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A New Crime Wave—and What to Do About It New York City rejected the policing lessons that led to its success, and violence is surging. Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on March 2nd, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/new-york-city-violence-surging

For two decades, many New Yorkers had assured themselves that a return to the crime and squalor of the early 1990s was unlikely. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who presided over a 62 percent drop in major felonies from 1994 through 2001, proved that violence was not an urban inevitability. His successor, Michael Bloomberg, drove crime down further, through the 2008 recession and beyond. Both mayors set a benchmark for what was possible, preemptively discrediting any future mayor’s excuse that crime was beyond his capacity to overcome.

That assumption about the permanence of the crime drop was wrong. New York City in 2020 experienced an unprecedented one-year increase in homicides and shootings. Through December 27, 2020, the number of murders was up 41 percent from 2019 and 53 percent from 2018. Shooting victims were up 103 percent from 2019 and 109 percent from 2018; shooting incidents rose 97 percent and 104 percent. In gang-ridden precincts, the spike was even more startling. In Brooklyn’s Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, there were 170 percent more shooting victims in 2020 than in 2019 and 151 percent more shooting incidents. Murder was up 94 percent in these parts of Brooklyn.

It wasn’t just gang areas that were afflicted. On December 29, a roving pack of young bicyclists in midtown Manhattan attacked a BMW, smashing a bike on top of the car and jumping on its windshield. The same group went after a cab minutes later. Office workers in the area have been chased by similar flash mobs.

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Bari Weiss:There Is No Such Thing as “White” Math: Sergiu Klainerman.

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-white-math?token=eyJ1c

I am not at all qualified to introduce today’s guest writer, Sergiu Klainerman.

I barely eked out a C+ in high school calculus, while Sergiu is a professor of mathematics at Princeton who specializes in the mathematical theory of black holes. He’s been a MacArthur fellow, a Guggenheim fellow and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences 

Mathematics allowed a young Sergiu, who came of age in Ceausescu’s Romania, to escape to a world where right and wrong couldn’t be fudged, and, ultimately, to a life of freedom in the United States. Without math, his life quite literally would not have been possible.

In the piece below he explains how activists are destroying his discipline in the name of progress. Worse, they are robbing poor children of the opportunity to raise themselves up by mastering it — with untold effects on all of us. Barri Weiss

……”In my position as a professor of mathematics at Princeton, I have witnessed the decline of universities and cultural institutions as they have embraced political ideology at the expense of rigorous scholarship. Until recently — this past summer, really — I had naively thought that the STEM disciplines would be spared from this ideological takeover.

I was wrong. Attempts to “deconstruct” mathematics, deny its objectivity, accuse it of racial bias, and infuse it with political ideology have become more and more common — perhaps, even, at your child’s elementary school.

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CALL ME, AYATOLLAH: Iran Turns Down Biden’s Plea to Negotiate. Biden Asks for 2nd Chance Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/03/call-me-ayatollah-iran-turns-down-bi

In an entirely unexpected turn of events, Biden’s decision to announce that he wanted to crawl back into Obama’s faux nuclear deal with Iran was met with overt contempt by the Islamic terrorist state.

When you announce your negotiating position ahead of time, you should assume that the other side will demand a bigger price. 

And that’s exactly what Iran is doing. It’s turning up the screws with attacks on American personnel. Biden decided to concede Yemen, threw out a weak air strike in Syria for show, and is reduced to pleading with Iran to come and negotiate. 

A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that conditions are not ripe for informal nuclear talks between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers.

Why it matters: The Biden administration had proposed the talks as part of its efforts to negotiate a path back to the 2015 nuclear deal. The White House expressed disappointment with Iran’s response, but said it remained willing to engage with Tehran.

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Abraham Accords Prevail: UAE Ambassador Arrives in Israel for the First Time Katie Pavlich

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/03/01/abraham-accords-live-on-uae-ambassador-arrives-in-israel-for-the-first-time-n2585498

The United Arab Emirates first ever Ambassador to Israel arrived in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Monday, further solidifying the Abraham Accords reached under President Donald Trump.

The United Arab Emirates first ever Ambassador to Israel arrived in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Monday, further solidifying the Abraham Accords reached under President Donald Trump. 

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This Administration Is Already a Failure Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/03/01/this-administration-is-already-a-failure-n2585441

If you’re a Democrat, you have to be thinking about a Harris/Cheney ticket in 2024 because the * administration is a complete disaster. And not just on policy. Obama‘s administration was a policy disaster, but it was at least a competently implemented disaster. The Zombie Administration is a disaster in both form and substance.

What has this desiccated, old weirdo achieved in his six weeks of semiconsciousness in the Oval Office? Well, there’s putting tens of thousands of Americans out of jobs, including union guys who voted for him. There’s telling the American people that their kids can’t go to school because public school teachers take priority over children because of science or something. There’s another war in the Middle East. Those are kind of accomplishments, but not really good ones.

His administration had someone named “Ducklo” who was mean to women. He had another who wants to be a woman and who wants to let your little boys be surgically turned into women. And Neera Tanden’s confirmation was blocked because she was a woman and totally not because she was an inept loudmouth.

If this is normalcy, what’s a freak show look like?

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You’ll Never Guess Who the New DHS Secretary is Blaming For the Current Border Crisis Katie Pavlich

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/03/01/youll-never-guess-who-the-new-dhs-secretary-is-blaming-for-the-current-border-crisis-n2585513

Speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room Monday afternoon, newly confirmed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attempted to blame the current unaccompanied minor crisis on the Trump Administration, rather than President Biden’s recent open border executive actions. 

