Education

Taylor Swift's Bad Investment
By Cal Thomas | March 6, 2015 | 5:49 PM EST

Pop star Taylor Swift has donated $50,000 to the New York City public school system. Swift, who was named the world's sixth most powerful celebrity by Forbes magazine, has commendably performed numerous acts of charity since moving into her $20 million Tribeca residence last year, including visits with sick children at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

The age and cultural divide notwithstanding (she's 25, I'm not, and Elvis was my adolescent icon), I like Taylor Swift, but her money would have been better invested with much higher returns somewhere other than the dreadful New York City public schools, whose problems are not the result of insufficient funding.

Classless and Spiteful: Jezebel's 'Update' to False Walker Sexual Assault Reporting Story
By Tom Blumer | February 28, 2015 | 7:45 PM EST

As noted this morning (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), Jezebel's Natasha Vargas-Cooper wrote a Friday morning hit piece directed at Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican Governor, calling him a "conservative werewolf" for including a provision in the Badger State's latest proposed budget to eliminate the requirement that universities report campus sexual assault statistics to the state.

Vargas-Cooper took this to mean that all such sexual assault reporting would end. Hardly. Hours later, an unbylined Associated Press story carried at USA Today (but still not carried at its national site) made it clear that a) the University of Wisconsin system had requested the provision, and b) such statistics would continue to be reported to the federal government. Jezebel's "correction" and Vargas-Cooper's spiteful tweeted reaction follow the jump.

CBS Slants Left As It Spotlights Campus Concealed Carry Issue
By Matthew Balan | February 28, 2015 | 11:01 AM EST

Friday's CBS This Morning surprisingly covered a proposed bill in Florida that would allow college students with concealed firearms permits to carry their weapons onto campus. Michelle Miller spotlighted a Florida State University graduate student who backs the bill. However, Miller also featured two opponents of such "campus carry" legislation during her report.

Jezebel Writer Falsely Accuses Walker of Wanting to Stop Reporting of Campus Sexual Assaults
By Tom Blumer | February 28, 2015 | 9:45 AM EST

On Friday morning at Jezebel, a Gawker-affiliated web site, Natasha Vargas-Cooper thought she had Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker by the — well, you know.

In a post tellingly tagged "Conservative Werewolves," Vargas-Cooper was absolutely sure — so certain that she apparently felt no need to check any further — that Walker's proposed budget would allow its colleges to "to stop reporting sexual assaults." Vicious vitriol ensued (bolds are mine throughout this post):

MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry: I Hope Trayvon ‘Whooped the Sh**’ Out of Zimmerman
By Tom Blumer | February 26, 2015 | 2:18 PM EST

While it's performing a long overdue housecleaning, MSNBC should point its broom in Melissa Harris-Perry's direction and sweep her off the network for her anti-democratic, violence-advocating rant earlier this week at Cornell University.

Among other things, Harris-Perry told her audience that George Zimmerman deserved whatever injuries he received at the hands of Trayvon Martin in the violent February 2012 confrontation which began with Martin pommeling Zimmerman and ended in Martin's death.

Juan Williams: There Are 'Elements of Racism' in Today's Constitution
By Tom Blumer | February 23, 2015 | 4:10 PM EST

In a discussion with plenty of other objectionable elements on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Friday, Juan Williams asserted that "There's no question that if you look at our Constitution, there are elements of racism right in it." Note his use of the present tense.

The version of this country's founding document Williams was referencing must be 147 or more years old, because the only element of the original Constitution which was arguably racist — the inclusion of non-free persons as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of allocating House seats in Article I — went away when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Even that argument ignores the existence of white slaves at the time of its adoption.

Lefty Blogger: Republicans Hope Democrats Make ‘Snooty’ Comments About Walker’s Lack of a College Degree
By Tom Johnson | February 18, 2015 | 1:11 AM EST

The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman argues that “anti-intellectualism has often been an effective way for Republicans to stir up class resentment while distracting from economic issues. It says to voters…[d]on't aim your disgruntlement at Wall Street, or corporations that don't pay taxes, or the people who want to keep wages low and make unions a memory. Point it in a different direction, at college professors and intellectuals (and Hollywood, while you're at it).”

NY Times Corrects Gail Collins Column Which Blamed Walker for 2010 Layoffs; Problems Remain
By Tom Blumer | February 16, 2015 | 10:25 AM EST

It took well over 24 hours, but the New York Times finally corrected (HT Instapundit) op-ed columnist Gail Collins's ignorant Saturday contention about how Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker caused teacher layoff in 2010: "As well as the fact that those layoffs happened because Walker cut state aid to education." Collins was so sure of herself that she emphasized how Walker's 2010 state aid-caused layoffs were a "fact." Trouble is, Walker didn't become Badger State Governor until January 2011.

Instapundit's reaction: "So basically, it’s now an Emily Litella column. Never mind!" The Old Gray Lady's excision from Collins's cranky column hardly solves all of its problems.

AP Obsesses Over Walker's Refusal to Answer Evolution Question; Time Interviews His High School Teacher
By Tom Blumer | February 15, 2015 | 11:41 PM EST

In London, England earlier this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker delivered a speech about global trade at the Chatham House think tank. Given that the group's mission is "to help build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world," and that it encourages "open debate and confidential discussion on the most significant developments in international affairs," it seemed a reasonable expectation that those present would ask questions relevant to those matters.

Instead, Scott Walker was asked several brazenly off-topic questions, including if he believed in evolution. He refused to answer them. In the case of evolution, he said, "I’m going to punt on that one ... That’s a question that a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another," while reminding the audience that "I'm here to talk about trade and not pontificate on other issues."

Gail Collins, in NY Times Op-ed: Scott Walker Cut Teachers' Jobs in 2010 — Before He Was Even Governor
By Tom Blumer | February 14, 2015 | 11:47 PM EST

What an ironic title New York Times op-ed columnist and former editorial page editor Gail Collins used — "Scott Walker Needs an Eraser" — in her February 13 opinion piece blasting Wisconsin's Republican governor.

In her nitpicky, selective mind, Walker must already have an eraser, one that's so powerful that it could reach back to the year before he became Badger State chief executive and eliminate teachers' jobs (bolds are mine throughout this post):

'Unknowledgeable': Howard Dean Disses Scott Walker For Lack of College Degree
By Mark Finkelstein | February 12, 2015 | 7:15 AM EST

What a snob!  On today's Morning Joe, Howard Dean, a product of fancy prep schools and Yale, suggested that Scott Walker was unfit to be president because his lack of a college degree rendered him "unknowledgeable."

Dean's disdain for the un-diplomaed came during a discussion of Walker having declined, during his recent trip to the UK, to state whether he believes in evolution.  Joe Scarborough was incredulous at Dean's diss, pointing out that people such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never finished college.  To which list might be added super-successful and knowledgeable people from Rush Limbaugh to Steve Jobs.

GOP Congress Should Grill College Administrators Over Cost of School
By Ann Coulter | January 29, 2015 | 3:04 PM EST

Republicans in Congress need to hold tobacco company-style hearings, hauling in the presidents of various universities and asking them to justify their multimillion-dollar salaries.