Monthly Archives: November 2015

Why I Support Carly Fiorina for President, By Dave Begley

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 I have had the unique opportunity and pleasure to see in person nearly all of the candidates for president so I write with some authority on this topic. I’ve seen some multiple times and talked and questioned them when I could. I then wrote up my accounts and submitted them to www.powerlineblog.com.

My Background

Back when I was a Democrat I was elected to a minor political office in Nebraska. More importantly, I worked at the same law firm as Ben Nelson when he ran for Governor. I also had a role in a complicated and high profile lawsuit involving a recount in the Democrat primary in his first race. Ben Nelson went on to serve as Senator and his experience there is instructive today.

Ben’s background was the insurance industry and on a national scale at the highest level. The people of Nebraska were solidly against Obamacare, but Ben was the fifty-first vote in its favor. It is now clear that Obamacare is not only a failure but crony capitalism of the worst sort for the insurance industry. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ben Nelson sold out the people of Nebraska for the Democrat party and his insurance company cronies. He tried to soften the blow by negotiating the “Cornhusker kickback” so small town hospitals wouldn’t go bankrupt, but the polls showed he had no chance for reelection so he retired from the Senate and went back to the insurance industry.

My lesson? We need a real outsider as President.

The Scope of the Problem

I submit that foreign affairs are at the most dangerous point ever in the history of the world. Russia is resurgent. The Chinese are restless. Religious zealots in Iran and Syria have the money and means to get nuclear weapons. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan never had such weapons. Surprisingly the appeasing architect of these failed policies thinks she can fix it.

On the domestic front things are really not much better. The recovery has been the most sluggish ever. We are lucky to have 2% growth. The latent problem is the national debt at nearly $20 trillion. The full magnitude of the debt problem is masked by the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy. Once interest rates normalize, then interest payments explode. When the national debt well exceeds GNP then the economy really slows. The only solution then is massive inflation by devaluing the dollar or tax rates through the roof.

What We Need

In my view we need a servant leader and doer with solid conservative principles who is also an outsider.

Carly frequently uses the phrase “servant leader.” The cynic might say it is poll tested and the cynic might be right. I, on the other hand, take her use of the phrase to be authentic, genuine and direct from her heart.

Grant me dear reader a slight indulgence. On November 15th of this year, my teacher, mentor and friend Fr. John P. Schlegel, S.J. passed away. He was assigned to Creighton University three times and last served as its President for over a decade. During his time as Creighton’s President, he raised nearly $500 million. Most people probably know Creighton for having a pretty good basketball team but it is way more. Through his enormous talent he transformed my alma mater and Omaha. He was a friend to students and millionaires alike. He said Mass regularly and feed the homeless. He was an athlete and scholar. He focused all of his ability to become a man for others and Carly has that “others” focus. She doesn’t use “I” or “me” constantly like the current President. She appears to me to be sincerely interested in making America a better place for average persons. How novel.

Carly might not be a perfect conservative, but she is as conservative as any candidate and no moderate like Jeb Bush or John Kasich.

The Opponent

Hillary is old, tired and out of shape. Mrs. Clinton’s closest aide wrote in an email that was never supposed to see the light of day that Hillary was “confused” about some basic tasks at State. Hillary also needs naps.

The first time I saw Carly in July, her first appearance was at 7:00 am and she worked all day. One time she told a story about how she had climbed a ladder in New Delhi, India to get on a roof to meet some people. There is no way that Hillary would or could do such a thing.

Hillary is not very smart at all. If a person is going to run a secret multi-million dollar bribery scheme that is nearly treason then a smart person would spend some real money to make sure the private server was completely secure and that the contents of the emails never saw the light of day. Hillary didn’t do so. Incredibly stupid. Head-slapping stupid.

Bobby Jindal was a Rhodes Scholar. Ted Cruz was one of the smartest students at Harvard Law and argued cases before the Supreme Court. The GOP field is exceptionally talented, but I would rank Carly as the smartest and I don’t make that claim lightly. She really is a very quick study across a range of topics. Running HP with all of the different disciplines she had to master proves how intelligent she is.

Right now there is a serious criminal investigation ongoing against Hillary Clinton but it concerns her mishandling of national secrets. She has received a complete pass from the Obama Justice Department on the thinly disguised bribery scheme she conducted with her husband and the Clinton Foundation. For purposes of her candidacy the danger here is that if she is elected we will never know if she will sell out the American people’s safety and security for money. It is a small move from allowing the Russians to nearly corner the world’s uranium market to something more consequential.

She is a liar and not even a very good one at that. She is now praised for her prevarications. How perverse is that?

And what kind of woman stays married to a man who sexually humiliated her in front of the entire world? Maybe the Monica incident and her reaction was understandable, but by all accounts Bill has continued with his behavior. The answer to the question is that only a mortally craven or mentally unbalanced person would stay married to Bill Clinton.

