I'll write a lot about this in a second. But here it is, in all is glory.

Of course I'm being snarky about the "ending all controversy." This will change some minds, but, as I was just saying, those who have invested emotionally in a conspiracy theory tend to have non-rational reasons for believing in the conspiracy theory in the first place. And, as they say, you cannot reason a man out of a belief he was never reasoned into in the first place.

Over on Free Republic -- not to knock that site, it's just where this is from -- many are proving that, just as suspected, while they were posturing as people who wanted "evidence," in fact evidence was wholly irrelevant to them; they had a conclusion that was untouchable by evidence as it was never founded upon evidence in the first place.

Blow to Trump? ItÂ’s blow to Obongo. The WH jackass is running scared. CorsiÂ’s book is #1 on Amazon and wonÂ’t be released for 3 weeks.

The "Corsi's book" referred to is the huckster Jerome Corsi's book about Obama's lack of a birth certificate. Apparently Corsi's book will make terrific arguments about Obama's lack of a birth certificate, so strong that they will overcome the fact that Obama does actually have birth certificate.

Never say die, I guess.

In Fairness: I'm not sure that particular commenter is making the point I want him to make. He might just be saying that Obama is weak politically and his long-refused release of the birth certificate is evidence of his weaknesss-- what he had previously sneered at as beneath him, he now agrees to do. Apologies to that commenter if that's all he meant.

But omeone earlier wrote:

there are now two things wrong with line 20

the font of the “A” on line 13 appears different from the “A” in the date on line 20.

To which another Freeper, this one a bit less consumed by the power of a conspiracy theory, replies simply:

Yes, line 13 is by a typewriter. Line 20 is by a stamp.

Ah, but that's what they want you to believe.

I hope this madness is now over but I doubt it is.

Further Thoughts: So the birth certificate exists and furthermore didn't even have any embarrassing data on it, which might have provided a reason for Obama to refuse to release it. I began to think maybe there was something embarrassing, because the other possibilities...

1) He finds the entire matter an affront to his dignity and a pseudo-racist attack on his person, so he will not give in to such racism/affrontery.

2) He generally wants to give the right the finger and will not be bullied by their demands.

3) He actually wants the right to embarrass itself by talking about this and committing to it, consistent with the general belief held by almost all of the media that this whole issue badly damages the right by exposing us as crazy and/or racist.

...just didn't seem strong enough to continue this crap of not simply releasing a simple, standard, impersonal record. But I was wrong, as it turns out-- these were strong enough reasons for him to refuse to release it, as they're the only possibilities still alive.

So why release it now? The obvious reasons:

1) Because the conspiracy theory has become mainstreamed and viral, and yet Obama's poll numbers continue to fall and Donald Trump, Mainstreamer in Chief, is not suffering politically. Ergo, that whole idea the media had that this was devastating to the right isn't true -- so if the refusal to release it was based on that, well, that theory has been proven inoperative.

2) Because he wants to run against Donald Trump and doing this elevates Trump to "the guy who finally got Obama to release his birth certificate." This shouldn't hurt Trump too much -- many will give his hucksterism a more skeptical look going forward, but they were probably already skeptical of his hucksterish pitches -- and on the up side it makes Trump sort of an equal to Obama, in that at least he bullied him into doing something he could have and should have done two years ago. So, maybe this is Obama's way of elevating Trump and choosing his own opponent (63% of voters say they will definitely not vote for Trump, while only 46% say they will definitely vote against Obama -- obviously, this strongly favors Obama).

But I doubt that. It's too "movie-plot crafty." I never like these "four dimensional chess" reasons, where the actor in question is postulated to have the ability to think seven moves ahead in a real-world, flesh-and-blood chess match, perfectly calculating his opponent's next move and the one after that and the one after that.

3) The most obvious reason-- Obama is in fact politically vulnerable, his polls are dropping, and the birth certificate conspiracy theory is not, as the media and liberals kept insisting, somehow helping him by painting the right as insane.

Ergo, with many things going against him, he decided there was one thing under his control that didn't have to go against him, and so finally did the right, obvious thing.

4) My own dark horse suggestion: Trump whiffed completely on the birth certificate but scored a stand-up double with Obama's grades, and Obama doesn't want that subject being examined, so he decimates Trump Theory Number One to spray Trump Theory Number Two with shrapnel.

