June 28-30, 2019

Jun 28 00:17 Democrat border security then and now
Jun 28 18:35 Morning Joe's woes grow
Jun 28 22:13 Progressive illogic's extremism
Jun 28 23:05 Liberal legal stupidity

Jun 29 02:30 Ending Sen. Harris's bounce?

Jun 30 05:16 Higher Education accountability
Jun 30 11:16 Trouble in Paradise?

Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May

Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Democrat border security then and now

Do you remember way back when Democrats insisted that they were pro-border security? I remember it like it was yesterday. That's because Democrats vehemently insisted that they were staunch supporters of border security. The NY Times actually fact-checked the subject. First, they cited one of President Trump's tweets:




They responded, saying:

THE FACTS
False.
Democrats have argued that building a wall on the southwestern border is ineffective and a waste of resources, and rejected hardline proposals to limit legal immigration. But Mr. Trump is grossly exaggerating Democrats' positions when he conflates their opposition to his signature campaign promise and immigration priorities as "open borders."

During tonight's debate, President Trump tweeted about the Democrats' new-found love of border security. (Actually, he noticed how the presidential candidates on stage reacted to an activist's question:


Imagine that. Democrat presidential candidates favor giving illegal aliens health care. Here's the proof that President Trump was right:
[Video no longer available]
So much for the notion that Democrats are serious about border security. I can't take Democrats seriously when they want to give free health care to illegal immigrants. That's what's known as a magnet because it draws illegal immigrants to the US-Mexico border.

Back during the government shutdown, which ended with a bill that's actually made mass illegal immigration worse, Democrats, led by Pelosi, said that a wall was "expensive and inefficient." The bill that funded DHS the rest of FY2019 contained a provision in it that said illegal immigrants entering the US with a child couldn't be deported. Just 2 months later, the floodgates opened to the most prolific apprehension of illegal immigrants in our nation's history. In May, almost 150,000 illegal immigrants were captured. Because most were accompanied by a minor, they couldn't be deported.

Does that sound like border security to you? It doesn't sound like it to me. When dealing with politicians with no integrity, expect results like this. Expect Democrats to pander to the special interests, not to We The People.

Posted Friday, June 28, 2019 12:17 AM

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Morning Joe's woes grow

Joe Scarborough thinks that the American people need to defeat Donald Trump. Apparently, the economy is too strong for too many people for his liking. Or perhaps, it's his goal because President Trump puts the American people first. Most likely, it's because President Trump is a fighter who won't so-called elitists have their way.

Whatever the reason for Morning Joe's desire to defeat President Trump, last night's debate performances has left Morning Joe in a fretful mood . He has a right to be dismayed. What we saw last night in Miami was a policy disaster coupled with a food fight disaster coupled with the supposed frontrunner looking like a dunce more than once.

So dismayed was Morning Joe that he said "With apologies to our friends watching, last night was a disaster for the Democratic Party. My only hope is people were not watching and I will tell you why." He's actually right for a change. Last night was a disaster for the Democrats. Between Joe Biden looking like an old fart, Bernie telling the nation that his Medicare-for-All would raise taxes on everyone to (my personal highlight) all of the Democrats' presidential candidates signifying that they'd stop enforcing the borders, then give health care benefits to the illegal aliens, it was a train wreck.

Then there's this:

But Scarborough also directed his fury toward former Vice President Joe Biden for his poor debate performance, particularly for letting Sen. Kamala Harris land punches on him. "He was off his game, I must say," Scarborough said. "It was one of the more disturbing debate performances I have seen since Ronald Reagan's first debate in 1984."

That's the part that should frighten Morning Joe the most. The truth is that Joe doesn't have game. The frightening part for Democrats is that their candidates, other than Kamala Harris, don't have game.

Ari Fleischer got it right in this interview:
[Video no longer available]
Bomb's away!

Posted Friday, June 28, 2019 6:35 PM

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Progressive illogic's extremism

Joan Walsh's article highlights the extremism of progressive illogic. Democrat presidential candidates are coming from such a different place that it isn't possible to work with them.

The article starts by saying "Anyone who had any doubt that the 2020 election was a contest for the soul of the United States had to lose that doubt watching Thursday night's Democratic debate. The photo of the late ~scar Alberto Mart~nez Ram~rez and his daughter, Valeria, drowned in the Rio Grande thanks to Donald Trump's policies, framed the night. It's tough to overstate how much Democrats have changed the way they've approached these issues in the last decade."