Carly’s Rise

She really did rise from secretary to CEO of one of the biggest tech companies in America. And tech is our greatest industry. That is an extraordinary accomplishment that could only happen in America. She rose by merit at a time of extreme difficulty and transition. The internet was just coming on the scene. She was friends and competitors with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Michael Dell. That’s the tech equivalent of George Washington, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. She probably learned a few things from those guys.

Here’s a point that the regular press and American public really doesn’t appreciate. Every single quarter HP has to publish its financial results. There is a scorecard to compare to what Wall Street had expected. She then was subjected to really tough questioning on major and minor points by the Street. This is a rigorous process and not only did she have to master the facts but she had to be quite sophisticated in answering tricky and often compound questions and with follow-ups. Meet the Press is child’s play compared to quarterly conference calls.

When Carly joined HP it was in trouble. She had to make tough decisions. Not every one worked out, but the important thing is that she took action. She didn’t talk about taking action like what the Senate does. The “knock” on her is that she had to layoff people after the Compaq merger and she was subsequently fired by her Board. What is vital to know here is that Board member and legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins recently wrote that the HP Board made a mistake in firing her and he had voted to fire her at the time. It is also worth noting that the HP Board was dysfunctional and later became embroiled in its own scandal.

Lesson for voters today? Carly will challenge and change the status quo in Washington. She is an accomplished executive outsider. She is not tied to the old way of doing things and that is to the good as DC has failed and needs fundamental change.

Carly first came to my attention with her declarative statement that Hillary Clinton must not be President. The directness and boldness of her statement was refreshing but also the fact that she knows what is important. Her real opponent was not Scott Walker who was then leading in the polls. Since then she has largely focused on her three page tax code and zero based budgeting proposals. There is great power and significance in these two ideas but she hasn’t really gone into much detail. I think that she is prudent and smart not to do so because with fine details the special interests will mobilize and oppose her.

She distinguished herself in the debates by the force of her intellect and personality. That’s no small feat considering she had limited political experience and was competing against the best field ever. She didn’t rest on her laurels but got right after it on the campaign trail. I have seen her four times in person and, to put it nicely, the people of Iowa are not a Georgetown crowd. She chatted up the crowd at the Norwalk fire station and at a tent meeting with average Iowans. She is friendly and approachable but still business-like. Three times I have seen Mrs. Clinton and she never took questions from voters. Hillary appears like a queen talking down to her subjects.

What Carly Needs Now

Right now Carly has stalled in the polls. Part of it is due to the large field and part of it is due to her lack of political experience. The other nonpoliticians also have a sizable percentage of the vote. I also think at this point she desperately needs some new material that is consistent with her conservative principles. Here are my proposals: A tariff on OPEC oil and a full frontal assault on the climate change/Green movement.

West Texas oil is now at about $40 bbl and gasoline in Omaha is at $1.95. Our American oil producers need WTI at between $60-$70 to make money. We are only 7 million barrels per day away from North American energy independence. Our “friends” the Saudis are pumping full bore in order to crush our new fracking industry and they are achieving success. Just today I read a report that there has been 250,000 worldwide layoffs in the energy industry and more to come. One oil company has already filed for Chapter 11 and at this rate it won’t be the last.

We make bad trade deals and Trump used that fact as one of his key campaign themes at the beginning. What have the Saudis ever really done for us? We protect the world’s sea lanes for free. We defeated Iraq when Saudi Arabia was threatened. Some of the money we send to OPEC ends up with ISIS and Al Qaeda. I submit that a $20-25 bbl tariff on OPEC oil would be in the self-interest of the United States. Let’s save our oil companies and the jobs here in exchange for a reliable and terror free supply of oil and $3.00 gasoline. OPEC needs our food, tech and pharmaceuticals way more than we need their oil. It is time to turn the tables on those ingrates after forty years of abuse at their hands. And ingrates and abusers they are.

While the Left proclaims that climate change is the number one threat to the world today and a source of Islamic terrorism it is crystal clear to the average voter that the Democrats are clueless. Carly should use Alinsky-like techniques and ridicule them as they are ripe for parody. Why are we spending billions now to prevent a 0.018 increase in temperature in 2100? Tehran could nuke DC well before 2100.

The Greens are a key constituency of the Democrats. Their misguided climate change regulations are a huge drag on the economy and it will only get worse. If Obama’s Clean Power Plan regulations go into effect we are looking at hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs and a 300% increase in energy costs like in Germany. In Europe, average people call it “energy poverty.” We don’t need that here at all. It is wholly unnecessary.

