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Alex Grobman, Book Review Babi Yar and the Holocaust Moscow Tried to Bury – The Jewish Link

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://jewishlink.news/babi-yar-and-the-holocaust-moscow-tried-to-bury/

On September 29-30, 1941, the eve of Yom Kippur, the Germans murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women and children in Babyn Yar (Babi Yar), almost four miles from the center of Kiev, the capital of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic. Although Babi Yar was “not the largest Holocaust-era mass murder site on Soviet soil,” it was significant for two reasons, explains historian Shay Pilnik, director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University. Kiev, with a Jewish population of 160,000, was “the hub for Jewish culture” and the first European capital to become Judenrein (free of Jews) during the Holocaust.

Babi Yar’s Uniqueness

Pilnik quotes historian Lucy Dawidowicz, who remarked that the “unprecedented” pace of the killings, which occurred within 36 hours, is the second reason for Babi Yar’s importance. The numbers established “a record in the annals of mass murder,” she said. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the total capacity of the four gas chambers and crematoria was a maximum of 6,000 a day at its peak.

Another justification for Babi Yar’s uniqueness, Pilnik said, was that although the site “was not the largest killing field during World War II in the Soviet Union, the approximate number of 100,000 dead in Babi Yar, the overwhelming majority of whom were Jewish, helped establish Babi Yar’s position as the centerpiece of the Holocaust in the USSR.”

Murders continued at Babi Yar for a number of months, Dawidowicz said, but never to the extent as on September 29-30, when 33,771 Jews were slaughtered simply because they were Jews. Pilnik estimates “a minimum of 10,000 non-Jews” were murdered, “among whom were Russians, Ukrainians, and Roma,” who were buried on the site.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Wall Street Journal Fuels Sanders Socialism Plus, Harvard, Yale endowments try selling off some private equity Ira Stoll

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.theeditors.com/p/wall-street-journal-fuels-sanders-socialism-gabriel-zucman-billionaires?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_

My morning Wall Street Journal had a box on the front page with a graphic headlined “The Rich Get Even Richer,” teasing a news article inside under the headline “Richest of Rich Gain $1 Trillion.”

That eight-paragraph article on page two included six paragraphs that contained mention of or attribution to Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. The page-two graphic, which is bigger than the story, is also attributed, in fine print, to “Gabriel Zucman, analysis of Forbes, Fortune, and Federal Reserve data….”

This is garbage on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start.

For one thing, Zucman is just one economist of many, and he’s not super-credible. The New York Times reported in 2020: “Other economists, including some who held top jobs under past Democratic presidents, have attacked Mr. Zucman and Mr. Saez over their research methods, their policy conclusions and their data. Conservative economists say their proposals would cripple economic growth. Last year, the faculty at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government voted to offer Mr. Zucman, 33, a tenured position. But Harvard’s president and provost nixed the offer, partly over fears that Mr. Zucman’s research could not support the arguments he was making in the political arena, according to people involved in the process.”

For another thing, the present tense of the front-page and page-two headlines isn’t supported by this year’s reality, at least to date. The richest of the rich have taken a hit this year so far owing to the stock market downturn related to the Trump tariffs, Congress’s slow motion on a tax cut bill, the Federal Reserve’s decisions to stop cutting interest rates since Trump’s inauguration, or whatever else you want to blame it on. Zucman wants to talk about how much richer the rich got in 2024 because it supports his policy agenda of raising taxes, but he doesn’t want to talk about how these same people saw their wealth plunge in 2025 because so much of their assets are at risk, tied up in stock of companies that they built. The Journal items would have been good headlines four months ago. Now, they read like old news. And anyone who has been on one of those Forbes lists can tell you how reliable or unreliable they are. They are not exactly chacarterized by super-high high precision. When I was at the New York Sun we once figured out that Forbes was counting Michael Bloomberg as worth $5 billion when the real number was more like $20 billion. In its prime, the Wall Street Journal did its own research on this stuff, rather than rely on some left-wing economist’s regurgitation of numbers from Forbes. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say in social science research.

I rolled my eyes and put the newspaper away. The editorial page is so strong—Ruth Wisse!, etc.—that I cut the news columns some slack.

Then I opened up X on my phone and saw Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, making a talking point out of the Journal story.

“Today in America, the rich are getting richer & working families are struggling. What is Mr. Trump doing about this? He’s getting ready to give tax cuts to billionaires while making it harder for Americans to access the Medicare, Social Security & veterans benefits they earned,” Sanders posted, with a screenshot of the Journal story and the “WSJ” logo.

