EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard Needs Merit-Based Admissions A Supreme Court decision could force colleges to move away from affirmative action and create true diversity on campus. By Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on June 2nd, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-needs-merit-based-admissions-college-supreme-court-decision-policies-race-11654116449?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

The Supreme Court, in its next term, will render a decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which will determine the legality of Harvard’s race-based affirmative-action program. The plaintiff’s claim that, by creating a floor for certain racial and ethnic groups in its admissions, Harvard created a ceiling for Asian-Americans. The result is that Asian-Americans who are academically qualified become victims of discrimination.

If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, as many experts believe it will, Harvard and many universities around the country will have to continue their quests for increased racial diversity without violating the specific terms of the decision.

The time has come, however, for universities to abandon their efforts to achieve superficial, artificial diversity based on race. The coming decision would provide American schools with an opportunity to develop admission criteria based on academic achievement and potential—while abolishing such non-merit-based criteria as legacy status, athletics, geography and other nonacademic preferences. There would be resistance to getting rid of these advantages, but it could be done.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Confronting Conformity and Collectivism with David Mamet It is our own individual responsibility that must play a part in saving the order of things. By Emina Melonic

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/31/confronting-conformity-and-collectivism-with-david-mamet/

EXCERPTS

Leftist film and theater critics (are there really any other kind?) have had a hard time accepting Mamet’s political views, yet they’re caught in their own “Catch-22,” an existential condition that plagues every leftist. They can’t help but admire Mamet’s work and see the significance of it, yet they issue disclaimers upon disclaimers about how it’s “unfortunate” and “sad” that Mamet has lost his political way. It’s a hallmark of a leftist pseudo-intellectual to “gift” the conservative with a heap of pity and condescension in an effort to induce an apology and contrition from the said conservative.

Today, American culture is even more dismantled. With Barack Obama, America started to put all of these academic theories into practice, and now, political correctness has reached another level of absurdity. In his typical style (a blend of cultural analysis, memoir, and drama), Mamet explores the current social and political predicament in Recessional: the Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch. He touches upon many subjects: media, Judaism, wokeness, Donald Trump, literature, and inevitably, COVID. The political game has changed and Mamet is fully aware of this. The book is not so much an argument against leftism (since categories of “Left” and “Right” have changed or in some cases, been erased) as it is a way to bring down conformity, collectivism, and mediocrity. These three components are what drive Mamet’s thoughts, implicitly and explicitly.

The problem of culture is not simply political, claims Mamet, but also religious. He’s not saying that everyone needs to find God, hitting us over our heads with a two-by-four, but the Jewish tradition from which he bases his beliefs clearly guides his thoughts and analysis. He’s rightfully aware that what is causing much of the chaos in our world is man’s refusal to see perennial aspects of human nature. We are fallen beings, and in many ways (as Qohelet/Ecclesiastes tells us) “What has been will be again/what has been done will be done again;/there is nothing new under the sun.” Some people have no humility and seek false idols so they can worship them and feel better about their own mediocrity and inadequacies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Attempted Reagan Assassin John Hinckley Jr. to Be Released, Judge Rules: Arjun Singh

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/attempted-reagan-assassin-john-hinckley-jr-to-be-released-judge-rules/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

John Hinckley Jr., the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan over 41 years ago in 1981, will be fully and unconditionally released from a federal mental-health facility.

At a final hearing on the subject on Wednesday, U.S. Senior District Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee to the district court for the District of Columbia, said that Hinckley, 67, would be released from the care of Saint Elizabeths Hospital without any preconditions on June 15.

Friedman, who since 2003 has overseen periodic requests from Hinckley for privileges during his confinement, said that “if he hadn’t tried to kill a president, he would have been released unconditionally a long time ago.”

On March 30, 1981, as Reagan was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., Hinckley drew a .22 caliber revolver and fired at the president as he was entering his limousine. Four of the six explosive rounds he fired struck the president.

Wounded were D.C. police officer Tom Delahanty and U.S. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who placed himself in the line of fire, while Press Secretary James Brady sustained a gunshot to the head, which resulted in lifelong paralysis. The White House Press Briefing Room is named in his honor.