Carly should just call for a “Green Freeze and Rollback” on all of Obama’s energy and environmental policies. The word “freeze” is a reference to the nuclear weapons moratorium that the Left wanted with the USSR in the Carter years. The word “rollback” is a nod to Wal-Mart’s old policy of rolling back prices. It will resonate with Wal-Mart voters. Our environment is clean enough. Let’s declare victory and not try to clean that last 1% at a high cost in jobs and money. Why don’t the Chinese clean up their own environmental mess? Let’s enjoy our success and use the money savings to defeat radical Islam. Radical Islam is a clear and tangible threat to the United States. Global warming is not.

The Internet “How To” Article You’ve Been Looking For

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From American Thinker:

The End of Academic Elites

By Mike Konrad

The internet has changed everything, so much so that even I, a man who has been online for 19 years, am constantly amazed at the pace of accelerated change. The printing press changed the world in a few decades in the 16th century. The internet is even more revolutionary.

Even more so than the press, the internet has evaporated prior means of didactic instruction. The printing press created change, but only the rich could afford to buy one. For less than $100 today, one can get a domain and start a media empire on the web.

Kids now get their news from the internet. Prior to YouTube, news came from “respected” media sources. Now any kid with an iPhone can break a story. In America, videos of police brutality have become a cottage industry, with attendant consequences. I could have used an iPhone when I was a teen.

Craigslist has done a runaround on newspapers by offering free advertising, thus cutting their revenues. Newsprint is collapsing. Paper after paper has gone broke. The Media Elite are gone. Little mammals, like American Thinker, have overtaken the “venerable” dinosaurs of the liberal establishment.

The most noticeable change has been reporting from the Mideast. Until 15 years ago, Jews, by virtue of education, and presence in the media, could wield a moderating — critics have claimed a suffocating — influence. However, today every Arab in the contested areas seems to come equipped with an iPhone, ready to video every supposed Israeli “outrage.” Anybody with an anti-Israel bent can open up a website. No one listens to Wolf Blitzer anymore. The borderline anti-Semitic site Mondoweiss now has the new media’s ear. There are more smartphones in the hands of Muslims than Jews available to contest the narrative. Horror or improvement, this is the present reality.

Beyond the death of the Mainstream Media, the value of a journalism degree has evaporated. So much for six years to a masters at the Columbia School of Journalism. Save yourself a fortune and open a YouTube channel. On the job training. Make money from adding commercials.

With the free Word Press platform — a user-friendly content management system — anybody can open up a news site in a few hours, and soon compete with the BBC, which also uses Word Press, as well as the New Yorker, and the NY Times Blogs. The rise of Mondoweiss — also run on Word Press — is a glaring example of how the media has been overtaken by the technology. If you want to counter anti-Semitism, then ask Ted Belman. Israpundit runs on Word Press.

YouTube now outflanks, and scoops cameramen with 20 years of experience. Kids with a 16-megapixel Samsung smartphone camera are now obsoleting experts with ten thousand dollar rigs. Satellite uplinks have given way to snapping and shooting off to the cloud. Every teen is a star.

With Photoshop, high end photography has changed. Apple’s Final Cut Pro, and Sony’s Vegas have placed professional editting into the hands of people for less than a thousand dollars. If one is broke, Gimp and Kdenlive are quite capable freeware alternatives. Teens can outperform studied experts.

If one needs instruction in these software packages, they are available for free on websites and YouTube. Where then is the value of a film degree that cost tens of thousands?

In the 1960s, green screening chromakey required hundreds of thousands of dollars in a camera and rig. Now, a $50 webcam, some borrowed furniture, lights, and a green towel, with some freeware, can produce the same effect. With Audacity, and a used, cheap mixer, who needs training in audio engineering?

One can self-educate her or himself up to a Masters degree in civil or mechanincal engineering on the internet. Indeed, the only thing truly provided by schools today is a space for lab work. All else can be acquired online at little or no expense.

I taught myself HTML, CSS, PHP, and jQuery about nine years ago. Had I gone to school at that time, it would have cost me thousands of dollars. I learned them for free from a few websites.

Eight years ago, there was a great demand for the mid-level coder, who wrote individualized websites. It was heavy with teens who needed spending money. Now, coding is only useful for the back end of design platforms, where elite expertise is needed; and those experts are often non-degreed, but self-taught. With WIX, a computer illiterate can now design fancy sites in a few minutes. The mid-level profession has evaporated. So much for that training.

Even Word Press is now being assailed by simpler platforms like Weebly, which are making websites so easy that web design is now officially dead. A whole sub-industry was birthed, grew, and died out in less time that it took to even learn the skills.

The New Boston website offers complete courses in computer science, coding, math, and physics. The owner started the site when he realized that college was now a pointless waste of time. The Khan Academy is a free university. Other World Computing was teaching Apple computer repair — and quite well –- until Apple started soldering parts a few years ago, probably in response to IFIXIT and DIRECTFIX, whose repair kits cut into Apple’s profits.

