Posts Tagged ‘University of Texas’
Friday, January 4th, 2019
Welcome to the first LinkSwarm of 2019! If things seem a little thin, I worked most of the week and threw a New Year’s Eve gathering, so things are a little discombobulated right now. Hopefully next week I’ll be back in the groove faster than you can say “Antidisestablishmentarianism.”
“Jobs Blowout: December Payrolls Soar By 312K As Wages Jump Most Since 2009.”
More on that jobs report:
Democratic Party “charity” in action:
The caucus of black New York state lawmakers runs a charity whose stated mission is to empower “African American and Latino youth through education and leadership initiatives” by “providing opportunity to higher education” — but it hasn’t given a single scholarship to needy youth in two years, according to a New York Post investigation.
The group collects money from companies like AT&T, the Real Estate Board of New York, Time Warner Cable and CableVision, telling them in promotional materials that they are “changing lives, one scholarship at a time.”
The group — called the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators, Inc. — instead spent $500,000 in the 2015 – 2016 fiscal year on items like food, limousines and rap music, the Post found.
The politicians refused to divulge the charity’s 2017 tax filing to the Post despite federal requirements that charities do so upon request.
Its main activity is holding and selling tickets to an elaborate party each year intended to raise money for its stated mission of providing scholarships for youth. But year after year, essentially all the money simply seems to go to festivities.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
President Trump’s Iran sanctions are destroying their economy. “In the fallout, the Iranian rial has lost more than a quarter of its value against the dollar, sending the prices of food and other basic commodities soaring.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson says that the newspaper is indeed obviously biased against President Trump.
She also says publisher Arthur Sulzberger “drafted a letter ‘all but apologizing’ to the Chinese government for a tough investigative story about corruption in the country.”
“Over a decade, police investigated more than 520 cases of juvenile sexual assault and abuse in Chicago’s public schools.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“Stoneman Douglas commission calls for arming teachers.
Related: I think I missed this is 2018:
AKA “the resource officer who infamously failed to confront the Parkland shooter.”
“A California congressman is introducing articles of impeachment against President Trump on Thursday — the first day of the new Democratic majority in the House.” Because evidently they learned nothing from the Clinton impeachment…
A Democrat also filed a bill to eliminate the Electoral College. Priorities.
Apple iPhone phishing scams are getting cleverer at fooling people.
Speaking of Apple, their stock just lost the value equivalent to Facebook’s market cap after announcing they would miss iPhone targets.
Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher dead at 87.
Cracked takes on health care sacred cows. Worth a read. (Hat tip: Ashe Schow on Twitter.)
UT makes Campus Reform’s top five crazy stories list.
Outgoing Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill disses incoming House Democrat and “shiny thing” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“State Rep.-elect Mayes Middleton has filed priority legislation, House Bill 281, to end tax-funded lobbying.” Good.
Convicted felon and Democratic state representative Ron Reynolds released from prison just in time for the legislative session.
Facebook temporarily bans Billy Graham’s son for having the unmitigated gall to say that men and women are biologically different…back in 2016.
The Babylon Bee takes on Mitt Romney’s criticisms of President Trump. You know, I’m getting the impression here that the Bee is not a big fan of Mormon doctrine…
Tags:Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Apple Computer, Arthur Sulzberger, Austin, Chicago, Claire McCaskill, Crime, Democrats, Donald Trump, economy, Electoral College, Foreign Policy, Guns, health care, Herb Kelleher, impeachment, Iran, Jihad, Jill Abramson, jobs, LinkSwarm, Mayes Middleton, Media Watch, Mitt Romney, New York, New York Times, rape, Ron Reynolds, Scott Israel, Southwest Airlines, Texas, University of Texas
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »
Thursday, August 16th, 2018
Here’s a basket of Texas and local news of note:
Back in the dim mists of time, Democrats used to nominate swing district candidates who could at least pretend to be moderates. This year? Not so much.
Today, I’m highlighting another extremist Democrat in Texas, Gina Ortiz Jones, who finished first in a five-way primary, with 42% of the vote and then defeated Rick Trevino in the May runoff, to challenge Republican Rep. Will Hurd in the 23rd District.