These Democrats' extremism doesn't permit them to think why this father and daughter attempted to illegally come into the US. That thought is overwhelmed by the emotion of seeing their dead bodies. These Democrats don't realize that this father and daughter's blood in on Democrats' hands. The situation in northern triangle countries isn't any worse today than it was 30 years ago. It was a violence-filled hellhole then. It's still a violence-filled hellhole. What's changed is the Democrats' attitude toward illegal immigration.

Walsh lets the cat out of the bag in this outburst:

'There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,' Obama intoned. Wilson was the actual liar. But today, it's worth noting: Not one prominent Democrat uses the term "illegal immigrants" anymore .

The special interest masters have reshaped the Democratic Party. Frank Luntz put it best in this interview:

At the start of the interview, Luntz said, correctly, that "This isn't your parents' Democrat Party. It isn't even your older sister's Democrat Party." He then provided proof that verified his claim. The Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren wing of today's Democratic Party would go to war with JFK, Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Today on The Five, Juan Williams insisted that Democrats who support giving health care to illegal aliens while stripping US citizens who get their health care from their employers are "maybe they're standing up for American values":
[Video no longer available]
If Ms. Walsh thinks that taking away employer-provided health care from US citizens, then giving free health care to illegal aliens is a winning issue for Democrats, let them have at it. It's impossible for intelligent people to say that giving illegal aliens free health care while decriminalizing coming here illegally isn't a monstrous incentive for illegal immigration.

Posted Friday, June 28, 2019 10:13 PM

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Liberal legal stupidity

When it comes to stupidity, liberal legal stupidity is pretty stunning. Writing in the comments section of this LTE , John Ellenbecker, St. Cloud's former mayor, wrote some insulting drivel. That's actually a step up from his usual foolishness. But I digress.

The LTE stops short of accusing Dr. John Palmer of being a racist only because the writer didn't mention Dr. Palmer. Dr. Palmer was interviewed by the NY Times a little less than a month ago about his activism related to the refugee resettlement crisis that's crippling St. Cloud. Other liberals, however, aren't being that nice. This cartoon is downright disgusting:


FULL DISCLOSURE: I've known Dr. Palmer for 15 years. Accusing John of being a hater is sloppy and hurtful. Then again, the First Amendment gives idiots like this cartoonist the right to be sloppy and dishonest. But I digress again.

Mayor Ellenbecker left this comment:

Intolerance isn't and shouldn't be the issue. I am intolerant to many things - drivers who camp out in the left lane of I-94 leading the list. The issue is whether we respect the rights of others. I don't have to tolerate you - but I do have to respect your rights. John Palmer has every right to be a bigot and engage in bigoted speech - he does not have the right to violate the rights of people who live in this community. His moratorium on refugee settlement in St. Cloud was a blantant volation of the rights of people - including refugees - to determine for themselves where they will live. I have no tolerance for John Palmer and his followers, I don't expect them to tolerate me. I will insist, however, that he not violate the rights of people residing in this community.

Before going into the substance, or lack thereof, of Ellenbecker's comment, it isn't too much to ask Mr. Ellenbecker to use his spell-checker. (Blantant volation? Seriously?)

Ellenbecker said that Dr. Palmer has the right to be a bigot. It isn't difficult to figure out where that came from:
[Video no longer available]
It's part of the liberals' standardized playbook to accuse decent people of being racists. It's frequently used to stifle debate. There's no more proof that Dr. Palmer is a racist than there's proof that Ellenbecker is honest or smart. Next, Ellenbecker's statement on the refugee resettlement program is dishonest. He said that Dr. Palmer's "moratorium on refugee settlement in St. Cloud was a blatant violation of the rights of people, including refugees, to determine for themselves where they will live." Actually, the Refugee Act of 1980 gives communities the right to have significant input into where and when refugees in the primary resettlement happen. Check this out:

It says 'Whereas the Refugee Act of 1980 states that 8 U.S. Code 1522(b),' quote, ~The director'' - I'm talking about the Minnesota Office of Refugee Resettlement director - ~ shall develop and implement in consultation with representatives of voluntary agencies and state and local governments'' - that's me, OK? - ~ policies and strategies for the placement and resettlement of refugees within the United States.'