Medical Degrees, which require training, will survive, but not without severe pruning of required attendance. Who is going to pay hundreds of thousands to go to Columbia Med School for a degree when he or she can learn many of the skills for free. What is needed is apprentice/intern training, not fluff courses. More time as an intern, less time in redundant classes.

True, research has to be centralized, but everything up to a bachelor’s can be achieved gratis. Entrance to graduate school will be solely by exam, along with a small syllabus of lab courses, and nothing more. To the enterprising student, this can be accomplished with home study, and a year in commercial labs in capacity as a trainee; an arrangement once familiar to medieval guilds, only this time defined by the net rather than tradition.

For budding clerics, the Blue Letter Bible is an online bible college, complete with interactive Greek and Hebrew interlinears, which give pronunciation. Aquinas and Luther would have killed for such tools.

Unlike the revolution started by the printing press which soon stabilized, internet changes are not merely drastic but continually accelerating.

In the liberal arts, one can practice Spanish with a native speaker in Argentina on Skype for free. No need for four years in college with an American professor who never learned how to trill an r. No need for a community college degree in graphic design, when Roberto Blake does a far better job of it for free on YouTube.

Academia will soon die out. The relic courses designed only to make work for obsolete professors will no longer be tolerated. The debt, and the social bloat, will have to collapse. Education has now become truly democratized. Only Engineering, the Sciences, and Medical Education will survive — and these in only an abbreviated form.

This has the advantage of removing the last holdouts of a vestigial intellectual aristocracy which distorts our Republic with claims of expertise, and high salary requirements. However, the downside, as evinced by YouTube reporting, will be the total lack of responsibility. We will happily lose the Ivy League elite; but alas we may pay for this liberty with BDS coming out of every pore.

For those who say the servers can be shut down, you can learn how to set up your own for a few hundred dollars. In fact, older computers are perfect for such servers.

It will be interesting. I, for one, feel that it will be good to see ossified, overpriced universities disappear. I would rather exercise my own discretion than have choices made by some elite dinosaur. Academia was the last vestige of medievalism. Good riddance! Long live the internet.

The internet has changed everything, so much so that even I, a man who has been online for 19 years, am constantly amazed at the pace of accelerated change. The printing press changed the world in a few decades in the 16th century. The internet is even more revolutionary.

Even more so than the press, the internet has evaporated prior means of didactic instruction. The printing press created change, but only the rich could afford to buy one. For less than $100 today, one can get a domain and start a media empire on the web.

Kids now get their news from the internet. Prior to YouTube, news came from “respected” media sources. Now any kid with an iPhone can break a story. In America, videos of police brutality have become a cottage industry, with attendant consequences. I could have used an iPhone when I was a teen.

Craigslist has done a runaround on newspapers by offering free advertising, thus cutting their revenues. Newsprint is collapsing. Paper after paper has gone broke. The Media Elite are gone. Little mammals, like American Thinker, have overtaken the “venerable” dinosaurs of the liberal establishment.

The most noticeable change has been reporting from the Mideast. Until 15 years ago, Jews, by virtue of education, and presence in the media, could wield a moderating — critics have claimed a suffocating — influence. However, today every Arab in the contested areas seems to come equipped with an iPhone, ready to video every supposed Israeli “outrage.” Anybody with an anti-Israel bent can open up a website. No one listens to Wolf Blitzer any more. The borderline anti-Semitic site Mondoweiss now has the new media’s ear. There are more smartphones in the hands of Muslims than Jews available to contest the narrative. Horror or improvement, this is the present reality.

Beyond the death of the Mainstream Media, the value of a journalism degree has evaporated. So much for six years to a masters at the Columbia School of Journalism. Save yourself a fortune and open a YouTube channel. On the job training. Make money from adding commercials.

With the free Word Press platform — a user friendly content management system — anybody can open up a news site in a few hours, and soon compete with the BBC, which also uses Word Press, as well as the New Yorker, and the NY Times Blogs. The rise of Mondoweiss — also run on Word Press — is a glaring example of how the media has been overtaken by the technology. If you want to counter anti-Semitism, then ask Ted Belman. Israpundit runs on Word Press.

YouTube now outflanks, and scoops cameramen with 20 years of experience. Kids with a 16-megapixel Samsung smartphone camera are now obsoleting experts with ten thousand dollar rigs. Satellite uplinks have given way to snapping and shooting off to the cloud. Every teen is a star.

With Photoshop, high end photography has changed. Apple’s Final Cut Pro, and Sony’s Vegas have placed professional editting into the hands of people for less than a thousand dollars. If one is broke, Gimp and Kdenlive are quite capable freeware alternatives. Teens can outperform studied experts.

If one needs instruction in these software packages, they are available for free on websites and YouTube. Where then is the value of a film degree that cost tens of thousands?