I hope that we keep on on that front -- I have the fervor of a recent convert about that particular religion (Testify, brothers!) -- but I suspect that most will not, and the media has an even stronger hand now in dismissing such questions ("The same people were pushing the birth certificate thing," which isn't true, but that's what they'll say).

Birtherism Is Dead; Long Live Transcriptism! Average Joe dubs the suspicion that Obama's grades aren't all that good "Transcriptism."

I like that term.

I am a newly-converted Transcripter.

Obama Shouldn't Be All High And Mighty About Jerking People Around: willow makes a good point.

Okay, Colonel Lakin was possessed of a false conspiracy theory. So... the response is to let the court martial proceed rather than simply releasing the document that would clear all this up?

What the hell?

Posted by: Ace at 06:36 AM | Comments (402)
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All eyes will be on Teh Bernank today as he tries to convince us not to believe our own lying eyes. I expect a lot of carefully phrased, oracular Fed-speak that doesn't amount to much. Never mind the stock market; keep an eye on what gold and silver do during and after the press conference. Silver plummeted almost 11% after spiking a day earlier, but if it starts trending back up that might mean that Bernanke's palliative speech may not be having the soothing effect he's intending it to have. (Gold is now at $1510/oz, and has not been as volatile as silver; a big move there will be yet more evidence that the markets are issuing a "no confidence" vote in Teh Bernank.) This press conference might be Bernanke's last, best chance to keep his job.

No, the Yuan will not replace the USD as the world's reserve currency. Neither will the Euro, or any other fiat currency in use. It may be that no single currency will dominate, and I think that's a positive thing. Competition is good, in currency as elsewhere. Being the de facto reserve currency has made us lazy, and spendthrift, and rather arrogant in economic terms. Moving to a sound money regime would force a bit of fiscal humility on us, which I think would be a good thing.

PIMCO (not to be confused with my little home business, "Pimpco") says out loud what everyone is already thinking about Greece: default. With their short-term debt already fetching a 20% premium, the Greeks are facing a market that has already pretty much priced a default into the equation -- an actual default is almost a formality at this point. The ECB hates and fears the notion of a Greek default, though -- not out of any love for the Greeks, but out of fear for what it will portend for the rest of the Eurozone. (Why would Ireland and even Portugal not default also? And if they go, Spain may go; if Spain goes, Italy may teeter.)

Meredith Whitney confirms her belief that there is a municipal-bond crisis on the horizon. I think Whitney is right -- the federal stimulus is drying up (as with the end of the "Build America Bond" program), and states and cities have exhausted their trick-bags in keeping the books balanced in 2009 and 2010. The aggregate debt to be rolled runs into the hundreds of billions in the short term, and it's not clear to me how the optimists think the most-indebted municipalities will swing the rollover. I think they overestimate the taxing power of the cities, and the tolerance of the increasingly-bitter taxpayers who live there, but we shall see. I'm looking at cities in the Rust Belt (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit) and on the West Coast (L.A., San Fran, San Diego) as prime candidates.

Atlas Shrugged tanking at the box office? I saw the movie and liked it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it dies at the theatrical-release level. It's a talky, "message oriented" movie that doesn't have much action in it, no major stars, and no special-effects to speak of. I always thought the piece would have played better as an HBO miniseries or straight-to-DVD release. In fact, I think the movie will do just fine in the streaming/home market. It'll earn out, and then some. Plenty of movies did crap box office and went on to become beloved classics.

[UPDATE 1]: From slublog comes news that "Obamaflation" has arrived. (Much of the rise in price of food has more to do with fuel costs for transport than spikes in the underlying commodity, a point the article itself makes.)

[UPDATE 2]: The latest right-wing Jesusland flyover state to curtail public-sector union bargaining is...Massachusetts? (Via HotAir.) What dread beast hath Wisconsin's Scott Walker summoned?

[UPDATE 3]: We're not getting fatter. We're just getting taller.

[UPDATE 4]: The NLRB must really be feeling their oats: now they intend to sue Arizona and South Dakota over the "card check" issue. Union thuggery, now funded by taxpayer dollars and peformed under Federal aegis! (Barone's "gangster government" sobriquet was more accurate than even he realized!)

[UPDATE 5]: Eurozone sovereign debt reaches 85.1% of GDP. Trichet can natter on all he wants about how default is an impossibility. Reality will have its way.
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Posted by: Monty at 05:15 AM | Comments (198)
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Hump day. Up and at 'em!

