Sunday, December 9, 2018

op ed review 12/9


THIS WEEK’S NEWS
President Trump is prepping for all-out political war.

The Democrat poised to lead the House Judiciary Committee next year says he has no intention of continuing the GOP-led investigation into FBI and Justice Department misconduct during the 2016 election, calling it a “waste of time.”

Illegal immigration ticked up in November, but the number of those people traveling as families shattered records, Homeland Security reported Thursday, saying it’s proof that migrants have figured out how to game the flawed U.S. immigration system.
A new report finds that 45% of households headed by a noncitizen reported using food programs in 2014. That's the latest year for which such census data are available. That compares with 21% for U.S. citizens. Half of noncitizen households reported using Medicaid, compared with 23% for citizens. The CIS analysis also found that 31% of noncitizen households got cash benefits, when you include the Earned Income Tax Credit. That compares with 10% for citizen-headed households. Overall, 63% of noncitizen-headed households got some form of welfare benefit in 2014, compared with 35% for citizens. "The data show that, overall, noncitizen households access the welfare system at high rates, often receiving benefits on behalf of U.S.-born children.”

Young America's Foundation Scores Major Free Speech Victory Over UC Berkeley
Free speech? “Pastor Who Fled Persecution in Iran Arrested in Minnesota for Sharing the Gospel.”  At the Mall of America he was told “You cannot talk religion here.” “I’ve gone through this before — in Muslim countries I was arrested for passing out bibles,” Parsa said. “I didn’t expect that would happen in America…”

Three people have come forward with hundreds of pages of evidence of potential wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation, including misappropriation of funds and allegations of quid-pro-quo promises made to donors during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) promised to pass the Dream Act in the new Congress, which would provide amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.
Pelosi calls border wall “immoral”,  won't accept DACA deal in exchange for wall funding.

On Health Costs, ObamaCare Was A Massive Failure, IBD/TIPP Poll Shows

The U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed a challenge by three conservation groups to the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a victory for Trump who has made the wall a centerpiece of his hardline immigration policies.

?? Pope Francis says church closings are a ‘sign of the times,’ and should not cause anxiety.
Gonzaga University blocks conservative Ben Shapiro speech, citing ‘Jesuit’ values

Virginia teacher fired for refusing to use new pronouns for transgender student

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) joined the migrant caravan in their attempt to cross the border, condemning President Donald Trump for "creating the crisis." She said she was able to help five asylum seekers gain access to the United States.

Media elevate Bush in death, use his passing to denigrate Trump
Bush 41’s death reveals the truth of the cliché: the only kind of Republicans the media likes are dead ones.

Glenn Beck and Mark Levin are teaming up by merging TheBlaze and CRTV to create a conservative-media entity dubbed Blaze Media, which they say will reach 165 million people via television, digital platforms and social media.

A super PAC that spent millions attacking Republican Sen. Ted Cruz during the midterm election was revealed to be funded almost entirely by Washington, D.C. Democrats. Because it launched so close to the election, “Texas Forever” was able to sidestep revealing where the funds came from until a month after voting concluded.
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
Bruce Bialosky   12/9

The United States spends an ungodly sum on colleges and universities. A lot of that money provides little to no benefit to the consumer (student) or to our society.  Many students end their college careers steeped in debt. Yet we have a shortage of people in many critical areas.  Here is an idea to solve that.

Colleges today offer degrees to people that provide them little opportunity for supporting themselves for the rest of their lives.  The idea of a liberal arts education used to make a certain amount of sense.  When the cost became enormous with the resulting disaster for the student’s finances, some decisions must be made as to whether there is rationale for this. At the same time, we do not have enough students to meet our needs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  

The proposal is that colleges and universities provide no-tuition degrees that are critical for our country.  Reading this some may think this idea aligns with the Bernie Sanders set, but it is radically different.  The idea limits no-tuition education to certain degrees like doctors, scientists and engineers which are critical to our future as we are not producing enough home-grown talent and the no tuition degrees would be limited to American citizens. Under this plan, getting a degree in English literature, journalism or law is on your dime.

I have written previously that it is bothersome that our tech companies are always arguing for more visas to bring in foreigners with engineering degrees.  Yet few ask why America is not producing enough individuals to get those degrees when there are lucrative careers available.  

The National Association of Manufacturing and Deloitte predict the U.S. will need to fill about 3.5 million jobs by 2025; two million of those jobs may go unfilled, due to difficulty finding people with the skills in demand…….Yet a 2017 report from the National Foundation for American Policy found 81 percent of full-time graduate students in electrical and petroleum engineering programs at U.S. universities are international students, and 79 percent in computer science are also foreigners.

Or what about one of the most important positions in our society – doctors.   The Association of American Medical Colleges is projecting a shortfall of between 34,600 and 88,000 doctors by 2025.   A large reason is the financial commitment it takes to become a doctor.  If you are a top tier brain where would you go -- to a hedge fund where you can start at up to $300,000 per year or a doctor where you start your career with up to $300,000 in debt?   

This is not a farfetched idea as New York University (NYU) has committed to covering the education costs for its medical students.  This is with special funding, but almost all private schools have the endowments to cover the cost of the students at their medical schools.  Public schools could just allocate the funds.  Here is an idea:  Raise the tuition at their law schools which seem to be in high demand, and there is an extremely low need for additional lawyers in our country.  

