NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Cauldron of Challenges Sydney Williams

Posted By on April 27th, 2025

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

President Trump has achieved a few goals. Border crossings by illegal migrants have declined by close to ninety percent. Military recruitment is up, with Army recruitment at 15-year highs. DOGE has exposed waste and fraud in many government agencies, and woke ideology is on the run. And, unlike the Biden years, we know who is in charge at the White House.

But in other respects Mr. Trump has been less successful. He is wrong, in my opinion, when he calls for the capitulation of Ukraine, and when he advocates for tariffs – a tax on American consumers. His on-again-off-again tariffs have wreaked havoc with the stock market, weakened the dollar, and caused a pause in the economy. A weak dollar would result in higher interest rates for U.S. Treasuries. While illegal migration poses cultural and dependency risks, globalization and a strong dollar have raised living standards, as the cost of consumables, measured in hours worked, have declined over the decades, due to manufacturing being done where it is most cost efficient, along with technological innovations. Stronger education standards, secure borders, and a tax code that encourages innovation and investment are what is needed, not barriers to free trade. And I fail to understand Mr. Trump’s love affair with cryptocurrencies.

This essay focuses on a few of the challenges we face. (There are, obviously, many others). Shakespeare’s three witches had filled their cauldron with fillets of fenny snakes, eyes of Newts, tongues of dogs, and other such delicacies, but the cauldron of which I write is filled with threats: federal debt and unfunded liabilities at record levels; interest rates that encourage borrowing and discourage savings; public schools that don’t educate; declining birthrates – a world-wide phenomenon; an imperialistic China; a revanchist Russia; a soon-to-be nuclear armed Iran; and, I would argue, an absence of moral judgement.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Back in the DOGEhouse: Democrats just love to hate Elon Musk

Posted By on April 27th, 2025

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5266419-musk-tesla-government-efficiency

Elon Musk has announced that, in the coming months, he will be spending more time managing Tesla, and less time on his Department of Government Efficiency. Although good news for Tesla shareholders, this is bad news for our country.   

Musk’s pivot is not shocking, but it should anger every patriotic American. The left is guilty of carrying out one of the most despicable vendettas of all time — against Musk and the car company he founded. Why? Because Musk has been volunteering his time to help streamline and modernize our government. Americans no longer wear poodle skirts or eat TV-dinners, but they are saddled with a federal bureaucracy propped up by 1950s-era technology and systems. It is absurd, and DOGE has been working at warp speed to make it better.   

The left’s insane outrage over Musk’s investigations into federal waste and fraud has driven attacks against Teslas for months, with cars being vandalized, drivers being harassed and dealerships being firebombed. Not one Democrat has called for an end to the madness.  

The incessant attacks have helped drive a downturn in sales of Tesla cars, disappointing earnings and a stock that is down 37 percent just since the beginning of the year. After all, who would want to put themselves or their families in danger by driving a Tesla? In response to the company’s travails, Musk has agreed to spend more time at the helm.  

Far from calling off the brutal attacks against Teslas, Democrats have cheered the company’s struggles. 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Freddy Gray Harvard’s intricate China ties There are a number of allegations that Chinese funding has excessively influenced the university’s research and academic output

Posted By on April 27th, 2025

https://thespectator.com/topic/harvard-intricate-china-ties/

Scratch almost any major US political story and sooner or later you’ll hit a big red nerve that belongs to the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Tariffs, energy, TikTok, the border, Fentanyl, Greenland, Panama, the Gulf of America – on all these subjects the Trump administration is, one way or another, trying to limit Beijing’s power in the West. And Donald Trump’s “war on Harvard,” it turns out, is no exception. It’s clear that the President is pushing against anti-Semitism and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion madness on America’s most famous campus, as well as in countless other colleges and universities. But the drive against woke insanity is often also a push back against the increasing influence of China in western life, especially in the many educational institutions into which the CCP has been pouring billions of dollars over the past two decades.

When Joe Biden was exposed for hoarding classified files, it soon emerged that some of the sensitive documents had been stored in the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, at the University of Pennsylvania, which just so happened to have received $30 million from Chinese donors. But that’s small fry compared to the money Harvard has been harvesting from the world’s second superpower in recent years. In the 2010s, the massively indebted Chinese real-estate behemoth Evergrande pledged $115 million to Harvard Medical School, which may or may not have had something to do with the way America’s scientific elite, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, pivoted against the Covid lab-leak theory in 2020. In the end, it donated $12 million, according to reports.

