EDUCATION Comments turned off

Can Harvard Use Application Essays to Discriminate by Race? The University of North Carolina, meanwhile, has eagerly embraced the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action. By Steven McGuire

Posted By on August 12th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-harvard-use-application-essays-to-discriminate-by-race-unc-fair-admission-5638086f?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

When the Supreme Court struck down the University of North Carolina’s affirmative-action program in June, the trustees of its flagship Chapel Hill campus were quick to respond.

Embracing the letter and spirit of the law, the board passed a nondiscrimination resolution in July that applies not only to admissions but to hiring and contracting as well. The resolution goes beyond race to prohibit discrimination based on “race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, genetic information, or veteran status.”

UNC’s trustees were already trying to move the institution in this direction before the decision. Board member Marty Kotis began advocating a resolution forbidding discrimination in hiring and contracting in 2021. After the Supreme Court ruling, an overwhelming majority of the full board approved a more comprehensive version.

The resolution includes language from Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion to specify that “the University shall not ‘establish through application essays or other means’ any regime of or encourage heuristics and/or proxies premised upon race-based preferences in hiring or admissions. If the University considers the personal experience of applicants for admission, each applicant ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.’ ”

“This is a moment of humility,” said the board’s vice chairman, John Preyer. “For nine years, we’ve spent in the neighborhood of $35 million to lose a high-profile case. Why did we do that? Was that the right thing to do?”

Meanwhile, Harvard, UNC’s co-litigant, has looked for ways to keep discriminating, and so have many other institutions. They focus on one sentence of the court’s ruling: “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

Harvard responded to the decision by citing this line in isolation, suggesting it would treat it as a loophole. The university said it would comply with the law but reaffirmed its commitment to diversity, commenting, “we will determine how to preserve, consistent with the Court’s new precedent, our essential values.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Merrick Garland’s latest dirty trick to protect the Bidens By James Bovard

Posted By on August 12th, 2023

https://nypost.com/2023/08/11/merrick-garlands-latest-dirty-trick-to-protect-the-bidens/

Attorney General Merrick Garland may have just played his last trick card to save Joe Biden: appointing a special counsel to delay prosecution of his son Hunter.

With any luck, the official Justice Department final report on Biden family shenanigans will be released in December 2024, one month after the presidential election.

Perpetuating an investigation is the most respectable Washington cover-up scam.

Federal agencies and the Justice Department dragged out for five years the investigation of Hunter’s gun, tax and foreign influence peddling.

The statute of limitations already expired on several of his crimes, but that was OK because of the spelling of his last name.

Despite a string of crimes that would have sent average Americans up the river for a decade, Biden’s Justice Department cut a deal in June that permitted Hunter to plead guilty to misdemeanors, not serve a day in jail and dodge any other federal charges.

That deal collapsed when federal Judge Maryellen Noreika asked a few questions after she was blindsided by a last-minute sweeping exoneration paragraph added to the plea deal.

With no deal, Hunter Biden faced a federal trial.

The Justice Department cut a deal in June that permitted Hunter Biden to plead guilty to misdemeanors while not serving a day in jail and dodge federal charges.

But Garland came to Hunter’s rescue Friday by appointing David Weiss special counsel.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago By Matt Egan

Posted By on August 12th, 2023

https://us.cnn.com/2023/08/11/economy/inflation-rate-spending/index.html

US inflation has had a snowballing effect on family budgets.

The typical American household spent $709 more in July than they did two years ago to buy the same goods and services, according to Moody’s Analytics.

That figure underscores the cumulative impact high inflation has had on consumer finances — even as price growth has cooled considerably in recent months.

“High inflation of the past 2+ years has done lots of economic damage,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Most of that increase in spending is driven by housing costs, which have surged, Zandi told CNN in an email on Friday. He added that families are also spending more at the grocery store; on buying, maintaining and insuring vehicles and on recreational services like cable.

Of course, paychecks have also grown over the past two years — but not by as much as the cost of living.

Inflation-adjusted earnings are stuck in 2019

Even though prices have soared, real earnings, which adjust for inflation, are stuck at late 2019 levels.

“Real earnings remain below what they would have been if not for the pandemic and the Russian war, which is weighing on the collective psyche,” Zandi told CNN in an email on Friday.

The good news is that wages are finally starting to outpace inflation and consumer price growth has eased significantly, so much so that many investors are betting the Federal Reserve is done raising interest rates.

