college
New Polls Pound Dems, Maryland’s Smart Hiring Change, Senate Wants DST Permanent
Listen to “New Polls Pound Dems, Maryland’s Smart Hiring Change, Senate Wants DST Permanent” on Spreaker.
Join Jim and Greg as they analyze new polls showing President Biden’s energy agenda is deeply unpopular and that a majority of Americans agree with controversial Florida legislation blocking students from kindergarten through third grade from being taught about gender identity and sexual orientation. They congratulate Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan for enacting common sense policy that allows applicants without a college degree to be considered in the state hiring process and suspect Democrats are not being completely honest in why they oppose the bill. We might soon be saying goodbye to changing those clocks as Sens. Marco Rubio and Ed Markey pass a bill making daylight saving time permanent. And they cringe as President Biden struggles to make basic introductions at a public event.
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Cubans Demand Freedom, Massive Master’s Degree Debt, Kamala & Kinkos
Listen to “Cubans Demand Freedom, Massive Master’s Degree Debt, Kamala & Kinkos” on Spreaker.
Jim & Greg cheer on the Cubans taking to the streets to demand their freedom, despite the very real threat of punishment from the government. They also shake their heads at a new Wall Street Journal report showing the massive amount of debt Master’s degree students are piling up and then not getting the lucrative jobs they dreamed about. And they get a kick out of Vice President Kamala Harris being reluctant to support voter ID requirements because she believes Americans in rural areas don’t have access to photocopiers.
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Cuomo’s COVID ‘Metaphor,’ Kasich’s Unconvincing Argument, College COVID Insanity
Join Jim and Greg as they hammer New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for referring to COVID as a metaphor and for continuing to portray himself as some sort of disease conqueror when his state suffered far more than any other. They also discuss John Kasich crossing over to endorse Joe Biden and why his arguments that Biden won’t cave in to the far left has already been proven false. And they have fun with Albion College’s insane rule that students have to stay in a 4.5 mile perimeter for the entire semester.
College Football Cancellation, Chicago Rioting, Willie’s ‘Advice’ for Kamala
Join Jim and Greg as they lament the Big Ten Conference reportedly cancelling the 2020 college football season and that puts every other conference on the brink as well. They also unload on Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as rioters vandalize and loot along the city’s Magnificent Mile and attack and injure more than a dozen police officers. And they discuss former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown publicly urging former mistress Kamala Harris to decline the opportunity to be Joe Biden’s running mate.
Young Conservatives Fight Back Against Socialist Push
Listen to “Young Conservatives Fight Back Against Socialist Push” on Spreaker.
Socialism is getting increasingly popular. A recent Gallup poll shows 49 percent of Millennials and Gen Z have a favorable view of socialism. Other surveys show as many as 57 percent embrace it. And while the numbers are far different among Gen X and Boomers, roughly a third of them give socialism a thumbs up too.
But why is socialism popular, particularly among young adults? While many have difficulty articulating their views, others have embraced the idea of “democratic socialism” as espoused by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Young Americans Against Socialism CEO Morgan Zegers sees this up close on a daily basis. After having an avowed communist as a good friend and college roommate, Zegers decided her generation needed to push back against the political tide.
In this conversation with Greg Corombos, Zegers details how she responds to the appeal of democratic socialism and why the facts of history are on her side. She also stresses that conservatives need to befriend and not mock those who really don’t know why they like socialism.
Are Adversity Scores the Answer?
Listen to “Are Adversity Scores the Answer?” on Spreaker.
The College Board announced it is calculating an “adversity score” for the SAT in order to boost the chances for students living in the midst of great hardship to get accepted into college.
The adversity score takes 15 different factors into account, including the crime rate and poverty level in a students neighborhood and high school.
“There are a number of amazing students who may have scored less (on the SAT) but have accomplished more,” David Coleman, chief executive of the College Board, said, said according to the Wall Street Journal. “We can’t sit on our hands and ignore the disparities of wealth reflected in the SAT.”
The College Board insists this change does not take race into account. However, Horace Cooper of the Project 21 National Advisory Board isn’t buying it.
“There’s an attempt being made by the SAT testing centers to hide better the utilization of race as a technique for making it easier for some people to be admitted while making it harder for others,” said Cooper, who says students from stable families and communities end up suffering.
“The so-called adversity scale – if it were even race-neutral – appears to say that the parents who work together and stay together in a relationship and it benefits their children are going to now be disadvantaged,” said Cooper.
Cooper believes the extra score for growing up in difficult circumstances provides lousy parents with an incentive to stay that way.
“Children that grow up in households where moms and dads stay together do better financially. They do better academically. They do better in terms of criminal interaction and law enforcement than those who do not. We don’t want to create a situation, where we start at the end and work our way back, and then we end up incentivizing people not to (be concerned about these things,” said Cooper.
Listen to the full podcast to hear Cooper address concerns that disadvantaged students suffer because a chaotic home life causes their studies to suffer through no fault of their own. He also reveals how he believes the college admissions system ought to work.