Now it seems that Harvard’s China ties may be even more intricate than previously believed. These connections may have given the Trump administration precisely the legal cudgel it needs in its bid to force Harvard to play by its rules on DEI and other issues. The new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has already declared that Harvard has not been “fully transparent or complete in its disclosures” concerning foreign donations. There are a number of allegations that Chinese funding – more than $1 billion worth of donations in total – has excessively influenced Harvard’s research and academic output.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Charles Lipson Another spring, another round of anti-Semitism on campus What’s different is that the Trump administration is finally taking a strong stand

Posted By on April 27th, 2025

https://thespectator.com/topic/another-spring-another-round-of-anti-semitism-on-campus/

The weather is growing warm, which means anti-Semitic demonstrations are blooming at elite universities. The hatred of Jews is no longer hidden, as it was in the days when Jewish enrollment was quietly limited by quotas. Now, it is displayed openly by a campus coalition led by hardline American leftists (students, faculty, and administrators) and Muslim students, some from America, some from the Middle East. 

Their hatred is screamed at Jewish students and pro-Israeli speakers—and then at anyone who dares support them or simply demands the basic right to speak or be heard. Any support for Israel is damned as “genocide” and then shouted down, shamed, or worse. The demonstrators have no compunctions about accusing any political adversary of complicity in horrific crimes.

The good news – there is some – is that a few universities are beginning to say “Stop It!” Yale, to its credit, just revoked the official status of Yalies4Palestine for “flagrantly violating the rules” when it set up an encampment and blocked Jewish students from crossing. The group’s violations came after it had met with senior university officials and been warned about its future actions. They disregarded the warnings. The question now is whether Yale will do more than revoke the organization’s “registered student status”? Will it discipline the students? It hasn’t so far, just as it failed in the past when the demonstrations supported other leftist causes. Remember, too, that Columbia did nothing to the students who camped on for weeks and occupied a building on campus. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg let them go with a pat on the head.

Problems like those at Yale and Columbia are not new, but they have grown worse because of weak-kneed responses from leaders, on campus and off. University administrators almost never suspend or expel students for harassing other students or violating basic rules of campus life. District attorneys in blue states are just as bad. They have done little to punish students and their allies who break the law, all under the false flag of “progressivism.” The Biden Administration and its Department of Justice were just as bad.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israeli Archaeologists Blacklisted for Uncovering Biblical Sites in Judea and Samaria

Posted By on April 27th, 2025

https://israfan.com/p/archaeologists-boycotted-judea-samaria

Political boycotts by global academia silence findings from Israel’s historic heartland, leaving ancient Jewish heritage at risk.

In the hills of Judea and Samaria, where the stories of the Bible come to life in stone and soil, Israeli archaeologists are facing academic exile. Despite groundbreaking discoveries that illuminate ancient Jewish history, researchers are being shunned by international journals their work deemed untouchable, not for lack of scientific merit, but for its location.

Archaeologists like Dvir Raviv of Bar-Ilan University, who recently completed a season of excavations at Sartaba, a Hasmonean fortress from around 100 BCE, are unable to publish their findings in any major academic outlet. “I know I won’t be able to publish the results of my study in any of the leading publications,” Raviv says, pointing to a “clever boycott” enforced by a politically motivated academic elite.

The chilling effect is widespread. Even non-Israeli scholars face retribution for working in these areas. Dr. Scott Stripling, an American archaeologist leading excavations at biblical Shiloh, says his team’s findings are consistently rejected on political grounds. “If I wait for Middle East peace, my work will never be completed,” he says.

Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israeli archaeologists largely retreated from Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority assumed administrative control. But even in Area C, under full Israeli jurisdiction, research is obstructed not by local laws, but by international academic censorship.

“The biblical heartland remains critically understudied,” says Raviv. “To me, it’s an opportunity. But to humanity, it’s a loss.”

Judea and Samaria are rich with unparalleled archaeological value.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Ken Girardin New York’s Offshore Wind Project Is Shutting Down—Thank Goodness The Empire Wind farm off the coast of Long Island is a billion-dollar boondoggle.

Posted By on April 27th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-offshore-wind-project-empire-wind

Last week, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum ordered construction halted on Empire Wind, the planned array of roughly 150 wind turbines off the coast of Long Island. In doing so, he may have sunk the centerpiece of New York State’s energy policy—thank goodness.

The agency that, among other things, oversees the National Park Service shouldn’t have been the first line of defense for electricity customers. But Burgum said his team spotted “serious deficiencies” in federal approvals granted to the offshore windfarm—necessary because the feds have jurisdiction over the nation’s continental shelf. The Biden administration had signed off on myriad permits and consultations with other federal agencies, deeming the years-long process (which began in President Trump’s first term) “complete” in March 2024. Objections lingered though: they ran the gamut from concerns about marine life and viewsheds to local fishermen facing significant economic harm.

