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August 2024

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The DEI Retreat: Demise Or Disguise? As top U.S. universities show, DEI remains deeply embedded within schools’ admissions and hiring.Ethan Blevins

By on August 15th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/14/the-dei-retreat-demise-or-disguise/

For months, skeptics of DEI mandates have celebrated as Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and even the Ivy League have rolled back DEI programs. The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action appeared to cool Americans’ re-infatuation with treating people differently according to race.

But history should temper our optimism. Some recent policy changes look less like a full-fledged rout and more like a strategic maneuver.

Take, for instance, the universities that have recently abandoned mandatory diversity statements from job applicants. For decades, hiring committees have used such statements as a tool to discriminate against right-of-center viewpoints and white or Asian applicants. 

Now, MIT and the Harvard Department of Arts and Sciences have scrapped diversity statements. Some critics of the practice seem to take this move as a sincere change. The New York Times quoted the former dean of the Harvard Medical School as saying “the large, silent majority of faculty who question . . . these diversity statements — these people are being heard.” Likewise, some observers called MIT’s move a “watershed moment.”

But, as Hamlet warned, “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” The Harvard deans themselves claim they’re ditching the requirement because it doesn’t work, not because these policies are wrong or illegal. They said diversity statements are “too narrow in the information they attempted to gather” and “confusing” to international candidates.

And the Harvard deans still want to consider candidate “efforts to increase diversity, inclusion, and belonging.” They will now use two statements: a “service statement” about how an applicant has strengthened academic communities and a “teaching and advising statement” about how an applicant has fostered an open learning environment.

MIT’s move appears more genuine, at least on the surface. MIT President Sally Kornbluth issued a statement recognizing that these statements “impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.” The MIT decision is also university-wide and supported by MIT’s general leadership. But even here, we should not let optimism overrun skepticism. President Kornbluth herself confirmed that MIT remains committed to DEI by other means.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Zero Emissions Grid Demonstration Project Follies: No Fraudulent Demonstration Projects Allowed! Francis Menton

By on August 15th, 2024

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=fc702f390e

Even as I regularly repeat my calls for a Zero Emissions Grid Demonstration Project, I’m ready for the next move in the back and forth. Suppose someone claims that a steady zero emissions electricity supply has been achieved? How can we determine and verify whether that is true? The facts can be sufficiently complex, and the incentives sufficiently perverse, that fraudulent claims are to be expected.

Consider the simple case of El Hierro Island. They set out in 2008 with the objective of building a wind/storage electricity system that would provide the island with zero-emissions electricity. To this day, the website of the wind/storage electricity company, Gorona del Viento, proclaims on its opening page “An island 100% renewable energy.” Proceed through the website, and you will find lots of happy talk about tons of carbon emissions saved, and about hours of 100% renewable generation. But if you are persistent, and finally get to the detailed charts of the latest statistics, you find that the percent of electricity from the wind/storage system for the most recent full year (2023) was only 35%. Because El Hierro is an island, it lacks the ability to cheat by sneaking in some electricity from gas or coal from a neighboring state or country and not counting it.

But now consider the case Switch Inc., which is one of the largest (maybe the very largest) companies that specialize in operating data centers. Like its colleagues in Big Tech, Switch is obsessed with the desire to show its virtue by claiming to have “emissions” as low as possible, preferably zero. As I discussed previously in posts here and here, the likes of Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon all have the same obsession, and they all put out annual “sustainability” reports that loudly proclaim their virtue in the headlines and introductions; but then, all of them ultimately admit in the fine print that their emissions are actually increasing with the voracious energy demands of data centers and AI.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Democrats’ Nauseating Doublespeak About ‘Freedom’George Orwell Call your Office!

By on August 15th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/15/the-democrats-nauseating-doublespeak-about-freedom/\

“Liberals don’t care what you do, so long as it’s mandatory.” — M. Stanton Evans

This week a coalition of leftist groups released an ad for Kamala Harris that contains what the New York Times describes as the “unified message from the left.” What is the message? The election is all about “our freedom” – by which they mean their freedom, not yours.

As the Times puts it, leftist groups tested its “freedom” messaging in the 2022 midterms to “reclaim the language about freedom and personal liberty,” which they say helped “blunt what had been expected to be a sweeping victory for Republicans.”

As we noted in this space recently, Harris has been talking up the theme of freedom, although she struggled to even name three. (See: “Kamala The Authoritarian Calls Election A ‘Fight For Freedom’.”)

The ad puts it this way: “This election is about two different futures. One where we control our lives. And one where they do.”

The people who made the ad should be charged with false advertising.

Let’s look at the freedom scorecard. It’s leftist Democrats such as Kamala Harris who:
Proposed a constitutional amendment that would shred the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
Worked with Big Tech to censor content they didn’t like, something that Democrats – not Republicans – overwhelming favor.
Pushed a California bill that would criminalize speech questioning the “consensus” on climate change.
Said, as Tim Walz did: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Self-Aggrandizement of Jill Biden Christine Rosen

By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/09/the-self-aggrandizement-of-jill-biden/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=third

On the tenure of Dr. President

President Joe Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would not run for reelection after all upended an already volatile campaign. As media pivoted to cover the likely nomination of Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic Party’s candidate, attention shifted away from Biden himself, forestalling efforts to unravel what has been going on in the White House as he has physically and cognitively declined. But it shouldn’t. The American people deserve to know what has been happening behind the scenes of this obfuscatory administration — and the role played by one person in particular: First Lady Jill Biden.

Jill Biden has long claimed to be her husband’s fiercest advocate. Immediately after the president’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June, she ushered him off the stage and to a local Waffle House, where the president, glassy-eyed and fatigued, pantomimed the motions of a retail politician. Then, at a debate-watch party, he stood beside the podium as Jill attempted to rally the faithful by telling him, “Joe, you did such a great job. . . . You answered every question!” while he stared vacantly into the crowd. Her words sounded both condescending and chilling given Biden’s alarming, confused debate performance. A week spent by the White House trying to reassure Democratic Party stalwarts and especially important donors that the president remains fit to serve failed to quell doubts. At a Hamptons fundraiser a few days after the debate, the first lady was adamant: “Joe isn’t just the right person for the job. He’s the only person for the job.”

Then came the cover of Vogue — not Jill Biden’s first, of course; she has been featured twice before. But this one, published after the debate, pictures her in a $5,000 Ralph Lauren coatdress that several media outlets called “suffragette white.” The first lady looks off into the middle distance with a stoic, expertly airbrushed expression, above an unintentionally revealing headline: “We will decide our future.”

Given the involvement of the first lady in the Biden administration’s promotion of its policies and, until recently, the president’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge his declining condition and popularity, it is worth asking: Who is the “we” in this statement? On social media, critics of the administration often call Jill “Lady MacBiden,” and anyone who does not slavishly follow the mainstream media will have heard Jill compared to Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow, who effectively ran the nation for her husband while hiding the severity of his physical condition from the American people. That comparison may be apt, but her behavior as second lady and first lady is also reminiscent of another wife of a prominent politician, albeit not an American one: Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Nationalist Chinese leader.

True, when Jill wants to get out of town, she flees to her house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., with a contingent of family members and Secret Service agents, not to exile in Taiwan with crates full of purloined priceless art, as Madame Chiang did, but the two first ladies have certain similarities. Madame Chiang could be both charming and vicious, as her New York Times obituary noted, and she took the lead in managing policy proposals for her husband, often serving as his translator (she spoke impeccable English). Madame Chiang was also a fierce advocate of her husband and his Nationalist cause, although after meeting her, then–first lady Eleanor Roosevelt noted, “She can talk beautifully about democracy, but she does not know how to live democracy.” She and her husband were, after all, shockingly corrupt.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Must Australia Submit? Mervyn Bendle

By on August 14th, 2024

The fact that two key ministers, Tony Burke and Jason Clare, will face Muslim candidates running on pro-Palestinian platforms at the next federal election should be welcomed, as it provides an opportunity for their community to engage in the nation’s political process. It will also highlight for the rest of Australia the dangerous waters into which the country is sailing as sectarian political parties emerge while confidence in the mainstream parties continues its radical decline.

Australia will be able to make up its mind about what sort of future: a thriving liberal democracy or some sort of stifling, hybrid theocratic-socialist dystopia.

Australia has not yet gone very far down the path followed by Britain and France, but under this ALP federal government we are not far behind. To understand how Australia could slide into a theocratic-socialist dystopia, people need to recognize only one thing: key élites of Western countries would sell them out in a heartbeat. That is the primary lesson to be drawn from the two best-selling books about the crisis of Islam in France: Soumission (‘Submission’, 2015) a novel
by Michel Houellebecq; and Le Suicide Français (‘The French Suicide’, 2014) a history of French decline by Éric Zemmour. Let us review the frightening scenarios they depict.

For Houellebecq, this treachery begins with academics and the universities, as emphasizes by making François, the protagonist (or anti-hero) of his narrative, a professor of literature at Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. There he specializes in the work of the influential nineteenth century novelist of decadence, J-K Huysmans, most famous for À rebours (1884), published in English as Against Nature. This is a work saturated with hatred and contempt for the West, Christianity, and the values and conventions of middle-class life, as is the vast bulk of the work done by arts and humanities academics today. François lives vicariously in this realm of aestheticist indulgence, musing nihilistically how the Western masses are little more than animals, living their lives mindlessly, without feeling the least need to justify themselves. “They live because they live, and that’s all”.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Harris Campaign’s Hubris May Be on the Verge of Breeding Nemesis By Jeffrey Blehar

By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-harris-campaigns-hubris-may-be-on-the-verge-of-breeding-nemesis/

As I’ve mentioned repeatedly in recent weeks, Kamala Harris’s substanceless presidential campaign has been a deranging, quasi-psychedelic experience, like watching the everyday physical reality you previously took for granted simply melt into fractal trails of pastel-colored candy floss. So picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies as I take you down to America’s political strawberry fields, where nothing is real and there’s nothing to get hung about — and where Harris’s campaign has now simply decided to steal policy positions from Donald Trump’s campaign because, hey, haven’t you heard? It’s a “vibes” election now, friend! And the vibes will make a sober man seasick.

The first example of the Harris campaign’s capsizing reality — as discussed at length on Friday — was her sudden rebranding as a “border hawk” — rewriting her history while tellingly never once promising to either stop or reverse the flow of illegals pouring over the southern border. This weekend? It was Kamala in Nevada (a swing state whose hinge is the service-worker-based casino industry) promising to end taxes on tips.

I assume others here will write about the policy implications of this fantasy proposal with greater intelligence than I am capable of mustering anymore. Honestly, it sounds like a terrible idea to me, and a transparent giveaway to secure the electoral votes of Nevada alone, which (pace, alas, Jon Ralston) does not matter all that much in terms of 2024’s electoral calculus. In fact, I said as much back when Trump himself first proposed it in Las Vegas, joking that from Trump’s perspective it was probably just a way to further ingratiate himself with exotic dancers.

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ELECTIONS, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Meet Philip Gordon: Kamala’s Foreign Policy Guru His views on Iran—and connections—are raising eyebrows in Washington. By Jay Solomon

By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/philip-gordon-kamala-harris-foreign-adviser

What does Kamala Harris believe about the Middle East? Does she side with the old-school Democrats in her party, who are traditionally pro-Israel? Does she believe that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was transformational—and should be salvaged? What does she think about a U.S. defense pact with Saudi Arabia? Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad? And Sudan’s widening civil war?

With the specter of a broad Mideast war hanging over this presidential election—and potential U.S. involvement growing as the Pentagon dispatches carriers, destroyers, and missile-defense capable cruisers to the region—the answers to all of these questions are far more urgent than they typically would be for American voters. The problem is that Vice President Harris has largely been a back-bencher on foreign policy, unlike some of her predecessors, including her boss Joe Biden. 

Which is why a man named Philip Gordon—who has served as Harris’s foreign policy adviser since she ran for the White House in 2020 and has worked in every Democratic administration since Bill Clinton’s—has become the focus of tremendous scrutiny in Washington over the past few weeks. 

Republicans believe that through Gordon they have the outlines of a Harris foreign policy agenda. And they’re already crafting their political attacks around it. “Democrats want to put him in charge of the White House’s entire foreign policy,” Republican senator Ted Cruz told The Free Press. “It would be unspeakably catastrophic.”

Gordon’s critics from the right say he’s not just wrong on issues—he’s skeptical of U.S. military power and the efficacy of financial sanctions—but that he’s also developed troubling contacts with institutions and individuals close to Iran. Republicans are already demanding Vice President Harris answer why Gordon wrote a string of 2020 opinion pieces with a Pentagon official, Ariane Tabatabai, who was tied last year to an Iranian government-backed influence operation, called the Iran Experts Initiative, tasked with selling the 2015 nuclear deal. (More in a moment.) 

“Before joining your office, Mr. Gordon co-authored at least three opinion pieces with Ms. Tabatabai blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests.” Republican senator Tom Cotton and Representative Elise Stefanik wrote Harris on July 31. “Each prediction was. . . wrong, as it was biased in favor of Tehran.”

