EDUCATION Comments turned off

Stinging rebuke to woke Oberlin College By David Zukerman

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/stinging_rebuke_to_woke_oberlin_college_.html

It might be said that an Ohio appellate court, March 31, struck a blow against woke-ism by upholding a multimillion-dollar verdict against Oberlin College. At issue was a tortious response by the college to a shoplifting incident, November 9, 2016, at Gibson’s Bakery in Oberlin. The incident led to protests by Oberlin students and administrators against the bakery, accusing the owners of racism and a history of racial profiling. (A black male student had been apprehended by a bakery employee for shoplifting and he and two black women were arrested in connection with the incident.  In August 2017 they pleaded guilty to lesser charges.)

The bakery and its owners, Allyn W. Gibson and his son David R. Gibson (both now deceased), sued the college and its dean of students for libel, interference with business relationships, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, winning  a jury verdict of $44 million, reduced to $31 million (comprising compensatory and punitive damages, and including attorney’s fees of $6 million).

In upholding the judgment of the trial court, the appellate panel affirmed that the attacks on the bakery were actionable, not opinion, and that the plaintiffs were not public figures.  A woke court, arguably, would have ruled that a flyer distributed by college administrators and students accusing the bakery of racism and racial profile was merely opinion  The appellate ruling noted, however, that the bakery and its owners had not voluntarily injected themselves into the controversy at issue, nor in the “extreme public criticism” that followed. This ruling rejected the claim of the college that the plaintiffs were public figures — and therefore the applicable standard for libel should have “actual malice” not negligence.

HISTORY, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Ethnic Cleansing of the Pandits of Kashmir By Janet Levy

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/the_ethnic_cleansing_of_the_pandits_of_kashmir.html

In Vivek Agnihotri’s recent film, The Kashmir Files, frenzied crowds of Muslims chant Raliv, galiv, chaliv! (Convert, leave, or die!) as Hindu Pandit families cower in their homes. Bands of Islamic militants gun down security personnel and walk into Pandit homes to loot, rape, and murder. Wearing Indian army uniforms, they walk into Pandit villages and refugee camps, trick the residents by saying they must move to a safer location, then line them up and shoot them.

The film is set in Kashmir in the early 1990s. By then, the Pandits had long been reduced to a minority—about 140,000, or three percent of the population—in the beautiful Kashmir valley, their homeland since at least the fourth century BCE. Since the late 1980s, Islamic militancy, in the guise of a freedom (Azadi), movement gained momentum. As Pakistan-backed militants unleashed a campaign of mass murder, rape, and gory atrocities such as sawing a woman alive, nearly 100,000 Pandits were forced to flee. Agnihotri composes some of the shocking events of that exodus into a unified story that has left audiences in India gasping—and angry that a compromised media never gave this ethnic cleansing due coverage.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Ensuring Election Integrity by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18403/ensuring-election-integrity

Congratulations to Alabama and Ballotpedia for their invaluable role in protecting our democracy.

In the age of Covid, with absentee voting now widespread, only one state, Alabama, has safeguards that “explicitly allowed only the voters to return their ballot”, to prevent third parties and ballot harvesters from making your vote disappear.

If you are unable to vote in person, or if you decide to vote with an absentee ballot, mail your ballot in a sealed envelope to your local Board of Elections Office (Absentee Vote Dept) — and please mail it yourself.

In the State of Alabama, they have figured out how to keep your vote from being stolen when a “ballot bandit” knocks on your door. Ballot harvesting has been defined as “the practice in which political operatives collect absentee ballots from voters’ homes and drop them off at a polling place or election office.” It might sound harmless, even “helpful,” but unfortunately it has been subject to vast abuse. So if there is a knock on your door by unlicensed vote harvesters, shut and bolt the door and grab your copy of the Constitution.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ketanji-Brown-Jackson & Dave Aronberg & Jeffrey Epstein

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/08/ketanji-brown-jackson-dave-aronberg-and-jeffrey-epstein/

Federal election records show newly anointed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has given money to just two politicians, both Democrats: Barack Obama and Dave Aronberg.

But who is Aronberg? He is a high school friend of Jackson from Florida, who, like her, has been accused of being soft on child sex offenders. The two were also classmates at Harvard Law School. Her financial gift to him is yet another data point indicating she is strangely not happy with laws protecting kids from sexual predators. With the Senate Thursday voting to confirm her 53-47, she is now in a lifetime position to review the constitutionality of those laws.

In 2009, Jackson donated $250 to Aronberg, then a Democratic Florida state senator (she contributed $400 to Obama the previous year, records show). At the time, Aronberg had been in the news for pushing a controversial bill to cut in half the distance registered sex offenders are required to live from schools, daycare centers, parks and other places kids congregate.

Jackson complained about such laws while attending Harvard Law with Aronberg.