EDUCATION, MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

UPenn Med School Leaders Turn on Former Dean over ‘Racist’ Affirmative-Action Criticism By Jack Crowe

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/upenn-med-school-leaders-turn-on-former-dean-over-racist-affirmative-action-criticism/

Senior administrators at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine recently leveled a reputation-destroying accusation at a former colleague who was, up until a few years ago, a member in good standing of America’s elite medical community.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb had a long, distinguished career in medicine that culminated with his being appointed professor emeritus and associate dean of curriculum at Perelman. He retired from his role as associate dean in 2019 but retained his emeritus title. That honor and the career that made him worthy of it weren’t enough to earn him the presumption of good faith from his former colleagues.

Goldfarb’s offense? Publicly questioning whether racial discrimination is as pervasive in medicine as the conventional elite narrative suggests. Responding last week to a study which suggested that systemic racism explains why minority medical residents tend to receive worse performance evaluations than their white peers, Goldfarb asked: “Could it be they were just less good at being residents?”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s inner Trudeau: On guns, he seems to be operating under the wrong Constitution Jonathan Turley

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/bidens-inner-trudeau-on-guns-he-seems-to-be-operating-under-the-wrong-constitution/ar-AAXXT89

In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.

Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster.

The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.

Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”

The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Concha: Pro-Clinton DC Jury Acquitting Sussmann “Another Black Eye For The Justice System”

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/05/31/concha_pro-clinton_dc_jury_acquitting_sussmann_another_black_eye_for_the_justice_system.html

JOE CONCHA: Well, Donald Trump got 5.4% of the vote in Washington D.C. in 2020. Right? The fact that this jury was going to be sympathetic and friendly to Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer, is not surprising, especially when that jury had Clinton donors on it.

I’m telling you, our faith in institutions just took another big hit as a result of this. This is a whole bowl of wrong.

Very frustrating to see, you have a man who peddled a lie to the FBI — a lie that he was going there as a concerned citizen. Then he turns around and bills the Clinton campaign for that visit to his friend James Baker. What else do you need?

This jury was pre-dispositioned to have a not-guilty verdict. Another black eye for the justice system.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: It’s Biden v. inflation — and Biden’s losing

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3507723-its-biden-v-inflation-and-bidens-losing/

President Biden wants Americans to know: Curbing inflation is his top, top, top priority.

He recently penned an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal with this headline: “My Plan for Fighting Inflation.” The plan didn’t contain much new in the anti-inflation category, but it did contain a red alert, which may have been the point.

The piece prepared the public for an economic slowdown, the likely result of the Federal Reserve’s commitment to reining in its reckless monetary policy. Biden warns that in coming months “growth will look different” and forecasts that job gains will drop from recent monthly totals of 500,000 or so and head lower, to maybe about 150,000.

This will not be “cause for concern,” Biden writes, “it will be a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery…”

The last thing Americans were told not to worry about was inflation, so that advisory gives us pause. It was last July – when the Consumer Price Index came in at 0.9 percent, significantly higher than the prior month’s 0.6 percent price increase – that Biden gave an address celebrating the bang-up job he had done in his first six months in office.

He assured us: “Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation. But that’s not our view. Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen are — were expected and expected to be temporary.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

US “foreign aid” to Israel – a mega billion $ bonanza for the US: Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://bit.ly/3M0b2Ak

The US does not extend foreign aid to Israel. Rather, the US makes an annual investment in Israel, which yields to the American taxpayer an annual R-O-I (Return-On-Investment) of several hundred percent.

Is that a valid statement?

*While Israel is a most grateful recipient of a few hundred US military systems, it serves as the battle-tested, cost-effective laboratory of the US defense and aerospace industries, which employ – directly and indirectly – 3.5 million Americans.

Moreover, Israel’s Defense Forces serve as the battle-tested laboratory of the US armed forces, enhancing the performance of the US military.

*As documented in the following segments, the Israeli battle-tested laboratory enhances the economy, national security and homeland security of the US.

*For instance, Israel’s Air Force flies the Lockheed-Martin-manufactured F-16 and F-35 combat aircraft, providing the US manufacturer and Air Force – on a daily basis – with lessons involving operations, maintenance and repairs.  These lessons are integrated into a multitude of upgrades for the next generation of the aircraft, bolstering the performance of the US manufacturer and Air Force.