All eyes on Bernanke today as we'll get a read on whether the printing presses can drop below Ludicrous Speed.

Posted by: andy at 02:36 AM | Comments (292)
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If you're on the West Coast, don't read this thread until you see it. more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:53 PM | Comments (49)
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Hey the ONT isn't all whiskey and midget pr0n - sometimes it has useful stuff too...

Tech Tuesday: Introducing Dropbox

Dropbox is a free 'cloud storage' service that synchronizes files across all of your computers (PC, Mac, or linux) and your mobile devices (iphone and android). The way it works is that you create a Dropbox folder on your computer and any file you put into it is quickly and automatically synced across all of your other systems. It's still saved locally but now you can access it anywhere and even through their website. Functionally it's like having a common directory on every single device you own. Plus all the cool kids are using it these days so here's your chance to get in on some of that action.

Initially they give you 2GB of space and you can get more by buying it or getting others to sign up. I've been using it for several months and have been very happy with it. It's convenient enough that it's essentially replaced my using a memory stick for copying files around. Plus if everyone in your family has a shared Dropbox folder, this makes it hassle-free to share pictures and video without having to upload them to a website.

And it's really come in handy at work where I can collaborate and share files with co-workers across the country using it's shared folder feature. I can drop a file in the folder and within a minute it's on my co-worker's computer where ever he might be. Also it replaces using FTP or a service like YouSendit for sending files too big for email since you can just send someone the url for the file in your Dropbox Public folder and have them download it directly. Another nice thing is that Dropbox automatically keeps backup version of your files so if you ever accidentally delete something, you can access previous copies from up to a month before.

Now supposedly Dropbox encrypts your files while they're stored on their servers, but if you're really concerned about sensitive documents I would encrypt them myself using TrueCrypt or forgo the service. But for casual stuff it's very convenient.

So give it a try - it don't cost nuthin.

[Sadly neither I nor Ace are getting anything for this endorsement. ] more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:15 PM | Comments (543)
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An argument between Pat Buchanan and Chris Matthews, which starts about Birtherism but gets around to my topic of the day -- Obama's grades, SATs, LSATs.

As Buchanan says: Trump is supporting the people's right to know, and the national media Is supporting Obama's right to conceal.

If Obama's such a genius, how come Occidental, Harvard, and Columbia have all removed his record from the common files and put them into the safe?

See, Bush's transcript from Yale got "leaked." Which I assume means that they never bothered to remove the records from the common files, meaning dozens (hundreds?) of people could snoop in there (and copy them) any time they wanted.

I worked in that Work/Study thing at college. I was in the records room a lot. Did I snoop? Well I don't want to say if I did or I didn't. But I definitely could have, as the files drawers were unlocked and I was in there alone, pulling whatever files was asked of me, unsupervised.

Okay, I guess I can admit I snooped on myself: that seems harmless to confess. I checked my admissions file. My record was boring and exactly what I thought it was without any interesting notes on it. Purely a computer printout of SATs and high school grades. And current grades and courses. Boring, bureaucratic stuff.

Isn't it odd that the universities take special precautions as regards Democratic politicians but leave Republican records where any freshman with a Work-Study scholarship and an agenda can copy them?

Anyway, the colleges aren't leaking for Obama. They know his grades are not genius-level material.

I like how Buchanan has a belief (without proof), and Matthews has a belief (without proof), but Chris Matthews is absolutely aghast at the suggestion we get the proof and resolve it one way or another.

Let's say two people are in an elevator. A fight breaks out; both men say the other stole from him.

Who do you believe?

Well, let's also say there's a security videotape in the elevator.

So, you'll know soon enough.

But until we get the tapes -- if one person is saying "Just look at the video!" and the other is scoffing, "Video?! Why should we look at video?! It's insulting to say you want to look at some video. We definitely shouldn't look at video and if you do you're a racist" -- which of those two men do you think is more confident that the video will prove his story?

Thanks to Just the Tip.

Posted by: Ace at 03:10 PM | Comments (643)
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Who knew?

Addressing Rush Limbaugh's question, I guess, about how much it is the left wants to take away:

"The New Testament does have an answer to Rush's question, 'What would Jesus take?' and it's not one Rush is going to like," O'Donnell began, adding smugly, "And since he obviously has no working command of the Bible, it will surely shock him because he will be hearing it now for the first time."