The St. Cloud City government, including the City Council, is ignoring its responsibilities. According to this law, state and local government shall "develop and implement" "policies and strategies for the placement and resettlement of refugees within the United States."

At no point in his comment did Mr. Ellenbecker cite any proof that Dr. Palmer had violated anyone's civil rights." Having known Mr. Ellenbecker since high school, I'm confident that that's because he doesn't have any proof to sustain his accusation. He's always been long on accusations and short on intelligence.

Posted Friday, June 28, 2019 11:05 PM

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Ending Sen. Harris's bounce?

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has exposed Kamala Harris as a total fraud. The DNC might as well get out the jelly because Kamala's toast. In this video, Harris stated that she was part of the second class to get bussed:
[Video no longer available]
Perhaps she thought that nobody would research that claim, which is a pretty good bet if the only media was the MSM. Fortunately for truth-seeking Americans, they can rely on the modern-day Pamphleteers, aka bloggers. Enter Mr. Hoft and the gentlemen at Powerlineblog.com. First, Mr. Hoft's find. This is the Berkeley yearbook from 1963, the year before Sen. Harris was born:


This is the 1964 Berkeley yearbook, the year of Sen. Harris's birth:


It's pretty obvious that Berkeley was integrated long before Sen. Harris was that 10-year-old girl in pigtails. Next, enter John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff of Powerline blog. Here's what Mr. Mirengoff wrote :

Harris presents a misleading picture of Berkeley and, implicitly, of her family's status. A friend who graduated from college there around the time Harris depicts tells me:
Berkeley was not segregated or racist during that era. It was one of the most liberal places in the country. I'd like to learn a lot more about [Harris'] busing. I accept that she took a bus to elementary school, but I don't think they were busing kids to various neighborhoods for racial reasons in Berkeley in 1971. Makes no sense at all to me. Her mom and dad were PhDs, and she went to India during summers to stay with her mom's family (see Wikipedia). She makes it sound like they were poverty-stricken...or something.

So much for the issue of bussing being "personal" for Sen. Harris. That's utter nonsense. Here's what Mr. Hinderaker, the founder of Powerlineblog wrote on this subject :

What I think is most remarkable about this story is that the Democrats are now nostalgic for busing! Joe Biden is a villain because he opposed it decades ago, while Harris is a heroine: or a martyr: or something, because she participated in it.

But here's the thing: in the 1970s, everyone opposed busing to achieve racial balance in public schools. Federal courts in urban areas around the country had ordered children to be bused from their homes to faraway schools to achieve a numerical, bean-counting ethnic balance in public schools. The result was a disaster: neighborhood schools were destroyed, student achievement declined, violence erupted, civil disobedience by parents of all races ensued. Finally, as I recall, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order: No more busing!

While this doesn't change the fact that Biden had a lackluster performance Thursday night, it changes the glow surrounding Sen. Harris's 'moment' in the sun. It's now established fact that Sen. Harris's big moment happened because she embellished, otherwise known as lying through her teeth.

Let's see if the MSM tries propping her up after this.

Originally posted Saturday, June 29, 2019, revised 30-Jun 3:15 PM

Comment 1 by Chad Q at 30-Jun-19 07:12 AM
This won't even make the light of day in the MSM. Even if it does, the democrats won't care. If they did, Omar wouldn't be gone from congress and Blumenthal never would have been elected. The ends always justify the means for the hypocrites.

Higher Education accountability

After reading this SC Times news article , one paragraph jumped out at me.

Tucked into the fourth paragraph was this information:

But rising costs have upset some student advocates, who say students are unfairly bearing the budget burden.

Let's run this crisis through the lens of free markets improving things. Student activists apparently think that the product they're receiving isn't worth the price that they're paying. Whether that's true or not isn't my decision. That's for the students, their parents and the university to debate and determine. As an outsider to that debate, I'd suggest that some of the things that must be decided upon are staffing levels for administrators, what degrees are offered and which degrees are better off eliminated entirely.

In the past, the legislature has simply increased funding without getting into a discussion of the business models used by MnSCU. That's because they haven't challenged the quality of MnSCU's 'leadership'. In the past, they've simply acquiesced when leadership personnel decisions were made.