This is one of the most competitive districts in the country, and has changed hands five times between Republicans and Democrats in the past 25 years. Hurd, a former CIA officer and the only black Republican member of Congress from Texas, won the seat in 2014 with only a 2,500-vote margin over the Democrat incumbent, and was re-elected in 2016 with a margin of only 3,000 votes. In a mid-term where Democrats are energized by anti-Trump mania, Hurd faces a tough fight, and Democrats have poured more than $1 million into the Jones campaign.
Fortunately for Republicans, however, Jones is way out of step with the values of this largely rural district, which stretches all the way from the suburbs of San Antonio in the east to El Paso in the west. The district is 55% Hispanic, and Jones has made a point of using her mother’s maiden name, with the slogan “One of Us, Fighting For Us” in her campaign.
Except she’s not Hispanic. Her mother immigrated from the Philippines and her father (who never married her mother) was a white drug addict. While she’s using “Ortiz” to play the identity-politics game with Texas voters, however, she’s using a lesbian-feminist message to solicit support nationally from Trump-haters, promising to become the “first Filipina-American and first out-lesbian to represent Texas in Congress, and she’ll be the first woman to represent her district.“ She has been endorsed by all the usual suspects of left-wing extremism, including pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List, pro-homosexual groups like Equality PAC, Human Rights Campaign and the LGBT Victory Fund, and the anti-Israel JStreetPAC, as well as the Feminist Majority, People for the American Way and the AFL-CIO. Her agenda includes socialized medicine, taxpayer funding for abortion, gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens, and every other issue you might expect from someone who attended elite Boston University.
Missed this earlier: San Antonio Dr. Jorge Zamora-Quezada was arrested for committing over $240 million in Medicare and other government fraud in a scheme that stretched back over two decades.
“ICE arrests 45 in Houston area during 5-day operation targeting criminal aliens, immigration fugitives.”
There were also 110 illegal aliens arrested in the Rio Grande valley over two days.
“In what appears to have been a last-ditch move to sway a tax ratification election in their favor, South San Antonio ISD officials likely violated state law on Tuesday by paying district employees to go vote for the tax increase. But for those at home wondering, crime doesn’t pay. Despite their fourth-quarter efforts, voters defeated the tax hike by a 57–43 margin.”
The University of Texas “diversity coordinator” thinks that “The Eyes of Texas” is racist. (Hat tip: Mark Pulliam, on Twitter.)
How well did your local public school rank? TPPF has more on how to read the scores. (But also keep in mind Iowahawk’s illuminating essay on how demographics affect test scores.)
Muslim immigrant from Jordan sentenced to death for two honor killings.
The Idiots on the Austin City Council voted to subsidize a professional soccer team on city land. Because subsidizing a sport Texans actually like just wasn’t insulting enough. (More background here.)
“100% Renewable Isn’t Doable.” No matter what Georgetown says…
When is an interest rate swap a secret stealth tax increase? This piece walks you through how tiny Azle ISD’s machinations amount to a form of regulatory arbitrage to do just that.
“Woman shoots masturbating bicyclist trying to break into her SE Houston home.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:2018 Election, Austin, Azle ISD, Border Controls, Crime, Democrats, education, Elections, fraud, Georgetown, Gina Ortiz Jones, Hispanics, Houston, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jorge Zamora-Quezada, Medicare, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, soccer, South San Antonio ISD, sports subsidies, Taxes, University of Texas, Will Hurd
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Friday, May 18th, 2018
At some point I will grapple with all the unraveling Clinton/Mueller/Fusion GPS/FISA/Brennan Scandularity…but not today.
Democrats, rather than maximizing their chance at a blue wave, have insisted on electing far left-wing candidates over more-electable party moderates. Those national results replicate what the Texas Democratic Party did to themselves: Push moderates out of the party. Result: More Republicans elected. They appear hellbent on replicating those results at the national level…
Former New York speaker of the House Sheldon Silver found guilty of a kickback scheme yet again. The first conviction was overturned on appeal over a technicality.
“The people who’ve lost their way are the liberals and civil libertarians, blinded by their rage for Trump, who have dropped their principles in a moment of political threat and are taking out their anger on a man who has been their staunchest ally. Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz. Maybe it’s what happened to everyone else.” Caveat: Writer suffers from usual “Fox News and Trump are the Devil” derangement. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
President Donald Trump: “Members of the violent MS-13 gang are animals.” MSM: “Trump just said all undocumented immigrants are animals!” Also: “Trump supporters are fleeing the media not because they want cheerleaders, but because they are tired of a secular, coastal, liberal press that not only cannot relate to heartland voters but thinks it is beneath them to even try.”