In 1996, the year they both graduated, Jackson wrote an 18-page brief in the Harvard Law Review arguing that the judicial system was unfair to people who sexually prey on children, because it sentences them to monitoring and treatment after prison, which she viewed as additional “punishment” masquerading as prevention.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Armando Simon: College Degrees are a Bubble and a Collapse is on the Way

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/08/college-degrees-are-a-bubble-and-a-collapse-is-on-the-way/

“Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.” — Mark Twain

In the field of economics, a “bubble” refers to something that is being absurdly increased in value, much more than its true worth. The classic examples are the tulip mania bubble and the South Seas bubble. One could even make the case the 1929 U.S. stock market was a bubble. The results of such bubbles are invariably disastrous.

College degrees are a bubble. Many, if not most, degrees being granted are geared to be circular, that is, they are required for an academic setting. There, college graduates can happily regurgitate what their former professors told them, who in turn, repeated what their professors told them, each academic at each level in the process feeling very intellectual and very original. The problem is that there is a limited number of institutions that employ people to work in those fields or teach in them. Some politicians are proposing to exacerbate the quandary by offering free tuition, with the slogan, “Everybody deserves [?] a college education.”

Third World countries are faced with a huge mass of college graduates who cannot find a job — any job. I do not exaggerate when I say that if one of those college graduates lands a job at a local MacDonald’s, that graduate feels lucky, indeed. As has been observed, this tends to radicalize the resentful, unemployed, graduates, since they feel they are owed a job and status simply due to having gone to a university.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

If the Hunter Biden Story Was ‘Irrelevant,’ Why Was It Censored?

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/if-the-hunter-biden-story-was-irrelevant-why-was-it-censored/

At the University of Chicago’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference this week — a “how to” discussion, apparently — the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum was asked about the use of the “disinformation” charge as a pretext for suppressing news. Specifically, the student was referring to the concerted effort by mass media, Big Tech, and government to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story to protect Joe Biden.“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is I think it’s totally irrelevant,” she responded. “I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation. . . . I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States.”

Someone might let the January 6 committee, which questioned Ivanka Trump for eight hours the other day, know that the actions of the president’s offspring are totally irrelevant. Applebaum believed questions about presidential kids were relevant during the Trump years. She shared dozens of them, and wrote her own piece about their alleged corruption. And when the Hunter story broke, Applebaum thought it relevant enough to note that the “amazing thing is that even the fraudulent claims about Hunter Biden are so much less bad than many genuine, fully-reported, well-known stories about Trump, his children and their business deals.”

My italics indicate a word that is a synonym of disinformation. That was Applebaum’s contention. Now that a Politico reporter, the Washington Post, and New York Times have all confirmed the veracity of the New York Post’s reporting (probably because that information is going to be revealed in some filing), suddenly the story is a mere distraction.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

To ‘Fix’ the ObamaCare ‘Family Glitch,’ Biden Politicizes the IRS The new regulation is a clear violation of the law. By Brian Blase

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacare-politicizes-irs-internal-revenue-service-affordable-care-act-subsidies-families-tax-code-healthcare-biden-obama-11649337661?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

President Obama visited the White House Tuesday to support his successor’s attempts to expand ObamaCare. The big news is that the Biden White House has succeeded in convincing the Internal Revenue Service to propose a rule that would illegally extend insurance subsidies to people who are ineligible for them.

Mr. Obama’s presence at the White House was ironic given that the IRS’s proposed policy reverses its decision from a decade ago, when he was president. At that time, the IRS believed it had to follow the law as written. The reversal shows that the enforcement of the tax code has become deeply politicized. Through this rule, if finalized, the IRS will expand ObamaCare subsidies by billions of dollars a year beyond what Congress authorized.

At issue is whether an employer’s offer to provide health insurance to an employee’s dependents disqualifies those dependents from ObamaCare subsidies. The 2010 law created large subsidies for plans in the new exchanges—so large that lawmakers worried the fiscal cost would be untenable. Mr. Obama insisted that ObamaCare cost less than $1 trillion in its first decade. To meet that demand, Congress limited subsidies to people without access to Medicaid or an affordable employer plan.

The trick was determining affordability. ObamaCare based affordability on the cost of coverage for the employee alone. Both he and his dependents offered coverage are ineligible for subsidies if his premium payment for self-only coverage exceeds 9.6% of income.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Questions the media need to start asking about Hunter Biden and his dad Will America’s left-leaning press start asking questions? Andrew Mccarthy

Posted By on April 8th, 2022

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/questions-media-hunter-biden-dad-andrew-mccarthy

At a 2020 debate, President Donald Trump tried to press his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, on an intriguing financial transaction: $3.5 million invested in a fund controlled by Biden’s son. Though Hunter Biden is better known for drug addiction and overall instability than business acumen, Elena Baturina, the widow of Yuri Luzhkov, longtime mayor of Moscow and confidant of Vladimir Putin, for some reason saw wisdom in pouring Russian money into a Hunter venture. 

If Biden had been the Republican in the race, Trump would not have had to raise the question. The media would already have been asking it incessantly. The animating question of the campaign would have been why, when President Barack Obama made his vice president the point-man on administration policy regarding such countries as Russia, Ukraine, and China, people connected to those notoriously corrupt regimes suddenly thought it expedient to pay Biden’s ne’er-do-well son millions upon millions of dollars.

