Let's Remember Just How Bad the Obama Presidency Was

Well, how can anyone forget? Heh.

At Post-Libertarian, "The Obama Presidency Was Bad":

We’re already caught up in how terrible the Trump presidency is, but over the next four years, it will be important to remember just how bad the Obama presidency was. When overcome with frustration at the current administration, I would urge readers to come back to this post and remember that the last president was also quite terrible. In his farewell speech, Obama tried to make the argument for his presidency’s accomplishments, but many of them were simply court cases that were decided while he was president, or decisions that were nice but had little real policy impact.

There have been plenty of reflections on the Obama presidency, but I think a high level overview of everything Obama did would put in perspective just how awful he’s been, especially as we experience the incompetency and horrible policy decisions of the current administration. I’ve done this by letter grades A through F.

Actually, I'm quite enjoying the current administration, thank you.

But keep reading.

Kamila Hansen for Lui Magazine

At Liu, "Kamila Hansen Warms Up Your Winter."

More about her, "Kamila Hansen Portfolio - The Society Management – New York City."

Jessica Lowndes Bikini Instagram

At I Don't Like You In That Way, "God Bless Jessica Lowndes & Links."

Shop Valentine's Day Gifts

At Amazon, The Perfect Gift for Every Valentine.

Also, out Monday, Ashley McGuire, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female.

BONUS: Joel Pollak and Larry Schweikart, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution.

Taya Kyle, Widow of 'American Sniper' Chris Kyle, Slams John McCain for Undermining Success of Special Forces Rain in Yemen (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Ralph Peters on U.S. Special Operations Raid in Yemen (VIDEO)."

Here's the lovely Taya Kyle, at Fox News, "Taya Kyle reacts to McCain calling Yemen raid a failure."

David Horowitz on Hannity's (VIDEO)

Here's his book, David Horowitz, Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America.

And click through at FrontPage Magazine, "HOROWITZ ON 'HANNITY': DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS 'PARTY OF HATE'."

The DeVos Apocalypse

From Daniel Henninger, at WSJ, "Charters are eroding the Democratic urban base of teachers and black parents":

Shocking video from @abc7news: Betsy DeVos being physically blocked, followed, and taunted by protesters at a DC school

Share this widely pic.twitter.com/t8PUox6k0H

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) February 10, 2017

The extraordinary battle over Betsy DeVos’s nomination to be secretary of education is the defining event of the Trump presidency’s early days.

As presented, the DeVos confirmation appeared to be a standard partisan conflict between Democrats and Republicans, or in the conventional update, all that’s good and all that’s Trump.

But something deeper was at stake here, which is why the Democrats raised the nomination for a second-level cabinet post to a political apocalypse.

The person who introduced Mrs. DeVos at her confirmation hearing was former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, arguably the last of the unequivocal Democratic moderates. In the confirmation vote, every Democrat opposed Mrs. DeVos, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.

The issue presumably at the center of this nomination fight is the future of the education of black children who live in urban neighborhoods.

During a strike in the 1930s, a miner’s wife wrote a song that became a Democratic anthem, “Which Side Are You On?” The question remains: Which side are you on?

A standard answer is that the interests of the Democrats and the teachers unions are conjoined. Still, many of us have wondered at the party’s massive resistance to public-school alternatives and most reforms.

Beneath that resistance sits a grim reality: Many urban school systems are slowly dying. As with the decline of the industrial unions, the Democrats’ urban base of teachers is disappearing by attrition. The party is desperate to hold on to what’s left, and increasingly that includes its bedrock —black parents.

Enrollment in many urban schools has been declining for years. It’s down significantly in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City and elsewhere. Falling alongside have been membership rolls in urban teachers unions, notably in Michigan and Wisconsin, two Trump pickups this election.

Families who could afford it have moved away. Many adult blacks stayed behind and, inexorably, the education of their children fell behind, a fact documented annually year after year. By the way, good public teachers got trapped, too. Some of the best lost heart and left, replaced by less able teachers, some grossly so.

For parents of children in the nation’s suburban public schools, none of this mattered much, so sustained political support for reform of city schools was never very deep. But in the cities, dissent rose.

The charter-school movement emerged first in Minnesota in 1991. Wisconsin passed the first school-choice legislation in 1989, authored by a Democratic black activist named Polly Williams. Some of us thought then that Polly Williams was the start of a new, bipartisan civil-rights movement. How naive we were.

The movement persisted. According to a 2016 study by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, using state databases, these are the percentages of students now enrolled in public charters only:

In now-famous Flint, Mich.: 53%. Kansas City: 40%; Philadelphia: 32%; the District of Columbia: 45%; Detroit: 53%.

