Saturday Miscellany

First, in the matter of the British grooming gang scandal. The Labour Party has just decided to drop all future inquiries into the Pakistani gangs in Rotherham and elsewhere.

Daniel Hannan comments on the rank hypocrisy:

Labour demanded endless inquiries into whether Boris had eaten cake. So why not on the worst crime in British history? Is it a reflexive defence of the public sector? Is it a fear of offending Muslim voters? Or is it that almost all the culpable councils were Labour-controlled?

Second,  the question of giving trans-identified, thus, delusional children, cross sex hormones should not be a question. Wesley Yang explains:

Continuing to poison yourself with wrong sex hormones is of course the opposite of medicine; it will destroy your health over the long term and increase myriad risks from day one. But no one is trying to take it away; like some (nicotine, alcohol) but not other (heroin, anabolic steroids) harmful vices, we let consenting adults choose to abuse it and pretend the cosmetic changes alter their sex. What we must stop doing is pretending it’s medicine or that it turns a man into anything other than an atypical kind of man or a woman into anything other than an atypical kind women. Of course it does not do that; nothing can.

Third, Lawrence Summers has strongly opposed the Trump tariff policy. For better or for worse. The other day, he was in Austin at the University of Austin, being interviewed by Niall Ferguson. His remarks are worth considering, like it or not:

Thanks to the dollar reserve status, to quote Summers's rhetorical question: "If China wants to sell us things at really low prices and the transaction is we get solar collectors or we get batteries that we can put in electric cars and we send them pieces of paper that we print. Do you think that's a good deal for us or a bad deal for us?"

Characterizing this as "cheating", like Summers rightly says, should be rejected entirely. At the end of the day, who's more "cheated": the party doing the hard work of producing goods at very low prices on razor thin margins, or the party that simply prints a virtually infinite amount of fiat money to pay for all this stuff?

Fourth, and now for the other side of the issue, the words of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, from an interview with Tucker Carlson:

“It would have been easy to keep pumping up the economy, borrowing a lot of money, creating a lot of government jobs,” explained Treasury Secretary Bessent to Tucker Carlson, defending the administration’s policies, while describing the extent to which Biden juiced up the US economy, like a body builder on steroids, appearing strong while destroying his internal organs. …

“There was no controversy when we were doing all that, but you would have ended up in a calamity,” he said. “If you go back and look at the financial crisis in 2007-08, the economy looked great right up until then. You go back to the end of the dotcom bubble, and the whole credit problem, fraud at Enron and some other companies, the economy looked great until it didn’t.”

Fifth, when Vice President J D Vance and others visited Greenland, the American commander of the troops stationed there spoke out against him. Her name was Lt. Col. Susan Meyers.

Newsmax reported the story:

"I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base," Meyers wrote in her March 31 email, Military.com reported.

"I commit that, for as long as I am lucky enough to lead this base, all of our flags will fly proudly – together."

It cost her her job:

U.S. Space Force Col. Susan Meyers REMOVED from her post after sending an email to staff criticizing JD Vance’s visit to Greenland.

The email read: “…The concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.”

Sixth, if you had to compare the test scores of children in Mississippi with those of children in Oregon, which group would you think came out on top. Oregon’s governor has chosen to defy the presidential order against DEI, while Mississippi tends to receive scorn and derision from people who live on the two coasts. 

Anyway, you will be happy to learn that school children in Mississippi are performing very well while those who are in Oregon are hopeless failures. Guy Benson reports:

Mississippi now has the best standardized test scores for fourth graders, when adjusted for demographics (i.e., taking into account socioeconomic status, native language, race, whether your parents raised you to have enough self-esteem, ate enough broccoli, etc.). The rise follows a 2013 decision to use phonics-based learning statewide and to hold back third graders who failed to pass a reading test, which may seem mean until you realize that blue states are letting entirely illiterate kids graduate into the world, a world that—for now—still requires literacy. Meanwhile, Oregon, whose fourth graders have the lowest demographically adjusted test scores, has paused the use of any standardized test as a graduation requirement until at least 2029 and is, of course, obsessed with the Lucy Calkins school of teaching kids reading with vibes. Sigh. The real tragedy is that these kids will never be able to read my columns. Luckily for them, I will read it out loud!

Seventh, what would we do without Louisiana Senator John Kennedy. Herewith, his views of AOC, which we were all awaiting:

“I consider Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to be the leader of the Democratic Party,” Kennedy said. “She's entitled to her opinion. I'm entitled to mine.”

And then he went for the jugular.

“As I've said about her before, I think she's the reason there are directions on a shampoo bottle,” he said.

Then he added:

 “Our plan for dealing with her is called Operation Let Her Speak.”

Eighth, remember the good old days, when corporations and universities were all in for diversity, equity and inclusion. Way back then, in sympathy with George Floyd universities opened their doors wider to underqualified applicants, the better to have a more diverse student body.

The result, via Jacob Shell:

People I know across multiple academic disciplines and universities have stories about truly godawful admissions decisions they made during that "2020-21" period, now blowing up epically (and predictably) in their faces, damaging their departments.

It could not have happened to a nicer group of people.

Finally, I have some free consulting hours in my life coaching practice. If you are interested, write to me at StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com.