Savage v Educational Credit Management Corp.: How $37,000 in student loans ballooned into a $250,000 debt

Paul Savage took out $37,000 in student loans to get a degree in human resources management from Temple University, which he obtained in 1997. Later that year, he consolidated the loans at an 8 percent interest rate, but he never made a single payment on the debt. 

Twenty-five years later, Savage tried to discharge his student loan debt in a Georgia bankruptcy court. By this time, his outstanding loan balance had ballooned to approximately $250,000.

Educational Credit Management Corporation, perhaps the U.S. Department of Education's most ruthless debt collector, opposed Savage's attempt to discharge his massive student loan obligation. It argued that Savage was eligible for REPAYE, a 20-year income-based repayment plan. Based on his low income, Savage's required monthly loan payment would be zero.

Furthermore, ECMC argued that Savage failed to make a good-faith effort to repay his debt, which barred him from bankruptcy relief.

Bankruptcy Judge Sage Sigler rejected ECMC's arguments and discharged Mr. Savage's student debt. Judge Sigler's reasoning was as follows:

First, the judge ruled that Savage had managed his loans in good faith. Although he failed to make any payments for over 25 years, Savage had either been enrolled in an income-based repayment plan or a government-approved deferment program and had never been in default. In addition. Savage had made good faith efforts to maximize his income, despite his average annual earnings over the years being only $14,000.

At the time of his bankruptcy filing, Savage was 57 years old. If he were forced into a 20-year income-based repayment plan that required him to make no payments, interest would accrue over the next two decades, increasing his total student loan debt to $1 million.

In short, Judge Sigler ruled that repaying his student loans would impose an undue hardship on Mr. Savage, and thus, he was entitled to bankruptcy relief.

Implications

Paul Savage was fortunate to have Judge Sigler presiding over his bankruptcy case. Many bankruptcy judges have refused to discharge student loan debt, even in cases with facts more dire than those presented by Savage.

ECMC has repeatedly argued that student loan borrowers who qualify for income-based repayment plans are ineligible for bankruptcy relief if their monthly payments are de minimis. Fortunately, many bankruptcy judges have begun to reject that argument for the same reasons Judge Sigler did.

It's nuts for the federal government, acting through private debt collectors, to oppose student-loan bankruptcy relief for people like Paul Savage. Democratic politicians seeking ways to support their young constituents should advocate for legislation that affords bankruptcy relief to overburdened debtors who have handled their student loans in good faith.

 Congress hasn't acted because many congressional legislators view the higher education industry as their core constituency, not college students. The higher education industry is content with the status quo, which allows colleges to charge outrageous tuition prices, knowing that students and their parents will borrow the money to pay the bill.

Bankruptcy Judge Sage Siegler

Two Men Shot at Utah 'No Kings' Rally: This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Earlier this month, anti-Trump protesters held a 'No Kings' rally in Salt Lake City.  Like other 'No Kings' rallies held around the country, the Salt Lake City event was "mostly," "mainly," and " broadly" peaceful. 

Unfortunately, two people attending the rally got shot. Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, a 39-year-old father of two children, was killed, and Arturo Gamboa, age 24, was wounded.

Gamboa was carrying a rifle when the shooting started, although he didn't fire it.  Nevertheless, he was arrested on suspicion of murder.

What the hell happened? According to news reports, an armed "peacekeeper" at the 'No Kings' event saw Gamboa with the rifle, considered him to be a threat, and shot at him. Gamboa was wounded, but Mr. Ah Loo, an innocent bystander, was killed by an errant bullet.

Gamboa was later released from jail after prosecutors said that they couldn't determine whether to file charges until they had evaluated more evidence. According to some reports, Gamboa's rifle was not loaded, and Gamboa did not point the weapon at anyone.

What can we learn from this senseless tragedy? Two things. 

First, people organizing mass rallies who feel the need for armed security should only hire bonded, licensed, and insured professionals who are trained in the use of firearms.

Second, event organizers should purchase liability insurance. It seems likely that Mr. Ah Loo's family will file a lawsuit against the 'No Kings' organization.

Third, no one attending a mass rally should openly carry a firearm, whether or not the weapon is loaded.

Several states now permit adults to openly carry firearms without requiring them to take a gun safety course. Utah is one of those states.

Open Carry laws are bad public policy. If no one at Salt Lake City's 'No Kings' event had been carrying a gun, Mr. Ah Loo's children would still have a father.

Arturo Gamboa Photo credit: Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News

Governor Newsom Overplays His Hand: The 9th Circuit Lets the Federalized Guard Remain in Los Angeles

 As Blue State governors now know, President Trump is serious about deporting criminal aliens from the U.S. 

Earlier this month, federal agents were thwarted in their deportation efforts by rioters in Los Angeles who threw rocks at ICE agents, blocked highways, looted businesses, and vandalized federal buildings. In response, Trump federalized the California National Guard to protect federal agents and federal property.

Predictably, Governor Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration and got a restraining order barring Trump from calling out the Guard. Judge CharlesBreyer, a federal district judge, ruled that Trump's mobilization order violated federal law and that Trump had not federalized the Guard "through" Governor Newsom as he was legally required to do.