Americans’ wages are finally outpacing inflation. Here’s why it may not last

Looking at just the last year, Zandi calculates that the typical household spent $202 more this July than they did a year ago to buy the same goods and services.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Charles Lipson:Hunter’s new special counsel also needs investigating As US attorney, David Weiss slow-walked the Biden case for years

Posted By on August 12th, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/hunter-biden-special-counsel-david-weiss-investigating-probe/

At long last, Attorney General Merrick Garland decided to appoint a special counsel to continue the investigation of Hunter Biden, his family and associates. His choice: US Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, who has been on the case for several years. He was originally appointed as US attorney by Donald Trump, a point Democrats always highlight without noting that he was promoted by both Democratic senators from the state. 

Being named special counsel gives Weiss some authority beyond that of a regular US attorney. In particular, he can bring federal cases outside his narrow territorial domain without consent from US attorneys in those other districts. That’s an important point, since Weiss was apparently denied the right to bring at least two other cases his office sought. 

His appointment makes sense in one way: any other choice would have added years to the investigation. Weiss is already up to speed. The question is whether he is speeding down the right road. 

Weiss might have been appointed special counsel during the Trump administration, but outgoing AG Bill Barr has said he thought that decision should be left to the incoming administration. His rationale was a strong one: he feared that appointing a special counsel as one administration went out the door would set a precedent for future administrations to begin investigating their successors. If a special counsel was needed, Barr concluded, that should be up to the Biden administration. 

Shockingly, the Biden administration did not want to appoint a special counsel to investigate itself or the president’s family. The new attorney general could have given Weiss those additional powers two years ago but declined. Garland actually made the incredible argument that Weiss, as a US attorney, had more powers than he would have as a special counsel. 

Both Garland and Weiss have also told Congress that Weiss had ultimate authority to bring cases wherever he wished. But those statements may not be true, since Weiss was apparently blocked from filing cases in other jurisdictions, and since he told multiple IRS investigators that he was not the ultimate decision-maker on these cases. The latter statement directly contradicts what he and Garland have told Congress.  

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

You say Taiwan; I say Korea-Francesco Sisci

Posted By on August 12th, 2023

http://www.settimananews.it/informazione-internazionale/you-say-taiwan-say-korea/

In theory, it is a peninsula, but actually, for all practical purposes, it is an island. South Korea is separated from the rest of the Asian continent by its intractable half-brother to the North, making any land contact with its neighbors impossible.

The gap between the reality (being an island) and the theoretical aspiration (being a peninsula) is compounded by being one of the world’s wealthiest and most dynamic locations, bordering one of the most backward and stagnant places globally, its northern half-brother.

This reality makes the Korean peninsula one of Asia’s most dangerous flash points for future strains.

Tempest on the South Korean Island

Tension is on the rise around China. Saber rattling has become frequent around Taiwan, the island de facto independent but, in theory, part of One China. Strategists’ risk assessments consider the possibility of a clash around Taiwan because the PLA might attempt to invade the island.

There are also risks of skirmishes that could get out of control in the contested waters of the South China Sea between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. A fight that gets out of hand could also start in the high altitudes of the Himalayas between Chinese and Indian troops. Yet, the North Korean scenario could be the most significant jeopardy.

It is impossible to assess Chinese intentions on all these borders. However, a war in the Korean peninsula could be less risky and more advantageous to Beijing in the present situation.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Administration Abandoning Israel for Ruling Mullahs of Iran? by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on August 12th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19872/biden-abandoning-israel-for-iran

“For the last year and a half, Iran stated clearly that its main strategy is to make the Samaria region [of Israel] another Gaza.” The Iranians… are “pouring money and smuggling weapons into the region. They are supporting Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] and other factions within the Palestinian Authority.” — Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, former deputy commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, Fox News, July 24, 2023.

More than 19 Iranian regime-backed groups that are targeting Israel and US interests in the region meet the U.S. “terror designation criteria, ” according to Joe Truzman, in the report, “Iran and its Network of Nineteen Terrorist Organizations on Israel’s Borders”. The Biden Administration, however, has not added them to the list of foreign terror groups.

“Over the last four decades, the Iranian regime has built a network of armed groups on Israel’s borders to create instability and foment terrorism. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and a mosaic of other terrorist organizations receive funding, training and weapons from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF).” — Joe Truzman, “Iran and its Network of Nineteen Terrorist Organizations,” fdd.org, 2023.

“Long War Journal has monitored the buildup of Iran-backed terrorist organizations on key fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel has worked to limit the growth of these terrorist organizations, but they remain a significant threat on multiple fronts.” — Joe Truzman, “Iran and its Network of Nineteen Terrorist Organizations.”

What is mind-boggling is that the Biden Administration criticizes Israel but then turns a blind eye to Iran’s military buildup near Israel’s borders — all while Iran fires missiles into Israel from Syria, ships ballistic missiles to Israel’s self-declared enemy, Hezbollah, and continues to threaten exterminating Israel down the pike.

