Category Archives: culture

Another Reason

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…to stop sending Federal funds to any institution in the California University system.

The University of California hid a stash of $175 million in secret funds while its leaders requested more money from the state, an audit released on Tuesday said.

The University of California system is run by Janet Napolitano, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.  And the same Napolitano who decided returning American veterans could be terrorist material: her history of dishonesty is a long one.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the audit found that the secret fund ballooned due to UC Office of the President overestimating how much is needed to run the school system that includes 10 campuses in the state.

And

The audit found that over the course of four years, the UC’s central bureaucracy amassed more than $175 million in reserve funds by spending significantly less than it budgeted for and asking for increases in future funding based on its previous years’ over-estimated budgets rather than its actual expenditures.

There’s more.

[A] top staff member in Napolitano’s office improperly screened confidential surveys that were sent to each campus. [California State Auditor Elaine] Howle said answers that were critical of Napolitano’s office were deleted or changed before being sent to auditors.

Of course, Napolitano denies everything.

Never mind her denials.  Just stop sending Federal funds—the taxes paid by the good citizens of New York, of Illinois, of Texas, of…—to the California university system.  Let California deal with its own schools in its own way without the largesse of the rest of the nation.

Filibusters

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Since the Progressive-Democrats in the Senate are dead set on shutting down the Federal government (I won’t argue the utility of the government being shut down or by how much it actually would be) for the sake of their own petty political egos, it’s time to get rid of the filibuster on all matters relating to the budget, spending, and revenues.

It’s time to put an end to the obstructionism of these Precious Ones.

Full stop.

Distortions

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is upset over his administration’s having been called soft on crime by that impertinent man, Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  Sessions, after all, said that New York

continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the city’s “soft on crime” stance.

De Blasio’s response?  He transferred the target of the remark to the police themselves, pretending to wonder why the AG has

insult[ed] the men and women who do this work every day, who put their lives on the line and who have achieved so much?

Never mind that this is a naked distortion.  Sessions clearly laid the lackadaisical enforcement attitude on the city’s administration—which would include Da Mair (oh, wait—that’s the late Mayor Richard Daley (D).  But who can tell the difference, anyway?).  It’s the “men and women who do this work every day” who are the ones dangerously hampered by de Blasio’s position on law enforcement.

This is an example of why we can’t have nice things in Democrat-run cities and towns.

British Snap Election

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British Prime Minister Theresa May called for a snap election (early next June), and her public reason was that Whitehall was too divided for her to be able to negotiate effectively with Brussels over the terms of the British departure from the EU.  She wanted a mandate from the people.

Yesterday the British Parliament voted in favor of her call (under a 2011 law, the PM no longer can require a snap election on his/her own initiative; two-thirds of Parliament’s 650 seats must agree) by 522-13, much wider than those two-thirds (the Scottish National Party was among those who abstained from the vote).

Her real reason, magnified by the implosion of the Labour Party, is that her own Conservative Party, the majority party in Parliament, is itself too fractured.  Conservatives can’t agree among themselves over the nature of Britain’s departure: should it be a hard, sharp, prompt break, or should it be a graduated withdrawal?  Should there be compromise with Brussels over immigration into Great Britain, should there be a continuation of British payments into the EU in return for freer access to the EU’s common market?

Here’s what’s interesting to me about the aftermath of that June snap election (not the election itself, which general outcome seems a foregone conclusion).  Polls, pols, and pundits all think the Conservatives can gain as many as 100 seats in Parliament, which would give them 430 out of the 650 seats, just three seats shy of a two-thirds majority (not so small aside: the election is scheduled to occur before the size of Parliament shrinks to 600 seats).

I’m curious about whether she gets those 100 seats, and I’m curious whether a seat gain of any significant size will reduce her party’s fractiousness or magnify it.

Her win in the snap could backfire on her.

The Gulag

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…is back and in full force in Russian-occupied Crimea.  Russian dissidents—Tatars, this time—are being “diagnosed” as insane and locked away in “psychiatric” hospitals.

Since the annexation of the region three years ago many ethnic Tatar activists who oppose the occupation have been arrested and subjected to abuse and imprisonment in outdated mental institutions, said Robert van Voren, a Dutch human rights activist and political scientist.

“The number of cases has increased considerably over the past few years, in particular against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian activists who oppose Russia’s annexation,” he added.

Just as in the Soviet Russian gulag, conditions are appalling and along with Russian treatment of the “inmates” are intended to retrain them to ways of which Russia approves.  Emil Kurbedinov, a Crimean civil rights lawyer focusing on Tatar civil rights and himself locked up for 10 days, had this:

Some are placed in isolation and are denied their basic needs, such as access to a toilet. Others are housed with multiple people suffering from severe mental health conditions.

The activists are interrogated about their alleged involvement in “extremism” and their views of the government. They are also deprived of the right to speak with their family, or meet their lawyer on a one-to-one basis without a guard being present.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.