In the 1960s, green screening chromakey required hundreds of thousands of dollars in a camera and rig. Now, a $50 webcam, some borrowed furniture, lights, and a green towel, with some freeware, can produce the same effect. With Audacity, and a used, cheap mixer, who needs training in audio engineering?

One can self-educate her or himself up to a Masters degree in civil or mechanincal engineering on the internet. Indeed, the only thing truly provided by schools today is a space for lab work. All else can be acquired online at little or no expense.

I taught myself HTML, CSS, PHP, and jQuery about nine years ago. Had I gone to school at that time, it would have cost me thousands of dollars. I learned them for free from a few websites.

Eight years ago, there was a great demand for the mid-level coder, who wrote individualized websites. It was heavy with teens who needed spending money. Now, coding is only useful for the back end of design platforms, where elite expertise is needed; and those experts are often non-degreed, but self-taught. With WIX, a computer illiterate can now design fancy sites in a few minutes. The mid-level profession has evaporated. So much for that training.

Even Word Press is now being assailed by simpler platforms like Weebly, which are making websites so easy that web design is now officially dead. A whole sub-industry was birthed, grew, and died out in less time that it took to even learn the skills.

The New Boston website offers complete courses in computer science, coding, math, and physics. The owner started the site when he realized that college was now a pointless waste of time. The Khan Academy is a free university. Other World Computing was teaching Apple computer repair — and quite well –- until Apple started soldering parts a few years ago, probably in response to IFIXIT and DIRECTFIX, whose repair kits cut into Apple’s profits.

Medical Degrees, which require training, will survive, but not without severe pruning of required attendance. Who is going to pay hundreds of thousands to go to Columbia Med School for a degree when he or she can learn many of the skills for free. What is needed is apprentice/intern training, not fluff courses. More time as an intern, less time in redundant classes.

True, research has to be centralized, but everything up to a bachelor’s can be achieved gratis. Entrance to graduate school will be solely by exam, along with a small syllabus of lab courses, and nothing more. To the enterprising student, this can be accomplished with home study, and a year in commercial labs in capacity as a trainee; an arrangement once familiar to medieval guilds, only this time defined by the net rather than tradition.

For budding clerics, the Blue Letter Bible is an online bible college, complete with interactive Greek and Hebrew interlinears, which give pronunciation. Aquinas and Luther would have killed for such tools.

Unlike the revolution started by the printing press which soon stabilized, internet changes are not merely drastic but continually accelerating.

In the liberal arts, one can practice Spanish with a native speaker in Argentina on Skype for free. No need for four years in college with an American professor who never learned how to trill an r. No need for a community college degree in graphic design, when Roberto Blake does a far better job of it for free on YouTube.

Academia will soon die out. The relic courses designed only to make work for obsolete professors will no longer be tolerated. The debt, and the social bloat, will have to collapse. Education has now become truly democratized. Only Engineering, the Sciences, and Medical Education will survive — and these in only an abbreviated form.

This has the advantage of removing the last holdouts of a vestigial intellectual aristocracy which distorts our Republic with claims of expertise, and high salary requirements. However, the downside, as evinced by YouTube reporting, will be the total lack of responsibility. We will happily lose the Ivy League elite; but alas we may pay for this liberty with BDS coming out of every pore.

For those who say the servers can be shut down, you can learn how to set up your own for a few hundred dollars. In fact, older computers are perfect for such servers.

It will be interesting. I, for one, feel that it will be good to see ossified, overpriced universities disappear. I would rather exercise my own discretion than have choices made by some elite dinosaur. Academia was the last vestige of medievalism. Good riddance! Long live the internet.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/the_end_of_academic_elites.html#ixzz3snyF5big
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PRINCETON’S TROUBLES, AN ALUMNUS’ PERSPECTIVE

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From Powerlineblog.com

PRINCETON’S TROUBLES, AN ALUMNUS’ PERSPECTIVE

A distinguished alumnus of Princeton comments on the University’s long descent into leftism and its disturbing practice of pandering to infantile race-mongers:

The recent events at Princeton University are the culmination of the leftist takeover of Princeton that began in the late 1960s with the rise of people like William Bowen (Provost 1967 to 1972, President 1972 to 1988), Shirley Tilghman (long-time professor, President 2000 to 2013), and many others of the leftist faculty-industrial complex. Princeton is really no different than other universities in this regard.

Over the years, beginning as early as the 1960s and 1970s, Princeton loaded up its faculty with liberals, socialists, Marxists, and other fellow travelers, and more recently, with people like Paul Krugman, Peter Singer, Cornel West, and Sean Wilentz. The collective groupthink was evident in 2012, when the student newspaper determined that “99 percent of donors from Princeton [gave] to Obama” during that year’s presidential campaign. It did not seem to occur to anyone at the university that there was anything wrong with such an imbalance.