The Biden administration’s appeasement policies towards the ruling mullahs of Iran are empowering their Islamist and radical regime in the region, all while undermining America’s democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel.

As the Iranian regime continues to sponsor, fund and arm terror groups on the borders of Israel, the Biden Administration is carefully looking the other way.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Massive Transformation of India and the Middle East by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on August 11th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19874/transformation-of-india-middle-east

“Since 1947… Pakistan has initiated three full-fledged wars with India…. In addition, Pakistan has consistently utilized cross-border terrorism in India as an official instrument of state policy, including the 26/11 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people…. Pakistan’s military and ISI spy agency also continues to support the Taliban, the Haqqani group, Lashkar-eTaiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and other affiliated militant groups in Afghanistan to undermine U.S. military operations and maintain its strategic influence there.” — Hindu American Foundation, August 2019.

According to the Hindu American Foundation, “India is one of the few countries in the world where Baha’is and Jews have never faced religious persecution.”

India first faced Islamist violence, dating as far back as the 8th century to the time of the Muslim Mughal invasions and rule through the mid-19th century. Countless Hindus and other non-Muslims were murdered or forcibly converted to Islam.

“[Historian Mahomed] Ferishtha lists several occasions when… sultans in central India… (1347-1528) killed a hundred thousand Hindus, which they set as a minimum goal whenever they felt like “punishing” the Hindus…. Prof. K.S. Lal once estimated that the Indian population declined by 50 million under the Sultanate…. research into the magnitude of the damage Islam did to India is yet to start in earnest…” — Koenraad Elst, The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, September 2, 2011.

“Apart from actual killing, millions of Hindus disappeared by way of enslavement. After every conquest by a Muslim invader, slave markets in Bagdad and Samarkand were flooded with Hindus…. [O]ne cold night in the reign of Timur Lenk (1398-99), a hundred thousand Hindu slaves died [on the Hindu Kush, “Hindu-killer”] while on transport to Central Asia.” — Koenraad Elst, The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, September 2, 2011.

Islamist violence against Hindus and other non-Muslims who enjoy freedom of speech is an ongoing problem.

Ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Hindu people of Kashmir was one of the occurrences that drastically changed the demographic balance in the region. Starting in 1989, more than 350,000 Kashmiri Hindus were driven from their ancestral homeland in the Jammu and Kashmir region by a radical insurgency orchestrated and funded by Pakistan.

Where are the indigenous non-Muslim communities in what is today called the “Muslim world”? Where is their presence?

Today’s “Muslim world”, which used to be non-Muslim before Islamic invasions, conquests and massacres, is now demographically transformed. The indigenous non-Muslim communities there are now either dying minorities or extinct.

Today, the only religion that has freedom in Afghanistan is Islam.

Turkey, the site that used to be known as Anatolia for more than a thousand years, was the seat of the Christian Byzantine Empire. For centuries, Islamic invaders attacked Anatolia; in 1453, Muslim Turks from Central Asia captured Constantinople, now Istanbul. Today, Christians comprise only 0.1 percent of Turkey’s population.

Prior to the Islamic invasions, most of the entire Middle East and North Africa – countries such as Syria, Algeria, Egypt and Iraq — used to be majority-Christian. Today, indigenous Christians and other minorities — such as Assyrians, Yazidis and Alawites — in almost every majority-Muslim country where they remain, are severely persecuted.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Deadly Untrustworthiness of General Mark Milley By Al Bienenfeld

Posted By on August 11th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/the_deadly_untrustworthiness_of_general_mark_milley.html

Once, he was a soldier. Now, though, Milley has become a bureaucrat in uniform, trading national security for leftist policies.

General Mark Milley, who is Secretary of Defense, has forgotten that he was a soldier. Now, he’s only a leftist bureaucrat in uniform. Milley’s basic mode of operation is ingratiating himself to a political class that values the servile.

What makes Milley dangerous is his willingness to lie unhesitatingly, particularly in public. He is the highest-ranking military officer in the nation, and this matters. Technically the Secretary of Defense is a civilian post even though the Secretary may have a military background. The President and Congress provide civilian oversight but can only do so when presented with truthful, accurate information.

In June 2021, Tucker Carlson made some very strong remarks about Milley’s attempts to make teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the military seem benign. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Milley compared CRT to reading Marx and Mao, as if it’s just part of educating the troops about different ideologies. However, our military is not urging the adoption of Marxism. (At least not yet!) What Milley is doing is cooperating with the Democrat left to indoctrinate the troops in blatant racism.