The major beneficiaries of Empire Wind’s potential cancellation aren’t whales and fish—they’re New York electricity customers, who would have paid billions in subsidies for a less reliable grid.

Consider the poor governmental choices that brought us here. Over the past decade, Albany’s energy policy has been a tangle of unreachable goals, double standards, and labor-union giveaways—all hidden behind rules that prevent utilities from itemizing costs on customer bills.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The West Is Falling into Iran’s Trap – Again by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on April 26th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21574/iran-nuclear-trap

Talks offer hope of sanctions relief, currency stabilization, and international legitimacy — all while buying time to continue uranium enrichment behind closed doors. The West calls it a “deal.” Iran calls it a jackpot.

Just imagine the conversations happening behind closed doors in Tehran. Iranian officials are likely saying something like: “…At least we can waste another two or three years pretending to negotiate. We can agree to pause enrichment a little bit, just enough to give them a diplomatic victory…. Trump is so eager to get a discredited Nobel Peace Prize, but the Norwegians will never give it to him — to them, the ‘left’ is a religion. Their heroes are Castro and Arafat. Meanwhile, to show Norway how peaceful he is, Trump will let Iran, Russia and China off the hook. Poor fellow, it will not work. He will just find himself the ‘sucker’ and the ‘loser.’ Meanwhile he will have thrown away what could have made him a historic great. While he is are celebrating his ‘peacefulness’ in keeping America out of a war that was not going to happen anyway, we can keep on moving toward our bomb, our missiles and the miniature nuclear warheads to put on them. Quietly. And if we get caught? So what. The Americans will negotiate again!”

The idea that you can contain or “monitor” Iran with inspections and enrichment caps is a lovely, romantic fantasy. Sadly, this regime cannot be trusted. It cannot be allowed to keep any part of a nuclear infrastructure. The only acceptable path is total dismantlement or permanent destruction. No centrifuges, no uranium enrichment, no stockpiles, no underground facilities. Nothing.

Each round of diplomacy gives the regime more room to maneuver, more time to develop its weapons, and more resources to fund terror proxies across the Middle East and Latin America. The result is not peace — it is proliferation.

Unless the West finally gets serious, Iran will cross the nuclear weapons threshold and the world will not only face an extremist, predatory regime armed with nuclear weapons, but the mother of all arms races.

Unfortunately, the only solution left is to completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. No talks. No deals. No illusions. It is time to bring these endless negotiations to an end.

The Iranian regime is once again celebrating having diplomatic negotiations with the United States, this time under the Trump administration. Tehran’s leaders have been framing these renewed talks as a positive that will enable them to retain their hold on power, and their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs to unleash at a later date.

Iranian officials, including leading figures in the foreign ministry, have voiced optimism about the direction of diplomacy, portraying the Trump team’s willingness to engage as a step toward “mutual understanding.” They would like the world to believe that diplomacy is working — when in reality, it is a trap. The excitement in Tehran is not a signal of peace or cooperation; it is a victory celebration. Whenever a terrorist regime that chants “Death to America” starts smiling about negotiations, it is not diplomacy — it is a win.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Alex Grobman, Book Review Babi Yar and the Holocaust Moscow Tried to Bury – The Jewish Link

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://jewishlink.news/babi-yar-and-the-holocaust-moscow-tried-to-bury/

On September 29-30, 1941, the eve of Yom Kippur, the Germans murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women and children in Babyn Yar (Babi Yar), almost four miles from the center of Kiev, the capital of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic. Although Babi Yar was “not the largest Holocaust-era mass murder site on Soviet soil,” it was significant for two reasons, explains historian Shay Pilnik, director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University. Kiev, with a Jewish population of 160,000, was “the hub for Jewish culture” and the first European capital to become Judenrein (free of Jews) during the Holocaust.

Babi Yar’s Uniqueness

Pilnik quotes historian Lucy Dawidowicz, who remarked that the “unprecedented” pace of the killings, which occurred within 36 hours, is the second reason for Babi Yar’s importance. The numbers established “a record in the annals of mass murder,” she said. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the total capacity of the four gas chambers and crematoria was a maximum of 6,000 a day at its peak.

Another justification for Babi Yar’s uniqueness, Pilnik said, was that although the site “was not the largest killing field during World War II in the Soviet Union, the approximate number of 100,000 dead in Babi Yar, the overwhelming majority of whom were Jewish, helped establish Babi Yar’s position as the centerpiece of the Holocaust in the USSR.”

