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JUNE 23,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

PROGRESS? – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:    Nix the nuclear warheads, cue the doves.  The North Korean government is erasing much of its anti-U.S. propaganda following dictator Kim Jong-un’s forays onto the world stage.  Gone are the posters depicting the U.S. as a “rotten, diseased, pirate nation” and promising “merciless revenge” on American forces for an imagined attack on the totalitarian country.  In their place are cheery messages touting praising the prospects for Korean reunification and the declaration Kim signed in April with South Korean President Moon Jae-in promising “lasting peace,” according to reports.  Still the most isolated country in the world, very few North Koreans have access to news and information from the outside world. So state propaganda plays a huge role in shaping their views.  We'll see. This is the easy part.  Next come the negotiations over denuclearization.  If they go well, great.  If they don't, according to the Trump White House, no deal

WHAT A PHONY – FROM FOX:  A vocal critic of President Donald Trump's immigration policies is a top recipient of campaign donations from operators of privately run prisons, according to a report.
The 2016 re-election campaign of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., received a total of $7,500 from private prison operators, the Seattle Times reported, citing Federal Election Commission filings and data from OpenSecrets.org, a campaign-finance transparency organization.  The sum includes $5,000 from the Florida-based political-action committee for the GEO Group, the nation’s largest private-prison firm, the data show.
GEO Group operates the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Wash., which has faced protests and lawsuits alleging mistreatment of detainees facing deportation, the Times reported.  Aside from the GEO Group, Murray also received a $2,500 donation from the PAC for Management and Training Corp., a Utah company that runs facilities housing immigrant detainees, according to the Times.  She's one of the bigger frauds in the Senate.  This does not surprise me.  But the level of hypocrisy in the Democratic Party is staggering.

EVEN MR. ROGERS ISN'T SACRED – FROM THE HILL:  Protesters confronted Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) on Saturday as she left a movie screening of the new documentary about Mr. Rogers, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"  A video posted to Twitter shows Bondi being escorted out of the building by police officers as protesters chant slogans and demand Bondi support health care provisions from the Affordable Care Act.  "What would Mr. Rogers think about you and your legacy in Florida? Taking away health insurance from people with pre-existing conditions, Pam Bondi!" yelled Maria José Chapa, a labor organizer, according to the Tampa Bay Times. "Shame on you!"  What would Mr. Rogers think of the rudeness of the demonstrators?  Not much, I think.

June 23, 2018       Permalink

THE STANDARDS OF JOURNALISM – AT 2:06 P.M. ET:   One of the things driving our low politics is our low journalism, which in turn is largely caused by our low educational system.  A society cannot escape the impact of low standards.  From the Daily Mail: 

Time magazine has issued a correction to a controversial cover story about a Honduran migrant girl who they said was taken from her mother by US border patrol agents after it was revealed that the pair were never separated at all. 

Three-year-old Yanela Denise became the unintentional face of the now defunct family separation crisis after photographer John Moore captured her agonized face screaming as her mother was questioned by agents on June 12. 

After the picture was taken, the pair were taken together to a family detention center. Yanela's father has since told DailyMail.com that they are 'safe'. 

As millions shared Yanela's photograph on social media and attached to fundraisers for other children who have been separated from their families, Time used it on its cover.  The magazine photoshopped an image to place her at the foot of a towering Donald Trump and the words 'Welcome to America' appeared next to it. 

In the story, despite Moore having told the magazine that he did not know what became of the girl after he took the picture, the journalist wrote that she had been taken away like the thousands of other children who have been.

Time issued its correction on Friday after US and Honduran officials, along with the girl's father, confirmed that this was not the case.  

'The original version of this story misstated what happened to the girl in the photo after she (was) taken from the scene.

'The girl was not carried away screaming by US Border Patrol agents; her mother picked her up and the two were taken away together,' the magazine said. 

COMMENT:  Well, TIME, a dying magazine, kind of apologized.  In fact, its editor defended the use of the photo as symbolic of what was happening.  That's the kind of thinking that goes with a modern college education.  Everyone is entitled to his own "narrative." 

Fake journalism, plain and simple.  It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  From what I've seen in journalism, it sometimes takes a thousand words to explain the picture.

June 23, 2018       Permalink

OUTRAGEOUS – AT 1:26 P.M. ET:  The level of our politics is sinking rapidly.  I can't deny that Mr. Trump has done his part, but the left is far, far worse.  From Fox: 

White House Press Secretary Sanders was thrown out of a Virginia restaurant on Friday because she works for President Trump -- the latest Trump official to be hounded out of a restaurant because of their political affiliation.

