++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Woolsey was one of the best Directors The CIA ever had, in my humble opinion. So, when he speaks I listen. He has been warning us about the prospect of an EMP attack and what it could do to cripple our ability to survive as a viable nation. He is warning N Korea is developing this capability and the article I am posting explains how it could happen.(See 1 below.)
====
So if you black citizens truly believe liberals care about you and your children ask them why they insist your kids continue going to bad, union controlled, schools?
Like Trump posed: "What have you got to lose? " (See 2 below.)
+++
I recently told my doctor friend Russia was bleeding because of its over-expansionary foreign policy. Now even a Russian has written his own thoughts on the subject. (See 3 below.)
++++++++++++++++
Only in politics does it pay to have enemies as long as they are the right ones.
Trump has mastered maneuvering so he does.
You can be defined by the friends you have but also by your enemies. Fortunately for Trump, he seems to have accumulated all the correct ones , ie. the mass media dolts whose legs tickle, kookie liberals, angry women, the Warren, Sanders,Walter's crowd interspersed with nut cases from Hollywood, racists among the black community and an assortment of anarchists who love destroying property, preventing ideas they do not agree with expressed by speakers they muzzle and anything within view.
The problems Trump also has come from obstinate Republicans who cannot compromise because they remain ideologically hide bound. (See 4 below.)
Bill O'Reilly also has enemies but apparently not the right kind because they brought him down due to his own apparent mis-behaviour.
When I was working I hired, over a 40 year period, at least 7 women. Except for two they were superb, hard working dedicated and a delight . I remain close to three of them to this day.
I am not sure, were I working now, I would hire them again because I hugged them, I joked with them, I treated them like one of the gang, I traveled with them and I daresay they love me to this day but times are different and endearment and affection are no longer PC. You can be ruined because the latitude for one's working relationship has narrowed to a point where it is almost non-existent.
We have become a very up-tight, law suit oriented nation. I am not talking about behaviour that is out of bounds. I am referring to conduct that makes for joyfulness and at no one's expense. My first Secretary, Mary, worked for me for over 20 years, five years beyond when she wanted to retire because I would not let her. She was a saint and her life was dedicated to not only my well being but also that of my family. She died of cancer and I miss her to this day. She was from old stock and Mary's are hard to find but when you do never let them go.
Then my first female sales hire was a young MBA Grad named Judy. She became like another daughter and then there was Lynne and C.G.
I was blessed to live in a different age and I often say I lived during the filet mignon of America. Today seems to be more like Spam! Truly sad.
Some of the cartons I send my current flock of girl friends would assuredly ruin my reputation if I had one left.
Do not get me wrong. I am not excusing O'Reiley, if his behaviour was as alleged but I know of too many instances when accusations are not founded on facts and ruining a reputation based on specious claims provides painful leverage. Do you remember The Duke University matter and what about Scooter Libby?
+++
I just posted my thoughts regarding the decline in education and raucous activities on college campuses in a previous memo when a professor from Arizona helped prove my point. She decided allowing her students to protest Trump instead of taking a final exam would earn them high marks and prepare them for the real world where you have to get along with people and earn a living. (See 5 below.)
====
Dick
Could North Korea Destroy the US?
As both Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have stated, the Clinton-Obama era of “strategic patience” with North Korea is over. The usual suspects in the mainstream media have been warning that Trump is provoking Pyongyang into war on the Korean peninsula. The counter is that the administration isn’t willing to wait till North Korea has the operational capability to nuke an American city like Seattle or Honolulu.
What is not being discussed is a much bigger and more imminent threat that makes action imperative, an existential one for the United States.
The nightmare scenario of an America sent back centuries in time before electricity, refrigeration, and smart phones has grown unnervingly closer with the presence of two North Korean satellites with orbits over a blissfully unaware American populace and an Obama administration that was indifferent to the apocalyptic threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.
On Feb. 7, 2016, North Korea launched a second satellite, the KMS-4, to join their KMS-3 satellite launched in December of 2012. In an article in the Washington Times on April 24, 2016, R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Peter Vincent Fry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security as well as director of the Nuclear Strategy Forum, both congressional advisory boards, warned of the dangers of an apocalyptic EMP attack that these and similar satellites pose:
Both satellites now are in south polar orbits, evading many U.S. missile defense radars and flying over the United States from the south, where our defenses are limited. Both satellites -- if nuclear armed -- could make an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that could blackout the U.S. electric grid for months or years, thereby killing millions.
Technologically, such an EMP attack is easy -- since the weapon detonates at high-altitude, in space, no shock absorbers, heat shield, or vehicle for atmospheric re-entry is necessary. Since the radius of the EMP is enormous, thousands of kilometers, accuracy matters little. Almost any nuclear weapon will do.
Moreover, North Korea probably has nuclear weapons specially designed, not to make a big explosion, but to emit lots of gamma rays to generate high-frequency EMP. Senior Russian generals warned EMP Commissioners in 2004 that their EMP nuclear warhead design leaked “accidentally” to North Korea, and unemployed Russian scientists found work in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Woolsey and Pry, along with former Reagan science adviser William R. Graham, chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission, Ambassador Henry Cooper, director of the Strategic Defense Initiative and chief negotiator at the Defense and Space Talks with the USSR; and Fritz Ermarth, chairman of the National Intelligence Council; warned of the North Korean EMP threat an article in the February 12, 2016, issue of National Review:
Naïve reliance on their transparent disavowals could end up costing millions of American lives.
North Korea launched its second satellite on Saturday, yet the national press continues to ignore this existential threat. The White House has not recognized that a nuclear-armed North Korea has demonstrated an ability to kill most Americans with an electromagnetic-pulse (EMP) attack. And White House spokesmen and the media have misled the public with unjustified assurances that North Korea has not yet miniaturized nuclear warheads for missile or satellite delivery.
We, who have spent our professional lifetimes analyzing and defending against nuclear-missile threats, warned years ago that North Korea’s Unha-3 space launch vehicle could carry a small nuclear warhead and detonate it a hundred or so miles over the United States to create an EMP, leading to a protracted nationwide blackout. The resulting societal chaos could kill millions.
The image of an America gone dark, an America suddenly transported from an era of iPads to an era of horse and buggy travel, recently depicted in the NBC series “Revolution” is not science fiction but a very real possibility. As Investor’s Business Daily described the threat in an aptly titled April 2013 editorial, “How North Korea Could Destroy The United States”:
The three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also orbited a “package,” which experts say could be a test to orbit a nuclear weapon that then would be de-orbited on command anywhere over the U.S. and
exploded at a high altitude, releasing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). That would fry electronic circuitry and the nation’s power grid.This concern recently has been reinforced by a little-publicized study released in May 2011, titled “In the Dark: Military Planning for a Catastrophic Critical Infrastructure Event,” by the U.S. Army War College that said a nuclear detonation at altitude above a U.S. city could wipe out the electrical grid for hundreds, possibly thousands, of miles around.
The satellite launched by Pyongyang coincided with a third round of nuclear tests described as a “nuclear test of a higher level,” most likely referring to a device made from highly enriched uranium, which is easier to miniaturize than the plutonium bombs North Korea tested in 2006 and 2009, said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea.
Such an EMP device would not have to be particularly high yield. It would not be designed to create a big explosion, but to convert its energy into gamma rays, that generate the EMP effect.
Any nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will generate an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy electronics and could collapse the electric power grid and other critical infrastructures -- communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water -- that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 300 million Americans...
Nobody is harmed or killed immediately by the blast. But life in the U.S., the world’s only superpower and the world’s largest economy, would come to a screeching halt as a country dependent on cutting-edge 21st century technology regresses in time almost a century instantaneously.
North Korea has also been working on a submarine launched ballistic missile, which would put the continental U.S. with striking distance. While North Korean submarines are not yet as sophisticated as our ballistic missile submarine fleet, it would only take a sub modified to launch a single missile, or even one launched from a disguised container cargo ship off our West Coast, to pose an apocalyptic threat.
As Woolsey and Pry note in the March 29 edition of The Hill, the threat of North Korean sending the U.S. back to the Stone Age is real and imminent:
The mainstream media, and some officials who should know better, continue to allege North Korea does not yet have capability to deliver on its repeated threats to strike the U.S. with nuclear weapons. False reassurance is given to the American people that North Korea has not “demonstrated” that it can miniaturize a nuclear warhead small enough for missile delivery, or build a reentry vehicle for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of penetrating the atmosphere to blast a U.S. city.
Yet any nation that has built nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, as North Korea has done, can easily overcome the relatively much simpler technological challenge of warhead miniaturization and reentry vehicle design….