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Heather Mac Donald Trump Takes His Biggest Step Yet Toward Restoring Meritocracy The administration’s executive order eliminating disparate-impact theory restores the 1964 Civil Rights Act to its original meaning.

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-restoring-meritocracy-executive-order-disparate-impact-theory-civil-rights

Measured in Trump time, it took them eons to get around to it, but the White House has finally taken the most important step it can to restore meritocracy to American society: eliminating disparate-impact theory from civil rights analysis and enforcement.

Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters. It has been used to eliminate prosecution for a large range of crimes, including shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and resisting arrest; to end police tactics such as proactive stops (otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk); and to purge safety technologies like ShotSpotter and speeding cameras from police departments.

In none of those cases has it ever been demonstrated that the disfavored standard was implemented to exclude blacks or other minorities from a position, opportunity, or right. The genius (if a diabolical one) of disparate-impact theory was that it obviated any need to show discriminatory intent on the part of a targeted employer or institution. Discrimination was inferred simply by the effect of the colorblind standard.

Disparate-impact theory preserved the hegemony of the civil rights regime long after the original impetus for that regime had all but disappeared. One would be hard-pressed today to find any mainstream institution that discriminates against blacks in admissions, hiring, or promotion. The reality, in fact, is the opposite: every mainstream institution is desperate to hire and promote as many remotely qualified blacks as possible; it is white males who are disfavored and excluded from positions based on their skin color.

POLITICS Comments turned off

David Hogg’s Implosion at the DNC Is Totally Underway Matt Margolis

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/04/24/is-david-hoggs-implosion-at-the-dnc-is-totally-happening-n4939188

I previously predicted that David Hogg’s days as DNC Vice Chair were numbered. And it looks like I’ve already been proven right. According to a new report, the Democratic establishment is scrambling to contain this loose-cannon, know-it-all kid who wants to spend $20 million on an intraparty civil war.

“A week after Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg unveiled a controversial plan to back primary challenges to longtime party incumbents, anger at the activist-turned-Democratic leader is only intensifying among party officials,” reports NOTUS. “These Democratic critics say their fury at Hogg has grown amid what they see as his ill-conceived and insufficient efforts to make amends for his planned primary campaign — a campaign that, they say, threatens the DNC’s neutrality and its capacity to fight back against President Donald Trump.”

At a DNC retreat last month, officers — including Hogg — finalized updates to the party’s neutrality pledge and other reforms. While Hogg actively participated in the discussions, a senior DNC official noted he stayed silent when the neutrality agreement came up. Just three weeks later, Hogg announced plans to challenge primary candidates, fueling internal backlash. Although party leaders say the neutrality changes were in motion before Hogg’s announcement, they could help address growing frustration with him. 

According to the article, some Democrats are reportedly floating the idea of forcing Hogg to choose between continuing his campaign or stepping down as DNC vice chair, with suggestions that the party may even consider changing its rules to make that happen.

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Reality Upside Down in the Netherlands To Dutch authorities, a Syrian rapist is a “victim” – and his teenage victim is a “perpetrator.” Bruce Bawer

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/reality-upside-down-in-the-netherlands/

It doesn’t just happen in Britain.

In the southeastern Dutch province of North Brabant, halfway between the cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen, lies a town called Uden, which has a population of approximately 38,000 and is a part of the municipality of Maashorst. On the morning of April 18, Maashorst’s municipal council held a meeting at which it was addressed by a resident of Uden named Seb van Lier.

Let it be said that van Lier cuts an imposing figure. He brings to mind John Fetterman, the massive, broad-shouldered, bald-headed senator from Pennsylvania. Van Lier, unlike Fetterman, has a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard; and he arrived at this public meeting dressed, like Fetterman, in a dark hoodie. As you can see in the video of his remarks, which the valiant Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek posted on X, van Lier began by telling the council that on January 10, one of his five daughters, aged 15, was “brutally raped” by a Syrian asylum seeker, and that ever since that day she’s experienced severe physical and psychological suffering.

Van Lier looks like a hell of a tough dude, but after spelling out these basic facts, he choked up. One of the council members asked him if he wanted a glass of water. He said no. After a pause he resumed speaking. In his view, he said, the mayor and the council were partially responsible for his daughter’s suffering. Why? Because “we feel that the rapist was portrayed as the victim and we, the family, as the perpetrator.” Because the council had been “playing down the seriousness of the case” and trying to “cover it up.” Because the therapist who’d been appointed by the council to treat van Lier’s daughter had advised him, van Lier, not to tell the council his daughter’s story. Because in statements to the media, the mayor of Maashorst, Hans van de Pas, had suggested that he didn’t believe the 15-year-old’s account of her rape. Because the mayor and council had seen fit to publicly emphasize that the alleged perpetrator lived not in Maashorst but in the nearby town of Veghel (so what?) and that he was a minor (even though there was no reliable way of establishing his age).

