Image 01 Image 03

February 2018

California's politicians claim they want to stop pollution, but it appears the bureaucrats who actually implement the regulations our representatives promulgate have different priorities. California's attorney general has charged five former and current employees of Panoche Water District in central California with felonies fraud, abuse . . . and hazardous waste violations.

Oberlin College faces two serious lawsuits arising out of social justice activism on campus. One suit, by a local bakery boycotted by Oberlin students and administration based on apparently false claims the bakery racially profiled students, has been permitted to move forward. We reported on that decision in Court: Gibson’s Bakery lawsuit against Oberlin College can continue in full::

On Valentine's Day, a 19-year-old murdered 17 kids at Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Since then, the media has flaunted survivors and their families who vocalize an anti-NRA and anti-gun message. Despite these efforts, a gun show in Tampa, FL, had record attendance this past weekend with as many as 7,000 people on Saturday.

This is hilarious. Michael Wolff, author of supposed Trump exposé "Fire and Fury", ran off the set of an Australian morning talk show Monday morning (their Monday morning). Wolff was able to hear interviewer Ben Fordham just fine until Fordham asked about Wolff's allegations that Trump was having an extra-marital affair.

We previously reported that the Trump administration took the unusual step of trying to get the Supreme Court to hear the case of the San Francisco federal district court order preventing Trump from ending DACA without getting a ruling first from the 9th Circuit. What made the procedure confounding, is that the administration did not seek a stay from the 9th Circuit and then the Supreme Court, only expedited direct Supreme Court review on the merits. That direct review procedure is rarely granted.  At the same time, the administration filed an appeal in the 9th Circuit.

You know, I'm really starting to see this as a power struggle. Nunes and Schiff are just trying to outdo each other. The memo wars have become more about who can come out on top rather than an effort to expose the truth. But I digress. House Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA) released his memo Sunday and claimed it refuted the memo released by  Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). Of course, it took no time for Nunes to refute Schiff's memo, leading Schiff to release his own fact sheet. (See what I mean? They both want the last word.)

As we have documented here dozens of times, a standard anti-Israel tactic on campuses is to disrupt events and speakers. The purpose of even a temporary disruption is to intimidate and make clear there is a price to pay for Israeli or pro-Israel events. It happened again, at an event sponsored by the Brody Jewish Center - Hillel at the University of Virginia and two pro-Israel student groups.

Few things make me as simultaneously sad and frustrated as what is happening to higher education in this country.  In an apparent effort to boost the number of anti-Second Amendment high school walkouts, colleges and universities are now announcing that suspensions for anti-gun protests won't harm their chance of admission. It's not difficult to understand from these announcements that such suspensions would actually make the applicant more attractive to these very institutes of higher learning.  In this socio-cultural climate, nothing says "top admissions candidate" like a proven record of social justice agitation and protest.

As the Democratic Party lurches leftward and adopts a distinctly socialist stance, its political center has also shifted left.  Amazingly, this new Democratic Party considers among its centrists those figures we tend to think of as radical leftists:  Obama, Hillary, and to a lesser extent Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Figures once considered fringe even among the left are now hailed as the voice of the party; these figures include self-proclaimed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and radical progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).  Sanders and more recently Warren have been strong proponents of single-payer and "free" college.  Thanks in large part to Bernie, much of the left, the Democrat base, thinks of itself as "Democratic Socialist."