Obama: Ain’t Broke, Fix It. Broke: Keep As Is

The Obama administration is rolling out a new program to fix America’s universities and colleges. Allocation of federal funds for higher educational establishments is to be based on measures of college “performance,” such as affordability, admission rates for low-income students, remedial support for disadvantaged students, and graduation and transfer rates.  The Obama’s education department will require all of America’s 4,500 diverse private, public, and religious colleges and universities to follow the same federal rules or risk loss of federal support – another “one size fits all” characteristic of Obama.

Obama’s stated purpose of fixing our broken higher education: We must ensure that “earning a postsecondary degree” is no longer “a pathway to opportunity for the ‘talented few.’” In other words, our higher educational system, like most everything else, is unfair. It limits success to a privileged few and leaves others saddled by debt, unable to buy a car or home.

Note that Obama proposes to fix a higher educational system that is not broke. According to international statistics, the United States has one of the highest higher educational enrollment rates in the world at 74 percent versus the G20 average of 52 percent. The U.S. enrolls 40 percent more of its young people in higher education than the average of the twenty richest countries. We are one of the few countries that believe in and offer higher education for the masses. 

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The Chinese Can't Stage a Decent Show Trial

The trial of the decade — against former party heavyweight, Bo Xilai – has become a disaster for the new Chinese leadership. The charismatic Bo’s forceful assertions of innocence against charges of petty corruption and misuse of office have enlivened his supporters and made his accusers look weak and petty.

Joseph Stalin mastered the political show trial. His first, against sixteen of Lenin’s deputies and Trotsky allies, lasted five days. His second, against seventeen party officials, lasted a week. The third, against the twenty-one members of the “Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites,” lasted almost two weeks in the presence of invited diplomats and journalists.

Stalin orchestrated his show trials as carefully staged rituals. In each, the defendants’ confessions were extracted well before the trial. They dutifully confessed in public court to horrendous crimes of murder, espionage, and treason. Official newsreels showed the repentant traitors begging for mercy. With few exceptions the defendants received the death penalty and were shot within a day or two of the trial. The Soviet press condemned the “mad dogs” in incessant drumbeats of vitriol. Factory workers organized “spontaneous” meetings to demand the supreme penalty. Confused diplomats and journalists, many of whom did not understand Russian, sat in the court room as interpreters whispered in their ears. They concluded that the show trials had exposed real plots against a Soviet Union, which had narrowly averted overthrow by sinister forces from within and without.  What a success for Mr. Stalin!

Stalin would erupt in laughter at the pantywaist show trial of the disgraced party leader, Bo Xilai, currently underway in Beijing. It violates all of Stalin’s rules for a successful show trial.

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Airbrushing Away The Numerous False Promises Of Obama Care

President Barack Obama spent an entire year fighting a Blitzkrieg culminating in the signing of Obama Care on March 23, 2010. He drummed two unambiguous promises into the public consciousness:
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your current health insurance plan you can keep it.”

Without these two presidential pledges, Obama Care would have stood no chance. By and large, people were happy with their doctors and with their insurance plans. They would not have given up something that is working for the vague promises of Obama Care.


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Putin the Predictable: Guest Snowden

It takes no savvy to know what Vladimir Putin will do next. Putin (Vova  or VVP, as he is known by Russians) can be counted on to do exactly what his declared “enemy” – the United States – does not want him to do.  He will do so, moreover, unadorned with diplomatic language or tact. Putin’s granting of asylum to fugitive Edward Snowden is just another on a long list of examples.

Putin sends ships full of supplies to Syria during Assad’s lowest point in his civil war as President Obama declares Assad must leave. He provides Iran with “peaceful” nuclear technology and weakens sanctions as Obama declares the noose is being tightened. He sends his emissaries to anti-American rulers in Latin America. VVP consistently votes against U.S. proposals in the United Nations.

Now VVP has stuck his finger straight in Obama’s eye. Surprise, surprise: He has granted fugitive Snowden asylum in Russia – a not unexpected move after he allowed a passportless Snowden to enter Moscow Sheremetova without a visa. Take that, Barack, he says with gesture and deed.

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