Newsom v. Trump: The 9th Circuit Lets the Guard Remain in LA

Trump immediately appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Yesterday, a three-judge panel issued a stay against Judge Breyer's order, allowing the California National Guard to remain in Los Angeles under President Trump's command--at least for the present.

Governor Newsom advanced two main arguments to support his position that Trump had illegally federalized the California National Guard. First, he maintained that Trump had not notified him before issuing the deployment order, rendering it unlawful.

The Ninth Circuit rejected this argument, pointing out that Trump's mobilization order was issued to the California Adjutant General "through Governor Newsom." The court also ruled that President Trump was not required to obtain Governor Newsom's consent before federalizing the troops and deploying them to Los Angeles.

Second, Governor Newsom argued that Trump hadn't satisfied the statutory requirement for federalizing the Guard. Specifically, Newsom's lawyers maintained that the unrest in Los Angeles was not severe enough to justify calling out the National Guard.

Judge Breyer bought Newsom's argument, but the Ninth Circuit disagreed. Citing a 19th-century judicial precedent, a three-judge panel ruled  "that the President's determination that an exigency exists [should] be given significant deference.

 The panel went on to summarize the chaotic events on June 6 and 7:

There is evidence that . . . protesters threw objects at ICE vehicles trying to complete a law enforcement operation, pinned down several FPS officers defending federal property by throwing concrete chunks, bottles of liquid, and other objects, and used large rolling commercial dumpsters as a battering ram in an attempt to breach the parking garage of a federal building. Plaintiffs’ own submissions state that some protesters threw objects, including Molotov cocktails, and vandalized property. [Internal punctuation omitted.]

These events, in the Ninth Circuit's view, justified Trump's decision to federalize the National Guard.

Implications

Governor Newsom's lawsuit to kick the federalized National Guard out of Los Angeles backfired on him. Thanks to the Ninth Circuit's preliminary opinion, we now know that President Trump can mobilize the Guard to protect federal officers and guard federal property without consulting a governor and without a governor's permission. Moreover, the courts are required to give the President's mobilization decision considerable deference.

Progressive municipalities across the United States proudly call themselves sanctuary cities, vowing not to cooperate with federal deportation efforts. In some instances, local officials have impeded federal officers. The Ninth Circuit decision may prompt Blue City mayors to reconsider their stance. 

If mayors and governors allow anti-ICE protests to get out of control, as Governor Newsom did, Trump will federalize the Guard. The Mayors of Chicago, Denver, and Boston should take note.

Los Angeles Anti-ICE riot. Image credit: New York Post

Kristi Noem's Security Team Throws Senator Alex Padillla in the Briar Patch

Please don't throw me in that briar patch.

Joel Chandler Harris

Surely you remember Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus tales about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. The two characters are mortal enemies, and Brer Fox spends his days scheming to capture Brer Rabbit.

One day, Brer Fox succeeds, and he contemplates the ways he might kill the little bunny: burning, hanging, or drowning?

 Brer Rabbit, seemingly terrified, expresses no fear about any fate but one: "Please," he begs, "don't throw me in that briar patch."

Of course, that's precisely what Brer Fox does,  and Brer Rabbit gleefully escapes from captivity.  "I was born and bred in the briar patch," Brer Rabbit jeers as he makes his escape.

Democratic politicians are behaving just like Brer Rabbit.  Several have blatantly misbehaved in the hope that they'll be forcibly restrained, thereby providing them with a photo opportunity. They want their base to see them being put in handcuffs for opposing President Trump's efforts to deport illegal migrants.

Senator Alex Padilla is the most prominent grandstander.  Last week, Padilla interrupted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Los Angeles press conference, knowing full well that the Secretary of Homeland Security is protected by a security team. Padilla was forcibly restrained and handcuffed. 

There are two interpretations of this teapot tempest. Padilla said he was simply attempting to ask Secretary Noem a question. A conservative commentator said that Padilla "storm[ed] in like a maniac" and that the Senator wanted to be restrained.

Fortunately for Senator Padilla, someone from his office recorded a portion of the incident — a true Kodak moment.

Hoping to milk this melodrama for all it was worth, Padilla tearfully recounted the event on the floor of the U.S. Senate a few days ago. Boo hoo!

I've got no sympathy for Senator Padilla or any other Democratic politician who gets restrained or arrested for interfering with federal efforts to remove criminal aliens from the United States. 

Like Brer Rabbit, these clowns want to be thrown in the briar patch. I would be happy to see them spend some time in jail.

Please don't throw me in that briar patch!

90-second book review: Jesus Wept is a To Do List for Pope Leo XIV

Seeing things with the eyes of Christ inspires the Church's pastoral care for the faithful who are living together, or are only married civilly, or are divorced and remarried. 

Pope Francis

Amoris Laetitia, October 1, 2015

Jesus Wept: Seven Popes And The Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church was released early this year before the death of Pope Francis. Authored by Philip Shenon, an award-winning investigative reporter, the book chronicles the papacies of the seven popes that preceded Pope Leo XIV, from Pius XII to Pope Francis. 

