EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Book Of Nameless Women At Yale William Kahrl and Henry I. Miller

Posted By on March 31st, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/31/the-book-of-nameless-women-at-yale/

March was supposed to be Women’s History Month, but at Yale University this month they were busy erasing it.

Last fall, the university sponsored a convocation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the admission of the first women undergraduates as well as 150 years of women attending the university’s graduate and professional schools. Many distinguished alumnae attended and members of the first three undergraduate classes contributed their reminiscences in video compilations as well as essays about their experience. So far, so good.

Two of the 141 women who wrote essays asked to keep their submissions anonymous for personal reasons. But when the books were published, the Yale Alumni Association had deleted the names of all the women – without asking the authors’ permission or even warning them of what had been done to their work.

After centuries of women being suppressed, diminished, pushed into the background, or having their work appropriated by others, this unexpected anonymization produced the reaction you might expect. The complaints raised in a first letter of protest were dismissed by the administration, and when the campus newspaper took up the story in February, the people responsible responded placidly, assuring readers that only a few people were upset – saying, in effect, let’s move on, there’s nothing to protest here.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Wuhan Whitewash A WHO report on Covid’s origin echoes Chinese propaganda.

Posted By on March 31st, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wuhan-whitewash-11617142921?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The World Health Organization on Tuesday finally released its report on the origins of the coronavirus, and the result wasn’t worth the wait. The document is best understood as a whitewash heavily influenced by the Chinese Communist Party and Westerners with conflicts of interest.

The report—based primarily on an international team’s visit this year to the city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 was first detected—has little new information. But the team analyzes four origin scenarios.

The report says the most likely origin was a transfer to humans through bats with an intermediary host. The second most probable, according to the report, is that bats directly transmitted Covid-19 to humans. The report also takes too seriously a third theory, pushed by Beijing, that the virus arrived in China in frozen food, which the WHO claims is “possible” and merits more study.

Most telling is that the team concludes it is “extremely unlikely” that the virus leaked from a lab such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The report simply asserts that WIV facilities “were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring programme.” The report suggests “regular administrative and internal review of high-level biosafety laboratories worldwide” and following up on new evidence.

Yet enough already is known about the WIV to suggest this lacks credibility. In 2018 U.S. officials warned in diplomatic cables about safety and management issues at the WIV that could lead to a pandemic. This is especially troubling because the WIV conducted “gain of function” research on coronaviruses that theoretically can enable them to infect a new species.

The U.S. State Department warned in a January fact sheet that WIV researchers had developed “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses” in autumn 2019. The WHO report nonetheless takes the Chinese government at its word when it says there was “no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the weeks/months prior to December 2019.”

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden’s Pledge Of Transparency Vanishes Amid Border Crisis

Posted By on March 31st, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/31/bidens-pledge-of-transparency-vanishes-amid-border-crisis/

Biden believes that the media is a critical piece of our democracy; that transparency is incredibly important.” – Former White House deputy press secretary T.J. Ducklo 

Just two months into his presidency, Joe Biden has already decided that transparency isn’t so important after all, at least when it comes to the border crisis, and that keeping people in the dark is good policy.

Of course, Biden still refuses to admit that there even is a crisis at the border. At his press conference last week, he acted as though the flood of unaccompanied children into the U.S. was as routine as flowers in the spring.

“Nothing has changed,” he said. “It happens every single, solitary year: There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. That happens every year.”

It’s not true, of course. Last year, the number of illegal crossings dropped in each of the months Biden claims it always spikes. And the total number of unaccompanied children in 2020 plunged to 33,000 from 80,000 the year before. So far this year, the number of unaccompanied children apprehended far exceeds every year under Donald Trump. So, clearly, something has changed.

Even if what Biden said were true, that a massive surge of unaccompanied children happens every year, it means he was caught entirely flat-footed for this supposedly predictable event. In other words, either Biden is lying or he’s incompetent.

Which is why President Transparency has been pretending there is no crisis while denying the press access to the detention facilities that are currently being overrun with children.

When asked at his press conference about this denial of access, Biden said that he’d continue to shut the media out.

“I will commit to transparency,” he said, “soon as I am in a position to be able to implement what we are doing right now.”

The reporter then asked: “Just to be clear: How soon will that be, Mr. President?

Biden: “I don’t know, to be clear.”

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s China Deal Changes Game For Biden Team By Benny Avni

Posted By on March 31st, 2021

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/irans-china-deal-changes-the-game-for-biden-team/

Should the Mideast fear the recent signing of a $400 billion, 25-year “strategic partnership” pact between Communist China and the Iranian ayatollahs?

“If you analyze China’s policy, you’ll not see a threat to anyone,” Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told reporters today.

The rhetoric of Russia and China, the international scene’s dynamic duo, increasingly sounds in sync. Both claim to defend the national sovereignty of all countries and respect the rights of all regimes to conduct their national affairs.

But no threat?

