Displaying posts published in

September 2024

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Education for Freedom, Not DEI The dire urgency for access to alternative ideas. by Bruce Thornton

By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/education-for-freedom-not-dei/

Two Supreme Court decisions in 2023 struck down the use of race-based admission to colleges and universities, and proscribed various proxies for race like admission essays. But just a year out, the Wall Street Journal reports, “The group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA),” who represented the Asian-American applicants before the court, “suspects this [violation of the rules] about Yale, Princeton and Duke universities, and on Tuesday it asked the schools for information on how they chose the current freshmen who will graduate in the class of 2028.”

Having spent more than 50 years of my life in universities, I’ve had a front-row seat for observing how universities over the years have juked their admission criteria to make sure they admitted enough “protected classes,” which means anybody except white males. In my university, for example, even after California in 1996 passed Proposition 209, which forbade the explicit use of race, the admissions and hiring process still comprised numerous opportunities for evaluators to discern the applicant’s race.

The former “Affirmative Action Officer,” for example, required the hiring committee to document each member’s sex and race, as well as the applicants’. After Prop 209, the university didn’t observe the law, but merely changed the title to the “EEOC Officer,” who still gathered the same data that were inappropriate if the process was truly merit-based, while reminding everybody that the federal agency Big Brother was watching.

So those experiences made me skeptical when “Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority that students must be admitted ‘based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race’ and that ‘what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly.’”

But the really damaging idea connected to affirmative action came from an earlier Supreme Court decision and still remains today. Despite the blatant violation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act, these race-based policies were given the Supreme Court’s imprimatur in its 1978 Bakke decision. The court didn’t, as it should have, proscribe preferences based on race, but just numerical quotas, which were easily circumvented to reach the same end––choosing by race rather than merit.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Righteous War on Hezbollah Rich Lowry

By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/09/israels-righteous-war-on-hezbollah/

The Jewish state is under no obligation to tolerate the intolerable.

Israel is supposed to tolerate the intolerable.

A terror group has launched thousands of missiles into the Jewish state over the last year — catalyzed by a hideous pogrom against Israel carried out by another terror group — and we are told that it is Israel, finally hitting back in earnest, that is dangerously escalating the situation.

Since the Hamas atrocities on October 7, Lebanon-based Hezbollah has fired roughly 8,000 rockets at Israel. These indiscriminate attacks have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee the north of the country. In July, a missile killed twelve children and teenagers who were playing soccer in the Golan Heights, a random massacre with no military purpose whatsoever.

Israel retaliated for the horror in the Golan Heights but has generally absorbed Hezbollah’s attacks, since it’s been focused on the war against Hamas to its south while the Biden administration has been working to stay its hand in the north.

The theme, as ever, is that the Jewish state is expected to accept as background noise unprovoked attacks on its sovereign territory that no other state would ever abide.

What other country is asked to bear the rocketing of its civilian population as the price for faux regional comity?

Israel won’t abide by these rules, and nor should it. It began turning up the heat against Hezbollah with its Mission Impossible–worthy attacks on Hezbollah operatives via their pagers and other electronic devices.

The pager attack was an experiment in whether Israel could carry out perhaps the most carefully calibrated counterterrorist operation in the modern age and still get accused of committing war crimes. Sure enough, AOC and others have condemned the Jewish state.

Israel hits terrorist targets from the air — and it’s accused of war crimes.

Israel goes in on the ground — and it’s accused of war crimes.

Israel does neither, opting instead to target terrorists by using their own devices against them — and it’s accused of war crimes.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Zelensky’s Inexplicable and Inexcusable Partisanship By Michael Brendan Dougherty

By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/zelenskys-partisanship/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=first

Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to campaign with Kamala Harris and to specifically attack the Republican vice-presidential nominee — preemptively blaming J. D. Vance for a global war — is unwise for many reasons. By appearing at what was in effect a campaign event for Democrats, the Ukrainian president himself is now deliberately and knowingly contributing to the political polarization of this issue in a way that can only work to his country’s detriment. 

There are two possible explanations for this bizarre stunt: One, Zelensky has concluded that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is correct in saying that a Trump victory means that U.S. aid to Ukraine will immediately be zeroed to nothing. Or two, the Harris campaign is using its own leverage over Zelensky to make him a campaign surrogate, hoping to complete its pitch to Nikki Haley–style Republican voters who overwhelmingly support Ukraine, even if this stunt does more damage to Ukraine’s cause among Republicans generally.

To the first point, there is little evidence Donald Trump will simply cut off U.S. support for Ukraine. Trump has been cagey about his views on supporting Ukraine, but there are some clues about his wanting to keep his options open. First, he backed Republican Mike Johnson in the House as Johnson signed onto a Ukraine aid package. Second, Vance, as his running mate, has stuck to the script set by Trump. Even though Vance went out of his way to debate and cajole his own party on this issue when he was in the Senate, he did not mention Ukraine once in his own convention speech, and on the stump he repeats Trump’s views, not his own. Trump has said only that the war wouldn’t have happened if he were in office, and that it will end shortly after he is elected. He has also implied that he could, if he wanted to, make worse problems for Vladimir Putin.

To the second point, the deployment of Zelensky on the American political front amounts to a tacit admission that perhaps Ukraine isn’t vital to America’s interests. If it were, Democrats would not make it an acceptable sacrifice in a presidential campaign.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Women, Children, Disabled Pay The Price For Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Sally C. Pipes

By on September 25th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/25/women-children-disabled-pay-the-price-for-obamacares-medicaid-expansion/

Obamacare greatly expanded Medicaid eligibility. As a result, about 20 million able-bodied, working-age adults who were previously ineligible are now enrolled in the program. 

But as a new report from the Paragon Health Institute makes clear, their gains have come at the expense of the pregnant women, children, and people with disabilities that Medicaid was established for. 

The harm to these legacy beneficiaries, and to taxpayers, will only mount unless Congress fixes the perverse incentives that Obamacare created for the nation’s flagship health program for the poor.

Obamacare directed states to expand Medicaid eligibility to able-bodied adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty line. Forty states and the District of Columbia have complied.

Previously, eligibility had been restricted to vulnerable people — like nursing home residents with virtually no assets, or minor children, or pregnant women who lacked other health coverage. 

Obamacare incentivized states to enroll able-bodied adults by having the federal government cover most of the cost. 

For the legacy Medicaid population, the feds normally pick up between half and three-quarters of enrollees’ health care costs; states foot the rest of the bill. For the expansion population, Washington initially picked up 100% of the cost. Now the federal government covers 90%. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Should Biden Stay? 42% Say He Should Leave Office Before His Term Ends: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on September 25th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/25/should-biden-stay-42-say-he-should-leave-office-before-his-term-ends-ii-tipp-poll/

Does the United States of America have a functioning president right now? That question isn’t meant to be provocative. Members of both major parties have noted that President Joe Biden seems to have gone AWOL from his official duties as the nation’s executive in chief. A large chunk of voters agree, saying they want Biden to leave office right away. 

In August’s I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,488 registered voters, taken from  July 31-Aug. 2, shortly after the Democratic Party forced Biden to step down as his party’s candidate, we asked voters the following question: “Which of the following do you believe is in the best interest of the country?” 

As we wrote then:

“Respondents were given four possible responses: ‘Biden should finish his term,’ ‘Biden should step down and hand over the presidency to Harris,’ ‘Biden should be removed from office using the 25th Amendment,’ and ‘not sure.’ “

“The answer? A small plurality of 48% said they wanted Biden to ‘finish his term,’ while 41% said they wanted him either to ‘step down’ (21%) or “be removed” through the 25th Amendment (20%). Another 12% weren’t sure.”

A month later, for our September poll of 1,582 adults (taken from Aug. 28-30), we asked the same question. There was virtually no change in the overall numbers.

A hefty 42% of voters still agree either that “Biden should step down and hand over the presidency to Harris” (21%) or “should be removed from office using the 25th Amendment” (20%). Another 11% say they’re “not sure” in the poll, which has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

‘He Targeted My Child for Sexual Exploitation’: The Persecution of Christians, August 2024 by Raymond Ibrahim

By on September 24th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20966/persecution-of-christians-august

Muslim militants slit the throats of about 26 people inside a church: “All non-Muslim men over the age of 12 were separated out before being killed.” — acnuk.org, August 30, 2024, Burkina Faso.

“So let everyone know that the role of Christians in Lebanon has ended! You have become a minority in this country, and yet you still hold high positions… Nobody would accept this issue. The coming generations will… not accept that the president must be Christian; he must be a Sunni Muslim or Shi’ite.” — Reda Saad, pro-Hezbollah commentator, x.com, August 18, 2024.

“We informed the police about the accused, but they still did not take any action, giving sufficient time to Asad to convert the minor child and contract an Islamic marriage with her…. Fairy is just 12 years old. She had no access to a cell phone and rarely went out of the home by herself….” — Parveen Shaukat, mother of Fairy Shaukat,12, abducted, converted and married by Muhammad Assad; morningstarnews.org, August 28, 2024, Pakistan.

“The accused not only kidnapped the child, he converted her and contracted an Islamic marriage to save himself from prosecution [a common practice by kidnappers to sexually exploit underage non-Muslim girls].” — Sumera Shafique, Christian attorney; morningstarnews.org, August 28, 2024, Pakistan.

