It's Personal: Confronting the Academy's Leftism

Robert Oscar Lopez  "Lately, there has been so much news about the academy’s leftism going insane, it would take about ten consecutive articles to rehash all that’s happened in the first half of 2014:

• crazy professors assaulting pro-life teenagers
• literature professors with no political background inveighing against Israel
• homosexual witch-burners wielding FOIA requests
• zombies shouting down panelists in chilling unison
• deans and provosts with no background in law enforcement judging rape cases
• commencement speakers axed to please petulant faculty subcultures

...
"If we give up and hide, if we start skipping department meetings, if we hide ourselves under bushels, we end up making the problem that much worse.  Conservative students won’t know there is another way of seeing our disciplines. Conservative readers won’t see any examples of people with their traditionalist tendencies dedicating themselves to scholarship.  And leftists will feel comfortable and utterly unchallenged – the way they feel, when they turn most dangerous."

The Rush to Demonize Sgt. Bergdahl

 matrixbob.wordpress.com
 

NY Times   ... "And a classified military report shows that Sergeant Bergdahl had walked away from assigned areas at least twice before and had returned, according to a report in The Times on Thursday. It describes him as a free-spirited young man who asked many questions but gave no indication of being a deserter, let alone the turncoat that Mr. Obama’s opponents are now trying to create.

"If anything, the report suggests that the army unit’s lack of security and discipline was as much to blame for the disappearance, given the sergeant’s history."

 

Under Incompetence

Richard Fernandez  "Norman Dixon, a graduate of Sandhurst and practicing psychologist wrote a book titled On the Psychology of Military Incompetence to explain his theories about why and when such catastrophic incompetence occurred.

"Dixon believes that incompetence is characterized by the capture of an organization from within by mediocrities. One review summarized Dixon’s findings as follows. Incompetence gains a grip when:

• A fundamental conservatism and clinging to outworn tradition, as well as an inability to profit from past experience.
• A tendency to reject, suppress or ignore information which is unpalatable or conflicts with pre-conceptions.
• A tendency to under-estimate the enemy and over-estimate the capabilities of one ’ s own side.
• An undue readiness to find scapegoats and suppress news about military setbacks.
• A predilection for frontal assaults and the belief in brute force rather than the use of surprises or ruses.
• Indecisiveness and a general abdication from the role of a leader.
• A failure to exploit a situation due to the lack of aggressiveness.

"For those more comfortable with programming paradigms, these points can be restated in an equivalent way:

1. There is no feedback loop in the application;
2. Variables are overwritten in a higgledy-piggledy way.
3. The functions return nothing;
4. The application is essentially “fake”.  It has a front end with a lot of spinning lights, but it does nothing.

"You say it can’t happen? Well look at the Obamacare system." ...

Some news in brief

Three years ago, Obama went to court to keep a Taliban leader at Gitmo. Now he's out.  ... "Before he was released, the Obama administration argued that Khairkhwa's long experience as a jihadist leader required his continued detention by the U.S. government. Now that Obama has chosen to transfer him to Qatar the administration would have the public believe that he and the other freed Taliban leaders do not constitute a threat to the United States." ...Stephen Hayes

Obama criticized for chewing gum during D-Day ceremony   "A minor Twitter explosion occurred yesterday during the ceremony commemorating the D-Day landings 70 years ago. TheTV camera caught the president of the United States standing, looking bored, while chewing gum."

Obama chewed gum at a D-Day ceremony, and French Twitter is irate
At least he chews his gum with his mouth closed.

NYT: Bergdahl swap has Democrats worried about WH incompetence   ... "Over the last several months, the American public has had a hard and clear look at the executive talent inside the White House, and has begun to despair for real leadership and competence.
"When leadership fails, people stop following. It appears in the sixth year of the Barack Obama presidency, that moment has arrived. …" ...

Study: Obama's EPA Rules Will Disproportionately Hurt the Poor   "A new study finds that the harsh new carbon emissions rules President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency released this month will hurt the middle class far more than the rich. However, while the new rules will cause the middle class to take a hit, America's poorest will be hit hardest of all."

Relentless Incompetence: Americans Are Giving Up on Obama

The Fiscal Times.

 

... "Nothing about Obama’s performance in these scandals and debacles should give anyone confidence in his assurances -- not of security, not of competence, not even of being madder than anyone. The polling numbers suggest that Americans have finally reached a point where the incompetence and dishonesty are just too obvious to ignore any longer.

