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South Dakota legislature takes on state university’s Diversity office

Several Republican lawmakers who were behind a bill to require the state’s university system to promote intellectual diversity are questioning the size, role and cost of diversity offices.

The lawmakers, which include the House and Senate leadership, sent a letter to the South Dakota Board of Regents this month ahead of a June 26 meeting in which the Regents will consider how to implement the new intellectual diversity law, which takes effect July 1. …

The letter questions whether diversity offices are a hindrance to intellectual diversity because the diversity offices promote left-wing ideology.

“While beneficial programs for Native American students, and students of other diverse cultures should be preserved, the build-up of diversity offices which are used to promote social justice causes associated with the political left such as safe zone training, the biannual drag show, and social justice training, to name just a few, should be dismantled,” the lawmakers write.

The lawmakers estimate that diversity offices employ 31 people and cost nearly $6 million a year.

Rep. Sue Peterson, a sponsor of the intellectual diversity bill and one of the lawmakers who signed the letter, said diversity offices appear to be promoting ideology. Meanwhile, Native Americans, the state’s largest minority group, are struggling to graduate.

“Whatever they’re spending on the diversity offices, it isn’t making a very good impact,” said Peterson, a Sioux Falls Republican.

Peterson, who reviewed reports from university diversity offices, said she found references about social justice training, safe zone training and references to diversity officials overseeing university hiring practices.

“I’m not seeing anything from those offices that is helping students work in multi-national corporations,” she said.

My guess is we could double South Dakota’s savings here in the Nutmeg State if we eliminated UConn’s own diversity program, staff and administrators, all with no harm done; quite the contrary, in fact.

This is brutal

Back Country Hospital? Corporate headquarters?

66 Cherry Valley Road, still priced at $10,000,888 and still ugly as a boot is still with us, having been relisted today after the old listing expired. Designed in 1995 by the late Ulrich Franzen, who (I had to look him up, many years ago) was an architect of the Brutalist School, and it certainly shows its pedigree.

I’d just started writing about real estate in 2003 when the previous owner put it up for sale at $18 million. I laughed at it then, and though the owner was furious and complained loudly, I think he got lucky when he found this present owner, who paid $11.4 for it in 2005.

I’m a much kinder person today than I was sixteen years ago so I won’t laugh. I will, however, point out that the pond still needs mowing, and the asking price a good clipping.

Not much better from the ground

A fool and his money are slowly parted

The builder could have effected an economy had he just left it as a cardboard mockup

11 Round Hill Club Road closed today at $8.325 million. So who’s the fool, the spec builder who began construction of this stone pile in 2012 and initially priced it at $17.950 in 2015, or the brave fellow who thought it was cheap at half the price?

Probably both, but regardless, I’m sorry I won’t have this disaster to kick around anymore; I miss it already.

Why is this man still on the federal payroll?

Oh, did I say that? Oops!

Department of acting Homeland Security chief McAleenan leaked ICE roundup to sabotage raids.

This week's big leak about a major Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation was orchestrated by acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan in an effort to sabotage the raids before they were scheduled to take place, according to three current and two former senior administration officials.

In a move he said was to placate Democrats, President Trump announced on Saturday that the nationwide immigration enforcement operation planned to start Sunday — aimed at migrant families who illegally remain in the country despite being denied asylum — was called off to give lawmakers two weeks to work on a plan to fix legal “loopholes” he said have enticed migrants to come to the U.S. 

However, all five officials who spoke with the Washington Examiner confirmed McAleenan's decision to go rogue and stymie the operation was what prompted the White House to call off the 10-city operation.

The planned raids in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston, were first reported by the Washington Post on Friday.

The sources said only a small number of people in the White House, ICE, and DHS were even aware of the plan’s details, including which cities, the date and time, and who would be targeted.

Two officials said the acting secretary, who was promoted internally in April, had fought for months during closed-door discussions with White House officials, the former acting ICE Director Ronald Vitiello, and the new acting ICE Director Mark Morgan against the plan, which they noted was similar to one the Obama administration carried out in 2015. 

“I know he has not approved of this operation for months,” one person familiar with those private conversations said during a phone call Saturday night. “The president wouldn’t leak that. ICE wouldn’t leak that. There’s only a few people involved in these discussions … The only one who could have shared the details of those operations were Kevin.” 

“That’s our belief,” a second official said when asked if McAleenan was behind the leak. “The secretary was not supportive from day one.” 

