The Daily View 6/16/2019

The news cycle is pretty lethargic lately. Barring any new developments in Iran, it’s gonna get even slower. Don’t expect much from Trump until 2020.

Unlike economic forecasts, which by comparison are easy, predicting if the US will go to war with Iran is a coin toss. The reason why the odds are not lower is because the Trump administration is possibly the most hawkish administration in US history in terms of casting the widest net of foreign policy and policing, from Venezuela, to North Korea, to Russia, Iran, etc. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has been pushing for war against Iran for a long time. In spite of the Iraq and Afghanistan war quagmires, attacking Iran would probably initially give Trump’s approval rating a 4-7% bump in time for the 2020 election. If the war effort fails, it won’t matter for Trump if he is reelected, but it may hurt his successor.

Saw this going viral:

Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

A shoplifting case against a black student leads to the college libeling the store and the store winning a large settlement against the college.

But at least the tide may be turning, or at least colleges cannot engage in such behavior with impunity any longer:

Across the country, academics have caused lasting damage to their institutions by failing to stand up to, or actively supporting, extreme demands for speech codes, limits on academic freedom and tenure changes. In Washington, Evergreen State College faculty members supported students who mobbed biology professor Bret Weinstein in a disturbing confrontation outside his office. The result was a significant $500,000 settlement with Weinstein and a major decline in applications. The University of Missouri experienced a similar meltdown on campus after assistant professor Melissa Click led attacks on a student journalist during heated protests in 2015. The university sought to accommodate protesters as applications plummeted and entire dorms were closed.

To say colleges have lost their way is an understatement. But this has been going on a long time . For the vast majority of students, who don’t aspire to join the ranks of academia, politics, or law, all college amounts to is tens of thousands of dollars of debt and being propagandized to, all for a piece of paper that makes one employable.

Maybe to help satisfy the judgment, MSNBC should buyout the college and rename it Olbermann College. That would be more fitting.

This epitomizes ‘clown world,’ in which everything is turned inside-out and upside-down. In clown world, the victim becomes the assailant. The clown meme resonates with a lot of people for its prescience, which is why I keep seeing it everywhere, telling people to ‘honk-honk!’