We already fund the education of a certain class of people – our military leaders.  We do this because we want to attract the best and the brightest to lead our military.   Each branch has an academy that provides a rigorous education to students……If we charged for the real cost of West Point or Annapolis, how many great leaders would we lose? Better yet, how many would we get?

Why America would waste our national resources on funding degrees like Asian Studies, Jewish Studies, Black Studies or Hispanic Studies is beyond me.   Degrees like that are superfluous and provide you an opportunity to get a job in the department at the university that minted that pointless degree and not much else other than being a bartender…….A lot of these degrees are just a plain waste of national resources…..

There are some programs that are already aimed toward this.  Chevron has funded $400 million toward orienting students at a young age toward STEM degrees.  The STEM Coalition is a non-profit that emphasizes getting support for more students focusing on a STEM education.

Our higher education system developed on its own for centuries.  It is the marvel of the world as countries send their best students to our country to get the quality education we provide at hundreds of schools.  It just is not educating American students for our needs.

The world has changed.  Our students have accumulated over a trillion dollars in debt and we are not even producing enough skilled people to take care of the needs of our country.  The program needs a revamp and this is a prime idea to start doing that.  

We need more doctors and not more students with degrees in sports management where the only job they will ever get in sports is working the counter at a Footlocker.  We need to stop wasting these key resources on nonsense and produce viable college graduates. Let’s fund the ones that are necessary to us as a society.  

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“Fewer homicides were committed by political terrorists of any stripe in the United States in 2017 than were committed by undocumented immigrants in the state of Texas alone.”
              -David Harsanyi

“Demonstrations across France this weekend turned violent as protestors set fire to cars, tires and some local government buildings. More than 130 people were wounded and more than 400 were arrested. The riots, considered among the worst France has seen in decades, stem from plans by President Emmanuel Macron to further increase taxes in France. The French already pay high taxes to subsidize their socialist welfare state. But Macron, a true believer in the ‘global warming agenda,’ is proposing to tax gasoline even more. Apparently, the French aren’t too keen on paying more than $7 a gallon for gas. It wasn’t that long ago when Macron was lecturing President Trump about patriotism. Now his government is attempting to negotiate with the rioters who have taken over the streets, as his approval rating collapses to 26%. I’m not sure Macron is in a position to lecture Trump on anything.”
         =Gary Bauer
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BOOKS
Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie have written a seminal book as critical participants in one of the most historic events in American history.  Their book is about the triumphs and setbacks of the campaign of Donald Trump to be elected the 45th president and then his governance for the first eighteen-plus months.

Tucker Carlson's 'Ship of Fools' rises above mundane punditry and deserves a spot on your Christmas list
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LEFTIST WATCH
Stanford Fraternity Told to Take American Flag Down to ‘Improve Image’. An administrator reportedly told the fraternity that the flag could be seen as “intimidating, aggressive or alienating.”

Minnesota professor suggested in a series of tweets that the Virgin Mary did not consent to the conception of Jesus Christ and suggested that God may have acted in a “predatory" manner.
'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' movie criticized for bullying and bigotry
Satanic Sculpture Installed At Illinois Statehouse, Just In Time For The Holidays
Nebraska school deems candy canes 'unacceptable,' says J shape stands 'for Jesus'

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested Democrats, who take power in the House next month, should not wait to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump because “we have far surpassed” the “standard” that the Republican Party used to impeach former President Bill Clinton.
New Dem congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez once more validated Mark Twain's quip, "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."
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“BALLOT HARVESTING”
What Is ‘Ballot Harvesting,’ And How Did California Dems Use It To Nuke The GOP?
‘Ballot Harvesting,’ California Dems’ Latest Election Stealing Tool
Ballot harvesting bounty: How Dems apparently used election law change to rout California Republicans
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GLOBALONEY
France Suspends Climate Tax Following Weeks Of Anti-Macron Protests
France’s protesters are part of a global backlash against climate-change taxes

Three years after leaders from around the world signed on to the Paris climate agreement, pledging to cut their carbon footprints, global CO2 emissions accelerated. Does anyone still think President Donald Trump was wrong for pulling the U.S. out of this sham agreement?

“Well, this actually explains a lot: Biggest delegations to UN Climate Conference come from poor African nations”
Poland trolls the global environmentalists at UN climate meeting

For three decades, global warming alarmists have harassed society with stories of gloom and doom as a result of the carbon dioxide emitted into the air by the burning of fossil fuel. They are exercising precisely what prominent writer H.L. Mencken described as “the whole point of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”.
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ARTICLES
Jason Chaffetz: Why is Michael Cohen prosecuted when Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Lois Lerner were not?

Even after Republicans won the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, they acted as if they had lost. Always on the defensive and forever begging for forgiveness from an ideology that never grants it, conservatives had better change their tactics or get used to coming in second place in a two-party race.

Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost
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NOTABLE
Turning Point America:  the 2018 Annie Taylor Award recipients: Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens. “Charlie Kirk started Turning Point USA in his garage back in 2012.  Today he empowers students to stand for American values on 1,300 high school and college campuses across the country.  Candace Owens changed politics forever, reaching black America with a conservative message in ways never before seen.”
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WISE WORDS
“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.”
         -Ronald Reagan

“Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors.”
        -Justice Joseph Story

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