Leaking the information would only have “benefitted one person” who had knowledge of the plan, according to the first person, who added there was “no doubt in my mind” McAleenan either told the Post himself or had a close comrade at DHS take care of it. 

“His hands were dirty,” that same official said. 

McAleenan traveled with the author of the Post report, Nick Miroff, on a government plane down to the border on Wednesday.

Following the Post report Friday, ICE advised the White House not to go forward with the raids, in part because those who were the targets might have fled the locations Enforcement and Removal Operations officers had expected to find them. 

“Leaking the locations and details to stop the operation from happening not only harmed operational integrity, but it put the safety and well-being of his own officers in jeopardy,” the third official wrote. 

“That’s law enforcement sensitive information. You just don’t reveal that,” the second official said. “It gets people hyped up. It gets the NGOs activated, and then anyone wearing a jacket with the ICE name on it is really chastised. Cities are coming out saying, ‘Here’s how you can protect yourself against it.’” 

“It really jeopardized the safety of law enforcement officers — that’s the part that’s really detrimental,” the official said.

McAleenan’s betrayal has been known since late last week, so why is he still working for Trump? He should have been gone before the weekend.

Weren't we just talking about waiting?

27 Alden Road has sold for $1.525 million, after starting at $3.3 million in August, 2017. We wrote about it back then, and weren’t necessarily impressed. In fact, I’m surprised that a teardown here could command even this much.

Sometimes it pays to wait, sometimes not

The presumed buyer of 25 Came Cock Road, Byram, asking $3.1 million, is one of the winners. Originally priced at $4.9 million in June, 2017, it slowly dropped to today’s price and is reported as pending. Of course, it also had a pending deal last September, when it was asking $3.6, so you never know.

Nice house, built in 2005, but it lacks a dock, which are almost impossible to build these days, and it’s in the VE zone - 17 feet minimum height requirement. This one’s main floor is measured as 17’2”, so that’s okay, but the listing also notes that the ground floor has “breakaway walls”, and that may have given potential buyers damp feet.

Here come the waves!

110 Meadow Road

On the other hand, 110 Meadow Road, in Riverside, priced at $2.795 million, is also pending, and after just 35 days. It was priced at $2.995 when it hit the market on May 15, but dropped $200,000 two weeks later; obviously the owners and their agent listened to the market and yielded to reality, rather than cling to an illusion.

Not that that first price was a mistake, because there’s no way to nail the right price to the penny. What worked for Meadow was that the house came on at a reasonable initial price, and then moved quickly to grab a buyer before we slipped into the summer doldrums. Smart.

So, wait to bid, or move on a house immediately? If you trust her skill, I’d advise you to listen to your agent (and your own gut), who should be able to tell you whether a particular house is priced reasonably close to the mark, or whether the owners have jumped the gun on Connecticut’s proposal to legalize marijuana..

Why are taxpayers still propping up higher education?

Just let it ho

Between direct subsidies and, worse, the federal student loan program, our higher education system has been transformed into a bloated, useless mess, one that churns out resentful, uneducated dance majors and psychologist/ baristas. End the loan program and let these people fend for themselves. One easy prediction: the administrative staffs will wither, and college tuition costs will stop raising at 3X the rate of inflation.

Bowling Green University strips Lillian Gish’s name from campus theatre because she starred in “Birth of a Nation” in 1914.

The “First Lady of American Cinema” Lillian Gish has had her name removed from a university theater and it’s not sitting well with many movie buffs. More than 50 film industry leaders ranging from Martin Scorsese to Helen Mirren to James Earl Jones are protesting the decision of Ohio’s Bowling Green State University to remove the name of actress Lillian Gish from a campus theater because she appeared in the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation.

Lillian Gish is considered a pioneer of film acting. Her career spanned 75 years, beginning in 1912 in silent film shorts. The Whales of August in 1987 was her last film. She was called the First Lady of American Cinema, and for more than 40 years, the theater at Bowling Green has honored Ohio-born actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish with its name.

That changed after students said they were upset that Lillian Gish appeared in The Birth of a Nation in 1915,  a D.W. Griffith 3-hour silent movie that includes the Ku Klux Klan in what many claim to be a positive light.