…on October 7, 2015, (Admiral William) Gortney again warned the Atlantic Council: "I agree with the intelligence community that we assess that they [North Koreans] have the ability, they have the weapons, and they have the ability to miniaturize those weapons, and they have the ability to put them on a rocket that can range the [U.S.] homeland."
In February and March of 2015, former senior national security officials of the Reagan and Clinton administrations warned that North Korea should be regarded as capable of delivering by satellite a small nuclear warhead, specially designed to make a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the United States. According to the Congressional EMP Commission, a single warhead delivered by North Korean satellite could blackout the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for over a year -- killing 9 of 10 Americans by starvation and societal collapse.
Deploying THAAD missile defense system in South Korea and and the GMD system in Alaska, developed under Republican administrations, is a start, but more force or other moves might be necessary. Fortunately, unlike President Obama, President Trump is unwilling to keep whistling past our own graveyard.
Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
++++++++++++
2) Go to Bad Schools, Go to Prison: The Teacher Union's Dirty Little Secret
For those of us old enough to remember its beginnings, the United Negro College Fund’s iconic “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” campaign is still haunting. It began in 1972 with images of black students shut out of college classrooms, and ended with an almost undeniable appeal: donate to UNCF so that black kids can get an education.
But 45 years later, we’re still wasting minds. Many are black, but almost just as many are brown. In any poor California community, kids trapped in teachers-union-dominated classrooms are the least likely Californians to read or perform basic math at grade level. They are also the least likely to graduate from high school, much less go on to college. And now we have learned that beyond “terrible,” a mind is undeniably a dangerous thing to waste.
Though derided by the teachers’ unions as an urban myth, experts in education and corrections have observed a correlation between reading proficiency in the third grade and incarceration. They do not yet use this data to project the number of additional prison beds that will be needed, but some in the field think they should. California and New York reportedly once used fourth-grade reading scores but abandoned the practice. They should rethink that decision.
America has the largest prison population in the world (more than 2 million) and the second highest per capita incarceration rate. Although the average rate is 698 per 100,000, there are enormous differences between various subgroups.
The rate is 459 per 100,000 for White men, but that number rises to 3,074 for Blacks and 1,258 for Latinos. These differences mirror the striking disparities in academic achievement and NAEP test scores between the groups.
The failure to achieve reading proficiency by age 8 or 9 is a warning sign, a marker. Third grade is viewed as a pivotal point. Before third grade, students learn to read. After third grade, they read to learn. Reading proficiency is therefore a critical skill. The correlation between reading proficiency by the third grade and school dropout has been proven repeatedly in academic studies.
A study released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that there is a six- to eight-fold increase in the high school dropout rate among students who fail to achieve proficiency by the third grade. Recent large studies have compared dropout rates and incarceration.
Robert Balfanz at Johns Hopkins University found that 80-90% of students who do not achieve literacy in the third grade fail to graduate high school on time and face a fourfold risk of jail or prison.
Another study by Dr. Andrew Sum at Northeastern University reported by the New York Times noted a 63% higher rate of incarceration among school dropouts. One in 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or a juvenile detention facility compared to 1 in 35 young males high school graduates.
Not unsurprisingly, seventy per cent of the nation’s prison population (males and females) lack a diploma. Sadly, the importance of literacy at such a comparatively young age has not yet been widely recognized by educators, the media, or the public.
Reading scores are difficult to improve. Students learn math in school. Language skills are acquired at home. Children who grow up with parents who lack reading proficiency themselves and who provide limited reading material for them start out at a significant disadvantage. It is a handicap that is difficult overcome. Unfortunately, most of them do not.
The importance of achieving proficiency by the third grade and the costs of the failure to do so is finally catching the attention of state officials. The National Governors Association has released a report urging governors to take five policy actions to improve reading by the third grade.
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have strict retention policies on third grade reading. Florida was the first to mandate that students who fail to meet reading benchmarks are to be held back.
Mississippi, Ohio, Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, and Nebraska also imposed benchmarks. Utah requires public schools to improve the percentage of third graders reading at grade level or lose state funds.
Given the progressive decline in NAEP scores, more states are planning to do the same. Although it ranks 49th in NAEP scores, California remains obsessed with increasing taxes to pay for state employee pensions and high-speed train to nowhere and has yet to mandate that its youngest citizens achieve basic reading skills.