Mayorkas invited illegal immigrants to eventually make the trip to the United States, just not right now. He also denied there is currently a crisis at the border, which is false. In fact, the Biden administration recently opened additional detention facilities to handle the overflow of unaccompanied minors. In January 2021, nearly 6000 minors came across, the largest number in years. Officials predict 13,000 minors will come in May, just a few months from now. 

Reporters have been barred from visiting newly opened detention facilities. DHS officials are citing “COVID restrictions” as the reason why. 

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VIDEO: United Nations Officials Shepherd Migrants Across Southern Border By Tristan Justice

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/01/united-nations-officials-shepherd-migrants-across-southern-border/

Officials from the United Nations helped usher Mexican migrants into the United States last week after President Joe Biden reversed his predecessor’s Migrant Protection Protocols, otherwise known as the Remain in Mexico program.

Footage from the Daily Mail below shows migrants being escorted into the states by people wearing vests often associated with UN officials who promote resettlement.

A local CBS affiliate in south Texas confirmed the UN’s presence as migrants began crossing the Gateway International Bridge into the border town of Brownsville, Texas, with the help of UN officials who screened migrants for COVID-19 upon entry. According to CBS, at least 25 migrants successfully crossed into the United States last week, with immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin reporting that more are on the way.

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Pol Pot’s Cambodia: Socialist Vision Carried To Its Logical Conclusion Francis Menton

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5

About two years ago I visited Cambodia. While there I wrote this January 2019 post, which focused on the “killing fields” genocide that swept Cambodia in 1975-79, during the rule of the Khmer Rouge and their leader Pol Pot. In connection with my trip, I bought the Ben Kiernan history titled “The Pol Pot Regime,” which I have just now gotten around to reading.

Why my fascination with Cambodia in the day of the Khmer Rouge? It is one of the clearest modern instances of leftist/socialist ideology put into practice and then pushed to its logical conclusion. Highly educated elitists got taught a utopian vision of a transformed society with perfect fairness and justice, and they determined to impose that vision upon the backward and unlearned masses in their country. Then they came to power, and got the opportunity to carry out their plans. The circumstances in Cambodia were such that they could implement their plans with few to no constraints. We get to study the results. Any relevance to our current situation is for the reader to draw.

Kiernan’s basic approach is that he sought out and interviewed several hundred Cambodians who lived through the events and survived the genocide. The interviews took place starting after the fall of the regime (1979), through the 1980s and into the early 90s (the first edition of the book came out in 1996). This approach has obvious pluses and minuses. On the plus side, this is primary source, first hand information. On the minus side, the people available for interview were not randomly selected and have major gaps in their collective knowledge. Obviously, none of them were killed. If any of them were involved in the killings, they certainly don’t admit to it. Nor did any of the leaders of the regime submit to interviews, so there is nobody to offer testimony as to “here’s why we did it,” or “here’s what we were trying to accomplish.” Nevertheless, there is much to learn.

Here are the things that I find most interesting:

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More and more Americans are realizing that Dr. Fauci is not their friend Steve Deace

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

http://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/commentary-more-and-more-americans-are-realizing-that-dr-fauci-is-not-their-friend?utm_source=theblaze-breaking&utm

Increasing skepticism and even anger about the long-standing COVID-19 advisory role of Dr. Anthony Fauci have filled social media in recent days.

Sure, some of us have been pointing out the need to rid the White House and the nation of his presence for nearly a year now, but it turns out Fauci’s latest calls for double masking and remaining locked down even after getting vaccinated have pushed a new segment of Americans over the edge.

And to that I say, “Amen.”

More and more people simply want their damn country back and resent that the so-called “experts” seem to be addicted to either doubling down on failure or mandating increasingly hysterical and obtuse remedies that would make Rube Goldberg machines blush.

It’s a lot more than mere resentment, though. So many people have been hurt in mind, body, and soul by Fauci’s arrogant and inconsistent medical meanderings. Among the costs: Their ability to provide for themselves and their family. Their ability to worship and speak freely. Their ability to receive an education. Their ability to flourish in athletics and the arts. And perhaps most of all, their ability to trust one another as fellow citizens.

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Biden Admin China Ties Reveal a Deeper Disturbing Truth Our elites have been captured by our worst adversary Benjamin Weingarten

Posted By on March 1st, 2021

https://www.newsweek.com/biden-administration-china-ties-reveal-deeper-disturbing-truth-opinion-1572589

The associations between members of the Joe Biden administration and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked individuals and entities are incredibly disturbing.

Personnel is policy. By dint of such ties, and past dutiful service to administrations that pursued the very policies of engagement and accommodation that enabled Communist China’s rise, we can surmise that the president, and the architects of his agenda, will likely be uniquely soft on China.

That the fledgling Biden presidency has, by political necessity, sought to create a veneer of toughness toward China with rhetoric—while from its earliest days, literally and figuratively bending over for it with a battery of weak policies—would seem to reinforce this view.But as disturbing as the backgrounds are of those Biden staffers who will be developing and executing this likely uniquely detrimental policy, what is perhaps even more disturbing is just how common such backgrounds are among those who would be tapped for such positions.

Any president from the bipartisan political establishment, though increasingly based on the Democratic side, would likely be selecting nominees for senior roles touching on China from a pool of candidates at best two degrees separated from the CCP—and more than likely positively predisposed to ever-greater interaction and integration with it. China exploits this.