TMZ reported that she was kicked out of the restaurant -- The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia -- on “moral grounds” and cited a waiter who said that Sanders was served “for a total of two minutes before my owner kicked her out along with seven of her other family members.”

Sanders confirmed the events on Twitter, saying she was told to leave by the owner because she worked for the president.

“Her actions say far more about her than about me,” she said. “I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.”

After initial reports emerged of the incident, users took to the Red Hen’s Facebook and Yelp pages to bombard it with one-star reviews.

“Everyone should boycott this restaurant. Put them out of business. Asking a paying patron to leave because she's a Republican is repulsive,” one Yelp review said.

COMMENT:  Yes, absolutely repulsive.  But Sarah Sanders handled it in her usual dignified manner.  I have to believe the American people will notice, and rebel against, the behavior of the fringe left.

June 23,  2018     Permalink

JUNE 22,  2018

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

SUCH A HERO – FROM THE PORTLAND PRESS HERALD:   Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Zak Ringelstein was arrested Friday for refusing to leave a child detention center in Texas after being told he would not be allowed inside.  “Zak is now a political prisoner of the Trump regime,” read a tweet from Ringelstein’s campaign account.  It’s not clear what Ringelstein was arrested for, but he had announced on Wednesday that he was traveling to McAllen, Texas, to bring supplies to children separated from their parents under President Trump’s policy of zero-tolerance for migrants who cross the border illegally...He was arrested after persistently asking authorities to be let into a detention facility. The confrontation was broadcast on his campaign’s Facebook page.  Some elected members of Congress have had difficulty gaining access, too, so Ringelstein’s attempt was likely never going to be successful.   I wasn't aware that shortage of supplies was a problem.  This looks like major-league grandstanding.  Watch for a "free Zak" campaign.

THUMBS DOWN ON MEDIA – FROM HOT AIR:   Now, come the Knight Foundation and Gallup Polls dissecting Americans’ thoughts about media. In general, Americans overall estimate that of the news they’re exposed to via radio, TV and print, nearly two-thirds of it is biased (62 percent).  They believe that nearly half the news they see is inaccurate (44 percent). And they’re sure that more than a third of the news moving through those media conduits is misinformation, that is, wrong or fake but distributed as if true.  They also believe that 64 percent of news carried by social media is inaccurate. And — maybe you’ve felt this way too — more than 80 percent of adult Americans report feeling angry or bothered by detecting such false reports. They believe that 65 percent of such news is misinformation and a whopping 80 percent is biased.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement of media integrity.   And it's getting worse, not better.  A number of journalists don't even seem to care whether their stories are accurate, as long as the right social cause is served.  A "free press" is a guarantee of nothing.

EXPOSED!  CAUGHT! – FROM BREITBART:   White House senior adviser Stephen Miller’s third- grade classmate penned an op-ed for Politico, writing how President Trump’s loyal staffer “was obsessed with tape and glue.”  In the Politico op-ed, John Muller, who sat next to Miller in the third grade, described in detail how the senior adviser once played with glue and preferred other classmates not touch his belongings.  Muller writes in Politico:  "He especially was obsessed with tape and glue. Along the midpoint of our desk, Stephen laid down a piece of white masking tape, explaining that it marked the boundary of our sides and that I was not to cross it. The formality of this struck me as odd. I was a fairly neat kid, at least at school, and I had never spread my things to his side of the desk. Stephen, meanwhile, could not have been much messier: His side of the desk was sticky and peeling, littered with scraps of paper, misshapen erasers and pencil nubs."  Now we know the whole gut-wrenching truth.  Misshapen erasers.  That's all I have to know.  This country is in danger.

June 22,  2018     Permalink

A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS – AT 1:36 P.M. ET:  We return to Middlebury College, which had one of the worst outbreaks of left-wing violence last year.  It's still in a sad state.  Middlebury used to be known for its foreign-language programs.  Now it's known for the intolerance of some of its students.  From College Fix:

It will be some time before Middlebury College stops being associated with violent left-wing intolerance – even among its own students.

A writing and linguistics professor is conducting an ongoing survey of students at the Vermont liberal arts school where American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray and his faculty interviewer were physically attacked, sending the latter to the hospital.

Early results suggest that true ideological diversity is being inhibited because students are afraid of being seen as insufficiently woke.

Writing & Rhetoric Program Director Shawna Shapiro writes about student attitudes for Inside Higher Ed, saying they had “complex reactions that didn’t fit the simplistic ‘free speech vs. inclusion/diversity’ dichotomy” that typically prevails.

