WHEN UNIVERSITIES PRETEND TO BE BUSINESSES. Interesting point here about why the “flat” organization of a university (compared to a similar size business) might actually make the problem of ideological mobbing worse on a campus than in a big, faceless corporation.

IT’S COME TO THIS:

Here’s the tweet that The Blaze deleted:

BUNKER TIME: Stephen Miller as chief of staff reveals Trump’s bunker mentality.

No one is more loathed among Democrats – and no one is more apt to do battle against them – than Miller. Or so apparently goes Trump’s own thinking. Sam Tanenhaus, the author of a perspicuous new biography of William F. Buckley, Jr., reminded me that Trump’s ghostwriter Tony Schwartz declared to the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

According to Tanenhaus, “Miller is the virtual version. The Don is going nuclear.”

He is indeed. But it’s also the case that in turning to the architect of his hardline policies on immigration, Trump may well accelerate the meltdown of his presidency. Confronted with a crushing midterm defeat, Trump’s impulse has been to wish it out of evidence. He’s spent the last few days mostly talking up the vanity building projects in Washington that irked voters.

The appointment of Miller is the latest sign that Trump has no intention of attempting to placate an angry electorate, let alone reach an accommodation with the Democrats that he has deemed communists. As it happens, this is the very language that Miller himself has sedulously employed for several decades. He is the protégé of the late David Horowitz, a lapsed communist who moved right during the Reagan era and who pioneered a new smash-mouth politics that branded Democrats as traitors. Like his mentor, Miller is in word and deed a Leninist who believes that there can be no accommodation, no quarter given to the enemy.  After his old mentor Jeff Sessions, who briefly served as Trump’s attorney general during his first term, fell out of favor, Miller didn’t hesitate to abandon him. 

Flashback:

JIM ACOSTA: What you’re proposing, or what the President is proposing, does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration. The Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It doesn’t say anything about speaking English or being able to be a computer programmer. Aren’t you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you’re telling them you have to speak English? Can’t people learn how to speak English when they get here?

STEPHEN MILLER: Well, first of all, right now it’s a requirement that to be naturalized you have to speak English. So the notion that speaking English wouldn’t be a part of immigration would actually be very ahistorical. Secondly, I don’t want to get into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty lighting the world. It’s a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you’re referring to was added later. It’s not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty. But more fundamentally —

ACOSTA: So, you’re saying that that does not represent what the country has always thought of as immigration coming into this country?

—“The White House’s Stephen Miller Destroys CNN: ‘Cosmopolitan,’ ‘Outrageous,’ ‘Ignorant,’ ‘Biased,’” Scott Whitlock, NewsBusters, August 2nd, 2017.

UPDATE:

MORE:

LAME DUCK? WHAT LAME DUCK?

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Ma’am, Your ‘Aura’ Smells like Miller Lite and Cheap Tequila. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn that the court-mandated GPS ankle monitor isn’t your friend, the most expensive way to enjoy a free meal at Wendy’s, and that what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.”

LIBYA ISSUES FATWA ISSUED AGAINST NIKE FOR ‘PROMOTING POLYTHEISM:’

Libya’s top religious authority has declared a fatwa against Nike for promoting symbols associated “with polytheism”.

The Dar al-Ifta has issued a ruling that bans Muslims from buying, selling or wearing clothing bearing the sportswear brand.

It said that wearing clothing displaying the logo amounted to the worship of more than one god, because Nike is named after a Greek goddess.

The religious authority also accused Nike of supporting Israel, and called for a boycott of pro-Israel countries.

The fatwa is a religious opinion on a matter of Islamic law and was approved by Sadiq al-Gharyani, the grand mufti of Libya. The body has heavy influence but its orders are not legally enforceable.

Not the Bee’s Harris Rigby asks, “I wonder if the Libyan Grand Mufti knows about all the other things that are named after Greco-Roman gods!”

I’m pretty sure Nike’s dalliance with Dylan Mulvaney wouldn’t be Grand Mufti approved, either. Is there anybody left who Nike hasn’t alienated yet?

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A SMALLER BLOG:

NOSTALGIA TECH: This new flat-screen monitor looks like a 1980s computer monitor and has all the old sockets built in. “If you’ve ever tried to connect your old console to a modern TV, you might have learned that the picture is less than perfect. It’s often blurry or laggy, and more often than not, the TV doesn’t have a matching socket. The Checkmate monitor has all of the old sockets built in. It happily accepts an Amiga, SNES, or Mega Drive. It also switches between 50 Hz European games and 60 Hz American and Japanese titles. You can also stick a Raspberry Pi into a slot if you are using it to run emulators. It’s got an HDMI output if you want to capture what’s on the screen. The project is close to being fully funded, with 20 days left.”

Here’s the Kickstarter.

It’s a little pricey, but I’ve been shopping around for an old Amiga — mostly because I never got to have one in the ’80s or early ’90s — and this might be just the thing to go with it.

WORST. GENOCIDE. EVER.

I mean, if that’s what Hamas reported…

THAT’S NICE, BUT WE STILL NEED A SPACE TELESCOPE CAPABLE OF DETECTING ORION SLAVE GIRLS: Software squeezes more data out of Webb Telescope for imaging exoplanets. “While telescopes can be fitted with devices called coronagraphs that block out much of a star’s light, there are limits to their effectiveness, caused by noise from subtle variations in the telescope’s configuration and pointing between observations. Now, researchers have developed a new software package that optimizes a physical model of the telescope in a way that allows us to better model these differences, producing low-noise imaging of exoplanets.”

COLLEGES TEACHING STUDENTS TO HATE AMERICA. Yeah, this is a dog-bites-man story now, but it’s still worth being concerned about. If all this focus on “critical” studies had meant students were learning to think critically, we might be OK. Even if that had been the intent (which I doubt), that clearly isn’t what actually happened, and the failed experiment needs to end ASAP.

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™: California Failin.’ “Things got worse after Tuesday’s election, when California’s fall gained full velocity, worthy of a Magic Mountain roller coaster. Not to be outdone, Washington State made moves to become California’s mini me, and Oregon rehired truly one of the worst governors in its history.”

I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THESE BONCENTRATION BAMPS: