Articles chosen with care. Comments welcomed. Linked articles in bold purple
◆ Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) wants the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate when Obama’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, provided cover for the Hillary Clinton campaign, telling FBI director Comey to say, falsely, that their criminal investigation of Hillary’s email server was merely a “matter,” not an investigation.
It was a direct order to him, Comey testified. (Politico)
Feinstein made her statement on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Comment: Lynch’s conduct looks questionable and does deserve investigation.
Meet with Bill on the tarmac and get covered in tar yourself.
◆ Democratic Party: Split between establishment liberal leadership and activist-left base (New York Times)
Democrats are facing a widening breach in their party, as liberal activists dream of transforming the health care system and impeaching President Trump, while candidates in hard-fought elections ask wary voters merely for a fresh chance at governing.
The growing tension between the party’s ascendant militant wing and Democrats competing in conservative-leaning terrain, was on vivid, split-screen display over the weekend. In Chicago, Senator Bernie Sanders led a revival-style meeting of his progressive devotees, while in Atlanta, Democrats made a final push to seize a traditionally Republican congressional district. –New York Times
Comment: The Republicans have faced the same internal split, in their case between establishment leaders who want to govern and Tea Party/Freedom Caucus activists who want to roll back big government.
To me, these internal splits represent the electorate’s deep distrust of insiders and their self-dealing and an erosion of the party system itself.
◆ Pakistani terrorism court sentences man to to death for allegedly “insulting” Mohammed on Facebook (Fox News)
The man, Taimoor Raza, is from the minority Shiite sect and was initially charged with a lesser offense.
Raza’s verdict comes at a time when officials are increasingly pounding down on blasphemy claims across the country. At least 15 Pakistanis are said to have been arrested by the counterterrorism department under the umbrella of blasphemy, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Four other people were sentenced to death for the crime in 2016 alone. . . .
Scores of others in Pakistan remain on death row for alleged blasphemy, including Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who remains in solitary confinement after being convicted in 2010 following a debate with two Muslim women in a Punjab village.–Fox News
Comment: The obvious point is that Pakistan is a deeply illiberal state. The less obvious point is that Europe, especially England, has admitted a lot of people from that country who have retained those beliefs, posing serious challenges to UK’s tradition of religious tolerance.
◆ Puerto Rico votes in favor of statehood (Associated Press)
Some boycotted the vote, which had a very low turnout.
Comment: Good luck with that, he said sardonically. The Republican Congress is not going to greenlight it.
◆ The University of Dallas: An impressive reading list if you want to catch up on truly great books.
The school is proudly Catholic but its reading list is largely non-sectarian. The section on theology naturally emphasizes Catholic documents, but also includes Luther. Neither he nor the Council of Trent would be pleased. And Calvin would not be happy, either.
The link to the readings is here; click on “A Selection of the Great Books.” The choices are excellent, and the initial suggestions are not an overly long list.
Comment: The University’s impressive curriculum, plus its commitment to seminar discussion, should allow students to explore serious subjects and gain a deep understanding of Western civilization and its values.
There is nothing wrong with critiquing that civilization, of course. Nothing at all. Lively criticism–and response–is an essential part of higher education.
But my sense is that far too many university students begin (and often end) their critique of everything that is wrong with America, Canada, and Europe without actually knowing anything about the traditions they have inherited, including the precious right to engage in this kind of free and open cultural self-criticism.
That right was hard won and, as we saw too often in the 20th century, easily lost, even in the heart of Europe.
◆ A liberal establishment power-lawyer in DC signed up to represent Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Her friends now think she’s pond scum. (Washington Post story on Jamie Gorelick)
Some attack her publicly; others hide behind anonymity, proving the know what zip code they live in.
In a quintessentially D.C. move, some longtime friends of Gorelick contacted for this article offered complimentary comments about her on the record, and then, after asking if they could make other remarks without attribution, bashed their colleague to smithereens. –Washington Post
Comment: The issue here is not Jared and Ivanka. It is Gorelick’s Washington “friends,” who say one thing in public and another behind her back, under the cloak of anonymity, which the newspapers print freely.
Their behavior is capture in a quote attributed to Harry Truman: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
The attribution is probably incorrect.
But the sentiment is 100% correct.