Seven in 10 students in the sample identify as “left-leaning,” yet even these students say by a 4-1 margin that it’s “very important” or “important” to talk about controversial issues with people whose viewpoints are different than theirs.

Most of the entire sample are already having such conversations, more so over meals or in residence halls than in class or public lectures.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  It's very well done.  It also provides room for hope.  There are both students and faculty members who understand the problem of ideological rigidity – and threat – and are trying to do something about it.

June 22, 2018       Permalink

FIGHTING BACK – AT 12:30 P.M. ET:  We are seeing signs of serious resistance to the new McCarthyism, where conservatives and people of faith are routinely smeared as racists, homophobes, Islamophobes and everything phobes.  Reputations are ruined, people driven out of jobs and professions, even their children are stigmatized.  Many have had enough.  From PJ Media: 

On Wednesday, no fewer than 47 nonprofit leaders maligned by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — many if not most of whom are considering a lawsuit against the organization — warned a vast array of executives and leaders that if they parrot the SPLC's damaging "hate group" labels, they would be "complicit" in "defamation."

"Editors, CEOs, shareholders and consumers alike are on notice: anyone relying upon and repeating its misrepresentations is complicit in the SPLC's harmful defamation of large numbers of American citizens who, like the undersigned, have been vilified simply for working to protect our country and freedoms," the signatories wrote.

The letter followed news — broken at PJ Media — that no fewer than 60 organizations are considering suing the SPLC following a groundbreaking settlement in which the organization formally apologized to a Muslim reformer, Maajid Nawaz, for branding him an "anti-Muslim extremist."

In 2016, the SPLC published its "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," listing Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, a practicing Muslim, as one such extremist. The left-wing group listed various and changing reasons for including him, even at one point mentioning that he had gone to a strip club for his bachelor party. On Monday, the SPLC apologized and paid $3.375 million to settle a lawsuit Nawaz had filed.

"We haven't filed anything against the SPLC, but I think a number of organizations have been considering filing lawsuits against the SPLC because they have been doing to a lot of organizations exactly what they did to Maajid Nawaz," Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media on Tuesday.

COMMENT:  Good going.  The SPLC has been around since 1971.  Contrary to its name, it is an extremely wealthy organization paying very high salaries to its staff.  There is no poverty at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

And many of its "reports" have the familiar ring of the blacklisting groups of the 1950s.  A bad mark from the SPLC can be devastating, even if it comes without evidence.

It is time to resist, and I'm glad to see that the victims of the new McCarthyism are organizing.

June 22, 2018       Permalink

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER – In every era there is a commentator who, in the minds of many, defines the best of his profession. 

In the early part of the 20th century that person was probably Walter Lippmann.  I didn't happen to like him, but one could not seriously doubt the power of his intellect.  In mid-century, as radio and television became the dominant suppliers of news, the defining commentator was Edward R. Murrow.  His voice was so familiar to Americans that he, and the entertainer Arthur Godfrey, were chosen as the two voices that would speak to America in the event of a nuclear attack.  Agree with him or not, Murrow's observations were followed and sought after.

In our time, the man many of us automatically looked to was Charles Krauthammer, who died yesterday.  His life was filled with penetrating commentary, always delivered without hatred or condescension.  He was a man who overcame a devastating injury suffered while a student at the Harvard medical school that left him paralyzed from the neck down.  He not only finished medical school with distinction, he went on to become a board-certified psychiatrist who did important original research.  And then, seeking his life's true work,  he made the transition to journalism, where he won the Pulitzer Prize.

He loved baseball.  He loved America.  He loved humor.  At times one had the feeling that he'd rather have been funny than serious.  As a writer, I get that, for making someone laugh is the hardest task a writer has.  And the most satisfying.

What did he teach us?  Of all things, I believe Charles Krauthammer taught us the difference between education and wisdom.   Yes, he had a superb formal education, but he never felt that it automatically made him a better person, or a more righteous one.   Education does not guarantee wisdom.  Nor does it guarantee goodness.  In an age that has developed the cult of the college graduate, Krauthammer's wisdom came from his own observations, his own thoughts, his own ethics.  True education, he knew, is what happens after formal education ends.  And the wisest, like Lincon, may have little formal education at all.

Charles Krauthammer will be missed, but he will be replaced.  We have quoted before the old French proverb that the graveyards of the world are filled with indispensable men.  There will be some other defining commentator.  He or she may be writing today.  Charles Krauthammer, whose ego always was under strict control, would welcome that person to the stage.

Until that writer comes along, there will be a great void in our world.

June 22,  2018     Permalink