Nationwide, 32% of fourth graders were proficient in reading, based on 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores. 25% of the California’s fourth graders achieved proficiency. Only 15% of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District were proficient (literate). Eighth graders performed just as poorly.
Orange County has many failing schools, particularly those in Anaheim and the primarily Spanish-speaking city of Santa Ana. When Anaheim's school district failed to reform its curriculum and teaching methods in order to improve student performance in reading and math, parents at Palm Lane School invoked the Parent Trigger Law. The law enables parents to request that a chronically failing institution be turned into a charter school.
The union-backed Anaheim Elementary School District responded by filing a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court. Legal fees for the action cost taxpayers $700,000. The parents were represented pro bono by Kirkland and Ellis. The court ruled in favor of the parents, finding that the district had failed to abide by the law when it reviewed the parents’ petitions, and ordered the district to turn Palm Lane into a charter school.
The union-backed school district kept the school as it was, still failing, while it filed an appeal. Legal costs now exceed one million dollars. It has been more than three years since the parents filed the required signatures. While their case has languished in the courts, the parents have been watching their children leave home each day to attend a chronically failing school
How many Palm Lane third-graders will end up in prison? Does the union even care? The facts at Palm Lane and the other chronically failing schools, which the teachers’ union does nothing to fix, represent a scandalous failure of public education
It is imperative that every avenue to improve the public education be pursued, from overhauling existing union policies regarding training and tenure of teachers to promoting vouchers, charter schools, Education Saving Accounts, home schooling and online courses as well as developing innovative new teaching strategies.
Res ipsa loquitur. The data speak for themselves. A mind is a dangerous thing to waste. A very dangerous thing to waste
R. Claire Friend, MD recently retired after 35 years in the private practice of psychiatry. She is the former editor of two professional publications and the current editor of the UCI Department of Psychiatry and human Behavior Quarterly Psychiatric Journal with an appointment on the volunteer faculty as an Assistant Professor.
+++++++
3)Russia In Syria: All Pain And No Gain
An article by the leader of the liberal Russian party Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, titled "Russia's Deadlock in Syria" was posted on his party's website on April 13, 2017.[1] In his article, written in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun and the American retaliatory strike on the Shayrat base, Yavlinksy flayed Putin's policy in Syria. He claimed that Assad was a loose cannon who controlled Russia more than Russia controlled him despite Russia's costly investment in the Syrian regime. Furthermore, Russia's policy had left it without reliable allies in the region, while alienating the Trump administration in which Russia had placed such high hopes.
Russia, argued Yavlinsky, had pressing needs at home and could not financially sustain a quagmire in Syria, while simultaneously overextending itself in Ukraine, Libya, and conducting an arms race with the Americans. In sum, the military involvement in Syria would soon resemble the tragedy of the Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan and if Russia sought to avoid a recurrence of that nightmare it had to withdraw immediately from Syria. We republish Yavlinsky's article below:
Grigory Yavlinsky (Source:Moscowtimes.com)
Assad Is Calling The Shots Not Russia
"How can it be still unclear to someone that Syria is a trap for Russia? Russia was led into the Syrian trap by the stupidity of Russian foreign policy, its short-sightedness and adventurousness. Any further steps targeted at escalation of Russia’s military actions in Syria only aggravate our situation. The suspension of the memorandum envisaging the mechanisms to avoid incidents between the United States and Russia in Syria means that any stupidity or accident can now lead to a direct clash.
"Contrary to common sense, Russia has been struggling to protect Bashar al-Assad. Putin sympathizes with the Assad regime, and our country, having started the war on his side and sending its military to Syria, has become a hostage to this regime. A big political stake was put on the Syrian president and preservation of his power. However, in reality, Russia does not control Assad, either politically or militarily. And it is not Russia which determines the strategy and tactics of military operations and political maneuvers in Syria (in particular, in the inter-Syrian negotiations).
"It is also impossible to rely on Assad. Moreover, the Syrian president does not fully control the situation even in the territories under his control, not to mention the zones of military operations. Nevertheless, the Russian leadership has turned Assad into a symbol of its foreign policy and now cannot give up [supporting] him, even when his crimes drag Russia behind him into a shameful pit. It turned out that Russia fails to effectively protect Assad from Americans either. It has become obvious after yesterday’s destruction by the Americans of the base of the Syrian air force. The US attack showed that, if necessary, they would do whatever they want.
"The Russian partnership with Turkey is not merely fragile; it is a part of the trap.