Murders continued at Babi Yar for a number of months, Dawidowicz said, but never to the extent as on September 29-30, when 33,771 Jews were slaughtered simply because they were Jews. Pilnik estimates “a minimum of 10,000 non-Jews” were murdered, “among whom were Russians, Ukrainians, and Roma,” who were buried on the site.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Wall Street Journal Fuels Sanders Socialism Plus, Harvard, Yale endowments try selling off some private equity Ira Stoll

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.theeditors.com/p/wall-street-journal-fuels-sanders-socialism-gabriel-zucman-billionaires?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_

My morning Wall Street Journal had a box on the front page with a graphic headlined “The Rich Get Even Richer,” teasing a news article inside under the headline “Richest of Rich Gain $1 Trillion.”

That eight-paragraph article on page two included six paragraphs that contained mention of or attribution to Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. The page-two graphic, which is bigger than the story, is also attributed, in fine print, to “Gabriel Zucman, analysis of Forbes, Fortune, and Federal Reserve data….”

This is garbage on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start.

For one thing, Zucman is just one economist of many, and he’s not super-credible. The New York Times reported in 2020: “Other economists, including some who held top jobs under past Democratic presidents, have attacked Mr. Zucman and Mr. Saez over their research methods, their policy conclusions and their data. Conservative economists say their proposals would cripple economic growth. Last year, the faculty at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government voted to offer Mr. Zucman, 33, a tenured position. But Harvard’s president and provost nixed the offer, partly over fears that Mr. Zucman’s research could not support the arguments he was making in the political arena, according to people involved in the process.”

For another thing, the present tense of the front-page and page-two headlines isn’t supported by this year’s reality, at least to date. The richest of the rich have taken a hit this year so far owing to the stock market downturn related to the Trump tariffs, Congress’s slow motion on a tax cut bill, the Federal Reserve’s decisions to stop cutting interest rates since Trump’s inauguration, or whatever else you want to blame it on. Zucman wants to talk about how much richer the rich got in 2024 because it supports his policy agenda of raising taxes, but he doesn’t want to talk about how these same people saw their wealth plunge in 2025 because so much of their assets are at risk, tied up in stock of companies that they built. The Journal items would have been good headlines four months ago. Now, they read like old news. And anyone who has been on one of those Forbes lists can tell you how reliable or unreliable they are. They are not exactly chacarterized by super-high high precision. When I was at the New York Sun we once figured out that Forbes was counting Michael Bloomberg as worth $5 billion when the real number was more like $20 billion. In its prime, the Wall Street Journal did its own research on this stuff, rather than rely on some left-wing economist’s regurgitation of numbers from Forbes. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say in social science research.

I rolled my eyes and put the newspaper away. The editorial page is so strong—Ruth Wisse!, etc.—that I cut the news columns some slack.

Then I opened up X on my phone and saw Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, making a talking point out of the Journal story.

“Today in America, the rich are getting richer & working families are struggling. What is Mr. Trump doing about this? He’s getting ready to give tax cuts to billionaires while making it harder for Americans to access the Medicare, Social Security & veterans benefits they earned,” Sanders posted, with a screenshot of the Journal story and the “WSJ” logo.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Heather Mac Donald Trump Takes His Biggest Step Yet Toward Restoring Meritocracy The administration’s executive order eliminating disparate-impact theory restores the 1964 Civil Rights Act to its original meaning.

Posted By on April 25th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-restoring-meritocracy-executive-order-disparate-impact-theory-civil-rights

Measured in Trump time, it took them eons to get around to it, but the White House has finally taken the most important step it can to restore meritocracy to American society: eliminating disparate-impact theory from civil rights analysis and enforcement.

Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters. It has been used to eliminate prosecution for a large range of crimes, including shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and resisting arrest; to end police tactics such as proactive stops (otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk); and to purge safety technologies like ShotSpotter and speeding cameras from police departments.

In none of those cases has it ever been demonstrated that the disfavored standard was implemented to exclude blacks or other minorities from a position, opportunity, or right. The genius (if a diabolical one) of disparate-impact theory was that it obviated any need to show discriminatory intent on the part of a targeted employer or institution. Discrimination was inferred simply by the effect of the colorblind standard.

Disparate-impact theory preserved the hegemony of the civil rights regime long after the original impetus for that regime had all but disappeared. One would be hard-pressed today to find any mainstream institution that discriminates against blacks in admissions, hiring, or promotion. The reality, in fact, is the opposite: every mainstream institution is desperate to hire and promote as many remotely qualified blacks as possible; it is white males who are disfavored and excluded from positions based on their skin color.