Incredible Images Show Deadly Result of D-Day Rehearsal on the Ocean Floor

The Blaze    "An unmanned submarine has recorded some of the most detailed images of two American ships that sank off the coast of England during World War II, according to the Massachusetts company that surveyed the wreckage to mark the disaster’s 70th anniversary.

"Bourne, Mass.-based Hydroid says they are the first high-definition sonar images of two ships sunk by German forces during Exercise Tiger, a rehearsal for the D-Day invasion. The torpedo attack on April 28, 1944, claimed the lives of 749 U.S. soldiers and sailors."

This is Why Liberals Fear The Koch Brothers

American Glob  "The liberal obsession with the Koch Brothers is remarkable. Not since George W. Bush or maybe Sarah Palin has the left gotten so much mileage out of vilifying someone. One difference with the Koch Brothers is that they’re private citizens, not elected officials.

"The left has tried to blame everything on the Kochs. They’re using the kitchen sink strategy to paint them as the most evil men on Earth. So what’s it all about? I have a theory. It begins with this piece by Matt Lewis of The Daily Caller…
...

No End in Sight for Federal Policy of ‘Dumping’ Illegal Immigrants in Arizona, Gov. Brewer Says

The Right Planet    "The vindictiveness and pettiness of the Obama Administration never ceases to amaze me. Apparently, in an effort to stick it to Arizona for past “transgressions,” the feds are dumping illegal immigrants at bus stations in Arizona.

..."It looks like the Obama regime is applying the Cloward-Piven strategy to illegal immigration—overwhelm the system with impossible demands until it breaks, then clamor for “comprehensive immigration reform” … create the problem, foment the reaction, then provide the solution. "

American Nazi gives Hitler Salute from Rose Garden

American Thinker

"No, it didn’t happen exactly that way this week. But hippie jihadist Bob Bergdahl got his chance to stage a classic agitprop stunt (“spontaneously,” of course), by twice reciting the jihadist credo in Arabic as a public signal of surrender to the Haqqani terror network in Afghanistan --- a bunch of evil killers who rival the Taliban in their militant hatred for the United States.

"And Obama just gave our American jihadist a little smile. But what does Obama know? He’s just a passenger on this cruise ship to hell." ...

Freed soldier Bowe Bergdahl’s welcome cancelled

The Scotsman

 

... "The Chamber of Commerce has also received dozens of emails and calls from detractors, many lambasting the town, Ms Drussel and the chamber for supporting Sgt Bergdahl, calling him un-American and a traitor.

"Ms Drussel said she has not received any direct threats, but with all the vitriol, she worried the town would not have enough security. She said: “It’s upsetting because this is where people live in peace and harmony. The joy has all of a sudden become not so joyful.”

"Ms Drussel added that the event had never been planned to be a “hero’s welcome,” but more of a welcome home ceremony as Sgt Bergdahl is reunited with this family.

"She was saddened by all the hateful messages, saying: “He and his family will never know a normal life.' ”
So sad on several levels.

Krauthammer "Free him, then try him"

Charles Krauthammer  Video

 ... "The swap itself remains, nonetheless, a very close call. I would fully respect a president who rejected the deal as simply too unbalanced. What is impossible to respect is a president who makes this heart-wrenching deal and then does a victory lap in the Rose Garden and has his senior officials declare it a cause for celebration. The ever dutiful, ever clueless Susan Rice hailed it as “an extraordinary day for America.”

...
"The Rose Garden stunt wasn’t a messaging failure. It’s a category error. The president seems oblivious to the gravity, indeed the very nature, of what he has just done. Which is why a stunned and troubled people are asking themselves what kind of man they have twice chosen to lead them."

A D-Day Veteran Politely Declines Obama Invitation

John Fund ..."This week, George received a call from the White House, who said they knew he would be over in France during D-Day, and wondered if he would attend a private meeting the White House was arranging for veterans with President Obama.

"George thought about it for awhile and concluded he just couldn’t. “I have so many issues with the president’s policies, including the most recent ones,” he told me ruefully.  “I just couldn’t convince myself to do it.”

"He is not alone. The recent Bergdahl prisoner swap in which five hardened Taliban terrorists were released from prison is rubbing a lot of the military veterans attending D-Day events the wrong way.  “It’s not that we don’t want to respect the commander-in-chief,” one told me sadly. “It’s just that he makes it so hard to do so.”     (Emphasis added, TD)