Rep. Lou Barletta wins Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary, to face Bob Casey in the general. Barletta earned a lot of nationwide Republican gratitude for taking out Stupak block flip-flopper Paul Kanjorski in 2010.
China, Russia and other scumbag authoritarian countries are lying about their GDP. This is my shocked face. This also why you should take all those “OMG China’s economy will overtake the U.S. in 20XX!” panics with several grains of sand.
Seattle thinks that golden goose would taste mighty fine cooked in a white wine reduction.
Class-action lawsuit filed against Facebook over revelations that the company logged users’ text and call logs using the Facebook smartphone app on Android phones. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
EU: here’s a statement condemning the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania: LOL, no. BLOCKED. (Hat tip: Pat Condell on Gab.)
Tom Wolfe, RIP.
Another case of illegal alien voter fraud that Democrats swear doesn’t exist.
President Trump wrings airline agreement out of gulf states.
The mathematician who cracked horse racing. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Joe Straus backed a lot of liberal Republican state candidates in March, to the tune of $1 million, and they all got walloped.
More scandal at the University of Texas law school:
Jason Shoumaker, the law school’s facilities director until November 2017, is the subject of an ongoing probe by the Travis County District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Rangers. Though Shoumaker was taken into custody Thursday over tampering charges, he is at the heart of a major fraud investigation – one that potentially involves “several million dollars of questionable expenses,” a source familiar with the probe said….During multiple pay periods, Shoumaker logged regular 8-hour days with the university while he was actually cavorting out of state, according to the affidavit.
George Soros pulls out of Hungary.
#BadStockPhotosOfMyJob. But they obviously nailed the one for writers:
Death by Snu Snu! (Hat tip: Slone’s Twitter feed.)
Tags:2018 Election, Alan Dershowitz, Amazon, Austin, Border Controls, China, Crime, Czech Republic, Democrats, Elections, EU, Facebook, Foreign Policy, George Soros, Hungary, Illegal Aliens, Israel, Jason Shoumaker, Jerusalem, Joe Straus, Lou Barletta, Media Watch, MS-13, Republicans, Romania, Russia, Sheldon Silver, Texas, Tom Wolfe, University of Texas, Voter Fraud
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 17th, 2018
It’s been a few month since the administration of the University of Texas came up with a really bad idea, so naturally they were ready to latch on to a doozy (accepting propaganda money from Communist China) until Ted Cruz made them back off:
After months of internal uproar and a letter from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the University of Texas at Austin has declared its China center will not accept funding from a Hong Kong-based foundation that the Republican from Texas said helps spread Chinese government propaganda abroad.
The decision – first reported in an article in the “Opinions” section of The Washington Post – was disclosed in a letter sent Friday from UT-Austin President Greg Fenves to Cruz.
The school must “ensure that the receipt of outside funding does not create potential conflicts of interest or place limits on academic freedom and the robust exchange of ideas,” Fenves wrote. “I am concerned about this if we were to accept funding from [the foundation].”
The week before, Cruz had written to Fenves to “express concern” about UT-Austin’s new China center’s relationship with the China-United States Exchange Foundation – a “pseudo-philanthropic foundation,” Cruz wrote, that has ties to an arm of the Chinese government that manages “foreign influence operations.”
In his letter, dated Jan. 2, Cruz wrote he’d heard that the UT-Austin center was considering a partnership with the foundation. Launched around the start of the fall semester, the China Public Policy Center was charged with making “fresh and enduring contributions to the study of China-related policy topics while advancing U.S.-China relations and Texas-China relations,” according to a UT news release.
Its executive director, David Firestein, was formerly a U.S. diplomat and senior vice president at the EastWest Institute. He forwarded requests for comment to a university spokesman.
Cruz said in his letter that he was worried about the center’s collaboration with the foundation and that it would disseminate “propaganda within the center and compromise its credibility.” The same concerns were raised in emails circulated on an internal UT-Austin faculty e-mail list in December, just four months after the China center launched.