“Women who disappear and are never recovered must live an unimaginable nightmare. The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt.” — Coptic Solidary report, “‘Jihad of the Womb’: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt”, copticsolidarity.org, September 10, 2020, Egypt.

On August 5, a Muslim migrant from North Africa was arrested for robbing a church in Turin. There were many other acts of arson, desecration (including of a Christian cemetery), statue breaking, and thefts targeting churches in Italy throughout the month of August — torinotoday.it, August 6, 2024, Italy.

On Sunday, Aug. 18, a mob consisting of local officials forcibly dragged a Christian pastor from his church and sealed off its site on the dubious claim that the place had originally belonged to the government…. “What was disappointing was those people who closed my church were my friends….” — morningstarnews.org, September 3, 2024, Indonesia.

On Aug. 30, a massive fire “broke out” in the Coptic Christian Diocese of Beni Suef in Egypt, consuming all of the five-story Christian building’s contents…. [T]his is only the latest of many churches in Egypt to be torched and immediately attributed to “faulty wires” and other natural causes. In one month alone, August 2022, a full 11 churches reportedly “caught fire.”… Also “interesting” is that “accidental” fires in mosques—which outnumber churches in Egypt by a ratio of 40 to 1—are completely unheard of.” — copticslodarity.org, September 2, 2024, Egypt.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

News Flash for DC: Diplomacy Gets You Slaughtered by Ruthie Blum

By on September 24th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20967/diplomacy-gets-you-slaughtered

Then there’s Kirby’s delicacy in describing how “it doesn’t appear like Mr. Sinwar is prepared at all to keep negotiating in good faith—especially after he murdered six hostages in a tunnel … execution-style.”

When, one wonders, did he ever negotiate “in good faith?”

Somebody should let [US National Security spokesman John] Kirby know that “all those people”—as well as the majority of Israelis throughout the country—have been urging Netanyahu to eliminate the threat through serious military action beyond tit-for-tat strikes of attrition.

Stephanopoulos pressed him further. “So, what is the U.S. doing exactly to advance a diplomatic initiative?” he asked.

“We have been involved in extensive and quite assertive diplomacy,” Kirby said proudly, clearly referring to pressure on Israel from the White House and State Department.

[Kirby] failed to clarify that Hezbollah attacked Israel, unprovoked, a day after Hamas committed the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust. Nor did he bother to remind Stephanopoulos that both are Iranian proxies. He did stress, however, that “we don’t believe military action is in either side’s best interest.”

Here’s a news flash for him and anyone else who hasn’t been facing a seven-front war of annihilation: Diplomacy gets you slaughtered. Military action, which is the only option in this case, should be welcomed—and victory championed—not hampered, by Israel’s professed allies.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

I grew up in Cuba. Self-censorship in American universities is all too familiar to me. FIRE intern reflects on totalitarian self-censorship on US college campuses. Justo Antonio Triana

By on September 24th, 2024

https://www.thefire.org/news/i-grew-cuba-self-censorship-american-universities-all-too-familiar-me

Justo Antonio Triana is a senior at Syracuse University

Growing up in Cuba, I had to measure with surgical precision each of my words at school, knowing they could possibly be deemed “problematic,” meaning “counterrevolutionary,” meaning I — or worse, my family — could get in serious trouble for what I said.

There is no room for controversy in a totalitarian state. If your thoughts do not align with the only permissible truth, you are an enemy. And no one wants to be the enemy of a repressive apparatus that is bigger and stronger than you. No one likes to feel powerless.

I remember one morning the school administrators summoned all the students to a meeting. They wanted to inform us that some American musicians were going to visit our high school in a few hours as part of a cultural exchange program. A student asked the principal if we could talk to the musicians. The principal replied, “Of course you’re free to talk to them, but beware that everything you say has consequences.” 

It was crystal clear to us what her words meant: If you dare to make us look bad, we will make you regret it.

Arriving in the United States in 2019, I again found myself self-censoring in a classroom.

When the search for truth is sacrificed for the sake of not being canceled, the outcome is a superficial and sterile education.

The difference is that in America it is not primarily administrators who enforce ideological homogeneity, but other students. Unlike in Cuba, the censorial administrator’s role in the U.S. is a surrogate one. They do not threaten ideological dissenters directly, but rather simply construct speech-chilling policies and enable the illiberal majority to silence students with dissenting views. Aware of the potential reputational and financial cost of publicly expressing a sincere rejection of free speech, university officials opt to quietly draft speech codes whose definition of “hate” is wider than the Pacific Ocean and encourage students to denounce each other or their professors over the slightest disagreement. 