MEDIA Comments turned off

For Washington Post’s Feared ‘Pinocchio’ Fact Checker, Forthrightness Dies in ‘Updates’ to Biden-Burisma Story Kessler’s fact check has not aged well By Paul Sperry

Posted By on August 11th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/10/for-washington-posts-feared-pinocchio-fact-checker-forthrightness-dies-in-updates-to-biden-burisma-story/

For the second time in three years, the Washington Post has quietly “updated” one of the most consequential fact checks in the history of American politics – its October 2020 article undercutting reports that Hunter Biden arranged a dinner meeting between one of his foreign business clients and his father, who was then vice president of the United States.

The original article by the Washington Post’s chief fact checker, Glenn Kessler, was published the same day as the New York Post’s pre-election scoop revealing that Joe Biden had attended a 2015 dinner with a top executive of a Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, which was paying his son $83,000 per month. Kessler’s fact-check involved interviews with a host of Biden aides who vehemently disputed the vice president’s attendance at the dinner and advanced the theory that the source of the information – a laptop Hunter had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop – was untrustworthy and possibly a Russian plant.

That conspiracy theory was quickly embraced by 51 former intelligence officials, who signed an open letter dismissing the New York Post’s scoop as having “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” This letter and the Washington Post fact check were used by the Biden campaign, other media outlets, and social media platforms to discredit the information contained on the laptop in the final days of the campaign. The article, Kessler would later boast, was “one of the most read articles in our 13-year history” of the fact-checking feature.

But Kessler’s fact check has not aged well. Just last week Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, testified before Congress that the article was “not correct reporting.” Instead of retracting the article – as the Post did with some of its debunked Russiagate coverage – or running a straightforward correction, the paper has appended a series of “updates” to its reporting.

“The Washington Post and other media have tried to squelch the scandal of Joe Biden potentially using his high office to enrich himself and his family,” said a congressional investigator for a GOP-led committee. “Almost nobody is fact-checking these biased fact checkers, and they carry a lot of weight and authority.”

In his original article, “Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop: An explainer,” Kessler took the Biden camp’s word that the then-vice president never met senior Burisma official Vadym Pozharskyi on April 16, 2015, and didn’t even attend the dinner in question at a Georgetown restaurant. Kessler also expressed open doubts about the authenticity of the laptop. Kessler wrote that the New York Post stories “purportedly” came from a Hunter Biden laptop “supposedly” left at a repair shop. Quoting an author of a book on disinformation, Kessler also questioned the authenticity of the emails on the laptop. The specific email in question – the New York Post called it a “smoking gun” – was an April 17 message from Pozharskyi thanking Hunter Biden for the “opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together.”

“Officials who worked for Biden at the time told The Fact Checker that no such meeting took place,” Kessler asserted, noting that it was not listed on the former vice president’s schedule and that it was unlikely Biden even went to the restaurant.

After the election, with Biden in office, and as more details about the dinner trickled in over the next several months, the Washington Post on June 7, 2021, appended Kessler’s story with a note that the article had been ”updated.” It linked to a revised version, which carried the headline, “Hunter Biden’s laptop: The April 16, 2015, dinner.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

A Cautionary Tale From France about Muslim Migrants Hosting them could endanger your life. by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on August 11th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-cautionary-tale-from-france-about-migrants/

It is worth recalling that in France, there was several months ago yet another case of a French host being murdered by the Muslim – in this case a Muslima – to whom he had offered free lodging. The enduringly relevant cautionary tale can be found here: “Algerian woman stabs her French host to death, 3rd such murder in months,” by John Cody, Remix News, March 20, 2023:

France has been hit with another case of a foreigner killing their host, this time with an Algerian woman being accused of stabbing her French host to death on March 18 in a town outside Paris.

It marks what appears to be a worrying trend. Just last month, Remix News reported that an Albanian was accused of killing his French host after they became involved in an argument about religion. The suspect reportedly sent photos of the victim’s naked body to a neighbor in the building over Snapchat.

An argument about religion? Could the Albanian Muslim have become enraged because his French host had rejected his attempts to convert him? Perhaps that host did not agree that Islam was the most wonderful of all possible religions and made the mistake of expressing his opinion. Why wouldn’t that be enough to explain the outraged Albanian Muslim’s murderous assault?

In November last year, an Afghan national was arrested for stabbing his 73-year-old host 30 times inside their shared apartment in Paris. The suspect had a long history of sexual assault, although it is unclear if the host was aware of this. Police say the victim, whose body was found inside the apartment, was trying to be a good samaritan and provide shelter to the Afghan male.

Another victim, a benevolent and elderly French sharing his Paris apartment with an Afghan, suddenly realized, too late, that his Muslim guest, far from being grateful to him, was homicidally inclined toward his Infidel host.