But Biden was the Democrat in the race. The media-Democrat complex, far from haranguing him until he answered such questions, was sure to help him deflect. In fact, an establishment-friendly assortment of former intelligence officials baselessly floated the notion that damning data on a computer that patently belonged to Hunter might be Russian disinformation. The press dutifully ran with it. 

So, in response to Trump, Biden parroted the disinformation dodge, dismissed his opponent as a “clown,” and posed as if the Hunter questions were not worth dignifying with answers.

The tables have turned.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

‘When Will Biden See That His Mistakes Are Harming America’s Interests?’ by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on April 7th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18402/arabs-biden-mistakes

“The UAE has allocated the bulk of the investments of its huge sovereign funds in the American markets, even excluding Asian and European markets, and has been keen to increase the volume of trade exchange with Washington. The UAE wanted to become America’s No 1 trading partner.” — Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, close associate of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates, Mufakiru Al Emarat, March 29, 2022.

“This prompted the UAE and other countries not to rely on the US as a sole strategic partner. The UAE’s relationship with the US partner is at stake…. the Biden administration… may be on the verge of losing a regional partner.” — Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, Mufakiru Al Emarat, March 29, 2022

“He [Biden] has not learned the lessons from [former US President Barack] Obama’s mistakes and disasters…. Biden is continuing to make more mistakes, particularly in his dealings with Russia and the Gulf countries.” — Muhammed Al Mahmeed, Bahraini writer, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, April 3, 2022.

Veteran Lebanese journalist and political analyst Kheirallah Kheirallah said that there is no real difference between Biden and Obama. “Nothing has changed in Washington, from Barack Obama to Joe Biden. If anything has changed, it is for the worse.” — Elaph, March 30, 2022.

“How can a US administration … [refuse] to take note that northern Yemen has become an Iranian base for missiles and drones? These missiles and drones are…. now threatening navigation in the Red Sea as well.” — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Elaph, March 30, 2022.

“[This US policy] has encouraged Iran to go far in threatening the countries of the region and their security with the help of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. To put it more clearly, there is no sane person in the region willing to take seriously any reassuring words issued by [US Special Envoy for Iran] Rob Malley and other officials in the US administration dealing with the Iranian portfolio. Every child knows that these American officials have nothing but appeasement for Iran….” — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Elaph, March 30, 2022.

“Worse than all of the above would be if Washington responds to the Iranian condition by removing the Revolutionary Guard Corps from the list of terrorist organizations, as it did with the terrorist Houthi militia.” — Khorshid Delli, Kurdish researcher, Al-Ain, April 1, 2022.

“Biden’s policy toward the Iranian nuclear is not acceptable to the allies in the Middle East and the Arab Gulf….” — Khorshid Delli, Al-Ain, April 1, 2022.

“We see what Iran’s proxies are doing in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Kuwait.” — Mashari Al-Thaydi, Saudi journalist Al-Ain, March 30, 2022.

Although many in the Arab world diplomatically refer to Biden’s action as “mistakes,” they appear to recognize that they are deliberate, and lacking in any consideration for the wellbeing of people who will have to continue living in the region — which the Americans making these decisions for them will not.

The Biden administration’s courtship of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, seems a replay of the same heartless, coldblooded lack of concern as the Americans showed for the people they were leaving behind when they pulled out of Afghanistan; and now, when the US is seen dragging its feet to avoid giving the Ukrainians enough weapons fast enough to defend themselves adequately from a Russian slaughtering army.

Many seem confused why the Biden administration would want this as their legacy.

Many Arabs are continuing to express disappointment and frustration with the administration of US President Joe Biden, particularly its perceived appeasement of Iran’s mullahs, failure to classify the Iran-backed Houthi militia as a terrorist organization and turning its back on America’s erstwhile allies and friends in the Arab world.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ben & Jerry’s Tries to Force Food Apartheid An unprecedented turning-point lawsuit over E. Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Edwin Black

Posted By on April 7th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/ben-jerrys-tries-force-food-apartheid-edwin-black/

For the first time in human-rights history, an international mega-corporation has attempted to coerce a licensee into food apartheid. This unprecedented contractual demand has provoked a turning-point lawsuit that asks whether it is legal to attempt to force a food licensee to discriminate against entire communities, especially ethnic ones. More distilled, the lawsuit asks to uphold the basic right to be fair, ethical and legal.

The litigants are “David,” the tiny Ben & Jerry’s licensee in Israel vs. the twin “Goliaths,” Ben & Jerry’s of Vermont and its billion-dollar parent company, multi-brand behemoth Unilever.

Ironically, the effort to compel this food apartheid springs from none other than the alleged icon of social values, Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s. The famous, funky ice cream brand—operated by aging millionaire hippies Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield—has demanded that its longtime Israeli licensee stop selling in eastern Jerusalem, as well as in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank. These regions are predominantly populated by Arabs.

From the beginning, Ben & Jerry’s Israel’s owner, Avi Zinger, knew he could not comply with such an illegal request. In Israel, where communities and entire villages are historically ethnic, commercial discrimination by ethnicity, neighborhood or geographic location is strictly illegal. The United States has enacted laws forbidding similar “redlining” activities by food distributors, service providers and financial institutions.