In a private business's model, people throughout a company's leadership structure would debate the wisdom of the top management's decisions and, if it's required, to recommend course and personnel changes. Further, performance evaluations would be required to objectively measure performance. I remember writing about Chancellor Rosenstone's performance review in this post :

Trustee Thomas Renier, who on Thursday was elected the new MnSCU board chairman, was part of the committee that evaluated Rosenstone. In the public summary of the evaluation, Renier said Rosenstone excelled at focusing on the key question of what's best for MnSCU students. Renier also commended Rosenstone's handling of a new strategic plan for MnSCU, "Charting the Future," which calls for the system's colleges and universities to work more collaboratively. "We are extraordinarily enthusiastic about the new and powerful ways in which our colleges and universities have begun to work together under Chancellor Rosenstone's leadership," Renier said.

This is what I noted earlier in the post:

It's been a terrible year at Mankato, too. President Davenport fired head football coach Hoffner in 2013. This May, the Bureau of Mediation Services, aka BMS, ruled that Davenport wrongfully fired Hoffner. Then they ordered Hoffner be re-instated and that he be paid for the year he didn't coach. The presidents at Metropolitan and Moorhead are 'retiring' effective June 30. If they hadn't accepted retirement, they would've been terminated.

It should be noted that the then-outgoing MnSCU board chairman Clarence Hightower said this about Chancellor Rosenstone:

This has been a highly successful year for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities under the Chancellor's leadership.

Literally millions of dollars were misspent on consultants in an attempt to prop up MnSCU's image.

The point is that the MnSCU Board of Trustees did a worthless job of managing the management. Without a profit incentive, they have no reason to rock the boat. I encourage parents, students and other taxpayers to step forward and expose the inefficiencies found within MnSCU. Just to name a few inefficiencies expressed through LFR's pages, there are too many administrators and not enough faculty. There isn't a commitment to academic excellence, either.

It's long past time for legislators to step forward and hold MnSCU accountable. It's also time for citizens to hold legislators and MnSCU accountable. Finally, it's time to start a discussion amongst ourselves on what We The People expect from our higher education system.

There is a better way to run higher education. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has supplied the model :

An ongoing tuition freeze, now aimed for its seventh and eighth years after getting the formal blessing Friday from Purdue University trustees, came as no surprise. Purdue President Mitch Daniels signaled that intention in February, in what has become an unclimactic expectation on the West Lafayette campus since the former governor arrived on campus in January 2013. A few dollars under $10,000 Purdue's in-state tuition will stay for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

The increased enrollment is the direct result of President Daniels' insistence that the school fit its budget into families' budgets, not the other way around. What a revolutionary idea. As a direct result of Daniels' high-quality decision-making, Purdue will have its third straight year of record-breaking enrollment.

Now that's an alternative.

Posted Sunday, June 30, 2019 5:16 AM

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Trouble in Paradise?

Apparently, the AOC wing of the Democratic Party isn't too happy with the somewhat slightly less crazy wing of the Democrat Party, aka the Senate Democrats. There's definitely some infighting between House and Senate Democrats, with House Democrats saying that Sen. Schumer wasn't "able to hold his people" together. Senate aides said "They're blaming everyone but themselves."

The House Democrats are stupid if they think their bill had any chance of passing in the Senate:

The report recounted how Democrats had hoped to pass a more liberal bill that would have " eliminated funding for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement back pay as well as for Defense Department border operations" and "further tightened the administration's ability to shift money around" in order to force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for more concessions.

In what universe is not paying law enforcement for work that they've already done a plausible idea? Even if it's a negotiating attempt, it isn't something that'd get taken seriously. Sen. McConnell would've swatted that proposal aside in a New York Minute.

"The Senate Democrats did us a huge disservice. The benefit to having one chamber controlled by Democrats is you have people who can fight and win. But that requires the people in the minority chamber to also fight, even if they lose," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair whose demands reportedly "slowed progress" and rattled more conservative Democrats.

It's time for progressives to realize that their agenda isn't that popular. While their agenda might play well in New England and on the Left Coast, the progressives' agenda doesn't play well in Great Lakes states or the Rust Belt.

Finally, it's worth noting that Democrats aren't united like they were in 2018. Since taking the House majority, significant divisions have appeared. The AOC wing of the Democratic Party is definitely clashing with the Problem Solvers Caucus wing of the Democratic Party. This isn't as much about ideology as it is about getting re-elected.

The Democrats in the Problem Solvers Caucus have pretty much done nothing except caved to Pelosi's wishes on everything she's told them to cave on.
[Video no longer available]

Posted Sunday, June 30, 2019 11:16 AM

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