Open the prison doors
President Barack Obama will leave office in January with a number of records, including highest debt, largest one-time deficit and most people on food stamps. Another mark he'll hold is number of criminals released from prison in a month, the White House gleefully reported last week.
For August, he freed 325, more than any president granted in a single year in nearly a century.
In slightly more than nine and a half years in office, he's let 673 go, more than the past 10 presidents combined.
And for all the president's rhetoric about guns, gun control and gun violence, about one in seven - 14.4 percent - of the criminals he freed were convicted on firearms charges. Of those, all but three were carrying their weapons while committing crimes, and two used their firearms in the crimes.
Worst of all, one was convicted of being a felon possessing an unregistered short barreled shotgun, which he used while committing a drug crime.
And the president still has five months to go.
Trump supporters can't be heroes
Within the past year, CNN has acknowledged, in so many words, its years-long leftward bias. It also vowed to change things. But change apparently comes slowly to the Atlanta-based network.
Just last week, HLN, the sister network of CNN, aired a feel-good story about a New Jersey police officer who saved a baby locked in a hot car. In a live interview, the retired officer, Steve Eckel, wore a "Trump for President" T-shirt. Later, when the story was aired, the wording on the T-shirt was blurred out.
Naturally, when confronted with the bias, HLN said in a statement the blurring was done "in error." However, one has to make a proactive move to blur an image on screen. It's not like technicians attempted to blur something else on his shirt but accidentally blurred the lettering.
The incident came on top of the recent canceling by HLN of Dr. Drew Pinsky's show. Pinsky made the unpardonable error of saying he was "gravely concerned" about the quality of Hillary Clinton's health care, calling it "1950s level."
Free thought in a college class? Pshaw!
Instructors teaching the online course "Medical Humanities in the Digital Age" at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs say they'll brook no dispute or debate of climate change in their class. In fact, they said, if students believe climate change is up for debate, they shouldn't enroll in the class.
What happened to the days when colleges offered a free exchange of ideas?
"The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring," an email to students said after some expressed concerns after the first online lecture. "We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the 'other side' of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course."
Lest you think climate change is the only subject to be covered in the medical humanities class, it also will explore the "health effects of fracking" and will require students to measure their own carbon footprint. Not to worry, though, according to the syllabus, the carbon footprint activity is "not to create guilt or shame, though those emotions are entirely common."
A college spokesman defended the intolerance, saying students could take other subjects to fulfill their degree requirements.
'Oh say can you, uh '
Students at the University of Maryland were quick to come to the support of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to protest people "being oppressed" in the United States by remaining seated during the playing of the national anthem at his NFL games, according to interviewing done by Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips. But "The Star-Spangled Banner" itself? Well, they don't know it so much.
"I think what he did was, like, heroic," one student said. "I think it's great. It's sending a message, and that's exactly what I feel like this country needs." Another student said she likes it when people "stand up for what they believe in," and a third said she doesn't see his act as "heroic" but an act of "protest," adding, "I can understand why he resents the flag in the first place."
As to the anthem, Phillips gave them a line and asked them to supply the next one. "Oh say can you see ," he offered to one. " By the dawn's early lie," the student said, then repeated the line when Phillips checked for clarity.
"What so proudly we hailed ," he said to another. The next line, according to a student, was "As the flag was still gleaming."
Another simply admitted, "I don't know it." One grunted, and still another made a noise but could emit no words.