In fact, the F-16 has been improved by several hundred Israeli-driven upgrades (cockpit, fire control, wings, fuel tanks, etc.). It has spared Lockheed-Martin 10-20 years of research & development – which costs billions of dollars – improving the global competitiveness of Lockheed-Martin, thus increasing its multi-billion-dollar exports, while expanding Lockheed-Martin’s employment base – a mega-billion-dollar bonanza.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

What primary season has taught us so far Few reasons for Trump to be cheerful, progressives make progress, and more:Oliver Wiseman

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/newsletter/what-primary-season-has-taught-us-so-far/

What primary season has taught us so far

It may not feel like it, but we’re only two months into a seven-month-long primary season ahead of this year’s midterms. There are still thirty-seven states in which the voters are yet to have their say on the major parties’ candidates ahead of Election Day. In other words, it’s still early. But with the calendar front-loaded with attention-grabbing showdowns in important states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, it’s not too late to tease out some big-picture takeaways. Here are three:

Few reasons for Trump to be cheerful

The least surprising thing about the Republican primaries so far is the lack of a definitive answer to the question of Donald Trump’s influence in the GOP. But brush past the black-and-white, pro- or anti-Trump dichotomy with which so much coverage oversimplifies the state of the modern Republican Party, and you find more reasons for Trump to be worried about his waning influence than evidence of an unassailable position at the head of the party.

The Georgia gubernatorial primary saw one of the biggest villains in the MAGA pantomime cruise to victory. In fact, Brian Kemp’s demolition of Trump’s preferred alternative, former senator David Perdue, was so total as to lose some of its broader political impact. Foregone conclusions just don’t capture the imagination as much as narrow wins. Trump would point to results elsewhere to demonstrate his power: the endorsement of J.D. Vance in Ohio, who saw a swift surge in the polls after he received the former president’s seal of approval shortly before primary day. One footnote to this sign of Trump’s power: Team Vance was confident of a late surge — and a primary win — with or without Trump’s endorsement. Spin, perhaps, or a hint that there is a bit more to the Ohio story than meets the eye.

Elsewhere, things get less clear-cut but no more reassuring for Trump

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran Not Waiting for Nuclear Weapons to Destabilize the Middle East by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on June 1st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18580/iran-destabilizing-iraq

The goal of Iran’s mullahs is to spread their control to as many countries as possible by using their terrorist proxies, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia in Yemen.

Iran’s rulers are also seeking to increase their political influence in these countries. They aim to turn Iran into a superpower and major player in the Middle East at a time when US influence in the region appears to be dwindling.

Needless to say, Iran’s mullahs are not only opposed to peace with Israel. They and their proxies have repeatedly stated that their real goal is to eliminate Israel.

Some even warned that Iran’s real intention is to destroy and isolate Iraq….

“Iran, not Israel, is the greatest affliction for Iraq.” — Farouk Yusef, Iraqi author, Al Arab, May 29, 2022.

The Iraqis, Yusef added, would have preferred to see a law criminalizing working for Iran because they do not want to end up like Lebanon, which has been destroyed by Hezbollah.

“The forces affiliated with Iran accuse everyone who refuses to be subordinate to Iran of seeking normalization with Israel.” — Hamid Al-Kifaey, Iraqi journalist, Sky News Arabia, May 15, 2022.

This is how Arab dictatorships regularly seek to discredit the opposition or anyone who speaks out against corruption and bad government: by accusing them of being Israeli or American spies and traitors.

[T]he law may be used to target political opponents who have been protesting against the corruption of the ruling elite in Baghdad. The anti-corruption activists have often been accused by the government of being “agents of Israel.” — Akeel Abbas, Iraqi academic and author, Al Hurra, May 28, 2022.

The law “radically and explicitly violates two of the basic principles stipulated in the Iraqi constitution, which prohibits enacting a law that contradicts the principles of democracy and basic rights and freedoms.” — Akeel Abbas, Sky News Arabia, May 29, 2022.

Additionally, while Russia has been losing thousands of soldiers trying to take over Ukraine, Iran, without so much as swatting a fly, has been quietly filling the void left by Russians abandoning Syria.

Iran is not waiting until it possesses nuclear weapons to proceed with its schemes. Instead, it is spreading its aggression like a deadly virus to other Muslim nations.

Or do the Biden administration and the international community secretly want the destruction of Israel and the Gulf States?

Iran’s mullahs are continuing to meddle in the internal affairs of Arab countries, especially Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

This is happening while the US administration and other Western powers continue to delude themselves into thinking that appeasing Iran’s rulers and signing a new nuclear deal with them will bring security and stability to the Middle East and the rest of the world.