The university points to one well-known conservative professor, Robert George, as if to say, “see, we have a conservative on the faculty.” In fact, Mr. George is a token conservative. The university routinely honors alumni who are liberal public officials and figures, like former Senator Paul Sarbanes, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. At the same time, Princeton typically ignores conservative public officials (e.g., Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito).

The alumni generally fall into a few different camps: (1) liberals who approve of everything the administration does; (2) moderate and conservative alumni who keep their mouth shut about the university’s tendencies, donate a lot of money, and hope that their silence, donations, and support will enable their children to gain admission; (3) indifferent alumni who are more focused on earning a living and putting their Princeton experiences out of their mind; and (4) conservative alumni who fire off occasional letters of protest and otherwise generally view the school as a name that looks good on their resume despite its far left administration and faculty.

At the same time, alumni are keenly aware that Princeton’s admissions office has increased “diversity” at the expense of “non-diverse” candidates. Princeton now identifies 55% of its students as minority and foreign or “international” students. Princeton also established theFields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding, the Institutional Equity and Diversity at Princeton program, a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Center, a Women’s Center, a “Queering the Color Line Series,” and several other diversity-related initiatives, faculty, and programs.

The latest episode in President Christopher Eisgruber’s Nassau Hall office illustrates the prevailing sentiment among certain segments of the school. This is especially true of thecomment by one student, captured on videotape, that Woodrow Wilson “is a murderer. We owe him nothing. This university owes us everything. I walk around this campus understanding that this was built on the backs of my people and I owe none of you guys anything. We owe white people nothing. If not for the evilness and of white hatred in this country…we would not have to be fighting for our rights.”

That Mr. Eisgruber would tolerate the invasion of his office by students and then negotiate an agreement with the invaders says a lot about his leadership.

Mr. Eisgruber’s agreement to study Woodrow Wilson raises another question: why limit any examination to Woodrow Wilson? Princeton’s alumni include slaveholders like James Madison and many others whose views are out-of-step with contemporary norms and whose names appear on university buildings and elsewhere throughout the university. The answer to the question appears to be that the protesters demanded the annihilation of Mr. Wilson’s memory and Mr. Eisgruber signed an agreement with them to buy time, defuse the situation, and “study” the issue.

That he and the university would consider race-based “affinity housing” is particularly troubling. Perhaps he plans to delay until the protesters leave for the summer or graduate. At bottom, though, Mr. Eisgruber’s decision to negotiate and reach an agreement about studying Woodrow Wilson’s legacy, affinity housing, “cultural competency training, “amnesty” for those who spent the night in Mr. Eisgruber’s office, and other diversity-related demands sets a disturbing precedent.

Fortunately, some students and alumni object to the university’s actions. Whether these objections will matter remains to be seen.

The Gun Powder Plot Defused, Thankfully

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It is Guy Fawkes night in Great Britain, here is the story of the Gun Powder Plot, This is interesting history.

Catholic Conspiracy and the Gunpowder Plot

By Pat Horan

“Remember, remember!

The fifth of November,

The Gunpowder treason and plot;

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!”

On Nov. 5, as Americans absorb the results of the midterm elections, those in the UK will be celebrating Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes Night) with firework celebrations. The day marks the 409th anniversary of the 1605 “Gunpowder Plot” to blow up the British Parliament and assassinate King James I.

Elizabeth I of England had died without an heir in 1603. Since King James VI of Scotland – son of Mary, Queen of Scots – was the great grandson of Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret Tudor, he was considered to be most fit to be heir to the English Crown. With his coronation, James united the Kingdom of England and Ireland with the Kingdom of Scotland, proclaiming himself, “King of Great Britain and Ireland.” The Protestant Elizabeth’s succession is rather ironic as she had her cousin and James’ mother, the Catholic Queen Mary, beheaded after Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth! Although the son of Catholics, James was raised as a Protestant.

James was more moderate toward Catholics than his predecessor, who had declared all Catholic priests to be guilty of treason, but after he discovered that the pope had sent James I’s wife a rosary, James denounced the Roman Catholic Church, ordered its priests to leave the country, and reimposed fines on those guilty of not attending Anglican services.

The plot to destroy Parliament and assassinate the king is believed to be the brainchild of Robert Catesby, a Catholic veteran of the Earl of Essex’s rebellion against Elizabeth. To implement this plan, Catesby recruited several men, including, Guy (Guido) Fawkes, who had fought for the Spanish against Protestant Dutch rebels in the Netherlands. As a man with military experience, Fawkes was the one to handle and set off the gunpowder. Catesby and the conspirators intended to kill most of the Protestant aristocracy along with the king during his address before the House of Lords and then kidnap his young daughter, Princess Elizabeth. A Catholic uprising would then install the child as the monarch.

Parliament was set to re-open in February 1605, but the threat of plague delayed this until the fall. During the summer, Catesby met with the Jesuit superior of England, Henry Garnet, and received reconciliation from another Jesuit, Oswald Tesimond. Tesimond learned of the plot and approached Garnet, asking for his advice. Garnet determined that the seal of the confessional prevented him from revealing this to English authorities, but he urged Catesby not to use violence.