Van Lier had additional grievances. He’d been depicted in the media not as a legitimately troubled father but as a “rioter.” He’d been arrested by the police “with great violence.” Most egregious of all, the perpetrator had not been arrested. As of April 18, he was still walking free.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Larry David Mocks Trump as Hitler in the NY Times Now, But the Paper Fawned Over Adolf in ’33 The dopiest, sleaziest, most tone-deaf Times article since their fawning puff piece on the actual Hitler. by Robert Spencer

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/larry-david-mocks-trump-as-hitler-in-the-ny-times-now-but-the-paper-fawned-over-adolf-in-33/

“Imagine my surprise,” writes left-of-Stalin-himself “comedian” Larry David in a New York Times op-ed Monday, “when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler.”

Although Larry has looked about 105 years old for the last couple of decades and could be even older, he wasn’t actually reporting on something that happened to him. He was mocking and indirectly excoriating his fellow leftist Bill Maher for meeting Trump and speaking honestly about the meeting, telling the world that Trump really wasn’t the evil monster of leftist propaganda.

Yeah, wow, what an amazing new comedic idea: Trump is Hitler! Larry, how did you ever come up with this fantastic analogy that no one on planet Earth has ever thought of before? As PJM’s own Scott Pinsker put it, Larry David’s op-ed was “astonishingly tone-deaf” as “became the 500 millionth member of the left to think it’s clever, witty, and daring to compare President Trump to Adolf Hitler.” Scott called it (correctly) the “dopiest, sleaziest NYT op-ed in years.”

It could, in fact, be the dopiest, sleaziest, most tone-deaf New York Times article of any kind since July 9, 1933, just over five months after Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, and years after his virulent antisemitism and propensity for violence had become notorious worldwide. On that day, the New York Times published a fawning puff piece on Hitler that rivals even today’s media adulation of Kamala Harris during her campaign and of Old Joe Biden during his presidency. It bears more than a little resemblance to Larry David’s imaginary dinner with Hitler, but it is all too real.

Pulitzer Prize-winning “journalist” Anne O’Hare McCormick traveled to Berlin to become the first reporter from an American news outlet to interview the new chancellor, and she turned out to be an intriguing choice for the Times editors to make to conduct this interview, for she appears to have been something of a Hitler fan. In the presence of this man whose name has become today synonymous with evil, she was decidedly starry-eyed: “At first sight,” McCormick gushed, “the dictator of Germany seems a rather shy and simple man, younger than one expects, more robust, taller. His sun-browned face is full and is the mobile face of an orator. A shock of straight hair falls over his forehead.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Helping the Houthis Attack U.S. Navy Vessels by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21573/china-helping-houthis-attack-us

China’s regime, despite repeated warnings from Washington, is helping the Yemen-based militia try to kill American sailors.

“Providing satellite data that is being used to identify U.S. and other ships in the Red Sea for missile strikes appears to be part of a deal between Beijing and the Houthis that would end attacks on Chinese shipping.” — Bill Gertz, Washington Times, April 18, 2025.

President Donald Trump should invoke the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 and end trade and investment ties with China. China’s regime, by its actions and its words, is America’s enemy.

“We have to stop China before they sink an American ship.” — Blaine Holt, retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general, to Gatestone, April 2025.

“We can confirm the reporting that Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. (CGSTL) is directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on U.S. interests,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on April 17th at her regular press briefing

Specifically, CGSTL has been providing targeting data and probably raw satellite imagery to the Houthis for their attacks on U.S. Navy vessels in the Red Sea.

China did not issue a clear official denial of the State Department charge.

By now, one thing is clear: China’s regime, despite repeated warnings from Washington, is helping the Yemen-based militia try to kill American sailors.

The Trump administration should designate the Chinese regime as an enemy and impose costs accordingly.

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Can Trump Kill This $2.2 Trillion Regulatory Beast?

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/04/25/can-trump-kill-this-2-2-trillion-regulatory-beast/

The President lays the groundwork for explosive economic growth.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” — Donald Kenkel, Cornell University

Last week, the New York Times discovered that President Donald Trump was serious when he promised to liberate the economy from the oppressive weight of the regulatory state, describing it as “deregulation on a mass scale.”

Cornell’s Donald Kenkel, who was chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the first Trump administration, told the Times that “It’s going on much more quietly than some of the other fireworks we’re seeing, but it will have great impact.”

Great, indeed. In both senses of the word.