Shenon's book began by focusing on Vatican II and the primary issues facing the Catholic Church when the Council of Cardinals began its deliberations in 1962.  First, should Catholic priests and deacons be permitted to marry? Second, should the Church allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion? Third, should the ban on birth control be lifted?

A commission created by Pope Paul VI during the Vatican II proceedings recommended that the Church permit married couples to avail themselves of artificial birth control, but Pope Paul rejected its recommendations. In 1968, he issued Humanae Vitae, which proclaimed all contraceptives to be contrary to the Catholic faith.

Regarding the question of whether priests should be permitted to marry, the Church has not budged; priests must remain celibate. However, married men can be ordained as deacons, and married Episcopal priests who enter the Catholic Church through the Anglican Rite process can become Catholic priests. 

Nor has the Church retreated from the position that divorced Catholics who remarry are barred from the sacraments. Shenon wrote that Pope Francis made the annulment process easier (p. 504), but he's wrong about that. In many dioceses, divorced Catholics must go through a modern-day Inquisition when seeking an annulment, and the outcome is uncertain. In other dioceses, an annulment is merely a financial transaction; a marriage can be nullified simply by prayerfully writing a check.

Millions of Catholics and lapsed Catholics are looking to Pope Leo to reject the Church's heartless and clueless positions on these three burning issues:

• First, priests should be permitted to marry.

• Second, married Catholics should be able to avail themselves of contraceptives without being branded as sinners.

• Third, divorced Catholics who remarry should be able to receive Communion, as Pope Francis suggested in his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia — a document that he did not have the courage to operationalize.

The Big Lebowski Riots of 2025: Revolt of the Weenies

 Leftists argue that the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles are "largely peaceful," while the Trump team insists that the demonstrations are riots--a breakdown of law and order.

After watching an hour or so of video of the LA shenanigans today, I'm on the fence. On the one hand, I saw plenty of recorded video of vandalism, looting, blocked highways, and burning cars. Call me old-fashioned, but that stuff looks like a riot.

On the other hand, I viewed footage of thousands of people aimlessly milling around, using their cell phones to record thousands of other people who were aimlessly milling around. 

What are they going to do with all those home movies? Show 'em to their grandkids? I have a vision of grumpy old codgers sitting around their TVs fifty years from now inflicting these videos on their grandkids. 

Who are these morose wanderers?

To my surprise, a good percentage of the demonstrators are older people with gray hair and sagging bellies. Are they retired, taking a day off from playing bingo at their neighborhood senior center? 

 In addition, many protesters are working-age Angelinos, people who should be toiling at jobs on a summer weekday. Are they unemployed? Did they take a sick day to wave anti-ICE signs around?

Finally, I saw a minority of protesters, mostly teenagers or young adults, loitering on the sidewalks and streets. These are the youthful bellyachers most likely to throw rocks and set cars on fire.

No doubt some of them will be committing mischief after nightfall.  Today, however, the young demonstrators appeared to be a crowd of loafers who were essentially harmless.

Regardless of age, a majority of the complainers strolling around downtown LA appeared to be lethargic, passive, and bored. I saw one frizzy-haired, thirtish woman try to get an angry chant going, but her efforts came to nothing. Too friggin' hot to get riled up.

An image flashed in my mind of the Big Lebowski--the dude bowling in his pajamas with fellow losers Walter and Donny. By and large, the LA riot is a revolt of the weenies. 

So, Governor Newsom, California's Weenie in Chief, may be right. We don't need the Marines to put down this sad affair. We simply need to remind this assemblage of malcontents to stay hydrated and use lots of sunscreen.

Hey, dude. Let's go bowling.

Mainly Peaceful? Mostly Peaceful? Largely Peaceful? Are Folks Rioting in the City of Angels?

 Anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles have gone on for almost a week.  As Matt Taibbi pointed out in a recent blog, the legacy media have characterized these demonstrations as "mostly peaceful." Still, commentators avoid using that exact phrase because a CNN reporter was mocked for using it while standing before a burning building during the Minneapolis riot in 2020.

President Trump thinks the ruckus in Los Angeles is a riot, and he called out the National Guard and the Marines. Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass claim they have the protests under control and that Trump is overreacting.

Nevertheless, Mayor Bass imposed a curfew on downtown LA yesterday, acknowledging incidents of vandalism and looting. Protesters have set vehicles on fire and pelted local police with rocks and broken pieces of concrete. The anti-ICI crowd has stopped traffic on the 101 freeway. And then there are those Molotov cocktails.

I'd call that a riot. 

Whether President Trump should intervene to stop the rioting is another matter. Calling out 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion is a serious business, and most folks would rather local authorities deal with the civil unrest if they are capable of doing so.

Federal Judge Charles Breyer will rule on Governor Newsom's request for an injunction against federal intervention within the next few days.

My position from Flyover Country is to support President Trump. Violence, arson, and looting got entirely out of hand during the George Floyd riots of 2020--especially in Minneapolis and Seattle. Who wants a repeat of that season of discontent?