The only discordant bark here is from my dog Lola, who says, for the record, “Do not bring me into this mess.”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
♥ Hat Tip for helpful suggestions:
◆ Rod Dreher’s column, “Adult Seeks Classical Education” and to one of its commenters (Janine) for the University of Dallas story
Meaningless words, all of them. But Angela Merkel takes the cake: “People in the UK can rest assured that Germany stands shoulder to shoulder with them.” Well, isn’t that . . . reassuring. In what way do such words help anybody to “rest assured” of anything? In any case, how dare she? This, after all, is the woman who opened the floodgates—the woman who, out of some twisted sense of German historical guilt, put European children in danger by inviting into the continent masses of unvetted people from the very part of the world where this monstrous evil has its roots. –Bruce Bawer in City Journal
The National Security Agency under former President Barack Obama routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall, according to once top-secret documents that chronicle some of the most serious constitutional abuses to date by the U.S. intelligence community.
My own theory about today’s stagnation focuses on growing angst about rapid advances in technologies that could eventually replace many or most of our jobs, possibly fueling massive economic inequality. People might be increasingly reluctant to spend today because they have vague fears about their long-term employability – fears that may not be uppermost in their minds when they answer consumer-confidence surveys. If that is the case, they might increasingly need stimulus in the form of low interest rates to keep them spending.
President Trump’s efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table are taking place against the background of a broader effort to recast US policy in the region. The memory of Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s failed effort, back in 1981, to put together a regional “strategic consensus” against the Soviets may have faded, but the idea behind it is making a comeback. Facing the Iranian revolutionary regime and its proxies on the one hand and radical Sunni versions of Islamist totalitarianism on the other, key regional players are now more open than ever to an informal US-led alliance against their common enemies. The semblance, perhaps even the substance, of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front can facilitate this; but even more important would be a firm policy on Iran.
The one-notch downgrade in long-term local and foreign currency issuer ratings, to A1 from Aa3, comes as the Chinese government grapples with the challenges of rising financial risks stemming from years of credit-fueled stimulus.
Scruton’s insight is a deep one, I think, and builds directly on Edmund Burke’s critique of the French Revolution (done only a year after the Bastille fell, long before the Terror, which he anticipated).
That is Hayek’s goal, as well, and the core of his crucial distinction between top-down statutes and regulations and the laws that emerge from countless decentralized transactions.
The college is doing what all schools do: a full review of the course.
Columbia does still have a common-core for freshmen, but I don’t know whether they have watered it down, as Chicago has, or how they defend it if it actually does emphasize those old dead folks like Plato.
Thanks to Ed Vida
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a nationally famous champion of gay rights and progressive causes, has been accused by three men of having sex with them as children. –Washington Post
At the bottom, the seemingly ubiquitous Payless Inc. shoe chain filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to shutter hundreds of locations. Ralph Lauren Corp., meanwhile, said it will close its flagship Fifth Avenue Polo store — a symbol of old-fashioned luxury that no longer resonates with today’s shoppers. –Bloomberg
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Fortunately, state legislatures, alumni and philanthropists are planting little academic platoons that will make campuses less intellectually monochromatic. One such, just launched, is Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. . . .
Since unattended deaths of people under age 50 generally require autopsies, those, too, are backed up for weeks, adding to the survivors’ emotional toll.
Now, the Trump White House must right this ship quickly because there is considerable pressure from America’s adversaries and hard policy choices to make–and make soon.
The first name they will have to decide on is Gen. David Petraeus, the most effective military leader in America’s unconventional wars and then head of the CIA. The question is whether his enormous expertise offsets his baggage from mishandling of classified documents. Note that the National Security Adviser does not require Senate approval.
Koopmans estimates that at least 50 million are “willing to sanction violence” and thinks that is likely an underestimate.
For 30 years, Donald Lau has been the “Chief Fortune Writer” at Wonton Foods, a manufacturer that touts itself to be one of the world’s largest producers of fortune cookies.
Comment: 
It also requests a study of how the government should create a “whole-of-government” approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination and collecting data on hate crime reports.
Colleges and universities promulgate speech codes. Administrators, professors and students encourage “trigger warnings” and demand punishment for “microaggressions”—a pretentious word for inadvertent slights—and insist on “safe spaces” from which troubling opinions and ideas are banished. Campus authorities disinvite controversial speakers and look the other way when students shout down dissenters who somehow slipped through. The transparent goal is to prevent any deviation from the reigning orthodoxy. ….
It creates an official university policy that strongly affirms the importance of free expression, nullifying any existing restrictive speech codes in the process.
◆ Comment:
◆ The great blues-rock guitarist, Joe Bonamassa, was playing a concert in Tulsa, when he saw a bouncer harassing a fan. Joe used his rare 1951 Fender guitar to bonk the bouncer on the head!
◆ Nate Silver and Harry Reid agree: It was the FBI’s James Comey who defeated Hillary
Obama administration sticks with calling China a “non-market economy.” Changing that designation could lower trade barriers to Chinese exports