As details of the conspiracy were finalized, several of the plotters became increasingly concerned about the safety of Catholic members of Parliament that might be present. British historian Antonia Fraser recounts that an anonymous letter was sent to the Lord Monteagle. Monteagle read the letter that warned him not to attend the State Opening of Parliament as it would “receive a terrible blow.” The letter made its way to the King.

On the night of Nov. 4, a search was conducted underneath Parliament. The search party discovered and arrested Fawkes, who was dressed in a cloak and hat, with barrels of gunpowder underneath the House of Lords.

Although Fawkes insisted he acted alone, English authorities traced the plot to Catesby and the other conspirators. Catesby and three other plotters were killed before they could be arrested. The other members of the inner circle were captured and brought to the Tower of London along with Fawkes, where they awaited being tried with treason. One of them, Thomas Bates, implicated Father Garnet, Father Tesimond, and a third Jesuit, Father Gerard. Gerard and Tesimond escaped the country, but Garnet was captured.

As he was interrogated, Garnet admitted he had learned of the plot under the seal of confession, but he rebutted the accusations of treason made against him. He had even attempted to stop the plan. Despite the weakness of the prosecution, Garnet was convicted and eventually hanged, drawn, and quartered. Robert Cecil, an important adviser to both Elizabeth I and James I, is believed to have influenced the prosecution to foster anti-Catholic sentiment. Although the priests probably were not involved in the creation and implementation of the plan, the Gunpowder Plot is sometimes nicknamed the “Jesuit Treason.”

The captured members of the attempted regicide were also convicted and executed by the same means.

While the events of 1605 are generally not at the forefront of people’s minds nowadays, Nov. 5 is still a night of celebration in Britain. The 2006 film V for Vendetta, based on the 1982 graphic novel of the same name, has made the “Guy Fawkes” mask a common feature of protest movements across the world. (The film’s protagonist is a freedom fighter who dons the masks, but it neglects to mention that the real Fawkes was intent on installing a Catholic monarchy.).

Author’s note: I’d like to thank Fr. Thomas Worcester, SJ; Fr. Thomas McCoog, SJ; and my friend, Lee Evans for sharing their knowledge of this subject with me.

If Tom Hanks Managed The Mets!

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In the Movie, “A League Of Their Own” about the women’s’ professional baseball league in the 1940’s, Tom Hanks played the manager. In the iconic scene of the movie, with a player crying over some event, he said, “Crying? There’s no crying in baseball.” There is a reason for this. Baseball does not lend itself to sentiment.

Last night in game 5 of the World Series, the Mets, behind the Royals three games to one, led 2-0 in the ninth inning. Mets pitcher Matt Harvey had been dominant through 8 innings.

Mets manager Terry Collins was about to remove Harvey for the Mets star closer. Harvey went after Collins saying, as we lip read the confrontation, “there’s no way you’re taking me out. It’s my game, I’m staying in.” He was highly emotional, pleading. The Mets fans were chanting Harvey, We want Harvey!” So Harvey, hubris flowing, dreaming of a shut out in game 5, preserving his team’s chances to win the series, Took the mound to pitch to Lorenzo Cain in the top of the ninth.

If the team won, they had a chance to win it all with pitchers deGrom and Syndegaard scheduled to pitch games 6 and 7. They very well may have beaten the Royals.

Facing Cain in the top of the inning, Harvey, glory in his eyes, concrete in his elbow, walked Cain. Baseball unwritten rules say that you never walk the lead off hitter anytime. Now Harvey had to pitch out of the stretch to Eric Hosmer. Hosmer hit the ball off the base of the left field wall. Cain scored and Hosmer was on second with the tying run. Collins replaced Harvey at that time. It was a long walk to the mound for Collins and longer to Harvey to the dugout and ignominy.

Mike Moustakas, a left-handed hitter, hit the ball to the Mets first baseman, Duda. Hosmer took third and the magnificent catcher Perez came to the plate. He was beaten with a ball that jammed him and he hit a short shot to third baseman David Wright. Hosmer watched as Wright prepared to throw to first, and when he did, Hosmer broke for the plate. Duda at first had to hold his position to catch the ball while touching the base. With Hosmer streaking down the third baseline, he came off the base after catching Wright’s throw and had to throw across his body to home. The ball was wild, Hosmer scored the tieing run.

Both of the batters Harvey faced scored in that inning. It would have been different if he threw one more strike to Harvey or a better strike to Hosmer, but he didn’t. The Royals scored 5 runs in 12th to win the World Series. It is a wonderful team. but this game was lost because Collins allowed Harvey’s cry to overwhelm his judgment.