Today, Governor Greg Abbott mobilized the Texas National Guard in anticipation of planned anti-ICE demonstrations in San Antonio. That makes sense as well.  

The last thing this nation needs is for urban rioting to spread to other cities. Governor Newsom contends that the military presence in LA foments more violence. I don't think that's true.

What's a little rioting among friends?

The Los Angeles Anti-ICE Riots: Do They Signal the Collapse of the American Project?

Protesters rioted over the weekend in Los Angeles, burning cars, blocking roadways, and attacking local police.

President Trump activated 2,000 National Guard troops to stop the rampage. Later, he dispatched an additional 2,000 soldiers along with 700 Marines assigned to guard government buildings.

Not surprisingly, the State of California sued the Trump administration, claiming the National Guard mobilization is unlawful. President Trump hinted that California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested, and Newsom publicly dared the Feds to do it.

How serious are these Los Angeles demonstrations? The legacy press has characterized them as “largely peaceful,” and some outlets pointedly avoid calling them riots. Governor Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass assure the public that state and local law enforcement agencies have the situation well in hand. They contend that the presence of federal troops has increased tensions in Los Angeles and added to the violence.

Other commentators see the riots from a darker perspective. David French, writing in the New York Times, decried President Trump's intervention as a sign that "America is no longer a stable country." Leighton Woodhouse, reporting for The Free Press, concluded his essay on the recent turmoil by observing that Los Angeles “felt like a bomb ready to explode.”

I’m unsure what to make of the anti-ICE protests. On the one hand, the recent demonstrations are just another episode in America’s long history of civil unrest: the Whiskey Rebellion in the late eighteenth century, the Philadelphia Bible riots of 1844, and the Bonus Army protests following World War I.

All these uprisings were quelled by the military. More recently, troops were called out to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock and to quell violence that erupted after the deaths of Martin Luther King and George Floyd.

The Nation survived all these disturbances. Indeed, we are about to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

Somehow, however, the LA riots seem different from past disturbances. The people burning cars and throwing rocks at the police are opposed to the very idea of national borders or an orderly immigration process. They don’t want anyone deported, not even foreign rapists and human traffickers.

The rioters also have allies in the legacy media and the Democratic Party. No mainstream commentator advocates violence, but many are rabidly opposed to President Trump’s efforts to secure our country’s southern border.

Perhaps the anti-ICE protests are the latest example of a national tradition of summertime urban riots that subside as the weather turns cooler in the autumn.

Or perhaps, the Los Angeles riot signals a general breakdown of allegiance to traditional American values, patriotism, and the notion that the territory within our borders deserves to be defended and cherished. In other words, the protesters shutting down the LA freeways are saying that they reject the American Project in the broadest sense.

We should know one way or the other within the coming months.

Marines in Los Angeles Image credit: Reuters

 

 

 

America's Irish Republican Army: The Symbiotic Relationship Beween the Democratic Party and Anti-Trump Terrorism

Americans, by and large, have little interest in history, and this is particularly true of the nation's educated elites, including those in Congress, the media, and academia.

This is unfortunate because we can learn from studying historical events. For example, there are clear parallels between the terrorism that Ireland experienced in the last half of the twentieth century and the rising tide of leftist terrorism that roils the United States today.

The Irish Republican Army was made up of various factions that committed acts of terror in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, including bombings, ambushes, and political assassinations. These groups acted independently, but all were committed to ending British rule in Northern Ireland. Likewise, various independent groups and some lone individuals are fomenting terrorism in the United States today, but all are intent on undermining American society.

Over the past few years, America has seen a rise in terrorism, mainly from the left. The George Floyd riots in 2020, violent anti-Israel protests at American universities, two attempted assassinations against Donald Trump,  and, most recently, violent attacks against law enforcement officers trying to deport criminal aliens--all this is terrorism.

Americans forget that the Irish Republican Army had a political ally: Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin purported to be completely independent from the IRA, but as a PBS Frontline report noted, "The relationship between Sinn Féin and the IRA, historically, has been symbiotic."

Indeed, PBS observed:

Sinn Féin was very much an auxiliary of the Irish Republican Army. They were there for propaganda purposes, they were there to raise the funds, [and] they were there to speak on behalf of the IRA . . . .

Moreover, PBS reported, Sinn Féin "wasn't in the business of electioneering, it was in the business of propagandizing." 

Today, the Democratic Party is a de facto auxiliary of domestic terrorism.  I'm not suggesting that Democratic senators are making Molotov cocktails in their legislative offices or that legacy journalists are buying gasoline for Antifa. Still, Democrats are using political influence, media propaganda, and lawfare to attack governmental efforts to combat terrorism in this country. 

From my Flyover Country perspective, the Democrats aren't even trying to regain the majority in Congress. Insane support for transgender athletes, wild-eyed references to Trump as a Nazi, and mindless opposition to deporting criminal aliens are not the tactics of a mainstream American political Party.

In short. The Democratic Party is the present-day equivalent of Sinn Féin. Just as Sinn Féin was dedicated to ending British rule in Northern Ireland, the Progressive Dems are intent on destroying our democracy--the very thing they accuse President Trump of doing.

