This from a a wise friend and fellow memo reader.
"Dick,
Having observed American politics up close and personal for over 80 years now, I’m still amazed that we chose the eagle as our national bird instead of the turkey, a far more representative fowl of the way we do the people’s business.
E-"
I responded: "because hope springs eternal."
And
From a friend and fellow memo reader: "Is there a striking similarity between the sex accusations Herman Caine had once he was leading the Rep party nomination ? This is right out of Obama’s playbook. He did the same thing in his run for the IL Senate & his US Senate race.....both of his opponents were threatened with exposing affairs. The allegations may be true, but when they all pile on just before a vote, you have to think Dem dirty tricks. J---"
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I suspect Trump's approval rating will move higher after his Asian trip. Time will tell.It is still a long way to Nov. 2018, but I believe Trump's coat tails will grow and Democrats, who have followed Schumer and Pelosi's grandstanding and calls for resisting anything Trump does , says or proposes, as well as their obedient servants in the mass media, will be forced to cope with a slef-induced backlash.
If Republicans remain like deer caught in headlights, continue to fight among themselves and undercut their elected president,all bets are off.. They could drop the ball again because they have a history of doing so. Republicans seem to prefer losing and being independent to winning and acting like adults. Stay tuned.
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The word liberal is defined by Webster as follows: "Having, expressing or following social or political views, or policies that favor non-revolutionary progress and reform."
Hypocrite is a person given to hypocrisy. according to Webster
Hypocrisy is defined by Webster as follows: "The feigning of beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possesses; insincerity
Today, acquiring a liberal education on a college campus subjects one to the ultimate display of hypocrisy and revolutionary behaviour
Liberals talk a good game but they seldom walk or take the route they prescribe for others.
There is no greater evidence of how liberalism, progressivism is destroying our nation's culture, freedom and character than the statistics cited in this article.
The professors and tutors are due criticism but at least they do not hide from their open effort to inculcate student's minds with their bilge in order to corrupt/stem independent thinking.
That said, I hold college administrators guilty of the worst sin - feckless behaviour, timidity in the face of student actions and protests. It is as if the wolves have been allowed to run the hen house.
College positions bring with them a degree of cushy-ness and tranquility; a "Mr. Chips" atmosphere and lifestyle. Why resist outrageous demands, on the part of youthful ignorance, for free speech and adherence to our constitutional rights which colleges and universities seem no longer to teach nor care about?
I am glad I am not in college. I am sure were I, I would be hauled before a kangaroo court whose principles embraced the latest PC fashion and I would be summarily sent to some stupid lecture on the right and wrongs according to fascists. And, all of this opportunity for the princely sum of $60,000/year. For sure, I would receive F's for my writing, thinking and expressions.
I have a dear friend and sometime memo reader who is hired by corporations to teach their work force how to cope with diversity, how to behave and conduct oneself when dealing/working with those of color and/or different nationalities etc..
He absolutely hates Trump and loves Obama. He truly believes America would be better off if Trump were dead. I truly love the guy and consider him a close friend. I also believe he has a chip on his shoulder that dictates/colors his thinking.
He has worked for some of the nation's premier companies and learned a great deal about corporate life from the inside. His job experiences helped form the basis of his two books, which I have read, found them interesting and bought many copies to give to friends and family. However, I never sat in on any of his work related messaging/classes
My friend is intelligent, has been successful but, lamentably, in my opinion, is flawed and underneath his playful elegance resides a cauldron of resentfulness which, at times, makes him irrational.
I love playing tennis with him and he loves beating me but we shall see when we meet for our next match. (See 1 below.)
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Are things really looking up for Israel? (See 2 below.)
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Finally, it has taken women, or those who profess to possess female physical characteristics, a long time to gain power over their opposites but now that they have and can dredge up past abuses they have endured, they are now in a position to rule the world.
I am delighted we are finally there because those of my species have made a mess of everything.
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Dick
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1)
Higher Education’s Deeper Sickness
Political imbalance causes intellectual degradation. Riots against free speech are only a symptom.
By John M. Ellis
The sheer public spectacle of near-riots has forced some college administrators to take a stand for free expression and provide massive police protection when controversial speakers like Ben Shapiro come to campus. But when Mr. Shapiro leaves, the conditions that necessitated those extraordinary measures are still there. Administrators will keep having to choose between censoring moderate-to-conservative speakers, exposing their students to the threat of violence, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on every speaker. It’s an expensive treatment that provides only momentary relief from a symptom.
What then is the disease? We are now close to the end of a half-century process by which the campuses have been emptied of centrist and right-of-center voices. Many scholars have studied the political allegiances of the faculty during this time. There have been some differences of opinion about methodology, but the main outline is not in doubt. In 1969 the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education found that there were overall about twice as many left-of-center as right-of-center faculty. Various studies document the rise of that ratio to 5 to 1 at the century’s end, and to 8 to 1 a decade later, until in 2016 Mitchell Langbert, Dan Klein, and Tony Quain find it in the region of 10 to 1 and still rising.
