How Affirmative Action Screwed Up Michelle Obama
In 1985, Michelle Obama presented her senior thesis in the sociology department of Princeton University. Although Michelle drew no such conclusion, the thesis is a stunning indictment of affirmative action. Those who benefited from it, Michelle most notably, may never recover from its sting. Her thesis reads like a cry for help.
Obama’s book delayed, my Obama book on schedule
To google “Obama memoir release date” is to get a good sense of the way Google’s algorithms work to protect its chosen candidates. The first headlines date from May 2019. Virtually all articles follow the same formula as USA Today.
Bring Me the Head of Harry Truman
Rarely does an author capture a truth as well as L.P. Hartley did in the immortal opening sentence of his novel, The Go-Between. Said Hartley for the ages: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” This is a message that the nation’s civic leaders, elected officials, and editorialists would do well to absorb.
The day Barack Obama launched Black Lives Matter
On the morning of March 23, 2012, after introducing the new head of the World Bank in the White House Rose Garden, Barack Obama took just one question, likely pre-arranged. It was on the recent shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Said Obama for the ages, “My main message is to the parents of Trayvon: If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”In projecting Trayvon as a “son,” Obama strongly suggested that all black children were equally vulnerable to the predations of white men.
The GOP’s Unholy Assault on Iowa’s Steve King
The headline of a recent Baltimore Jewish Times article reads as follows: “Jewish Republicans Tackle a Thorny Question: What To Do About Republicans Like Steve King?” A saner question might be, “Why should Jewish Republicans — or any Republican, for that matter — have a problem with Iowa congressman Steve King?” Certain Republican insiders, using an obscure group called “The Republican Jewish Coalition” as a wedge, are trying their damnedest to defeat King in a June 2 primary.
The ‘intelligence bombshell’ that never went off
There has been considerable talk about the Jan. 5, 2017, White House gathering of conspirators hoping to unseat Donald Trump. Two weeks later National Security Adviser Susan Rice memorialized the meeting in a memo to self that has forever turned the phrase “by the book” into a punch line. There has been considerably less talk about the meeting or series of meeting in the White House Situation Room in early August 2016. The primary source on these meetings is the Washington Post.
I’m Not Watching the Minnesota Movie
I have not watched any of the videos out of Minneapolis or listened to any of the commentary. I have not watched because I resent having to watch only one genre over and over again. This is the genre in which a white antagonist, presumed guilty at the outset, kills or injures a black protagonist, presumed innocent. More than 15,000 Americans were murdered in 2019, but no movies for national release were made about blacks killing blacks, the most common scenario.
Barack Obama: The race healer that wasn’t
On Nov. 4, 2008, I served as a poll watcher at Saint James United Methodist Church in Kansas City, the home base of Rev. Emanuel Cleaver II, my congressman. The workers expected a lot of voters at this overwhelmingly black polling station, and they got them. Like many of us on the right, I found some consolation in thinking an Obama presidency would ease racial tension in America. On this issue, I genuinely hoped he would succeed. He did not. In fact, Obama failed catastrophically.
Missouri GOP governor faces primary over lockdown
Missouri may be the first state in which the COVID-19 lockdown figures to be a central, if not the central, issue in a gubernatorial election. Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is particularly vulnerable to a primary challenge for the simple reason he was never elected governor. As lieutenant governor, he assumed the office after Gov. Eric Greitens was forced out as a result of an unfortunate dalliance that blew up in his face.
The Floyd Riots Mark a Century of Communist Agitation
On the evening of June 10, in the midst of an impromptu desecration festival in Portsmouth, Virginia, the statue of a Confederate soldier was yanked off its pedestal and crowned the unfortunate Chris Green, who stood underneath. Green, now in a medically induced coma, coded twice on the way to the hospital. He may not survive. Erasing the past is a dangerous business. It has been since the communists got involved in rewriting history a century ago.