Bottom Line: No True Regional Allies
"Moreover, Russia’s policy has also led to dependence on the decisions of the extremely inconsistent and unstable Turkish regime. All the plans for a joint action, all the "bridges" with the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan collapse, as we can see, in an instant and unilaterally. Turkey actively supports the US and opposes Assad and Russia in the present Syrian crisis.
"Iran has been naturally pursuing its own interests and has also achieved its goal: it firmly tied Russia to itself, embroiled Russia with other interested parties and made Russia its tool. By the way, it cannot be completely ruled out that it was Iran that somehow provoked the use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhun.
"Israel, which traditionally strives for good relations with Russia, has sharply condemned the use of chemical weapons, showing no doubt who did it, and supported the American strike against Syria. This was to be expected. Israel is very concerned that new weapons have got into Hizbullah’s hands and that Sh'iite militants have had good training under the guidance of Russian instructors. In addition, after the Israeli air raids on Syrian targets and summoning of the Israeli Ambassador to the Russian Foreign Ministry, it became clear that a crisis had emerged in the relations between the two countries. But it is much more difficult for the Russian aviation to operate in the region without the neutrality of Israel.
Jordan and Saudi Arabia have certainly also supported the actions of the United States.
"So Russia does not have allies in the region."
Russia Has Alienated The Americans, Who Do The Heavy Lifting Against ISIS
"In such a situation under the present "chemical" crisis, Russian politicians and diplomats have, as usually, continued to confront the whole world, stubbornly defending the military dictatorial regime of the Syrian president. Delaying the UN investigation into the bombing with the possible use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhun, Russia has virtually proposed to play the fool – proceed, so to speak, from the presumption of uncertainty, as if saying "something happened, let’s start from a clean sheet finding out what happened and who was to blame".
"And then the US missile strike followed. Donald Trump in response to the chemical attack and without much thought, made a strike at Assad’s troops, however, technically warning (literally the day before) China, Israel, Turkey and Russia. The Americans justify the blow by the fact that, given the position Russia has taken at the UN, there was nothing left for them to do.
"The Trump whom so many Russian political commentators were waiting for – the one who would not think twice, resolutely correct the consequences of Obama’s 'indecisiveness' and turn on a dime the previous US policies – showed his worth in the missile attack on Syria. However, the first and so far the only decisive reversal [of policies] not in words but in deed, hurt the interests of the very one who seemed to have been supporting him.
"Furthermore, Syria presents for the United States only one of the elements of their Middle East policy, which, in turn, is only a part, and not a key part, of their global policy. The decision to strike with Tomahawks on the Syrian air force base, which overshadowed all other world events, was in fact taken 'on the sidelines' of Xi Jinping’s visit to Donald Trump. We can assume that one of the motives that guided the US president was the desire to demonstrate his 'toughness' to the Chinese leader.
"The vanity of hopes that Trump would pull Russia out of its international isolation and sanctions was clear from the very beginning. But an American blow at the government airbase in Syria is the end of the "Trump-Is-Ours" game. At the same time, it is clear that heating up of the conflict up to a "hot" war with the US is absolutely unacceptable for our country.
"Protection of the Bashar al-Assad regime did not result in any foreign policy dividends for Russia. On the contrary, he and his crimes only more discredit Russia in the international arena. According to the UN, 300,000 people were killed (according to observers, 465,000 people), 2 million were injured and millions left the country during the war in Syria. Over 4.5 million people live in constant mortal danger.
"Has Russia defeated the Islamic State? Experts, even those from the Russian 'hawks', admit that Russia has not seriously engaged in the defeat of the ISIS, and the United States play a decisive role in the fight against terrorists. However, Russian media criticize more the actions of the anti-ISlS coalition than condemn the ISIS. The report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on this topic (about 204 killed warlords and liquidation of 35,000 militants) causes perplexity and questions, rather than indicate some achievements.
"The resentment of Russia by Sunnis, the followers of the main and most numerous trend in Islam which Russia helps Assad to fight against, was further strengthened after Russia’s actual blanching over of the recent chemical attack. Moreover that Russia, having been a guarantor of the non-use and liquidation of chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, is responsible for the use of prohibited weapons by Assad. The number of Sunnis in the world is over 1.5 billion people, about 90 per cent of all Muslims.