Gutting the regulatory state would free up massive amounts of pent-up economic energy, raise standards of living, lower inflation, and sharply cut the deficit, without unduly harming anyone (except busybody bureaucrats).

It’s hard to fathom just how gargantuan and intrusive the regulatory state has become over the past 100 years. Even the Times seems surprised, noting that “more than 400 federal agencies … regulate almost every aspect of American life.”

But that barely scratches the surface. Thursday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released its annual “10,000 Commandments” report, which tracks the regulatory Leviathan. CEI calculates that the annual cost of complying with federal regulations is now $2.155 trillion.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump’s Bold Diplomacy on the Ukraine War and Iranian Nuclear Program Trump unveils bold plans to end the Ukraine war and halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, warning all sides the U.S. will walk if his offers are rejected. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/25/trumps-bold-diplomacy-on-the-ukraine-war-and-iranian-nuclear-program/

There was a lot of movement this week on two intractable global security problems when the Trump Administration put forward proposals that defied the foreign policy establishment to end the war in Ukraine and halt Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

There were predictable condemnations of Trump’s proposals from parties to these disputes, European leaders, foreign policy experts, and the mainstream media. However, Trump officials made clear that they will not agree to endless negotiations on these disputes and are prepared to walk away if the president’s proposals are rejected.

To end the Ukraine-Russia War, Trump officials put forward what has been called President Trump’s final offer to end the war.

Under this plan, Russia would receive formal U.S. recognition of Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, as Russian territory. Washington would also agree to de facto recognition of Russia’s occupation of territory it seized in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The U.S. would pledge not to support Ukraine’s membership in NATO, lift sanctions against Russia imposed since 2014, and offer U.S. economic cooperation.

Ukraine would be offered “a robust security guarantee” from European military forces. It would also get back part of the Kharkiv province currently occupied by Russia, navigation rights in the Dnieper River, and assistance in post-war rebuilding.

Ukraine reportedly will also have the right to its own army and defense industry as part of a peace agreement. If true, this means the U.S. is rejecting Putin’s demand that Ukraine be demilitarized as part of a final settlement.

Trump’s proposals will be very tough for Ukraine to accept, and it was not a surprise when Ukrainian President Zelensky immediately and publicly rejected the U.S. offering at least de facto recognition of Russia’s occupation of Crimea and areas of the Donbas. Zelensky’s allies in the U.S. and Europe echoed this criticism. Trump replied that the U.S. was not asking Zelensky to recognize Crimea as Russian territory. Trump and Vice President Vance also faulted Zelensky for publicly criticizing the new U.S. proposals, which they said were harmful to the peace process.

Critics of President Trump’s Ukraine peace proposal are arguing that it does not hold Russia accountable for its vicious and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. Some claimed it rewards this aggression. Although these are principled positions, Trump’s hard-nosed realist plan may be the only chance to end the war. Trump’s plan recognizes facts on the ground that are unlikely to change and offers a chance to get both sides to the negotiating table and end the war.

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Why Hamas Must Not Be Allowed to Keep Its Weapons by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on April 24th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21572/hamas-weapons

Hamas wants to keep its weapons so that it could kill even those Jews who “hide behind stones and trees.” Hamas also wants to hold on to its weapons so that it can continue to oppress Palestinians who dare to speak out against the terrorist group. This old but reliable method of control is how Hamas has managed to remain in power for the past two decades.

Any deal that allows Hamas to keep its arsenal of weapons is simply a green light to the Islamists to pursue their jihad against Israel. It is a waste of time to demand that Hamas just be removed from power in the Gaza Strip.

The Trump administration actually needs to place the issue of disarming Hamas and all the Palestinian terrorist groups not among its demands, but at the top.

As the war in the Gaza Strip is about to enter its 20th month, the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group has once again repeated its refusal to disarm. It says the weapons are needed to continue its fight against Israel. Those who believe that Hamas would ever agree to lay down its weapons are living in a dream world. There is, unfortunately, only one way to convince Hamas to disarm: military force.

Recently, two senior Hamas officials, Mahmoud Mardawi and Bassam Naim, announced their group’s absolute rejection of any proposal related to laying down its weapons. They said that other Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip also reject any plan to disarm.

“The [Palestinian] resistance’s weapons represent the life of the Palestinian people and cannot be relinquished under any circumstances,” Mardawi said in a statement to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV station. Hamas, he added, “will not negotiate over its weapons, or those who carry them, at any stage. The mere entry into a discussion about this issue is completely unacceptable.”

Naim also told the TV station that Hamas would not lay down its weapons and that the “resistance will continue as long as there is an [Israeli] occupation.”