James L. Paris's Blog, page 77

Illinois Financial Crisis Likely to Have Lasting Impact on State Colleges and Universities

The financial crisis plaguing Illinois is undeniably real, sparing no one, and nothing.

Word now comes from CNN Money that funding for the state���s public colleges and universities has, for all practical purposes, stopped, and the resulting impact to the campuses is both immediate and significant, to say the least.

It���s now been three years since the state actually approved a budget. The Democratically-controlled legislature has remained at odds with Republican Governor Bruce Rauner over how to deal with the mess that���s resulted after many years of financial mismanagement. According to CNN, Illinois has $15 billion in unpaid bills outstanding, as well as over $250 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

The state���s college and university system has been largely kept alive during this time through a series of emergency funding measures. However, the aggregation of financial problems plaguing Illinois has demanded that the amount of money apportioned to schools be drastically reduced.

According to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, funding for state schools dropped over 60 percent for the 2015-2016 school year. Staff are being let go, libraries are now operated on minimal hours, maintenance is being postponed, and now there���s concern among some students that state scholarships will effectively be canceled.

Some are worried about the potential for especially long-lasting effects. For his part, Western Illinois University President Jack Thomas is gravely concerned as he watches the departure of highly-qualified faculty for schools elsewhere.

���Many of our best and brightest faculty and staff are being actively recruited by universities across the country and are leaving our state for more stable positions in other states,��� Thomas said.

Thomas is also anxious about the possible future effects associated with Illinois students deciding there���s little reason to remain in the state to attend college.

���This intellectual capital may not return to Illinois,��� he said.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Popular Conservative Pundit Levin Tells Trump ���Keep Tweeting"

While so many have been pleading with Donald Trump to tweet less, well-known conservative author and media personality Mark Levin is just fine with the president���s reliance on Twitter to get his message out to the masses.

Appearing Tuesday on Fox News��� Fox & Friends, Levin basically said that very thing.

���If he doesn���t tweet, how in the world is he going to get his message out? So I say keep tweeting, just be careful about what you tweet and don���t be pushed or bullied into not tweeting.���

While much of the criticism of Trump���s continued, frequent use of Twitter is rooted in the notion that it���s undignified for him to tweet in the way he does, many of his strongest supporters see it as one key way he���s able to circumvent what they regard as a dishonest media out to bring him down.

In another appearance the previous evening on Fox News��� Hannity, Levin touched on the utility of Trump using Twitter to stay one step ahead of the purveyors of what has come to be called ���fake news.���

���[I] want to thank the president for something ��� he gets attacked for this,��� Levin said. ���Thank you for taking on the media. It���s a damn about time somebody did. Don���t stop tweeting. Be more careful with your tweets, but don���t stop tweeting because you���re able to go over the head of the media the way Reagan did with his speeches. He could be more careful. I don���t care. Are the media careful about what they report? No. In any event, I���m one of those ��� count me in the minority that says, ���Keep at it, keep at it, keep at it.������

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

UC San Diego Students Protest the Dalai Lama���Because of His Intolerance

Based on what you���ve been able to discern over the last several years regarding the mindset of college students and the political ���temperatures��� on college campuses, you���re likely of the opinion that a lot of those kids are simply nuts.

Well, THIS isn���t likely to change your opinion about that.

In fact, this might well be the dumbest thing you read today, which is saying a lot, considering how much really dumb stuff there is on the Internet.

According to Heat Street, the University of California at San Diego recently hosted a special guest as commencement speaker, and a segment of the student population was up in arms over the visit.

Rush Limbaugh? Sean Hannity? Education Secretary Betsy DeVos?

None of the above.

It turns out that the speaker, an apparent lightning rod of controversy, was none other than that well-known symbol of intolerance���the Dalai Lama.

This time the offended student group is the Chinese Students and Scholars Organization (CSSO), who say the Dalai Lama���s perpetual theme of global peace and harmony is actually a ruse to cover his real interests as a Tibetan separatist bent on dividing China.