"Participation in the internal confrontation of Sunnis and Shi'ites is a direct threat to the security of Russian citizens. Therefore, one cannot justify interference into the Syrian war by the need to ensure the safety of Russians. The effect is the opposite. The attack in St. Petersburg on the day of Vladimir Putin’s presence there is a message of this kind.
Protecting Assad Or Treating Russian Cancer Patients
"And that is all for our money, so to say. According to the most conservative estimates, Russia spent at least 87 billion rubles to protect Assad during the 18 months of the war. This is approximately the same amount as was allocated to the housing and utilities sector from the federal budget in 2016. This money could suffice to build 400 kindergartens for 200 children each, or pay for a course of treatment to 320,000 cancer patients, or cover five years of study in Moscow universities for 60,400 children, or build 120 fitness centers.
"Further [Russia’s] participation in the war in Syria and a growing expenditure of [Russia’s] domestic resources is a fundamental undermining of our vital forces. What is Russia doing there? What do we need there and what can we offer? Absolutely nothing, as shown by the developments.
"Russia has got into this quagmire of an endless Middle Eastern religious war, and now our enemies only need only one thing: so that we are completely bogged down there, continuing to spend all possible and impossible resources. That is a trap."
Get Out Now
"There is only one solution: to stop Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war and withdraw immediately. However, given the psychology of the present authorities in the Kremlin and the history of Russia’s presence in Syria, it is especially difficult to do this now. The assault of Americans on Assad is perceived as a challenge.
"Nevertheless, Russia’s national interests should be higher. Russia has to act right now. Because tomorrow the conditions for a withdrawal from the Syrian trap can become even worse, and it is still necessary to get out of there. Yet Russia does not sacrifice anything, except its ambitions withdrawing from Syria. Further participation in the Syrian war on the side of brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad, who probably does not disdain of chemical weapons, as well as adventurism with bloody consequences in Ukraine, is morally unacceptable and represents an absolute political dead-end.
"In addition, it is necessary to state with all certainty that neither the country’s economy nor its military resources allow to pursue a policy that includes:
– "The war in Syria;
– "The war in Ukraine;
– "Presence in Libya;
– "An accelerated arms race (and at the same time the prospects of a military clash with the US at any moment).
"The country cannot withstand such a garrote even in the medium-term. Russia must stop all these military adventures, because its internal resources do not correspond to the foreign policy and personal ambitions of its leadership.
Otherwise, we will remain trapped, find ourselves in a deadlock from where it will be increasingly difficult to get out. After all, there are real forces interested in Russia getting bogged down in this conflict even deeper, getting exhausted in the absence of the necessary internal resources. And then the trap will slam shut. It was like this when the USSR was dragged into Afghanistan. Then the Americans took revenge for their defeat in Vietnam. Soon after Afghanistan, the country collapsed. History is merciless, it does not tolerate losers.
"We need a powerful political will and at least a simple common sense, if not wisdom so that to admit mistakes and stop Russian participation in wars and adventures that we cannot afford in any way. There are no alternatives to this."
[1] Yabloko.ru, April 13, 2017.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
4) Trump Has All the Right Enemies
With President Trump’s 100th day in office coming at the end of the month, media have already begun the timeless—and meaningless—process of dissecting how he is doing.
One hundred is an arbitrary deadline, born of our society’s enduring fascination with round numbers. Nonetheless, we persist in asking presidential candidates what their first 100 days would be like and then judging the winner at the same mark.
Our system of government gives the president enormous power to make things happen in his first 100 days (or in any 100-day period, for that matter). However, the chief executive’s ability to move swiftly runs smack into the big white glacier at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where Congress is better judged in yearly increments.
Signing bills into law requires two branches of government; therefore, it isn’t exactly fair to blame the Trump administration for a Republican-controlled Congress divided against itself. Though Trump lacks a signature legislative accomplishment in his first 100 days—a la Bush 43’s tax cut and Obama’s stimulus—it is not for lack of trying (see: Obamacare repeal).
While not as sexy as repealing Obamacare, Trump has signed several meaningful pieces of legislation that thrilled different parts of his political base – a pro-life bill allowing states to strip money from Planned Parenthood; a bill repealing Obama-era anti-coal regulations; and a bill scrapping anti-gun rules signed by Obama.
These were core promises to conservative Republicans kept by President Trump. And along the way, he nominated, and saw confirmed, Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. You could do worse in a 100-day period. Heck, Trump has signed more than double the number of bills Obama did in the same period back in 2009.