In February, Bowling Green State University President Rodney Rogers released a statement on the building name hours before welcoming Black Lives Matter movement co-founder Opal Tometi, the leading key speaker for the university’s third annual “Beyond The Dream” series celebrating diversity and inclusion, according to the Toledo Blade. In his statement, Rogers said the administration was approached by Black Student Union leaders regarding “the propriety of the naming” of the theater.

….

A subsequent task force released a report finding the Gish name and associated Birth of a Nation displays “contribute to an intimidating, even hostile, educational environment.” Now prominent film artists, historians, actors and directors  are petitioning Bowling Green State to restore the theater’s name.

The petition, created by The Whales of August producer Mike Kaplan, calls the removal of the Gish sisters’ names “unfortunate and unjust,” according to a story in USA Today. Dorothy Gish, Lillian’s sister and the theater’s other namesake, was an actor as well, but did not act in The Birth of a Nation. The Gish sisters were born in Springfield, Ohio.

The film industry leaders said, “For a university to dishonor her by singling out just one film, however offensive it is, is unfortunate and unjust. Doing so makes her a scapegoat in a broader political debate. A university should be a bastion of free speech. This is a supreme ‘teachable moment’ if it can be handled with a more nuanced sense of history,” the letter states in part.

Among those signing the letter calling for the restoration of the Gish Theater name are James Earl Jones, Helen Mirren, Martin Scorsese, George Stevens Jr., Peter Bogdanovich, Joseph McBride, Malcolm McDowell, Lauren Hutton, Larry Jackson, and Joe Dante.

In response, Bowling Green State has said it will not reverse its decision to remove the theater’s name, and that its duty to the best interest of an inclusive environment “outweighs the University’s small part in honoring the Gish sisters’ legacy.”

What percentage of those on Bowling Green’s payroll could be gainfully employed in the private sector? Aside from custodial and human resources services, that is.

Forget Florida Woman, maybe it's Florida Cop we should worry about

Florida woman arrested, held in jail five days for turning soon-to-be-ex-husband’s guns over to cops.

A Florida woman was arrested after she brought her estranged husband’s guns to the cops in fear he would use them against her.

Courtney Irby, 32, made the move after her husband, Joseph Irby, was taken to jail for trying to run over her with a car. The couple is in the midst of a divorce.

Courtney Irby said she went to Joseph’s apartment in Lakeland, Florida, searched for his guns and brought them to cops.

“He wasn’t going to turn them in, so I am doing it,” she told the cops, according to the Lakeland Ledger.

When officers contacted the husband, who was still in the Polk County Jail, he insisted they press charges. She was charged with armed burglary of a dwelling and two counts of grand theft of a firearm.

“We have to safeguard every citizen’s rights,” Police Chief Ruben Garcia said.

Unless there’s more to this story than presented, and media coverage of guns is always suspect, then this ardent 2nd Amendment supporter suggests that Chief Garcia be locked up.

Are Realtors now competing with Florida Man? * (see update)

She’ll plead under the Allford Doctrine, no doubt

$110,000 cash falls from under Realtor’s skirt when she’s pulled over for drunk driving

North Carolina police said nearly $110,000 fell out of a DUI suspect's dress after she was arrested for driving through a crowd of people at a concert. 

Catherine Allford, 63, allegedly drove through a restricted area that was blocked off for a customer appreciation event at Bert's Black Widow Harley-Davidson.

Witnesses yelled for Allford, who works in real estate with her husband, to stop as she drove her gray Fiat through the crowd of people.

According to the Charlotte Sun, Allford continued to drive toward the stage and band area where she allegedly ran over a man's foot. 

Allford then reversed her car and attempted to leave the scene but she hit a curb instead. 

Witnesses then stood around her car until police arrived.

Police told the Sun that when they arrived Allford was sitting in her car crying and attempting to hide something. 

When police asked Allford to exit the vehicle, she refused.

The deputy then tried to escort her from the car, but she pulled away and fell to the ground. 

When the deputy helped her up, bundles of cash began falling from under dress.

When asked why she had so much money, Allford told deputies she was in real estate.

• UPDATE: The Daily Mail got it wrong; the original source was the Port Charlotte Sun, which, like our Realtor, is located in Florida. The order of the universe is restored.

Price cut off Rogues Hill

16 Greenbriar Lane, dropped to $3.250 million. Owners paid $3.995 for it in 2005, renovated and expanded it and placed it up for sale again in 2016, at $4.250 million. That aspirational pricing has proved overly optimistic.