In Louisiana, which essentially abandoned its failed central-administration model after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans charters are at 92%.

The steady migration of poor families to these alternatives is a historic saga of social transformation. It happened for two reasons: to escape public-school disorder and to give their kids a shot at learning.


This is one of greatest civil-rights stories since the mid-1960s. And the Democratic Party’s role in it? About zero. Other than, as in the past two weeks, resistance...

Hat Tip: RCP.

Gold Box Deals

Thanks everybody for supporting the blog.

As you know, I don't blog for money, although I enjoy posting the Amazon book links (and so forth), and I greatly appreciate reader support.

Thanks again.

I'll be teaching all day today. More blogging tonight and throughout the weekend.

Meanwhile, Shop Today's Deals.

BONUS: Stephen Kinzer, The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire.

'Who Can It Be Now?'

From yesterday morning's drive-time, at the Sound L.A.

Men at Work.

Give a Little Bit
Supertramp
7:59 AM

Misty Mountain Hop
Led Zeppelin
7:54 AM

Low Rider
War
7:51 AM

Synchronicity II
The Police
7:46 AM

Fame
David Bowie
7:42 AM

Rockin' In the Free World
Neil Young
7:37 AM

Imagine
John Lennon
7:34 AM

Money
Pink Floyd
7:28 AM

Who Can It Be Now?
Men At Work
7:25 AM

From the Beginning
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
7:21 AM

Take the Money and Run
Steve Miller Band
7:08 AM

Long Train Runnin'
The Doobie Brothers
7:04 AM

Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
Van Halen
7:00 AM

Dave Rubin: Why I Left the Left (VIDEO)

Great video. Just devastating.

Big Cat P-22 Shares Griffith Park With Millions of People

I like the big cats, although I wouldn't want to meet up with one while out on a hike. They're ferocious.

At the Los Angeles Times, "A week in the life of P‑22, the big cat who shares Griffith Park with millions of people."

And click through to spot that darned lion, heh.

Can you spot the mountain lion in this photo? A week inside the life of the stealthy P-22, L.A.'s most famous cat https://t.co/cmbveGNGRP pic.twitter.com/elEBoP4smG

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) February 8, 2017

Tomi Lahren on Hannity's (VIDEO)

She's a sweetie.

Evelyn Taft's Partly Cloudy Forecast

Here's the lovely Ms. Evelyn, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Santa Ana Votes to Condemn Trump's Eecutive Actions on Immigrants, Sanctuary Cities

Santa Ana's just a couple of cities over from Irvine. So lame. But what can you expect from a city that's roughly 80 percent Hispanic.

At the O.C. Register, "The Santa Ana City Council voted late Tuesday to prepare a resolution condemning President Trump’s executive orders withholding funds from sanctuary cities and barring immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S."

Three Dog Night: 'One'

Flashback to 2010, at Althouse's, "Unplayable 45s I won't throw out."

Ralph Peters on U.S. Special Operations Raid in Yemen (VIDEO)

The big news yesterday was how Yemen was "denying permission" for U.S. ground operations in the country, following the raid in which Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens was killed.

Well, turns out that was fake news.

See the Washington Post, plus Ralph Peters with the analysis tonight below:

Yemen reviews deadly U.S. raid on al-Qaeda, but stops short of issuing ban https://t.co/WaYK8ExxAC

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 8, 2017

Amazon's Gold Box Deals

Shop Today's Deals.

I'll have more blogging later today.

BONUS: Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War.

Have More Children

Hey, we wanted more, but kids aren't cheap, and we have no family nearby to help at home with the children.

But yeah, folks should have more. Environmentalists love abortion because women can murder their unborn children because climate change. (Yeah, leftists are evil like that.)

At Quillette, which is a great magazine (that I don't read enough):

If You’re Reading This Essay, You Should Probably Have (More) Childrenhttps://t.co/tQ1uGRS8D8

— Quillette Magazine (@QuilletteM) February 2, 2017

Northern California Flooding (VIDEO)

Watch, at KCRA News 3 Sacramento, "Officials monitor San Joaquin River as more rain moves in."

And at KPIX 5 San Francisco, "Peninsula Communities Hit With Flooding From High Tide, Heavy Rain."

Jackie Johnson's Slightly Clearing Forecast

There'll be some cloud-cover tomorrow, but we should get some sunshine as well.

Scattered showers expected back on Friday.

I'd say we're lucky to be getting all this rain. I hope leftist drought fear-mongering is over.

Watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Jackie Johnson's Weather Forecast (Feb. 7)."