Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help
I’m not really as interested in politics any more since we don’t have a conservative running as the Republican candidate, but I do still listen to podcasts and read some news stories.
Here is a news story from the Boston Globe that I felt that I had to blog about.
It says:
The Democratic presidential nominee told the FBI she never sought or asked permission to use a private server or email address during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013. A prior review by the State Department’s internal watchdog concluded the practice violated several polices for the safekeeping and preservation of federal records.
Clinton has repeatedly said her use of private email was allowed. But over a 3 ½ hour interview in July, she told investigators she ‘‘did not explicitly request permission to use a private server or email address,’’ the FBI wrote. They said no one at the State Department raised concerns during her tenure, and that Clinton said everyone with whom she exchanged emails knew she was using a private email address.
[…]Large portions of the FBI documents were censored. The FBI cited exemptions protecting national security and investigative techniques. Previous government reviews of the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton returned to the State Department found that about 110 contained classified information.
Clinton and her legal team deleted thousands more emails she claimed were personal and private. The FBI report details steps taken by Clinton’s staff that appear intended to hamper the recovery of deleted data, including smashing her old Blackberry smartphones with a hammer and using special software to wipe the hard drive of a server she had used.
Funny video of CNN leftists reacting to reality:
The Weekly Standard has been comparing Clinton’s public statements with what she told the FBI, and there headline is “Hillary Signed She Received Briefing on Classified Info, But Told FBI She Hadn’t“.
Look:
Either Hillary Clinton lied to the FBI or she lied on a State Department form as she began her tenure as Secretary of State. This conclusion appears inescapable after Friday’s FBI document release related to the Clinton email investigation.
As revealed by those FBI documents, Clinton told agents that she could not recall “any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records of handling of classified information”.
But the second paragraph of the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement—which she signed on January 22, 2009—states that “I hereby acknowledge that I have received a security indoctrination concerning the nature and protection of classified information.”
[…]The form also notes that classified information is not always so marked, but is still regulated by the agreement.
Wow, that sounds to me like the transparency that Obama promised us in his campaign speeches. He was going to lead the most transparent administration ever, remember? And what is his method of holding his staff accountable for these lies? Well, it’s to not prosecute them.
Grey Gordon and Aaron Hedlund, economists at Indiana University and the University of Missouri, developed a method to test various explanations for the share rise in tuition costs. Is it state funding cuts? Or the increased wage premium for a college degree? Or is it related to general cost increases in the services industries?
Not exactly. In a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research the economists report that these factors contributed insignificantly to the rapid rise in tuition between 1987 and 2010.
What did account for almost all of it was, ironically enough, the massive explosion in federal aid over the past several decades. Federal aid — in the form of subsidized loans, grants and tax credits — shot up 134% in the past 15 years, according to the College Board. It’s climbed 22% just under President Obama.
Combined with state aid, the government is pouring more than $239 billion a year into programs designed to make college less expensive.
What the authors found is that all this aid money has simply let college administrators spend more and jack up tuition to pay for it, without hurting enrollment. The result is there to see for anyone who visits a college campus these days — gourmet kitchens, luxurious dorms, shiny new administrative buildings, beautiful landscapes, state of the art workout facilities, etc.
[…]Not only does the increased federal aid lead to higher tuition, the authors found, but it perversely leads to “more debt, and in the absence of higher labor market returns, more loan default inevitably occurs.”
This hypothesis – that it is government subsidies that drive up tuition rates – is supported in the radically leftist New York Times, of all places.
This is by Paul F. Campos, law professor at the radically leftist UC Boulder, explains that government handouts is causing the rise in college tuition:
[…][T]he astonishing rise in college tuition correlates closely with a huge increase in public subsidies for higher education. If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000.
[…]As the baby boomers reached college age, state appropriations to higher education skyrocketed, increasing more than fourfold in today’s dollars, from $11.1 billion in 1960 to $48.2 billion in 1975. By 1980, state funding for higher education had increased a mind-boggling 390 percent in real terms over the previous 20 years. This tsunami of public money did not reduce tuition: quite the contrary.
But where is the money going? Is it mostly going to research? To the classroom? To hire more and better professors?
No:
Interestingly, increased spending has not been going into the pockets of the typical professor. Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970.
By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.
Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.
Do you wonder why college is so liberal? It’s because instead of hiring professors to teach you how to do useful work for money, they are hiring useless administrators who just enforce politically correct secular leftism onto the students.
One way the textbook market is insulated from competition and market forces is that the professor, not the student, makes the decision on the textbook for a course, and it’s probably the case that many professors are unaware of the retail cost of the books they assign for their students. And once the professor decides on a textbook, there are no substitutes for the new edition of the book assigned. If a professor assigns Mankiw’s Principles of Economics textbook, students can’t substitute McConnell’sPrinciples of Economics textbook.
Another reason for skyrocketing textbook prices could be that they are being fueled by easy and cheap credit in the form of student loan debt, which now exceeds $1.36 trillion and has doubled in less than eight years, and tripled in the last decade! Students borrow money not just for college tuition and fees, but also to finance the purchase of textbooks that now routinely cost more than $300, and sometimes approach $400.