Even these figures understate the matter. The overall campus figures include professional schools and science, technology, business and mathematics departments. In most humanities and social-science departments—especially those central to a liberal education, such as history, English and political science—the share of left-of-center faculty already approaches 100%.
The imbalance is not only a question of numbers. Well-balanced opposing views act as a corrective for each other: The weaker arguments of one side are pounced on and picked off by the other. Both remain consequently healthier and more intellectually viable. But intellectual dominance promotes stupidity. As one side becomes numerically stronger, its discipline weakens. The greater the imbalance between the two sides, the more incoherent and irrational the majority will become.
What we are now seeing on the campuses illustrates this general principle perfectly. The nearly complete exclusion of one side has led to complete irrationality on the other. With almost no intellectual opponents remaining, campus radicals have lost the ability to engage with arguments and resort instead to the lazy alternative of name-calling: Opponents are all “fascists,” “racists” or “white supremacists.”
In a state of balance between the two sides, leadership flows naturally to those better able to make the case for their side against the other. That takes knowledge and skill. But when one side has the field to itself, leadership flows instead to those who make the most uncompromising and therefore intellectually least defensible case, one that rouses followers to enthusiasm but can’t stand up to scrutiny. Extremism and demagoguery win out. Physical violence is the endpoint of this intellectual decay—the stage at which academic thought and indeed higher education have ceased to exist.
That is the condition that remains after Mr. Shapiro and the legions of police have left campus: More than half of the spectrum of political and social ideas has been banished from the classrooms, and what remains has degenerated as a result. The treatment of visiting speakers calls attention to that condition but is not itself the problem. No matter how much money is spent on security, no matter how many statements supporting free speech are released, the underlying disease continues to metastasize.
During the long period in which the campus radical left was cleansing the campuses of opposition, it insisted that wasn’t what it was doing. Those denials have suddenly been reversed. The exclusion of any last trace of contrary opinion is not only acknowledged but affirmed. Students and faculty even demand “safe spaces” where there is no danger that they will be exposed to any contrary beliefs.
It is important to understand why the radical left cleared the campuses of opposing voices. It was not to advance higher education, for that must involve learning to evaluate competing ideas, to analyze the pros and cons of rival arguments and concepts. Shutting down all but one viewpoint is done to achieve the opposite: to pre-empt analysis and understanding. Only in the absence of competing ideas can the radical sect that now controls so much of the campuses hope to thrive and increase its numbers, because it can’t survive open debate and analysis, and its adherents know it.
Given that treating only symptoms is ultimately pointless, is there any cure for the disease? The radical left won’t voluntarily give up the stranglehold on higher education that it has worked unrelentingly to gain. But that can’t be the end of the matter: The public pays huge sums, both through tuition and taxation, to educate young people, and except in STEM subjects most of that money is being wasted. Those who pay the bills have the power to stop this abuse of higher education if they organize themselves effectively.
Colleges need to be accredited; state universities answer to governing boards. Accrediting agencies and governing boards are created through a political process. What if voters were to insist that those agencies demand answers to some elementary questions? For example: How can a department of political science that excludes half the spectrum of viable political ideas be competent to offer degrees in the field? How can a history curriculum be taught competently when only one extremist attitude to social and political questions is present in a department? How can a campus humanities faculty with the same limitation teach competently? How can these extraordinary deficiencies deserve either accreditation, or support by state and federal funds?
The campus radical monopoly on political ideas amounts to the shutting down of liberal higher education as we have known it. That, not the increasingly frequent violent flare-ups, is the real crisis.
Mr. Ellis is a professor emeritus of German literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and chairman of the California Association of Scholars.
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2) Netanyahu: Israel Seeing Diplomatic Renaissance - Itamar Eichner
2) Netanyahu: Israel Seeing Diplomatic Renaissance - Itamar Eichner
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Monday that Israel was experiencing "a diplomatic renaissance." "This morning I was visited in my office by a special emissary from my friend, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was reelected. The emissary delivered an invitation to visit Japan, if possible by the end of the year. He also informed me that over the past three years, Japanese investments in Israel have grown 20 times over."
"Yesterday I received a warm letter from another friend, U.S. President Donald Trump, thanking me for the support we've given to the U.S. stance against the Iran nuclear deal....- A week ago, I got another letter, a warm letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who praised the relationship building between China and Israel."
"Two weeks earlier, I had a conversation with another friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin, on a matter of importance to Israeli security. In a few weeks,- I'll be heading to India at the invitation of a friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi....
- This weekend, I spoke on the phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi....
- Countries are lining up to strengthen ties with us. This is happening every day." (Ynet News)
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