Pelosi Backs Off Impeachment, NYC on the Brink, Celebrity College Cheats
Listen to “Pelosi Backs Off Impeachment, NYC on the Brink, Celebrity College Cheats” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are a bit surprised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff signaling they don’t plan to pursue impeachment of President Trump unless there’s a bipartisan consensus for it. They also look on sadly as New York City’s exorbitant taxes and hard left policies leave the city careening towards bankruptcy. And they crack a few pop-culture jokes but also weigh in on the serious issues as celebrities and elites around the country are charged with bribing colleges and universities to admit their kids under false pretenses.
Bredesen Breaks Ranks, Libs vs. Reality on Ford, Stumped by Stamps
Listen to “Bredesen’s Bold Move, Libs vs. Reality on Ford, Stumped by Stamps” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Tennessee Democratic Senate hopeful Phil Bredesen for bucking the talking points from Washington Democrats and saying the Senate should move forward on the Kavanaugh nomination if Christine Ford refuses to testify. They also roll their eyes as California Rep. Anna Eshoo claims Ford does not have a political bone in her body, which is patently false, and another California congressman mocks the threats liberals are making against Maine Sen. Susan Collins over this issue. And they have fun with the news that many college students request and fill out absentee ballots but never mail them in because they have no idea where to get a stamp.
Indoctrination Triggers Campus Chaos
Donald Trump’s election triggered an avalanche of grief and defiance on many college campuses, and administrators are accommodating the grieving students through a variety of efforts, but a top official at one of America’s best known traditional schools says the actions of both students and administrators are way off course.
Since Trump became president-elect on the morning of Nov. 9, schools around the country are taking great pains to comfort students traumatized by the GOP victory. Some are setting aside “election processing spaces.” Others options include counseling for students, vigils, and even sharing the suicide hotline numbers. The University of Michigan Law School even planned a therapy event featuring Play-Doh before eventually canceling it.
Not all campuses are seeing so much volatility. One is Hillsdale College in Michigan. The school is well known for is 172-year refusal to accept any federal money. Even federal student loan money is no good there.
Hillsdale Provost Dr. David Whalen says the emotional fragility seen on so many campuses comes as no surprise. .
“These are really the predictable consequences of an entirely politicized environment in higher education,” said Whalen.
“For a long, long time now, higher education has been entirely political. It’s forsaken it’s original purpose to foster a keen-sighted intellectual awareness on the part of students and instead indoctrinate them politically. This is what you get. You get what can only be described as an infantilized student body,” said Whalen.
In addition to creating an environment where such emotional demonstrations are becoming common place, whether about election results or perceived discrimination, Whalen says the way administrators are responding to the outcries is also very harmful.
“If the student is in your face, shouting and bellowing demands, you have failed that student in some fundamental way. The most important thing at this moment is not publicity but what you can do to restore the student to a receptive educational context,” said Whalen.
“You’re a teacher. That’s a student. The student needs you. The student needs to be informed by you in some significant respect. Don’t forget that’s your primary role,” said Whalen.
So why do administrators regularly cater to the student demands. Whalen sees multiple reasons.
“Administrators are often quite sympathetic with the students making the demands. They wish they could move as quickly as the students are urging them to move,” said Whalen. “The second reason is they, in too many cases I should say, lack the moral and intellectual resources to respond to the students or at least respond coherently.”
“The administrators, as a rule, are very concerned with appearances; too concerned about appearances and not sufficiently concerned…about the moral and intellectual formation of the students, of the intemperate person making the demands,” said Whalen.
The result, he says, are college graduates not ready to face the real world.
“It’s the same thing that happens when you give in to a two-year-old’s demands repeatedly and then they hit adolescence. You get somebody who is completely incapable of governing himself,” he said.
Why does this not happen at Hillsdale? Whalen says students at Hillsdale know exactly what is expected of them.
“The students here understand they are partners. They are colleagues in an enterprise. They are not consumers unhappy with a product they are buying. They are undergoing a formation that they have to contribute to willingly. They’re plugged in. They’ve bought in. They’re engaged,” said Whalen.
Due to it’s independent nature, Hillsdale attracts a more conservative student body than most colleges and universities but debate and disagreement are everywhere on campus. Whalen says the difference is how students are taught to approach their disagreements.
“We educate them in the western intellectual tradition, which is a tradition of massive argument, disagreement and debate. We’re not indoctrinating people with conservative stuff. We’re just presenting this tradition that has arguments about everything from economics and the relation of the state to the individual to the existence of God and the nature of evil, everything imaginable,” said Whalen.
“When you wrap your mind at difficulty, under pressure and in strain around the most serious arguments about the most serious things, you turn into a pretty intellectually adept, responsible, mature person,” said Whalen.
The 2016 election brought fierce debate to campus, particularly during the primary season. Whalen was proud of how the students approached those debates without resorting to what’s being seen on other campuses.
“The debates were vigorous but civil,” he said. “There weren’t breaking up of friendships and shouting down dormitory hallways. There was a lot of very vigorous, very serious disagreement, but it was done with civility and respect. People didn’t assume that someone with a different point of view was morally deficient,” said Whalen.