An ugly spat played out in one email exchange obtained by The Texas Tribune, with several faculty members voicing or agreeing with concerns about the center’s activities and funding from the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation. One lengthy email suggested an event held by the China center in November was infused with propaganda, and said it had upset students and led some to send concerned emails to the dean.
UT’s scheme would be far from the first time a western university accepted money from a brutal foreign dictator, but it would be an unnecessary and cringe-worthy example. Good for Ted Cruz getting them to slam on the brakes.
(Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings.)
(And yes, I realize I just used an emoji in a headline. Come spring I’ll surely explain it away as cabin fever brought about by #Icepocalypse2018…)
Tags:Austin, China, China-United States Exchange Foundation, David Firestein, Foreign Policy, Greg Fenves, Ted Cruz, University of Texas
Posted in Austin, Communism, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 29th, 2017
The University of Texas reversed course, deciding that maybe having President Greg Fenves reverse a hearing examiner’s finding in order to find a student guilty of sexual harassment for consensual sex probably wasn’t the greatest idea, settling the case and reinstating the student. (Hat tip: Cahnman.)
Could Fenves have reversed the ruling after receiving a large donation from the accuser’s father, as “John Doe’s” lawsuit attests? Whatever the case, UT seemed willing to settle rather than risk having their President testify on the record in court.
This is probably a good time to remind people that just because Wallace Hall is no longer on the UT Board of Regents does not mean that the numerous problems of cronyism and favoritism in admissions (and very possibly elsewhere) he uncovered were solved just because Hall is no longer there to expose them.
Tags:due process, education, Greg Fenves, Texas, University of Texas
Posted in Texas | No Comments »
Monday, July 10th, 2017
Strangely enough, just as he did when asked for an initial injunction, U.S. Western District Judge Lee Yeakel did not find “but my feelings!” to be a persuasive legal argument against campus carry:
A U.S. Western District judge has tossed out a lawsuit from three University of Texas professors over the campus carry law.
In a seven-page ruling signed on Thursday, U.S. Judge Lee Yeakel said attorneys for professors Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter failed to present a sound argument that they will be physically harmed under the law. He said their concerns arise from a “subjective belief that a person may be more likely to cause harm to a professor or student as a result of the law and policy.”
Yeakel’s ruling is a win for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
“The court’s ruling today is the correct outcome,” Paxton said in a statement. “The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside.”
The campus carry law went into effect last year, and allows students with concealed handgun licenses to carry them into classrooms and other buildings on campus. Since 1995, it has been legal for handgun license holders to carry them onto the campuses of Texas public universities.
The professors filed the suit on July 6, 2016 and asked for a preliminary injunction three weeks later that would have temporarily blocked the law from becoming effective. Yeakel denied the motion for an injunction, clearing the way for licensed holders to carry guns on campus to open the fall 2016 semester.
Given that more people were killed by stabbing (one) than shooting (zero) on UT campus in 2016-2017, evidence suggests that liberal fears of a horrific bloodbath following the legalization of campus carry were wildly overblown.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:Austin, campus carry, Guns, Lee Yeakel, Texas, University of Texas
Posted in Austin, Guns, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017
Here’s followups on both of yesterday’s Texas attempted spree-killers:
Dallas shooter Derick Lamont Brown
The firefighter/paramedic he shot is still alive in critical but stable condition. “A bullet broke the firefighter’s leg and he lost a lot of blood. In surgery, he was resuscitated three times after his heart stopped.”
“A Dallas police officer, later identified as Sgt. Robert Watson, saved the firefighter’s life when he went in alone, pulled the firefighter out, put him in his squad car and took him to the hospital.”
Brown killed his godfather, 66-year-old Arthur Riggins. Still not seeing any report of the dead neighbor’s name.
Brown was “national minister of defense for the New Black Panther Party and once served as the chairman of that organization.” (As I reported yesterday.) Brown “also went by the name Brotha DK.”
More: “According to [Babu] Omowale, the founder of Dallas’ Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Brown was the Black Nationalist defense group’s gunsmith. “He put some of our weapons together and if we needed extra supplies or if we needed anything added to our weapons, he was the person who made that happen for us.”
Brown had “a long criminal history, including an assault charge, several DWIs, and gun offenses.” More:
In 2008, he was involved in a car accident in Dallas, records show. Responding Dallas PD officers approached his vehicle. He yelled, “I’m high… I’m high and I have a gun!”
Police arrested him for felony possession of PCP. Brown pleaded guilty and got two years of probation.
Then, about two years ago, Brown obtained a concealed carry license from the state of Florida.
In 2015, he was involved in another car accident in Dallas. This time, when officers approached the vehicle, they observed Brown “holding a loaded magazine in his (right) hand” and “a 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun” in his left hand, according to records.
In that incident, officers smelled what they thought was PCP. They arrested Brown for being under the influence of a narcotic and for unlawful carry of a weapon by a license holder.
Brown went to jail and was released two months ago.
UT stabber Kendrix J. White
“The student killed in Monday’s stabbing attack at the University of Texas at Austin has been identified as freshman Harrison Brown of Graham.”
White was recently arrested for DWI and had taken Zoloft, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). There have been a small number of additional spree killings where the murderer was on a SSRI.
This piece, which suggests Kendrix J. White was an antifa protestor who deliberately stabbed frat boys, seems more speculative than not. And reports saying White stabbed “three whites and one Asian” appear to be wrong (or incomplete), as one black man (who did not appear to be badly hurt) was shown being carted away to an ambulance at the scene.
His Twitter feed doesn’t look like a typical Antifa supporter. Here’s one tweet he forwarded:
Weirdly enough, there were two other, completely unrelated stabbing incidents in west UT campus that same day. Plus a random dead body. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:Austin, Black Panthers, Crime, Dallas, Derick Lamont Brown, Kendrix J. White, murder, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, Sgt. Robert Watson, Texas, University of Texas, Zoloft
Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 1st, 2017
What the hell is going on today? One dead, three wounded in UT stabbing spree.
You can’t even blame the heat, as the last few days a nice cool front has been blowing through…
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Update: Suspect in custody:
Update 2:
Unless this is the first five seconds of the arrest, why haven’t they already disarmed the suspect?
Update 3: The person doing the stabbing was evidently a UT student.
Here’s a Tweet showing one of his victims being tended to.
Update 4: Accused stabber’s name is Kendrex J. White, a 20-year old student.
Tags:Austin, Crime, Kendrex J. White, murder, Texas, University of Texas
Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 1st, 2017
This is biggish news: The University of Texas system is cancelling it’s controversial plans for a huge new campus in Houston:
Chancellor William McRaven said Wednesday he will no longer pursue a project on 300-plus acres in Houston.
“I was not able to develop a shared vision,” McRaven said in a press conference Wednesday. “I wasn’t able to get the stakeholders necessary to move forward.”
McRaven said Wednesday that the system planned a data science institute for the land. The center would focus on energy, health and education data. Aspects of this plan may proceed at the system’s universities around the state.
UT acquired the land for $215 million but, until today, did not disclose what the university planned to build. McRaven recommended to the regents that UT’s real estate office begin work to sell the land.
McRaven faced criticism from Texas lawmakers because he did not apprise them before buying the property. Sen. John Whitmire recently called the property a “dump.”
State Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, said Wednesday that he respected UT’s decision. “I met with UT administration and leadership several times, and questioned the recently appointed regents regarding this purchase at their nomination hearing,” he said in a statement.
With an anticipated tight state budget — the Senate wants to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in higher education funding cuts to higher education — lawmakers have questioned the need for UT’s venture in Houston.
The chancellor acknowledged to state lawmakers in a Feb. 13 letter that much of the Houston land was an abandoned oil field and a few of the acres are polluted by a former polymer facility on the site.
The UT plan to expand into Houston was always controversial, not least because they just announced “Hey, we’re going to buy all this land in Houston and build a big campus” without informing anyone prior to the purchase, or telling them, until quite recently, the intended purpose. The costs of a large expansion and the difficulty of brownfield remediation during a time of budget austerity were secondary issues compared to the number of local toes UT stepped on in the process. The appropriate wheels and palms were not greased prior to the announcement, and local interests (including the University of Houston) were opposed from the get-go.
I’m also pretty sure that UT can find better uses for that $215 million (or however much they manage to reclaim by selling the land).