But Trump has truly made his mark on foreign policy. He has forcefully reasserted American leadership on the world stage after an eight-year vacuum. He fulfilled a campaign pledge to “bomb the hell out of ISIS,” killing at least 94 of them using the “mother of all bombs.” He put Syria’s genocidal dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on notice by Tomahawking a military airport after Assad viciously gassed his own people, including women and children. And Trump has dealt with the lunatic despot Kim Jong-un by sending Vice President Mike Pence to the Korean Peninsula and possibly “cyber-terminating” a North Korean missile test.
In the face of success on the international stage and some policy wins at home, the mainstream media is desperate to undermine a successful 100-day narrative for Trump. The press has settled on two storylines – flip-flops and White House staff infighting.
It is true that some of President Trump’s decisions stand in contrast to statements he made during the campaign. But those who deride his “flip-flops” should remember that governing and campaigning are two different things and that Trump gets more policy latitude from voters because he has never held office before.
Though campaigns focus on the promises of candidates, presidencies are more about reacting to circumstances than enacting plans in a static policy environment. Things change all the time, and a chief executive must be prepared to deal. Would we really want a president incapable of reacting to a rapidly changing world?
But in an attempt to split Trump from his political base, the press will continue to create stories about how his flip-flops are costing him his most fervent supporters. And while you can always find a crank or two to quote in any article, the truth is that Trump’s base is as solid today as it was on Election Day.
Why? Because Donald Trump continues to have all the right enemies, and no flip-flops or stories of White House infighting are going to change that.
Trump’s base supporters are too busy living their lives to obsess over the outrage of the minute in Washington, D.C. They don’t follow 50 Beltway reporters on Twitter, hanging on their every snarky comment. They aren’t particularly concerned with which Trump advisers are up or down in the morning political tip sheets.
But they do follow politics closely enough to know that the press still hates Trump, as do the liberal political elites. As far as the average Trump supporter in middle America is concerned, Trump must be doing just fine.
And to make matters better for Trump, his political opposition, the hapless Democrat Party, has taken its participation-ribbon view of society to laughable lengths, celebrating the loss in a recent Kansas special election like it had won the lottery. Democrats continuously relitigate the sideshow issue of Trump’s tax returns (newsflash: This was settled by the Electoral College). And today’s battle whine? Mitch McConnell was mean to Elizabeth Warren in the hallway!
The policy news flying out Washington is head-spinning, but Trump’s political enemies are the same old collection of media properties and out-of-touch liberals. That tells Trump’s core supporters all they need to know – that the antiestablishment president they sent to Washington is doing exactly what they asked him to do. In the first 100 days, Trump has turned Washington upside down, pissing off all the right people along the way.
Scott Jennings has advised President George W. Bush and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations and can be reached at scott@runswitchpr.com or on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.
+++++++++++++++++++++
5) Professor Lets Students Hold Anti-Trump Rally for Final Exam
There are so many stories describing the decline of American education, but every now and then, one encapsulates it all.
Angeles Maldonado, a professor at Arizona State University, has given her "Global Politics of Human Rights" students an alternative to taking the final exam:
A group of students at Arizona State University's Tempe campus decided to protest Thursday instead of taking a final exam in their human-rights class, a decision endorsed by their instructor.In fact, Angeles Maldonado, a professor at ASU, offered her Global Politics of Human Rights class an option: Take a test or create a group project.
They opted for the project. The group of about 20 students then decided the best plan would be to protest in front of Hayden Lawn by ASU’s library.“The class decided that as a group project they wanted to make their voices heard about the issues that are affecting them today, so instead of just reading about the human-rights violations, they’d speak out about the current violations that are happening,” said Maldonado, who felt it was her duty as a professor to support their decision.
No, her duty was to make sure the students had learned the material.
These kids didn't want to "make their voices heard." Considering this lightweight course, they probably had plenty of free time to go protest if so inclined. But given these options, of course they chose the easier one. Make a sign in ten minutes, stand and yell for a bit to improve your GPA? Done.
Maldonado isn't concerned with creating prepared adults. She doesn't care about her students' self-sufficiency skills. She's recruiting pawns for political activism.
That right there is the biggest problem with college today, the reason why more and more parents are considering alternatives to the traditional universities. They don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an activity that can be done on one's own time for free
This event encapsulates all that is wrong with academia today. It's time for a reclamation of the university.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment