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July 2018

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Dartmouth Business School to Evaluate Applicants Based on ‘Niceness’ By Katherine Timpf

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/dartmouth-business-school-will-evaluate-applicants-based-on-niceness/

But wouldn’t jerks just lie and make up stories that make them seem like decent people?

Dartmouth’s business school has announced that it will judge its applicants partially on their “niceness.”

The Tuck School of Business will decide whether to admit applicants based on four criteria: smartness, accomplishment, niceness, and awareness, according to a post on Tuck’s official website.

A subsection on the school’s “Admissions Criteria” we page, titled “Tuck Students Are Nice,” states:

This is quintessential Tuck, where you cultivate a habit of kindness. You actively encourage, celebrate, and support others. But being nice does not mean you’re a pushover who always agrees and defers. Nice Tuck candidates exhibit emotional intelligence. You layer compassion onto courage, and challenge others tactfully and thoughtfully. You display both strength and vulnerability. You ask for help, and you help others. You’re positive and principled. You act with respect and integrity, even when it’s not convenient or easy. You show empathy for the diverse experiences of others, while also sharing your own. You recognize that your success and others’ success are interdependent, and generously invest in both. Being nice at Tuck means building trust through deep, genuine connections that endure for life.

In an effort to evaluate a student’s level of niceness, the list of essay questions on the school’s webpage includes this one: “Tuck students are nice, and invest generously in one another’s success. Share an example of how you helped someone else succeed. (500 words)” According to an article in The College Fix, the school is now also asking references about the applicants’ niceness.

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MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

Is The New York Times Hiding A Democratic Candidate’s Obscene Rap Lyrics? July 23, 2018 By Bre Payton

By on July 24th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/23/new-york-times-hiding-democratic-candidates-obscene-rap-lyrics/

Rep. Jon Faso, a Republican seeking re-election in a hotly contested New York district, called out his opponent for referring to women as “cheap -ss hoes” (obscenity altered) in a rap lyric. Under the stage name “AD the Voice,” Antonio Delgado, who is running as a Democrat against Faso, also had some negative things to say about the police. In another lyric, Delgado reportedly sings: “When I spit, they (cops) sh-t” (obscenity altered).

In an editorial published last week, The New York Times slammed Faso for “race baiting” his opponent because the congressman criticized his opponent’s rap lyrics — yes, seriously. The New York Times now considers it race-baiting to criticize someone for rapping about “cheap -ss hoes.”

When the Times does quote Delgado’s lyrics and write about his history as a rapper, the editorial board mentions a patriotic lyric, with no mention of his offensive lyrics.

“He could start with one of his campaign opponent’s songs, ‘Draped in Flags’ in which Mr. Delgado said Americans who love their country have a duty to question their government,” the editorial reads. “‘It’s what a patriot does in hard times,’ Mr. Delgado rapped.”

In response, Fasso wrote a letter to the Times objecting to the tone of the article and quoting some of his opponent’s negative lyrics. But the Faso campaign says the Times, in an effort to shield Delgado, cut out the part of the congressman’s statement that quoted the lyrics. Here’s Faso’s comment in full, according to a press release from Faso’s campaign.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump May Revoke Security Clearances of Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, Comey, Hayden, and Rice By Debra Heine

By on July 24th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-may-revoke-security-clearances-of-brennan-clapper-mccabe-comey-hayden-and-rice/

The White House is looking into revoking the security clearances of several top Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday during the daily press briefing.

A reporter asked Sanders about Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) tweets Monday morning, calling on President Trump to remove the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan and others.Not only is the president looking to take away Brennan’s security clearance, he’s also looking into the clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice, and McCabe. The president is exploring the mechanisms to removing security clearance because they’ve politicized and in some cases monetized their public service and security clearances. Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the president is extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Next Ice Age By S. Fred Singer

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/the_next_ice_age.html

While most people still worry about global warming, I am more concerned about the next Ice Age. A glaciation would present a serious problem for survival of our present civilization, akin to a nuclear winter that many worried about 30 years ago.

Photo credit: Wellcome Images via Wikimedia Commons

Nuclear winter is all fantasy, of course; but ice ages are for real.

Natural warming of the Earth reached a peak 65 million years ago. The climate has been generally cooling ever since. Antarctic ice sheets started growing 25 million years ago. In the last 2.5 million years, the Earth entered the period of Ice Ages [the geological name is The Pleistocene] and has been experiencing periodic glaciations where much of the land was covered by miles-thick ice sheets.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Oops! Alleged Russian spy Maria Butina met with Obama officials in 2015 By Thomas Lifson

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/oops_alleged_russian_spy_maria_butina_met_with_obama_officials_in_2015.html

Desperate Trump-haters, searching for something – anything! – to show that the Trump administration is in bed with Vladimir Putin seized on the news a week ago that a young Russian named Maria Butina had been indicted for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), or, in the words of the DOJ, for “conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General.”

Here at last was a face – and a red-headed female one, to boot – to attach to the charges of treason being thrown around by the likes of John Brennan.

So intense was the fever that their dream had come true that, as Bre Payton reported in The Federalist:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday, members of the media mistook a Trump administration staffer for a Russian spy.

Emily Singer, a senior political reporter for Mic, tweeted out a photo from inside the White House and claimed that Maria Butina, who was charged Monday for conspiring against the U.S. as a secret Russian agent, was among a gaggle of staffers inside the Oval Office. She later realized her mistake and deleted the tweet, but only after it went viral.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

One photo from Israel the liberal media don’t want you to see By Ed Straker

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/one_photo_from_israel_the_liberal_media_dont_want_you_to_see.html

Israel is under attack, as always, this time for passing a law saying Israel is a Jewish state. As if it hadn’t been already. Liberals (among them, shamefully, some Jews) worry for the Arab population of Israel, as if their lives in Israel weren’t 1,000% better than the lives of Arabs in any other Arab nations, who are slaughtering each other by the hundreds of thousands.

Now Israel, which has been providing Syrian civilians with medical care for years during the civil war there, has helped several hundred civil defense workers escape from the Assad regime in an act of pure goodwill to its Arab neighbors.

In a predawn operation on Sunday, the Israeli military’s 210th Bashan Division oversaw the transfer of 422 Syrians from the “White Helmets” rescue organization and their families from the Syrian Golan Heights through Israel to Jordan.

“The families crossed [the fence], at first apprehensively, but once they reached the border, their eyes twinkled from happiness with the knowledge that they’d gotten their lives back. I am happy to be an officer in an army and in a country that is carrying out this mission and expressing the values of humaneness and compassion,” [a] lieutenant colonel said.

“This is the nature of our work and this is a significant moment like no other,” he added.

In recent years, Israel has been engaged in a massive multi-faceted humanitarian relief operation to keep thousands of Syrians along the border from starving or falling ill due to the lack of food and basic medical care.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Satellite Images Indicate North Korea Has Started Dismantling Rocket Launch Site Although some experts have played down the value of any dismantling activity, move is seen as a confidence-building measure by By Jonathan Cheng in Seoul and Michael R. Gordon in Washington

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/satellite-images-indicate-north-korea-has-started-dismantling-primary-nuclear-test-site-1532390574?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=1&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

Satellite imagery shows North Korea has begun taking down its main satellite launch facility, an apparent confidence-building measure by Pyongyang amid concerns about the slow pace of progress on dismantling the country’s nuclear weapons programs.

North Korea has begun to raze its rocket engine test stand and a related building at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, the country’s primary launch site for rockets since 2012, according to new imagery published Monday by North Korea-focused website 38 North.

The move, which hasn’t yet been announced by North Korea’s state media, is an apparent follow-through on a promise that President Donald Trump said was made to him during his June 12 summit meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In the six weeks since that handshake, concerns have grown about North Korea’s sincerity in fulfilling its pledges as part of the detente—particularly following apparent delays by North Korea in returning the remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War, the most immediate of the four points agreed to in the Singapore statement.

The moves to dismantle facilities at Sohae, on the country’s northwest coast, in contrast, “represent a significant confidence-building measure on the part of North Korea,” said Joseph Bermudez, an analyst for 38 North.

Mr. Bermudez, relying on commercial satellite imagery from July 20 and 22, said that given the progress of the activity, the dismantling had likely begun in the past two weeks.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Pompeo’s Iran Truth-Telling The President’s tweet distracts from a better speech.

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeos-iran-truth-telling-1532388462

Donald Trump’s all caps Twitter warning Sunday night to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani not to “THREATEN” the United States or suffer severe consequences gathered all the media attention on Monday. Which is too bad, because Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech Sunday that deserved more notice for speaking the truth about Iran.

Mr. Pompeo explained at the Reagan Presidential Library how the Iranian regime’s zeal to spread Islamic revolution has led its leaders to direct funds to “terrorists, dictators and proxy militias” rather than to the welfare of ordinary Iranians, and he called out Tehran’s corruption by name and example.

Consider Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli’s “lucrative construction and oil trading contracts” with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked (IRGC) companies. Or Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, the “Sultan of Sugar,” whose business has generated more than $100 million. Or Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “own personal, off-the-books hedge fund called the Setad, worth $95 billion,” which is untaxed and serves as a “slush fund for the IRGC.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The FBI’s FISA Faults The documents show the bureau relied heavily on the Steele dossier.

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-fisa-faults-1532388874

The FBI over the weekend finally released its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications for warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page, and now we know why the bureau resisted disclosure. Even in heavily redacted form, the applications confirm that the FBI relied on dubious partisan evidence to justify its warrant and withheld relevant information from the court.

The applications also vindicate the criticism of the FBI’s surveillance requests that were laid out in February by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. The committee’s findings were based on a review of the FISA applications, which were still classified at the time. The main Nunes claim was that the FBI made the Steele dossier—which was commissioned by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee—“an essential” part of its initial application. The FISA documents confirm this.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Can the Center Hold? It Must Solve Immigration First By Alexander Stern

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/07/23/can_the_center_hold_it_must_solve_immigration_first_110723.html

The country seems perpetually stuck in 2016. Pundits and authors continue rehashing what “really” happened in the election. Our president — as he demonstrated once again in Helsinki last week — remains preoccupied with electoral math. The Justice Department continues to grind away on the campaign, emerging every few weeks to send the media into a frenzy. And Republicans are still deciding whether, how, and how much to separate themselves from Trump.

The Democrats seem to be stuck even further back — in 2016 primary season — with their establishment wing trying to beat back a populist surge to its left. Bernie’s latest bounce back took the form of a surprising win by fellow New Yorker and self-described socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, over one-time Speaker hopeful Joe Crowley. Meanwhile, long-time senator Diane Feinstein lost the support of California’s Democratic Party to Kevin de Léon, the challenger to her left, despite crushing him in the primary. Even presidential hopefuls looking ahead to the 2020 primary season have darted left, likely in fear of being outflanked.

In other words, moderate Democrats face in 2018 much the same challenge Hillary Clinton faced in 2016, with populist storms surging on both sides. The difference is that today’s Democrats can learn from Clinton’s mistakes.

New Democracy, an initiative led by the Progressive Policy Institute’s Will Marshall, seeks to do just that. For New Democracy’s recent debut at the Washington Court Hotel, center-left politicians and policy experts exchanged ideas on a new Democratic platform. Speakers included Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, and William Galston, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who was domestic policy adviser to Bill Clinton. Galston’s talk focused on what he argued is a sine qua non for the center-left’s agenda: sensible immigration policy.

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