And if UT really wanted a data science institute, I’m pretty sure you could find land for that in Austin…
Tags:education, Houston, Texas, University of Texas, William McRaven
Posted in Texas | No Comments »
Friday, December 2nd, 2016
Welcome to the last month of the year! (Insert standard “where has the time gone” lament here.)
Enjoy the traditional Friday LinkSwarm:
Kevin D. Williamson brings the wood:
The Democratic party is an odd apparatus in which most of the power is held by sanctimonious little old liberal white ladies with graduate degrees and very high incomes — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Randi Weingarten — while the manpower, the vote-power, and the money-power (often in the form of union dues) comes from a disproportionately young and non-white base made up of people who, if they are doing well, might earn one-tenth of the half-million dollars a year Weingarten was paid as the boss of the teachers’ union. They are more likely to be cutting the grass in front of Elizabeth Warren’s multi-million-dollar mansion than moving into one of their own. They roll their eyes at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s risible “abuela” act, having actual abuelas of their own.
As in the Republican party, the Democrats have a restive base that is more radical than its leadership, more aggressive, and in search of signs of tribal affiliation. The Democratic base is not made up of little old liberal white ladies with seven-, eight-, and nine-figure bank balances, but the party’s leadership is.
Alan Derschowitz is not a fan of Rep. Keith Ellison’s DNC Chairman bid:
What should a political party that has just lost its white working-class, blue-collar base to a “make America great again” nationalist do to try to regain these voters? Why not appoint as the new head of the party a radical left-wing ideologue who has a long history of supporting an anti-American, anti-white, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam racist? Such an appointment will surely bring back rust-belt voters who have lost their jobs to globalization and free trade! Is this really the thinking of those Democratic leaders who are pushing for Keith Ellison to head the Democratic National Committee?
Keith Ellison is, by all accounts, a decent guy, who is well liked by his congressional colleagues. But it is hard to imagine a worse candidate to take over the DNC at this time. Ellison represents the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, just when the party — if it is to win again — must move to the center in order to bring back the voters it lost to Trump. The Democrats didn’t lose because their candidates weren’t left enough. They won the votes of liberals. The radical voters they lost to Jill Stein were small in number and are not likely to be influenced by the appointment of Ellison. The centrist voters they lost to Trump will only be further alienated by the appointment of a left-wing ideologue, who seems to care more about global issues than jobs in Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. Ellison’s selection certainly wouldn’t help among Jewish voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania or pro-Israel Christian voters around the country.
Also, Derschowitz is not buying the “friend of Israel” blather put forth by Ellison defenders:
Ellison’s voting record also does not support his claim that he has become a “friend” of Israel. He was one of only 8 Congressmen who voted against funding the Iron Dome program, developed jointly by the U.S. and Israel, which helps protect Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets. In 2009, Ellison was one of only two dozen Congressmen to vote “present” rather than vote for a non-binding resolution “recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from, reaffirming the United States’ strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” And in 2010, Ellison co‐authored a letter to President Obama, calling on him to pressure Israel into opening the border with Gaza. The letter describes the blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip as “de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents.”
Five Thirty Eight asserts that education levels one of the primary determinants of which counties voted for Trump.
More electorate analysis: “This is a case where the simplest explanation is the correct one: Donald Trump won because he did exceptionally (indeed, historically) well with the white working class, a bloc that until 2016 was resistant north of the Mason-Dixon line to voting Republican en masse.”
Fidel Castro’s murders by the numbers. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Could Marine Le Pen be the leftmost candidate in France’s presidential election?
Your government in action: health inspectors deny the homeless a free BBQ meal.
Rotherham, post-truth and the “alt-right”:
Some on the left in the West see certain ideas and even some easily verifiable truths, as plain dangerous, much like the totalitarian communists of yesteryear. Dangerous to public order. Dangerous to the ‘common good’.
Whilst this section of the left has always existed, it now seems to have become more ‘mainstream’. It seethes and obsesses within carefully-policed ideological echo-chambers. It dominates in universities, trade unions and the public sector. And whereas it was once mainly prevalent in fringe far-left outfits, it has now effectively co-opted the Labour party through its membership and leadership.