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Leor Sapir A Consensus No Longer The American Society of Plastic Surgeons becomes the first major medical association to challenge the consensus of medical groups over “gender-affirming care” for minors.

By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-consensus-no-longer

The main justification for “gender-affirming care” for minors in the United States has been that “all major U.S. medical associations” support it. Critics of this supposed consensus have argued that it is not grounded in high-quality research or decades of honest and robust deliberation among clinicians with different viewpoints and experiences. Instead, it is the result of a small number of ideologically driven doctor-association members in LGBT-focused committees, who exploit their colleagues’ trust. Physicians presenting different viewpoints are silenced or kept away from decision-making circles, ensuring the appearance of unanimity.

As the U.K.’s Cass Review pointed out, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the U.S. Endocrine Society were especially important in forging this consensus, and they did so by citing each other’s statements, rather than conducting a scientific appraisal of the evidence. The “circularity” of this approach, says Cass in her report to England’s National Health Service, “may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor.”

Perhaps because it has never really depended on evidence, this doctor-group consensus has shown remarkable resilience in the face of major system shocks, including several whistleblowers, revelations from court documents that WPATH manipulated scientific evidence reviews, the Cass Review, a bipartisan commitment in the U.K. to roll back pediatric medical transition, and a growing international call for a developmentally informed approach that prioritizes psychotherapy over hormones and surgeries.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Is Now Goading Iran into Attacking Israel by Gordon G. Chang

By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20855/china-goading-iran-attack-israel

As countries around the world pressure Iran not to strike Israel — Tehran blames the Jewish state for the bomb that killed Haniyeh on July 31 — China was, in effect, publicly goading Iran to act.

Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Iran’s regime believes that it is no one’s proxy, but the Chinese seem to think that Iran is indeed theirs.

First, there is Beijing’s direct economic lifeline to the ailing Iranian economy.

Beijing also provided diplomatic cover for the assault on Israel. Propaganda support may have been even more important: Some 96.5% of the videos on Hamas carried on the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok support the terrorist group. China’s Communist Party uses that platform to amplify favored narratives.

[T]he [Gulf] region is now especially concerned about the flood of Chinese weapons into the hands of Iran and its terrorist proxies. Regional leaders should be: All three of Iran’s main proxy groups—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — fight with Chinese arms.

China’s President Xi Jinping, apparently adopting the views of Mao Zedong, has been promoting “chaos” to pave the way for worldwide Chinese rule. Wang Yi in his call on the 11th to Tehran made a bold chaos move.

China, from all indications, wants more war in the world’s most war-torn region.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on August 11 told Iran’s acting foreign minister that Beijing supports the Islamic Republic defending its “sovereignty, security, and national dignity.” Wang said that killing Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the terrorist group’s political leader, in Tehran violated Iran’s sovereignty and threatened regional stability.

As countries around the world pressure Iran not to strike Israel — Tehran blames the Jewish state for the bomb that killed Haniyeh on July 31 — China was, in effect, publicly goading Iran to act.

Why would the Chinese foreign minister do that? Perhaps because Beijing believes that its proxy, Iran, is losing a war and has to act fast.

Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Iran’s regime believes that it is no one’s proxy, but the Chinese seem to think that Iran is indeed theirs.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

How the West Bank became an ‘occupied Palestinian territory’ – opinion ICRC’s rulings have distorted and confused the issue of Israel’s legitimate claims to the territories, and are used to condemn Israel. By Moshe Dunn

By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-814137

Shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, the United Nations asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – a private Swiss organization that is the official guardian of the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) – for its opinion on the legal status of the territories that Israel had conquered, including Judea and Samaria, known as the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Unilaterally, the ICRC decided that Israel had violated international law (meaning the FGC) and declared the disputed areas to be Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This decision was adopted by the international community as law. The basis for the committee’s decision, however, was, and still is, secret – as are many things in Switzerland.

The ICRC later claimed that its decision was based on the Hague Regulations (1907), particularly Article 42, which defines occupation. It chose to ignore Article 43, however, which stipulates that occupation occurs when “the authority of the legitimate power… passe(s) into the hands of the occupier…” Since neither Jordan nor Egypt were the sovereign legitimate powers in the territories, Israel’s claims are not illegal.

In fact, earlier decisions of the international community, such as the San Remo conference (1920), which supported the idea of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine, validate Israel’s claims.

A Palestinian state did not exist at the time, nor has one ever existed.

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