"The answer is everything, not 35 percent, not 39.6 percent. One hundred percent," O'Donnell continued, referring to marginal tax rates for top income-bracket earners, citing as his proof text a passage from Mark 10 in which a rich man comes up to Jesus and asks "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

O'Donnell then selectively edited Jesus's answer:

Go and sell all your possession and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven...

But right after the ellipsis, verse 21 continues "and come, follow me."

O'Donnell also ignored the thrust of the story in context, which is the high personal cost in this age of following Jesus, but the eternal inheritance that awaits those who abandon all to follow Jesus, whose kingdom, Jesus himself repeatedly said, was "not of this world."

But alas, O'Donnell is concerned not with rendering unto Christ but rendering unto Caesar.

"It seems very clear that Jesus would be cool with a 39.6 tax bracket for those making over $250,000," O'Donnell concluded from the text.

Well, let's see.

Jesus was promising eternal salvation in Heaven besides his Father Our God.

Is that what O'Donnell and Obama are promising? Do they have that kind of pull? Or supernatural power over the soul?

I didn't know that. I know that Obama has been repeatedly depicted as a halo-orbited angel or Messiah but I didn't know now he literally is selling timeshares in Heaven.

Let's also see: Jesus is speaking of an ideal to aspire to, voluntarily. I don't see him just taking money from people and then telling them, "It's for your own good, trust me."

Also, the "give" part of the command seems rather more important than O'Donnell is letting on: Virtue is demonstrated by voluntary undertaking of it. Not state-compelled compliance with it.

In fact, O'Donnell's plan to replace God with Obama and Heaven with Government would seem to eliminate, entirely, the possibility of virtuous behavior, as virtue compelled is no virtue at all. It's just avoiding prison.

Uggghhh: You've Got Old Midget In My Old Crank: Letterman and Maher. What could go right?

Posted by: Ace at 02:22 PM | Comments (224)
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But this time from Andrew Malcolm at the LAT.

"Donald Trump says he's President Obama's worst nightmare," Jay Leno said last night. "No. Having to make a decision is President Obama's worst nightmare."

Huh. I didn't know that. I only watch like six shows on TV (Justified, The Rob Mariano Vote-Out Show, Top Shot, Top Chef, Doctor Who and the comedies on a certain network I don't want to name because the network is a leftwing propagandist outfit), so I usually only hear of this stuff later.

So Fallon thinks he's screwing up and doesn't know what he's doing, and Jay Leno thinks he's incapable of making a decision?

Evidence. You know what comedians are really good at? Being funny, sure. But humor is right on the edge of acceptability and offense, reassurance and shock: Comedians know how to read the room and find that edge.

I was going to quote Malcom's piece more extensively but since it's a litany of Obama's bad optics and bad choices, I think you should just read it.

BTW: Sorry for stopping posting. As you can probably tell, that last post really interested me, and I was learning stuff left and write as I wrote it (or, as I wrote what people were telling me about).

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (178)
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This has been discussed, but I haven't seen a citation for it. (Then again, I never really investigated it.)

JeffB. sends this along. This is the Harvard Crimson, which should know about its own law school's policies.

In 1981, all 80-some editors except one were white, and it would be another decade before the Review elected its first black president, Sen. Barack H. Obama, (D-Ill.) Fewer than a dozen of the editors on the Review were women, although Susan R. Estrich, the law professor and Democratic political operative, served as the ReviewÂ’s president in 1977.

It was then that the saga of the Law ReviewÂ’s affirmative action program began, when the editors adopted a race- and gender-conscious policy by a 45 to 39 vote, to the vehement opposition of some faculty members. Several months of intense debate and negotiations ensued between the Review and the faculty, at the end of which the Review began for the first time considering factors other than merit in choosing its members.

Prior to 1981, law students could join the Review either by being among the top five students in their first-year sections—each class used to be divided into four sections—or through a combination of their grades and their scores on an annual writing competition, a process designed to preserve absolute objectivity.

But the 1981 editors felt it necessary for their admission policy to take into account the underrepresentation of minorities and women.

Under their modified plan, the top four students in each first-year section would still be elected to the Review, but the fifth spot would be reserved for the top-scoring minority student among the top 25, and if no such minority student existed, the fifth spot would go to the woman with the highest grades.

Two days after the adoption of this policy, three editors—including one woman—resigned in protest.