Russia attacks Ukraine with 407 drones and 45 missiles, but only 3 Ukrainians are killed?

 A few days ago, Ukraine launched a major drone attack on Russia, destroying over 40 strategic bombers. Last night, Russia retaliated, hitting Ukrainian cities with 407 attack drones and 45 missiles, "one of the war's largest air attacks." According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians only killed three people. That's one fatality for every 150 projectiles.

The Ukrainian narrative is about as plausible as Jake Tapper's book on President Biden's dementia. After three years of warfare, does anyone believe Ukraine's reports that only a handful of Ukrainian civilians are getting killed from aerial bombardments?  

And what about the military casualty figures? Westerners estimate that 250,000  Russian soldiers have been killed during the three years of warfare, compared to only 60,000 Ukrainians. Can that be true?

The Western media, by and large, has been content to accept the Ukrainian spin on the war. The reality is that millions of Ukrainians have fled the country to escape the conflict, and incalculable damage has been done to Ukraine's infrastructure. Ukraine's reports on its military casualties are not credible; surely as many Ukrainian soldiers have been killed as Russians.

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State during President Trump's first presidential term, visited Odessa late last month, reportedly stirring up trouble. While attending the "Black Sea Security Forum," he urged the West not to accede to Russia's claims on Crimea. To recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, he darkly warned, "would be a mistake of epic proportions."

That's nuts. If the U.S. keeps backing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his delusional quest to throw Russia out of Crimea, we will eventually stumble into a nuclear war. 

Mr. Pompeo may be willing to risk sending America's young people to war to get Russia out of Crimea. I am not, and neither, I hope, are the American people.

Why aren't we angrier about the Boulder terrorist attack?

 Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, attacked a group of Jewish Americans in Boulder, Colorado, a few days ago. Using an improvised flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, he injured a dozen people, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Why aren't we angrier about this racist attack on American citizens?

Why aren't we outraged by a visa policy that allowed Solimon, his wife, and five children to enter the United States on a tourist visa, and to remain illegally after the visa expired? 

Why aren't we angrier about a self-indulgent political philosophy that inspired a majority of Colorado counties and 14 Colorado towns to declare themselves sanctuary jurisdictions to thwart ICE from deporting people who are in this country illegally?

Why aren't we enraged by a judge who stopped the State Department from deporting a terrorist's family members who had no legal right to be in this country? And why is a terrorist who burned Jewish Americans alive able to get an attorney to represent him when middle-class Americans can't afford legal representation?

In the months to come, a lot of lawyers will get paid so that this racist madman gets due process. Mohammed Solimon should be executed for his crimes, and it should have happened yesterday.

Colorado counties that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal migrants  

 

Soliman hated Jews, and the elderly Jews who were participating.

Russia Will Win Its War with Ukraine--No Matter What the Cost

 Ukraine pulled off an audacious drone attack on Russia a few days ago, hitting military targets hundreds of miles inside Russian territory. The Ukrainians claim to have damaged or destroyed 41 strategic aircraft--a shocking setback for the Russian military.

Bernard Henri-Lévy, writing in The Wall Street Journal, claims that this feat is a harbinger of Ukraine's eventual victory in its three-year war with Russia. "Ukraine will defeat Russia on the battlefield or impose the terms of a just peace," Henri-Levi predicted. "Either way, it will win the war."

I disagree.  Thus far, Russia has shown remarkable restraint in the face of several military reverses: the sinking of the Moskva and other navy vessels in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region, and its inability to capture Kyiv early in the war.

Nevertheless, Russia will win its war with Ukraine. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says he won't surrender territory to get a peace deal, which is untenable. Russian President Vladimir Putin will never abandon his country's claim on Crimea. And Putin will insist--at the very least--on keeping enough territory in eastern Ukraine to maintain a secure overland supply line between Crimea and Mother Russia.

I confess that I initially believed President Trump's intervention would quickly lead to a ceasefire and ultimately to peace. I was wrong.

Still, this war must end soon, or it will spin out of control, escalating into a nuclear conflict. Unfortunately, Ukraine's "audacious" drone attack escalates the conflict and hinders Trump's ability to broker a peace deal.

Shockingly, the leftist American press is celebrating Ukraine's drone attack, which anti-Trump pundits interpret as a setback for Trump and a sign that Ukraine can defeat Russia with or without American support.

But this interpretation of Ukraine's drone strike is madness. As Matt Taibbi wrote:

Peel away the gushing about Ukraine’s “brilliant technical performance" and what you find everywhere underneath are American and European officials who believe, now more than ever, that Ukraine can “win” this war. . . . They want to keep fighting at any cost, even annihilation. They are deluded, treasonous, and insane.

I agree with Mr. Taibbi. The legacy media and Democratic politicians must stop undermining our President as he tries to end the Ukraine war, which Ukraine cannot win. 

If this ridiculous conflict continues much longer, it will ultimately destroy Western civilization. And that would be a high price to pay to humiliate Donald Trump. 

