting foolish and dangerous socialist bromides.

Some observers profess astonishment at these developments. In fact there’s no reason whatsoever for surprise. For one thing, as the legendary Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky laments in his book Judgment in Moscow (Ninth of November Press, $24.99 hardcover) — which appeared in French in 1995 and in Russian and German the year after, but is only now being published in English for the first time — the fall of the USSR was not followed by the kind of conspicuous moral reckoning and housecleaning that went on in Germany after Hitler’s defeat. There was no post-Soviet equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. Politburo and KGB members like Vladimir Putin, instead of being imprisoned or banished or fleeing to the Brazilian rainforest or the mountains of Bolivia, simply altered their public profiles and retained or resumed power in the new, purportedly post-Communist Russia.

As Bukovsky puts it: “To bring to justice those who took part in Nazi atrocities is a sacred task, the duty of one and all. But God forbid that you should so much as point a finger at a communist (let alone his fellow traveler); that is improper, a ‘witch hunt.’” How to convince the Western multitudes that Communism is horrible when its avatars were let off scot-free?

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Bulwark Embarrasses Itself Further With Attack on Victor Davis Hanson By Roger Kimball

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/the-bulwark-embarrasses-itself-further-with-attack-on-victor-davis-hanson/

Being of a charitable disposition, I early on decided that the kindest response to the Bulwark, the NeverTrump redoubt started by Bill Kristol following the implosion of the Weekly Standard, was silence. If this tiny cohort of bitter and unhappy souls were determined to embarrass themselves in public, the best we could do was turn away. Non ragioniam di lor, as Dante says in another context, ma guarda e passa. It would be cruel to let daylight in upon madness.

I said nothing when, for one of their opening acts, their Editor-in-Chief Charles Sykes pronounced anathema upon me and Henry Olsen, the distinguished Ethics and Public Policy scholar, for the sin of supporting the President of the United States on some issue or other. I was planning to continue to follow Wittgenstein’s advice at the end of the Tractatus and pass over in silence the twisted attack on Victor Davis Hanson’s new book on the president, The Case for Trump, by Hudson Institute Fellow Gabriel Schoenfeld, but the ad hominem viciousness of the piece together with its surreal mischaracterization of Hanson’s argument prompts me to weigh in.

Longtime readers will know that I have had my own innings with Schoenfeld over Donald Trump. I hesitate to speak again not only because calling attention to Gabe Schoenfeld is a little like calling attention to the disheveled fellow you find screaming at passersby on the street outside your office but also because Victor Hanson has himself delivered a devastating response to Schoenfeld’s attack. I cannot improve upon Victor’s definitive retort, but it is worth iterating one or two elements of the exchange.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Rockets fired at Tel Aviv, triggering air raid sirens By Samuel Chamberlain

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

Two rockets were fired at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv Thursday night, triggering air raid warning sirens, the country’s military said.

Sources told Fox News one of the rockets was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. People living in the area reported hearing an explosion in addition to the sirens.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed in a Hebrew-language tweet that two rockets were fired into Israeli territory from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.Israel’s Channel 10 news, citing anonymous military officials, said the rockets were Iranian-made Fajr rockets. It said one of the rockets were intercepted and the other landed in an uninhabited area, and that there were no reports of injuries.Tel Aviv has not been attacked by rocket or missile fire since a 2014 war with Hamas militants. There was no immediate claim of responsibility Thursday night.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Peter Strzok: Clinton, DOJ struck deal that blocked FBI access to Clinton Foundation emails on her private server by Jerry Dunleavy

Posted By on March 14th, 2019

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/peter-strzok-clinton-doj-struck-deal-that-blocked-fbi-access-to-clinton-foundation-emails-on-her-private-server?utm_source=

Fired FBI agent Peter Strzok told Congress last year that the agency “did not have access” to Clinton Foundation emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server because of a consent agreement “negotiated between the Department of Justice attorneys and counsel for Clinton.”

That agreement was revealed in newly released congressional transcripts from Strzok’s closed-door testimony at the House Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2018.

When asked by then-majority general counsel Zachary Somers if “the Clinton Foundation was on the server”, Strzok testified that he believed it was “on one of the servers, if not the others.” But Strzok stressed that due to an agreement between the DOJ and Clinton, they were not allowed to search Clinton Foundation emails for information that could help in their investigation. The FBI would have been investigating Clinton’s emails in 2016, when former President Barack Obama was still in office and when Clinton was running for president against then-candidate Donald Trump.

Somers asked in the 2018 hearing: “Were you given access to those emails as part of the investigation?”

Strzok replied: “We were not. We did not have access,” according to the transcript.

The FBI’s investigation into Clinton, called the “Midyear Exam,” focused on whether she had mishandled classified information in emails that were sent and received through her private server.