In America, they let students do the dirty work of pressuring their peers into silence.

The result is a campus culture in which students and faculty know that everything they say “has consequences” and the accused are guilty until proven innocent. In this culture, self-censorship is the norm. While we might all agree that we should be empathetic to our peers, and that a bigot shouldn’t feel comfortable making others miserable, the current obsession with political correctness on campus is not fostering a culture of mutual understanding and respect. It’s fostering one of distrust and fear — a climate that is all too familiar to me.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hating and Hounding Jews on Campus Tony Thomas AUSTRALIA

By on September 24th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/features/qed/hating-and-hounding-jews-on-campus/

‘I made a workplace complaint to the police about students [who performed Nazi salutes], and then suddenly, my contract wasn’t renewed.’ — Jewish academic in Senate committee submission

At the weekend I began reading the submissions to the Senate committee on a Bill for a judicial inquiry into anti-Semitism at universities. I had no idea how intense the Jew-hatred is, how it’s tolerated, and even fostered by administrators.

My mother when a young Perth journalist, honeymooned to Holland and Germany in 1938. She wrote,

“At Aachen we had our first contact with Nazis, swastikas crawling like black spiders on the uniforms of the border guards. In Berlin we tried to read Dr Goebbel’s noticeboards with their hideous anti-Jewish cartoons. ‘Juden verboten’ signs on the public toilets were clear enough. English-speaking Germans would sometimes make a cautious approach, begging us to tell the outside world how their relatives had disappeared in concentration camps…”[1]

The same elements — swastikas, Nazi-style cartoons, “Jews unwanted!” signs — can be found at Australian universities today. In place of concentration camps and gas chambers, there are omnipresent chants of “from the river to sea” for exterminating Israel and its citizens.

Jewish students and staff are “disappearing” from our universities because of hostility and anti-Semitism in tutorials, classes and social life. Jewish Liberal MHR Julian Leeser says,

“Jewish tradition values education as one of the highest virtues. Jews are taught to have arguments for the sake of heaven – to arrive at truth through debate and discussion. This is the essence of a university. There is a particular tragedy about campus antisemitism which seeks to exclude Jews from the intellectual life of the nation. What happens on campus today sets the tone for the Australia of tomorrow…

It’s tempting to think of antisemitism as the domain of the uneducated. But history tells us that antisemitism also lives in the minds of society’s best educated. More than half of the people who attended the Wannsee Conference that developed the ‘final solution’ were either doctors or had PhDs.

From last August 5 to September 6, the federal government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism,  Jillian Segal, organised interviews of 65 Jewish students and academics nationally. To protect subjects from reprisals, she was unable to publicise the most harrowing and confronting testimonies. What she does spell out is so traumatic I have to wonder what she had to omit. One para really hit home:

Several students and staff who were interviewed reported seeking medical assistance and being prescribed anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication to manage their response to the rise in antisemitism in their university environment. Approximately half of those interviewed were visibly teary during their interview…A culture that excludes one group, intimidates, traumatises and makes them feel unsafe is contrary to the mission of universities and contrary to the best interests of the nation.” 

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NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Israeli Innovation Exposes Ineffective American Defense Sector Israel’s recent operation involving the use of beepers rigged with remotely triggered explosives highlights the stark contrast to the inefficiency seen in American intelligence and defense operations. By Christopher Roach

By on September 24th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/24/israeli-innovation-exposes-ineffective-american-defense-sector/

Israel’s recent attack using beepers containing remotely triggered explosives stands out as an incredibly innovative and daring operation. Nothing like it has previously taken place, and it has undoubtedly disrupted the security of its enemies in Hezbollah.

Israel has long been at war with its neighbors, including both nation-states and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Whether the current war in Gaza, earlier wars in Lebanon and the Sinai, or the long-simmering war with extreme elements among the Palestinians, it is unclear whether their recent operations will have much long-term impact. In other words, these conflicts seem fated to continue indefinitely.

The operation may even backfire slightly. Recall that Osama bin Laden stopped using satellite phones after revelations of American tracking. The now-apparent risk from the simplest cellular technology likely means that Hezbollah’s fighters will be even less able to use modern technology, whether email, phones, texting, or otherwise. This will reduce Israel’s ability to use signals intelligence to determine their actions in the future, but will also reduce operational efficiencies for Hezbollah. Like everything in life, there are tradeoffs.

Our Country is Falling Behind

As an American who contributes taxes so that the CIA and Defense Department can consume a trillion dollars or more of our money every year, it is hard not to feel some envy at the imagination behind Israel’s operation, the incredible skill and secrecy required to pull it off, and the true “shock and awe” it delivered to Israel’s enemies.

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