Welcome to the Free State of Florida: Americans are Moving South

 In the movie Doctor Zhivago, Yuri Zhivago and his beleaguered family hunker down in post-revolutionary Moscow, hoping to survive the winter.

Yevgraf, Yuri's half-brother, appears unexpectedly and urges Yuri to take his family and leave Moscow. If you stay in the city, Yevgrav warns, "you won't survive the winter."

Urban Americans, particularly those residing in Blue-State cities, are heading south. Unlike Doctor Zhivago's family, they are not fleeing starvation. Nevertheless, they have urgent reasons for leaving.

Urban crime, high taxes, poor schools, and corrupt municipal politicians are driving northern city dwellers to relocate to the south, where the weather is more pleasant and life is more serene.

I drove to St. Augustine, Florida, last week, the oldest town in the United States. As I crossed the state border east of Pensacola, I saw a sign that read, "Welcome to the Free State of Florida."

Over the next few days, I heard several stories about people who left northern cities for Florida. I got tired of shoveling snow, one New Yorker explained. A Chicago woman said her family moved to Florida to escape crime. Chicagoans had taken to coasting through stop signs, she confided,  to avoid being carjacked. 

Another family sold their multi-million-dollar Chicago home to settle in Wisconsin. Crime, outrageous property taxes, and a poor environment for raising children were some of the reasons for abandoning the Windy City. 

Die-hard urban dwellers say the crime problem is exaggerated. More than three million people ride the New York subways every day, they point out, so they must feel safe.  Yet a homeless woman was set afire while sleeping on a subway train last year, and a man was arrested a few months ago for sexually molesting a corpse on the R train in Manhattan.

How many instances of urban mayhem and murder does it take before people ask themselves whether there is a better place to live?

Millions of Americans are saying, "Enough is enough." New York, Illinois, and helter-skelter California are losing population as working families move to saner environments. Texas and Florida have been the largest beneficiaries, but other Southern states, such as North Carolina and Georgia, are also attracting people.

In the years to come, this mass migration of working families is expected to accelerate, and the cultural divide between Red states and Blue states will become more pronounced. For now, the Blue State politicians are taking a pugnacious stance. New York Governor Kathy Hochul went so far as to cheer her state's outflow of disaffected New Yorkers. "Get out of town," she jeered.

The day is coming, however, when even the Blue States' clueless politicians will want working Americans to return, along with their "youthful energy." After all, a society made up of shoplifters, homeless people, and wealthy progressives is not a happy place to be.

What? Osama Bin Laden's kids can't go to Harvard?

Harvard University has contracted a nasty case of antisemitism, which it has been unable to shake. President Trump, highly dissatisfied with Harvard's effort to stamp out anti-Jewish racism, recently barred Harvard from enrolling foreign students. 

Losing international students would be a severe financial blow to Harvard. Twenty-seven percent of its students are foreigners, and most pay the university's full, exorbitant tuition price.  

Harvard responded like all universities respond when their perks get cancelled; it sued. Fortunately, the hoary old institution is located in Massachusetts, which is chock-full of judges sympathetic to the higher education industry. Judge Allison Burroughs, an Ivy League law school graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, enjoined the Trump administration's action.

Harvard not only enriches itself with tuition money from foreign students but also receives substantial funding from foreign countries and global elites. For example, the Bin Laden family (Osama Bin Laden's kinfolk) donated $1 million to Harvard Law School to establish fellowships for students from the Middle East to study Islamic states that apply Sharia law.

Why did the Bin Ladens give Harvard this money? It could be because Osama Bin Laden's half-brother, Abdullah Mohammed Binladen, earned two advanced degrees from Harvard Law School.

Osama Bin Laden is dead, of course. But the Bin Laden family is filthy rich, and the Bin Ladens may want to send more relatives to Harvard. Osama himself had at least 20 kids, some of whom may aspire to getting a Harvard MBA or a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School.

Suppose Trump prevails in cancelling visas for Harvard international students. In that case, the poor Bin Laden kids might be forced to attend Yale or Princeton, and Harvard would miss out on receiving more Bin Laden money. Oh, the horror!

I have no sympathy for Harvard concerning its dispute with the Trump administration. This arrogant behemoth has gotten filthy rich taking donations from wealthy influencer peddlers, including countries that are hostile to the United States and its values.

Perhaps that's why Harvard has been unable to get antisemitism under control. It may not be trying very hard. After all, there's no money to be made fighting antisemitism.

Photo credit: AP, WCHS Fox Eyewitness News, Charles Krupa

No Country for Old Neckties: A Spring Wedding in the Chihuahuan Desert

Earlier this month, my wife and I drove to Terlingua, Texas—a ghost town in the Chihuahuan Desert—to attend our niece's wedding. Terlingua is a two-day drive from our home in Mississippi—about 1,000 miles.

We spent the first night on our journey in San Antonio, where we ate dinner at Mi Tierra, my favorite Mexican restaurant. Beloved by tourists and locals alike, Mi Tierra features roving mariachi bands, a Mexican pastries counter, sturdy margaritas, and old-fashioned Tex-Mex food.