���UCSD is a place for students to cultivate their minds and and enrich their knowledge,��� the CSSO said in a statement. ���Currently, the various actions undertaken by the university have contravened the spirit of respect, tolerance, equality, and earnestness���the ethos upon which the university is built.���

Because disrespect, intolerance, inequality���those are the words that come to mind when you think of the Dalai Lama.

Like they say, just when you think you���ve seen it all���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Chicago Gay Pride Event Kicks Out Jewish Supporters

Where to begin here���?

Evidence of a regrowth of anti-semitism worldwide continues, and seems now to be rearing its ugly head even in what many might see as among the unlikeliest of places.

For example, at a gay pride rally, of all things, held last Saturday in Chicago, attendees carrying Jewish LGBT Pride flags were forced to leave by organizers.

According to one marcher, identified by Newsweek as Laurel Grauer, she was harassed by other march attendees and eventually told she needed to leave with the flag she���d been bearing during the event.

���It was a flag from my congregation which celebrates my queer, Jewish identity which I have done for over a decade marching in the Dyke March with the same flag,��� said Grauer. ���They were telling me to leave because my flag was a trigger to people that they found offensive. Prior to this I had never been harassed or asked to leave and I had always carried the flag with me.���

���People asked me if I was a Zionist and I said ���yes, I do care about the state of Israel but I also believe in a two-state solution and an independent Palestine,������ Grauer continued. ���It���s hard to swallow the idea of inclusion when you are excluding people from that. People are saying ���You can be gay but not in this way.��� We do not feel welcomed. We do not feel included.���

Newsweek reports that march organizers saw the event as pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, in addition to (obviously) pro-gay, and that flags displaying the Star of David made others feel unsafe.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Renters Feeling Increasingly Locked Out of Housing Market

According to an article over at CNBC.com, how you feel about the real estate market has a whole lot to do with whether you presently own a house.

If you are currently a homeowner, you���re feeling rather chipper about the state of things right now.

However, if you���re still a renter, data suggests you���re not nearly as enthusiastic.

In spite of the fact that interest rates are still hovering around all-time lows, the employment picture continues to look ever-rosier, and rents continue to climb, a survey from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reveals that barely half of renters ��� 52 percent, to be exact ��� say it���s a good time to buy.

What���s more, that figure is down from where it was a year ago; at that time, 62 percent of renters said the time was right to make a home purchase.

The culprit is the steady rise in home values throughout the country. Even though renters continue to see increases in what they���re paying each month, the purchase prices of homes are making the option to buy increasingly prohibitive.

���Paying more in rent each year and seeing home prices outpace their incomes is discouraging, and it���s unfortunately pushing homeownership further away ��� especially for those living in expensive metro areas on the East and West Coast," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR.

Unsurprisingly, however, those who already own homes have a very robust view of the market at this time. 80 percent of current homeowners polled by the NAR say it���s a good time to buy, and that number is unchanged from a year ago.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Financial Freedom In The New Gig Economy

Jim shares a revolutionary new way of looking at money and financial freedom. It is not about accumulating a large lump sum, but creating 3 to 5 cash flow streams. After just presenting his live workshop in Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston, Jim is sharing this same information on a series of Facebook Live videos each Wednesday at 1 pm Eastern.

Download Jim's Workshop Notes - Click Here

Report: Black Unemployment Reaches Lowest Level in 17 Years

What to make of this?

According to figures just published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the steady drop in black unemployment continues, with the jobless rate of black Americans now at a 17-year low.

The rate has been steadily declining each month since February, when it was at 8.1 percent. The most recently-declared rate, announced for the month of May, is 7.5 percent.

President Trump made a concerted effort to court the black vote during his time last year on the campaign trail. In one appearance in North Carolina last October, just before the election, Trump proposed a ���new deal��� to black Americans that would consist of ���safe communities, great education, and high-paying jobs.��� In another campaign event last August in Milwaukee, Trump declared that ���Hillary Clinton-backed policies are responsible for the problems in the inner cities today, and a vote for her is a vote for another generation of poverty, high crime and lost opportunities.���

For their part, high-profile black lawmakers grew noticeably impatient with President Obama on the matter of joblessness in the minority community. Congresswoman Maxine Waters went hard after Obama on the subject back in 2011, excoriating him for his failure to ���acknowledge the economic disaster in the African American community,��� while Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver said at the same time that ���if Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Dem Lawmakers Tell Party Leadership: Quit Talking About Trump & Russia

Guess what?