If Tom Hanks managed the Mets, we would probably see game 6 tomorrow night and deGrom just might have been victorious. Maybe.That’s why there’s no crying in baseball, Never.

The Movie “TRUTH” is a Lie, Pure and Simple

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Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker are friends of mine.. This article, from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, details the movie’s lies. The Rather documents were a hoax, shamelessly put forward for partisan political reasons’

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iPlaying now in theaters across the country is a film called “Truth.” If truth-in-labeling laws applied to Hollywood, the film would be called “Lies” — or the producers would be trying to work out a plea agreement to avoid jail time. Starring Robert Redford as former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett as former CBS News producer Mary Mapes, the film purports to tell the story behind the “Rathergate” scandal from the inside.

The film premiered to favorable reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 12 and to mixed notices when it opened in New York and Los Angeles on October 16. Some reviewers take the film at face value. That is a mistake.

The episode known as Rathergate represents one of the great journalistic frauds of our time. The scandal erupted from a “60 Minutes Wednesday” segment rushed to air on the evening of Sept. 8, 2004, in time to influence the approaching presidential election pitting George W. Bush against John Kerry, as it was clearly intended to do. The segment consisted of two parts that didn’t quite fit together except in their antipathy to Bush.

In the first part, based on an interview with Ben Barnes, the former Texas lieutenant governor — and at the time vice chairman of Kerry’s national finance committee — Rather essentially claimed that political influence had been brought to bear to secure Bush’s admission to the Texas Air National Guard as an interceptor jet pilot in 1968. In the second part, based on documents supposedly from the “personal file” of Bush’s commanding officer, Rather reported that Bush had defied an order to take a physical necessary to maintain his flight status and, among other things, thus failed to discharge his military obligations. The segment was produced and written by Mapes.

In researching the story, Mapes had interviewed witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the Texas Air National Guard’s personnel needs. She was told that they needed pilots at the time and that no influence would have been necessary to secure Bush’s admission.
The documents on which Rather based the second segment proved to be fabricated on Microsoft Word in the computer era, not typewritten in the early 1970s by Bush’s commanding officer or anyone else. The content and format of the documents also betrayed their fabrication.

The story began to fall apart within a few hours of its broadcast. On Sept. 20, 12 days later, Rather extended an apology “personally and directly” to viewers for his inability to authenticate the documents.

To investigate what happened, CBS commissioned a panel chaired by former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press President Lou Boccardi. The report, released in January 2005, provides evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the entire segment was false and/or fraudulent. It finds that CBS News was at the least grossly negligent in airing the story. As CBS puts it, the report finds that “CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the Sept. 8, 2004 broadcast.”

Mapes was promptly fired, as were three other executives with responsibility for the story. Rather stepped down from “CBS Evening News” in March 2005 and was let go from the network the following year.

Both Mapes (“Truth and Duty,” 2005) and Rather (“Rather Outspoken,” 2012) have written memoirs standing by the story. “Truth” is based on Mapes’s memoir. Despite Mapes’s responsibility for perpetrating a shocking journalistic fraud, the film portrays her as a heroic figure. Mapes not only gets a stellar actress to play her, she is portrayed as a martyr to the First Amendment and a victim of corporate cowardice.
Calling the film “Truth” suggests confidence that public memories have faded. The lapse of 11 years is apparently sufficient time to allow for the rewriting of history.

Back in 2004, writing about the “60 Minutes” segment on the morning after the broadcast on the Power Line site, I posted a brief item linking to the “60 Minutes” story and the PDF copies of the documents that CBS had made available with the online version of the story. Thinking there might be something more to be said about it than what “60 Minutes” had reported, I called my post “The 61st Minute” and published it on Power Line at 7:51 a.m.

Together with my colleague John Hinderaker, I updated the post with additional information provided by readers and fellow bloggers through the early afternoon. By noon, anyone following along online could see that the “60 Minutes” segment had been based on fabricated documents and thoroughgoing falsehoods. The segment, reported with great earnestness by Rather, had been produced by knaves or fools or both.

Rather and Mapes nevertheless persuaded CBS News to stick with the story for nearly two weeks before Rather rendered his on-air apology. Now Rather reveals that he apologized with fingers crossed behind his back. He didn’t mean it; both he and Mapes stand behind the story and the authenticity of the documents. In a Bartlett’s-worthy quote, Mapes asserted before a festive audience convened by the New York Times last month in Manhattan, “I think we were within the normal journalistic range of bungle.”

Andrew Heyward was president of CBS News at the time of Rathergate. He hasn’t spoken much about the scandal for public consumption, but he talked about “Truth” to the New York Times last month. Heyward told the Times that the film “takes people responsible for the worst embarrassment in the history of CBS News, and what was at the time a grievous blow to the credibility of a proud news organization, and turns them into martyrs and heroes. Only Hollywood could come up with that.”