The next morning, we traveled west on Interstate 10 into the northern stretches of the Chihuahuan Desert. When we crossed over the Pecos River, we officially entered the Trans Pecos--the most stark and desolate region of Texas.

We arrived in Fort Stockton in the early afternoon, one of the few substantial towns in West Texas. Founded as an Army post before the Civil War, Fort Stockton owes its existence to Comanche Springs, an aquifer of artesian springs that once produced 60 million gallons of water a day — a desert miracle. The fort's soldiers protected Overland stage coaches from marauding Comanche and Apache Indians.

We turned south at Fort Stockton and ended the day in Alpine, Texas, where we spent the night in the historic Holland Hotel.  Had we reached the end of our journey? No, on our third travel day, we drove another 80 miles to the tiny hamlet of Terlingua, the wedding destination.

Our niece was married in Terlingua's St. Joseph's Church, attended by four bridesmaids and groomsmen. No male in attendance wore a traditional necktie, but all were appropriately attired. Some wore open-collared shirts, and some wore bolo ties. A few men wore cowboy hats, and many wore their best western boots. 

After the wedding, the guests retired to a sumptuous reception to eat barbecue brisket and drink 'horny toad' margaritas and ice-cold Mexican beer. I couldn't find a shady spot to sit, so I watched the young folks dancing the Texas Two-Step in the late-afternoon sun, amply shaded by my Stetson hat.

Terlingua is just a few miles from the Mexican border, and one can see the mountains of Mexico shimmering in the distance.  This region is Cormac McCarthy country, the setting for several of McCarthy's novels, including No Country for Old Men.

For the coastal elites traveling by jet from the West Coast to the East Coast, Far West Texas is Flyover Country--boring to look at from 30,000 feet. For me, however, this region has a mystical quality. Its harsh immensity is achingly beautiful.

Life in the Chihuahuan Desert of the Trans Pecos is stripped to the essentials. Air-conditioning and four-wheel drive vehicles don't change the fact that water is the most basic necessity of life and is always in short supply.

I like and admire the people of West Texas. There is a directness about them and an easy hospitality that is missing in urban America, perhaps most especially in the Blue State cities. Fortunately for West Texans, it's damned hard to get there and mostly unappealing for people who own private jets.  

Two-stepping in the Chihuahuan Desert

The U.S. is not like 1930s Germany, or is it?

 Progressive Democrats are tirelessly accusing the Trump administration of being a fascist regime and comparing it to 1930s Germany.  Kamala Harris insinuated that  Trump is a Fascist during the 2024 presidential campaign. Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz recently compared ICE agents to the Gestapo. Al Gore compared the Trump administration to Nazi Germany, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker made a similar comparson last February.

This is bold talk coming from the Democratic Party, which hoodwinked the American people by installing Joe Biden, a cognitively diminished grifter, as the leader of the Free World, and then backed perpetually befuddled Kamala Harris to succeed him. 

Nevertheless, these gasbags are right to compare contemporary America to the Weimar Republic during the years that saw Hitler come to power.

First, the Weimar Republic was racked by political violence fomented by both the Left and the Right. Similarly, our country has seen a rise in political violence in American cities--most notably the George Floyd riots.

Second, like Germany, America is wracked by vicious antisemitism in the nation's universities. Who could have foreseen this ugliest form of racism springing up in academia, which has been obsessed for more than three decades with diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Finally, and most disturbingly, the United States, like Germany between the World Wars, is seeing the frightening specter of political assassinations, including two assassination attempts against President Trump and the recent murder of a young Jewish couple in Washington, DC.

Our nation has endured periods of violence, bigotry, and racism before. Americans weathered the Salem Witch Trials, the rise of anti-Catholic Nativism in the 1850s,  the Klan eras of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and McCarthyism. Those were ugly times, but American democracy survived.

However, the present unrest, which progressive Democrats have misdianosed, is different. This time around, our political malaise is stewing in an inflationary economy, and inflation, like a match thrown into a barrel of gasoline, threatens an explosion that can destroy our society.

When Money Dies, Adam Ferguson's masterful study of the German economy in the years before Hitler came to power emphasized the existential threat that inflation posed to Germany:

Undoubtedly, . . . inflation aggravated every evil, ruined every chance of national revival or individual success, and eventually produced precisely the conditions in which extremists of Right and Left could raise the mob against the State, set class against class, race against race, family against family, husband against wife, trade against trade, town against country. It undermined national resolution when a simple want or need might have bolstered it.

 Drawing on the German experience after the Central Powers lost World War I, Ferguson concluded that the collapse of a nation's currency is catastrophic.

If what happened to the defeated Central Powers in the early 1920s is anything to go by, then the process of collapse of the recognized, traditional, trusted medium of exchange . . . unleashes such greed, violence, unhappiness, and hatred, largely bred from fear, as no society can survive uncrippled and unchanged.

Today, while progressive Democrats indulge in incendiary rhetoric, the dollar is running the danger of being replaced as the world's reserve currency. At the same time, President Trump confronts a ballooning national debt and stubborn inflation.

I'm pessimistic about the prospect of Trump getting inflation under control. Nor do I think he'll be able to rein in the national debt. Indeed, it is probably politically impossible for him to do so.