In response, the ReviewÂ’s leadership convened to reconsider their plan, opting for a non-quota system that would merely take race and gender into consideration. But despite the modification, the Review continued to encounter opposition from students, alumni, and most importantly, from the faculty.

It has changed a bit, but we don't know when it changed:

The Review’s selection process has also markedly changed since the disputes of 1981. McGrath said that “the writing competition is [now] the central part of the process.”

Today, 14 editors are selected with equal weight on grades and writing competition scores and 20 on the basis of the competition alone.

The remaining seven to nine spots are filled on a discretionary basis, which McGrath wrote “can be used for [the] affirmative action program.”

And this new policy, which is also heavily A-A, is supposed to represent a limitation on the use of race factors that had existed before the implementation of the new policy -- that is, before this, race factors counted for more.

Obama entered Harvard Law in 1988 and graduated 1991, meaning he was either there for one Affirmative Action regime or another, slightly-better-disguised one.

So Trump could be right that his grades weren't good, despite the Law Review credential.

One thing, though, is the magna cum laude honor, which is semi-independent of the Law Review one (though, often, they go together, being both largely based on grades -- usually).

While I have heard of AA for law review, I haven't heard of it for the magna honor. (Or cum, or summa-- whichever.) Usually this is based simply on grades, and this being the second-highest academic accolade. But who knows -- Harvard might have automatically made anyone on Law Review magna or better, or might have added a special AA element to this too, or maybe some kind of special circumstances thing ("He did thirty hours of work in a soup kitchen or community organizing" or some weak crap like that).

Easy Magna? Where I went to school, magna was reserved for the top 5%. When Obama was at Harvard, it was much, much easier to grab that accolade -- only after he graduated did they institute a policy limiting magna to 10% and cum laude to 30%, which means, of course, before he graduated the honors were given out much more freely.

How freely? This freely:

Under the old system, 76% of Harvard Law grads earned honors, the school said."

Eric adds:

So when Obama graduated in 1991, all he had to do was graduate in the top 76% of the class to get a cum laude honor. The article doesn't specify, but I expect that the cutoff for Magna Cum Laude was 50%. Which means a C student could graduate with a Magna Cum Laude.

Yes, I suspect that too. That sounds plausible to me -- if three quarters (3/4ths!) of your class is getting the "with honors" accolade, then magna is going to be 50% or 40%. "Magna" could have meant as little as a B- average, which is easy-peasy in a school notorious for grade inflation (Harvard men should compete against Yale, not each other, sniff, quaff cognac, adjust bowtie).

Thanks to Eric for that.

Wow, you guys are good!

So, in summa: When Barack H. Obama attended Harvard Law School, it was during a period when it was possible for him to get on Law Review with the least true academic achievement in the school's history (with stronger-form AA in effect), and also required the very lowest academic achievement in the school's history to get the magna honor (or any other honor); so much so that the school revolted against awarding these honors to virtually anyone who graduated and instituted a hard cap on the percentage of students receiving them.

No wonder he won't release the grades, and no wonder Harvard has them on lockdown.

More: Alamo adds:

Beyond those rather loose standards for academic "honors', 30 years ago I witnessed minority students whose class discussions and projects, no matter how lame or illogical, were given accolades by predictably leftist professors. The grading itself was many times subjective. The instructors would laud the product of some students regardless of merit and refer to the authenticity of their views and conclusions based on their personal experiences or cultural perspective- not fact or logic.

Yes of course; I'm not highlighting that, though, because that case would be hard to prove. You can know someone's grades; it's much harder to know why they got the grades they did. You could only "prove" this, or, rather, evidence this, but a meticulous study and backgrounder of each of Obama's courses and the tendencies of each professor grading him.

One way to figure out if some chicanery happened here is to compare his grades in his core coursework (the first year regimen of Contracts, Torts, Crim Law, Constitutional Law, Property, and Procedure) with his later grades in his electives. If there's a sudden rise in grades, it's because he did poorly in the required, more objective coursework and "flourished" in the electives, where he got to pick and choose between tough and easy professors.

If his later courses seem to be light and fluffy, and suddenly his grades improve, there's good evidence for Alamo's hunch.

By the Way: None of this means he's dumb. He's not dumb. Not if testably dumb, anyway; dumb in worldview and assumptions, but I'm sure he'd get 110-120 on an IQ test.