Despite all you���re hearing in the news about Donald Trump and Russia, and assuming (rightly) that the fuel for practically all of the chatter is coming from Democrats, it turns out that the rank-and-file members of the party are weary of the talk.

While the subject has been a favorite of well-heeled Democrats (including highly-compensated news personalities) and party operatives, it seems that ���regular��� Democrats���the ones who have no choice but to be primarily concerned about how the mortgage will get paid next month, and how much damage the cost of health insurance is going to do to their bank accounts���are now rolling their eyes at continued, breathless mentions on TV about Trump-Russia ���collusion.���

One Democratic Party lawmaker laid it out last Thursday during an appearance on MSNBC. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, said, ���We can't just talk about Russia because people back in Ohio aren't really talking that much about Russia, about Putin, about Michael Flynn. They're trying to figure out how they're going to make the mortgage payment, how they're going to pay for their kids to go to college, what their energy bill looks like.���

Ya think?

Continuing, Ryan added, ���And if we don't talk more about their interest than we do about how we're so angry with Donald Trump and everything that's going on, then we're never going to be able to win elections.���

According to The Hill, another Democratic politician, Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota, said he���s just not hearing anything from voters in his state about the matter of Trump and Russia.

Walz, who���s running for governor in 2018, said, ���I did a 22-county tour���nobody���s focusing on that. That���s not to say that they don���t think Russia and those things are important, [but] it���s certainly not top on their minds.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Trump Supporter Buys Billboard Space on Major Thoroughfare to Hit ABC News

Citizen activism is not only alive and well in these United States, but seems to be on the upswing, on both sides of the political dividing line���and it���s clear there are no sacred cows.

Case in point:

Now that people are no longer bothering to hide their disgust at the so-called mainstream media, open, virulent criticism of news organizations once held in reverence by regular folks is becoming more prominent by the day.

On that note, The Washington Times is reporting that a fellow citizen, Kyle Courtney of Boerne, Texas, has done something rather extraordinary as a way to express his displeasure with one news network, in particular.

It seems that Courtney actually bought billboard space along I-10 in San Antonio to express his great frustration with ABC News. Here���s how it reads:

���ABC News: I grew up with you. We are through. The Russians didn���t elect Donald Trump. I did.���

Last week, Courtney released a statement to local NBC affiliate to explain what drove him to take the unusual step.

���ABC News was the only channel I watched as a child growing up in Texas but I think they have lost touch with America and forgotten the working man. They don���t represent our voice anymore. Hillary Clinton���s presidential campaign was funded by the Clinton Foundation in close coordination with the media, and now we���re seeing them try to fix what they couldn���t fix during the election. They are doing everything they can, night after night, to create narratives and sway people���s direction to impeach Donald Trump.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Mississippi Appeals Court: Faith-Based Business Owners Not Required to Service Gay Weddings

In what appears to be a case of a court in America pushing back against the bevy of laws and rulings that now make it illegal for businesses to refuse service on the basis of opposition to gay marriage on religious grounds, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of a Mississippi law designed to protect those who do that very thing.

According to the unanimous decision reached by the panel, the plaintiffs in the case lacked the legal standing to sue Mississippi. The ruling reverses a lower-court decision issued last summer by Judge Carlton W. Reeves, a U.S. District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of Mississippi, who said the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, as the law is officially known, is a ���a vehicle for state-sanctioned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.���

However, in this most recent decision, Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, writing on behalf of the panel, said, ���The governor of Mississippi and the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services appeal a preliminary injunction. Because the plaintiffs do not have standing, we reverse the injunction and render a judgment of dismissal.���

For his part, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, issued a statement last week calling the latest ruling an example of ���commonsense law.���

���No person should be punished by the government with crippling fines or face disqualification for simply believing what President Obama believed until five years ago, that marriage is the union of a man and a woman,��� Perkins said.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large