When it becomes clear to the average pensioner, Social Security recipient, and Medicaid beneficiary that their standard of living is plummeting and they cannot purchase their basic needs, we will see big trouble. God help us if the United States stumbles down the path of the Weimar Republic.

It's time for America to end its love affair with Harvard University

 I live in Baton Rouge's College Town neighborhood, where every street is named after a prestigious university: Oxford, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and, of course, Harvard.

A Harvard Street can be found in cities across the United States--even in Los Angeles, which is 3,000 miles from Harvard Yard. 

Harvard is revered worldwide because it represents the zenith of academic prestige. As a recent  Associated Press news article put it: 

For students around the world, an acceptance letter to Harvard University has represented the pinnacle of achievement, offering a spot among the elite at a campus that produces Nobel Prize winners, captains of industry, and global leaders.

Like many others over four centuries, I came to Harvard believing a Harvard degree would dramatically change my life. I was a country boy from Oklahoma who was practicing law in Alaska. As a friend told me, a Harvard degree would erase Oklahoma from my resume. I would leave its hallowed campus, I naively assumed, with the credentials to speak at the national level on the public issues of the day.

I was disappointed. Harvard's Graduate School of Education, where I had obtained a berth, was not nearly as exclusive as I had imagined. HGSE's one-year master's program in education was a diploma mill, where students could obtain a Harvard credential merely by sitting through eight courses over nine months.  Some of those classes had enrollments of 200 students or more.

One of my classmates, an accomplished Connecticut attorney, researched the career prospects for HGSE graduates and shared her findings with me. The Education School's placement office data revealed that most doctoral graduates worked in the Northeast at modest salaries. My classmate concluded that a doctoral degree from HGSE was not worth the time or money. She left the program and went back to practising law.

Leaving the program was not an option for me. I had two small children enrolled in the Boston area schools. After disrupting my family and moving them across the North American continent, I felt I had to see it through.

After three-and-a-half years, I left Harvard with a master's degree and a doctorate and accepted a tenure-track job at a Southern university, making less than a third of what I had made as a practising lawyer.

My years at Harvard were the most miserable years of my life. I found the campus to be ugly, a jumble of dreary buildings in a multitude of discordant architectural styles and a far cry from the beautiful college campuses of the American South. To my surprise, Cambridge and Boston were shockingly provincial. The general population was surly, sullen, and cynical--as if they all lived in a Ben Affleck movie. 

As for the Harvard academic community, I found most (but not all) of the faculty arrogant, self-centered, and mediocre. As a white male student, I was a racial minority in a culture obsessed with race and gender. I was told not to bother applying to the Harvard Education Review: I was the wrong color

I hated the bleak and sunless Boston winters, which were oddly more depressing than the Alaska winters I had experienced. The subways were dirty, and the narrow, winding streets seemed designed to make it impossible to drive around a block.

When people compliment me on having a degree from Harvard, I tell them this: I was intelligent enough to get into Harvard but not smart enough to realize I shouldn't go.

Ain't we got fun!

Three Yale Professors Flee to Canada to Escape Trump. We'll miss 'em

 Three Yale Professors are leaving the United States to accept teaching jobs at the University of Toronto, ostensibly to escape Donald Trump. Professor Marcie Shore, one of the emigres, compared herself to the political refugees who fled Germany as the Nazis came to power. "The lesson of 1933 is that you get out sooner rather than later."

In fact, there are similarities between Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the contempory United States. Like Germany (Paul von Hindenburg), the U.S. was governed for a time by a senile octogenarian (Joe Biden). 

In the waning days of the Weimar Republic, Germany was racked by political violence formented by Nazis, Communists, and para-military groups. Our nation is likewise plagued by political violence perpetrated by a new generation of thugs: Antifa, criminal immigrants, and anti-Israel protesters.

Racism gripped the German universities as Hitler came to power, which later spread to the general German population. Today, American universities are harboring anti-Semitic racists. Fortunately, Jew hating in the U.S. has so far been confined to Academia.

Nevertheless, Professor Shore and her fellow fleeing colleagues have misinterpreted today's political climate. It is Trump's political enemies who are behaving like Nazis, not Trump. More than 1,500 January 6th protesters were imprisoned far too harshly, while the hoodlums who burned down Minneapolis got away with arson during the George Floyd riots.

Indeed, it is self-serving and inaccurate for the departing Yale professors to compare themselves to the refugees who fled Germany to escape the Nazis.

The people who escaped Germany lost everything because Hitler's goons confiscated their property and their bank accounts. 

My guess is that Professors Marcie Shore, Jason Stanley, and Timothy Snyder are retaining all their investments and wealth as they immigrate to Canada. They may even have vacation homes in the U.S. that they are free to visit on their holidays.

Shore, Snyder, and Stanley may even profit from their political stunt. There could be book deals in their future and paid speaking engagements.

In the South, we have a saying when someone leaves a situation in a huff, Don't let the screendoor hit you in the butt on your way out.

And please do the nation a favor and take some Harvard professors with you.

Yale professors fleeing to Canada