Anyone who has ever tried to engage with this section of the left will know that it doesn’t ‘do debate’ with conservatives on issues like immigration, multiculturalism and identity politics. For it, “the debate is settled”. Opposing views are intrinsically wicked. Such ideas are to be ignored. Muted. Blocked. Banned. Disrupted. Drowned out with fog-horns.
It does not feel it needs to win the argument nor does it see any reason to engage in one. Where it can apply ‘No Platform’ or ‘Safe Space’ schemes to stymie debate, it will do so assiduously. Where it can’t, it’s adept at innovating campaigns such as #StopFundingHate to help promote the censorship it craves.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Still more on How Trump got elected:
The privileged worked hard for Trump. Every time they described his people as uneducated white males, implicit dregs, they drove votes to Donald. And they so described the working class unceasingly.
It made him President. Good, bad, or indifferent, it is how he got in.
The privileged denigrated all whites unlike themselves. Then Hillary made her “deplorables” speech, confirming her contempt for half of America–those uneducated, shapeless, dull-witted proles in Flyover Land, obese, farting and belching, swilling Bud, watching NASCAR for god’s sake in awful trailers. And why not not sneer at them? Why did Hillary need their votes? Did not Rachel Maddow love her?
For Trump it was gold, pure gold. If he had written her speech, he could not have come up with a better line to destroy her. It was the purest product of the establishment’s hubris. She did it to herself. Sweet.
It made him President.
Black Lives Matter also did yeoman work for the Donald. As they and snowflake Brown Shirts and excited millennials blocked highways and beat Trump’s supporters and shut down rallies, and vandalized cars, and of course looted, they presumably thought they were working against the Trump Monster. Not a chance. Out there in the uncharted barbarian lands between Manhattan and Hollywood, in dark primeval forests where Cro-Magnons are still a rarity, people were sick of lawlessness, and of an establishment that tolerated it. It produced more votes, perhaps not for Trump or even against Hillary but against the class that she represented.
Immigration. Here Hillary and Obama did great work for Donald. As Obama frantically brought in as many “refugees” as possible from everywhere, anywhere that might not be compatible with the people upon whom he would force them, Hillary promised to import huge numbers of Muslims. It was luminously stupid politics, but politically she was luminously stupid, so it fit.
It is why she is not President.
She knew that the backward peoples of Flyover Land ought to want hundreds of thousands of Somalis and Pakistanis and who-knew-what to live with, and if they didn’t, she would force them and it didn’t matter because she had big donors and everybody in the media loved her.
However incoherent and ignorant Trump was, the Establishment was determined to elect him. Elect him it did.
(Hat tip: Borepatch.)
The end of identity politics? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
You know those sacred medicare funds? Obama has raided them to help take care of illegal aliens.
Germany’s security agency infiltrated by a jihadist. (Hat tip: Ace.)
The pension fund for Dallas policeman and firefighters is teetering on insolvency thanks to risky investments.
Don’t agree with everything in this John Gray essay on the closing of the liberal mind, published right before Trump’s election, but there’s a lot to chew over concerning the post-liberal world order, and especially the Labour Party’s relation to it. “Labour has become unelectable in any foreseeable future.”
Banks in India run out of money thanks to the idiot currency ban:
Many in north India who slept outside banks in freezing conditions woke up in the morning to be told only that no cash had arrived.
“I have been doing the rounds of banks for the past 20 days and have been unable to withdraw my own money,” said Balbir Singh, a junior executive in a private firm in New Delhi. “Even on payday the story was the same: the bank said it simply had no money to disburse, even though I have ample credit in my account.”
Turkish Lira collapses.
Global warming: “Since 1940 the sea level off of northern Washington has dropped about 15 cm. (6 inches).”
How Gary Taubes overcame the severe backlash over his famous expose of how low fat diets fail compared to low carb diets like Atkins.
Chicago’s real estate market expect to rank dead last. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Will Wallace Hall have the last laugh on his UT records request? (Hat tip: Cahman’s Musings.)
Smoking marijuana inhibits blood flow to the brain.
The science of the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Nothing says “class” like wearing an ascot, sipping a glass of wine, and spray-painting “Fuck Trump” on a supermarket wall.
The wit and wisdom of Robert Stacy McCain.
A startling factoid:
Less startling, still interesting:
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
A concise definition of the issue:
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