Ask Manila about Chinese vessels in the Whitsun Reef. Dispatching a flotilla of what Beijing calls “fishing boats” to the Spratly Islands certainly does threaten the Philippines and signals that China is intent on taking over. Beijing has long considered the entire South China Sea as its private lake, scoffing at competing claims by several governments.

During the Obama era, America advised the Philippines to turn to the International Court of Justice, where territorial disputes between Manila and Beijing could be calmly arbitrated. In the event, the court ruled for the Philippines. China then refused to abide and argued the court lacks jurisdiction.

Or ask Japan about similar territorial disputes with Commnist China over islands Tokyo had long administered. Countries in the South China Sea and the North China Sea are frustrated as Beijing escalates military threats and forcefully seizes territory.

Even more threatening is the looming clash over Taiwan. Beijing has always claimed the democratic island as part of the Communist motherland. Now China’s People’s Liberation Army is upgrading preparations for invasion, and President Xi openly talks of forced “reunification.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Thousands visit historic Joshua’s Altar on the Passover vacation following desecration of the site by the Palestinian Authority. By Yakir Benzion

Posted By on March 31st, 2021

https://unitedwithisrael.org/thousands-of-israelis-visit-holy-site-vandalized-by-palesti

Thousands of Israelis visited historic Mount Ebal in Samaria Monday, the holy site known as Joshua’s Altar that was seriously damaged last month by the Palestinian Authority, Israel National News reported.

The site is revered as the place where Joshua, the biblical prophet and political leader who led the Israelites out of the wilderness and into the Land of Israel, built an altar more than 3,000 years ago.

In a brazen desecration of the holy site, the Palestinian Authority deliberately removed and crushed stones from the ancient wall surrounding the altar to use them as gravel in a road-paving project.

The deliberate sabotage of the historic site by the Palestinians provoked outrage among Jewish and archaeological communities.

In response, the Samaria Regional Council, which is restoring the site, sponsored a huge event during the Passover holiday in which thousands of people took part at the archaeological site.

“We invite the general public to come and enjoy the national parks, heritage sites, wineries and nature sites, enjoy a breathtaking view,” said Samaria Regional Council chairman Yossi Dagan. “Samaria is open to everyone and is a 25-minute drive from Tel Aviv.”

Dagan praised the thousands who came to what is intended to be the first festival on Mount Ebal and the altar of Joshua.

“They [the Palestinians] are destroying and we are building,” Dagan said. “They are trying to erase history, and we are restoring and preserving world history and historical sites of the Jewish people.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Systemic Corruption of the Clintons, Bidens, and Cuomo Using public office for private gain. Jeffrey Lord

Posted By on March 31st, 2021

https://spectator.org/corruption-clinton-biden-cuomo/

Call it a pattern. A very disturbing pattern.

Three of the most prominent political names in America are Clinton, Cuomo, and Biden.

And, disturbingly, they all have one very significant thing in common. Here are some telling headlines:

On the Clintons from Investor’s Business Daily:

Scandal Without End: Is The Clinton Foundation A Fraud?

The story begins this way:

Corruption: The Clinton Foundation’s questionable money dealings have raised eyebrows for years. Now, a letter circulating in Congress alleges that the Clinton family’s supposed do-gooder foundation is in fact a “lawless, ‘pay-to-play’ enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years.”

On New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from the Washington Post: 

Andrew Cuomo’s family members were given special access to covid testing, according to people familiar with the arrangement

The Post story says:

As the coronavirus pandemic swept through New York early last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration arranged for his family members and other well-connected figures to have special access to state-administered coronavirus tests, dispatching a top state doctor and other state health officials to their homes, according to three people with direct knowledge of the effort.

On the Bidens from the New York Post:

Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad

The story begins:

Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Rails At Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx As ‘Self-Promoters Trying To Reinvent History’ By Tristan Justice

Posted By on March 30th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/30/trump-rails-at-anthony-fauci-deborah-birx-as-self-promoters-trying-to-reinvent-history/

“Trump’s statement comes after Anthony Fauci falsely claimed total credit for the coronavirus vaccine, saying it ‘may have been the best decision that I’ve ever made.’

Former President Donald Trump railed against his past White House coronavirus task force advisers, Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, as “self-promotors trying to reinvent history” after the pair criticized Trump’s pandemic decision-making in a CNN documentary clip released Sunday.

“Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned,” Trump said in a Monday statement. “They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine – putting millions of lives at risk.”

Trump also touted the triumphant success of Operation Warp Speed, which produced not one, but two vaccines by the end of 2020 with a third vaccine by Johnson & Johnson approved by the Food and Drug Administration early this year.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Matt Taibbi challenges Scarborough to debate after MSNBC host hints Russia hoax critics are on Putin ‘payroll’By Joseph A. Wulfsohn |

Posted By on March 30th, 2021

https://www.foxnews.com/media/matt-taibbi-msnbc-joe-scarborough-russia-hoax

Taibbi accuses MSNBC of ‘suckage’ that ‘was visible from space during the key years of Russiagate’

Journalist Matt Taibbi took MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to task Monday after the “Morning Joe” host suggested that critics of the mainstream media’s Russian collusion narrative are on Vladimir Putin’s “payroll.” 