What should young people considering college do? If you’re going to college or trade school, go to a low-cost school. Do a STEM degree (e.g. petroleum engineering) or learn to do a trade that pays well (e.g. – electrician). Try to get tuition assistance even if it means going to a less prestigious school. And work at every opportunity you get in the most serious job you can find. Don’t spend your money – save it. Especially don’t spend your money on fun, vacations and alcohol. As soon as you grow up, you’re going to wish you could have it all back.
Florida State University football player sees an opportunity to make things right and takes it
Here’s a story from WGN Chicago that I want to comment about.
Excerpt:
While visiting Montford Middle School with teammates on Tuesday, Florida State University wide receiver Travis Rudolph spotted a boy sitting by himself at lunch, and asked if he could sit next to him according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Later in the day, Bo Paske’s mom posted a photo to Facebook that is capturing hearts.
“I’m not sure what exactly made this incredibly kind man share a lunch table with my son, but I’m happy to say that it will not soon be forgotten,” she wrote.
“He started off and was so open,” Rudolph told the newspaper. “He told me his name was Bo, and how much he loves Florida State, and he went from there.”
Rudolph is the Seminoles’ leading returning receiver, and in addition to earning the praise of his coaches, gained a mother’s love, who says they’re now FSU fans for life.
“This is one day I didn’t have to worry if my sweet boy ate lunch alone, because he sat across from someone who is a hero in many eyes,” the mom stated in her post.
Here’s some of what the mother of the boy said in her post:
Now that I have a child starting middle school, I have feelings of anxiety for him, and they can be overwhelming if I let them. Sometimes I’m grateful for his autism. That may sound like a terrible thing to say, but in some ways I think, I hope, it shields him. He doesn’t seem to notice when people stare at him when he flaps his hands. He doesn’t seem to notice that he doesn’t get invited to birthday parties anymore. And he doesn’t seem to mind if he eats lunch alone. It’s one of my daily questions for him. Was there a time today you felt sad? Who did you eat lunch with today? Sometimes the answer is a classmate, but most days it’s nobody. Those are the days I feel sad for him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He is a super sweet child, who always has a smile and hug for everyone he meets. A friend of mine sent this beautiful picture to me today and when I saw it with the caption “Travis Rudolph is eating lunch with your son” I replied “who is that?” He said “FSU football player”, then I had tears streaming down my face. Travis Rudolph, a wide receiver at Florida State, and several other FSU players visited my sons school today. I’m not sure what exactly made this incredibly kind man share a lunch table with my son, but I’m happy to say that it will not soon be forgotten. This is one day I didn’t have to worry if my sweet boy ate lunch alone, because he sat across from someone who is a hero in many eyes. Travis Rudolph thank you so much, you made this momma exceedingly happy, and have made us fans for life!
I am friends with a number of high achieving, dedicated Christians. A lot of them are very focused on school and work, and it doesn’t help that I bully them to get good grades and make money. But I worry sometimes about whether, when they read their Bibles, they are really getting the message of taking care of their neighbors. I want them to have the same heart as the football player did in the story, to sit down and spend time with those who are needy or awkward or unpopular.
I remember growing up very poor, and being a different color than all the well-off white students in the school. I would often go to school with messy hair and torn or faded clothes, because we just didn’t have the money to buy me expensive polo shirts like some of the other kids wore. My parents were immigrants. I didn’t get invited to many birthday parties, either. I know what it feels like to sit alone at a table because of things that I can’t control being uncomfortable for others.
25 And a [a]lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? [b]How does it read to you?”
27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
28 And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and [c]beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,
34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
35 On the next day he took out two [d]denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’
36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?”
37 And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do [e]the same.”
I will say that today it can be difficult to reach out to the other, especially since so many on the secular left make it a condition of talking to them that you agree with them, that you hide your faith and convictions, that you celebrate everything that they are doing even if it is sinful and destructive. They are so intolerant that they even try to get you fired if you disagree with them on moral issues. Still, there are some non-leftist people who are not popular and who will let you be who you are safely. The man who was beat up was a victim of forces outside of his control, he was being immoral and demanding that everyone celebrate his immorality. He was safe to help.
As long as I am free to be who I am as a Christian, what is it the harm of sitting with unpopular people? After all, as long as I’m an open Christian, I’m probably not going to be accepted by the popular crowd anyway. Sin is popular, today. Drinking and hooking up and sexual immorality are popular. I think we ought to be looking for opportunities to be open and welcoming to those who do not force us to hide our faith and deny our moral convictions. For those people who are “safe”, we shouldn’t resent their demands. Another person’s needs shouldn’t be a deterrent to reaching out to them. Their hostility to our faith and moral convictions might be, if we judge them to be dangerous.
And I think this openness to opportunity is even more important, if they are asking for advice on spiritual things. Every person was made to know God, and when a person comes to you and asks about God, that makes them the most important person in the world. You have to drop everything and handle that opportunity.
