Hat tip to Walter Olson.

Obama Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew announced on Tuesday that in order “to honor our past and express our values” in 2020 in the course of celebrating the 19th Amendment (which gave women the right to vote) the Treasury Department is planning to demote Alexander Hamilton to a bit part on the ten dollar bill he has occupied for many years, replacing his central portrait with the image of some woman.

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Well, if Jack Lew really wants to know exactly which values Americans really desire to express, Twitter makes it perfectly clear that Irony and Sarcasm come at the top of the list. The winner is none other than Caitlyn Jenner.

P.J. O’Rourke contemplates Donald Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for the presidency with warm approval.

I, personally, support his candidacy. “Democracy,” said H. L. Mencken, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” …

Many a candidate for president has fibbed on the subject of his or her economic circumstances—William Henry “born in a log cabin” Harrison and Hillary “dead broke” Clinton. But Trump will be the first candidate to—like the American legend that he is—tell tall tales about all the money he’s got. Trump is a financial Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Davey Crockett rolled into one, according to Trump.

If Trump’s critics don’t think this is typical of modern Americans, they haven’t looked at our online dating profiles.

Also typical of modern Americans is Trump’s bad taste. True, he doesn’t dress the way the rest of us do—like a nine-year-old in twee T-shirt, bulbous shorts, boob shoes, and league-skunked sports team cap. And Trump doesn’t weigh 300 pounds or have multiple piercings or visible ink. He puts his own individual stamp on gaucherie. And we like it. We’re a country that cherishes being individuals as much as we cherish being gauche.

Trump’s suits have a cut and sheen as if they came from the trunk sale of a visiting Bombay tailor staying in a cheap hotel in Trump’s native Queens and taking a nip between fittings. Trump wears neckties in Outer Borough colors. And, Donald, the end of your necktie belongs up around your belt buckle, not between your knees and your nuts. Trump’s haircut makes Kim Jong Un laugh.

Americans appreciate bad taste or America wouldn’t look the way America does. And the way America looks is due, in no small part, to buildings Trump built.

Read the whole thing.

School of Athens thinks it can explain why Sweet Briar’s Board of Directors voted to close the college.

The decision by the Board of Directors to immediately close Sweet Briar College despite the college still having approximately $90 million dollars in the endowment and a positive asset to debt ratio seems simply bizarre. While the historic college might be losing a little money during the economic downturn, the endowment is designed to keep things going during the lean years and seems to have ample funds. Yet the swift decision to immediately close and the secrecy surrounding the Board’s processes seem odd to say the least, especially considering that the money to save the school appears to be available with the website savingsweetbriar.com already raising over $16 million with simple social media networking. …

We are hearing from a source in position to know that this beautiful land is the reason that Sweet Briar is closing. Because there is a buyer ready to move quickly and quietly to purchase the whole lot, historic buildings and all. This buyer has the immense economic power and major influence to keep the related decisions silent, immediate, and final. Who? Well, it has a lot to do with a similar land deal of about 3,000 acres that got scuttled about twenty years ago. According to our source, the reason Sweet Briar is closing is to make way for:

In 1994, Disney was all set to close on 2,000 acres in Haymarket in as the core to its envisioned 3,000-acre Disney America in Prince William County. That deal was scuttled, but Disney is on the record as keeping its plans alive to set Disney America in Virginia. Riley over at Virginia Virtucon was openly calling for Disney to revive its Disney America design in the Williamsburg area a few years ago. Many in Virginia consider the protests and objections that forced Disney to shut down its plans 20 years ago a big mistake. Our source has informed us that Disney is ready to rectify that mistake, and now wants the 3,250 acres that Sweet Briar sits on to bring Disney America back to life and back to Virginia. That kind of potential investment causes things to develop both quickly and quietly, and Disney is no wilting flower when it comes to political muscle.

The immediate and irrevocable action in shutting down makes sense, because Disney does not want a repeat of the protests related to the sale of historical land that killed the project in 1994. Instead, if the college is already closed and shuttered, Disney can come in like a hero and rescue Amherst County from the economic disaster that closing Sweet Briar would otherwise lead to.

Read the whole thing.

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Sweet Briar officials promptly denied the story, but School of Athens remained sticking to its guns.

Alain Escalle’s “Da Vinci Project”

Buzzfeed