On Monday, Scarborough panned a statement sent out late Friday by former President Donald Trump that asked “Where’s Durham?” in reference to the ongoing into the origings of the Russia investigation by former Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Scarborough then took aim at those who were critical of the media’s coverage of the unsubstantiated narrative, which was heavily led by MSNBC.

“I’m amused by so-called reporters who are- I don’t know if they’re useful idiots for Russia or if they’re on Russia’s payroll,” Scarborough began. “I don’t know and I don’t really care, but there are some gifted writers who spend all night and day trying to dig through, looking for instances of where the press screwed up on Russia stories, pushing this ‘Russian hoax’ fallacy.”

“It’s just- it’s a joke because if you look at the totality of it, if you look at the totality of everything that happened, the media screwed up at some points and sometimes they screwed up badly, but more often than not they got it right and they get most of it right,” the MSNBC host continued. 

Taibbi, a vocal critic of the media’s Russia coverage during the Trump years, fired back in a piece published on his Substack in which he challenged Scarborough to invite him on “Morning Joe” for a debate.

“Implying that anyone who didn’t buy into the moral panic on Russia was a traitor was a fairly constant theme in media and politics in the last four years, with NBC’s smear of Tulsi Gabbard as a ‘favorite’ of ‘Russia’s propaganda machine’ being one of the ethical low points of the era. Why should Joe Scarborough be above the same tactics?” Taibbi asked before invoking other journalists critical of the media, including Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate, and Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

American Elites Do Not Hate America, They Just Profit by Destroying It By Philip Carl Salzman

Posted By on March 30th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/columns/philip-carl-salzman/2021/03/29/american-elites-do-not-hate-america-they-just-profit-by-destroying-it-n1435955

“It’s the fate of the nation and related matters that worries me.” Ivan C. Karp, Doobie Doo

American elites are not destroying America because they hate it, but because they profit from it. It is not that they hate America, the Constitution, or the American people, it is just that they do not care about them. What they care about above all is power and money. Their entire focus is on what brings them more power and money.

Who are these elites? They are the coastal and urban political elites, the security services, the big tech dictators, the industrial elite, Wall Street, the “heritage” mainstream media, and the academic elite, all almost entirely Democrat and increasingly far left in political commitment. Together these elites, through cooperation and collusion, form the American oligarchy that determines the state of the nation. As Lind puts it, “oligarchy’s essence is precisely the blurring and blending of public and private power in a partisan manner.”

One way that the elite gains power is through the breakdown of civil society. The Democrats have encouraged that breakdown through advocating racial, gender, other identity divisions among the population. Drawing on university-propounded academic theories of “critical racism” they have proclaimed the awful lie that America is blighted by “systemic racism.” On the basis of that lie, they demand that every child in school must learn that “whiteness” is evil and people of color are all helpless victims of evil whites and police. In other words, university professors and administrators, and Democrat politicians, applauded by the mainstream media, engage in race bating against American whites, who form the supermajority of the population. There could not be a clearer case of reverse racism. Advancing racial and gender hatred and fear among the population is the Democrat formula for drawing people to the Democrat government for protection. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

BIDEN AND GEORGIA ELECTION LAW: RICH LOWRY

Posted By on March 30th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/oh-the-horrors/

I wrote today about the dishonest attacks on the Georgia election law, and a Biden claim that has, appropriately, gotten four Pinocchio’s from the Washington Post.

If you delve even a little into this law, it is beyond belief how distorted it’s getting. Here’s a good rundown, from which I’ll pull some notable items.

Hours for early voting will be extended in many places:

One of the biggest changes in the bill would expand early voting access for most counties, adding an additional mandatory Saturday and formally codifying Sunday voting hours as optional. Counties can have early voting open as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at minimum. If you live in a larger metropolitan county, you might not notice a change. For most other counties, you will have an extra weekend day, and your weekday early voting hours will likely be longer.

The deadline for requesting an absentee ballot is moved up to avoid completed ballots not getting delivered on time:

Instead of returning an application by the Friday before election day, SB 202 now backs it up to two Fridays before. Republican sponsors of the bill and local elections officials say this will cut down on the number of ballots rejected for coming in late because of the tight turnaround.

Absentee ballots will be more secure:

The actual absentee ballot and envelopes will look different, as well. SB 202 requires absentee ballots to be printed on special security paper, and your precinct name will now be included along with precinct ID printed at the top. Once you fill out your choices by filling in the circles for your choices, you will place it in an envelope that will have your name, signature, driver’s license or state ID number (or last four digits of your Social Security number) and date of birth. The envelope will be designed so that sensitive personal information will be hidden once it is sealed.