However, the accolades we're talking about here are offered as evidence that he's more than simply above-average in intelligence. The stuff we're talking about here has the implication of "genius," and that's certainly how Obama's been sold.

Law Review didn't used to be some kind of social-engineering fakey honor. It used to be reserved for the top-graded people in a class, and all taking pretty much the same damn courses (the rigid first year curriculum where I think you get exactly one elective all year or something). That, and, in some schools, a blind writing competition -- no name attached, your identity (and race) carefully hidden behind only a number assigned to your paper.

Similarly, when I think "magna," I think "top of the class," and go with my own experience that it really means "seriously, the top of the class, not the top 50% of the class."

Obama may have had outstanding grades and may have earned every inch of the Law Review and magna honors. But the fact that his grades are kept as state secrets, while only the honors themselves are mentioned, makes me think we're looking at C+/B- situation here.

Like -- about the same as George Bush (and about the same as Al Gore and John Kerry, not that the media ever talks about their lackluster academic performances).

Genius? Now that I know there are alternate pathways to these honors besides genius, no, I'm not willing to even entertain the idea of "genius" until I see the evidence.

These honors, it turns out, are easily procured at Harvard Law.

Let's see the grades, the SATs, the LSATs.

Obama's IQ Is 116. Hah! This guy guestimates that based on tangible proxy evidence, which is right in the middle of where I figured it would be.

Now, this guy is not just completely making things up. He knows, because there are records of it, that Obama was not a National Merit Scholar, or National Merit Finalist, or the lowest subcategory, "Outstanding Participant." (This seems to be an honor conferred by the College Board (the SAT people) primarily if not exclusively based on SAT scores.)

Since Obama did not make the list for any of those automatically-conferred SAT-based recognitions, we know his SATs must be below those thresholds, setting a hard upper cap on his possible SAT scores.

We can then figure his highest, likeliest IQ score, because the SAT is just a modified version of the old Army IQ test. Current IQ tests and the SATs are both derived straight from the old Army IQ test, testing pretty much the same things and in pretty much the same ways. Different scoring system, but same ultimate term of comparison -- how you rank compared to the general population, expressed as percentile.

Not dumb, but I never thought he was dumb -- just not a genius. 116's a perfectly respectable score, but no one goes bragging on it and claims to be a genius at 116.

No on ever says, "I'm a mere 30 points away from qualifying for Mensa," for example.

Good catch on that National Merit thing.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (567)
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The guy has moxie. Sure, I can be nitpicky and note that Trump is using the "I heard that X" formulation, which is really license to say whatever you want without evidence; but who cares? This is politics, baby, not an Auburn faculty mixer or Deerfield Academy parent's day.

Let me say that I suspect what Trump says is true. I have no evidence for it. But then, I've never seen any evidence against it, either; for four years running now I have been fed a Narrative about the genius of Barack Obama without a shred of anecdotal or documentary evidence to support that narrative.

(Actually, I have some evidence -- other professors said he was an empty and non-high-academic-firepower teacher when he had that associate Constitutional law gig.)

My only real problem here is that Trump is using the "I heard" thing to also say Obama has no birth certificate, which I doubt is true, and which, most importantly, I think many persuadable voters also doubt is true; and he's using it here, too, which means that if his first "I heard" gets tarnished or rejected than this more-likely "I heard" will also suffer and be discounted as also false.

Poisoning the well, then; or, if not poisoning it exactly, then dumping a lot of salt into it to make it distasteful.

But good for Trump for saying it:

"I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."

Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1983 with a degree in political science after transferring from Occidental College in California. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude 1991 and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Oh wait, I did forget that magna cum laude part, which isn't easy at any school, let alone Harvard.

Ah well, I want to see his grades and which courses he managed his A's in, even still, and I want to know there was no special non-grade-based track for magna at Harvard.

Impress me, buddy.

I want to know. I'm tired of every Republican's SAT scores and grades being leaked while the frigging colleges clamp down on Democrats' records like they're blueprints for hydrogen warheads.

Trump once again rejects the Ryan plan, which is good for politics but bad for the nation's survival:

— Said Republicans had made a mistake by embracing a budget proposal crafted by Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan that included deep cuts in Medicare. "The seniors are afraid. The plan Paul Ryan put forth has made the Democrats so happy," Trump said.

Sure it has. Truth doesn't win too many elections. But that doesn't make falsehoods noble, it just makes the popular.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (265)
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