BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Academia’s Woke-Driven Suicide Some academics predict the collapse of the woke disciplines and colleges. Others hope for it. By Bruce Oliver Newsome

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/19/academias-woke-driven-suicide/

Stephen Flynn’s last book is covered with a graphic of his own design: a cruise missile labeled “speech code” is streaking towards an academic building. Academia is hoisted by its own petard. An institution that is supposed to be selling ideas destroys itself with censorship, cancellation, and dogma.

That wasn’t the graphic chosen for the book’s initial design. Ironically, Flynn’s study of academic threats to free speech was canceled in June 2019, within weeks of its scheduled publication. The publisher’s letter to the author alleged possible violations of British criminal laws against hate speech and incitement of racial hatred. An American publisher got it released within months, prefaced with Emerald Press’s ridiculous letter, without any legal trouble.

Flynn’s findings of genetic diversity in intelligence attracted woke ire. Part of Flynn’s “radical reform” of the university would include making the facts of genetic diversity a requirement in undergraduate education. He prescribed grade deflation, fewer admissions, more vocational alternatives, and more hard scientific requirements before students would be allowed to declare in the humanities and social sciences. His book doesn’t predict the end of higher education without reform, but, according to his publisher, Paul du Quenoy, that’s only because “he was too nice.”

Flynn died a year after the book’s publication. In a memorial discussion, the panelists all agreed that “the future of academia is at the very least highly uncertain and at the most really quite dire,” as du Quenoy put it.

Charles Murray (celebrated and vilified for proving that cognitive intelligence predicts socioeconomic outcomes better than so-called privileges) was most optimistic. “At some point,” he said, “you are going to have these very weak social science departments, with very mediocre people, saying very foolish things. At some time, the scorn of the grown-ups, who are still doing serious work, is going to become impossible to ignore.”

University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, who faced her own near-cancellation after blaming disadvantages on the denigration of “bourgeois culture,” hopes that Murray is right, but she’s pessimistic. “The number of people who care about getting the facts right and getting at the truth in academia is dwindling by the day,” she said. “That is not what it’s about anymore. It’s about peddling and selling and spreading an ideology.” 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rand Paul calls out a slippery, evasive Anthony Fauci By Monica Showalter

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/rand_paul_calls_out_a_slippery_evasive_anthony_fauci.html

Ever since getting a big spotlight in the public eye, the National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, billed by a fawning press as America’s foremost expert on infectious diseases, has revealed himself a slippery chameleon or magician of sorts, constantly changing his recommendations and positions on public health in a bid to extend the coronavirus crisis as far out as possible.

He’s pretty well burned up all of his credibility with the public as a result, as New York Post columnist and Instapundit-himself Glenn Reynolds notes here, but he doesn’t seem to know it. He continues his role as snake-charmer, or snake-oil salesman, assuming a fawning media will continue to carry him through.

He got called out. By probably the sharpest guy in the Senate, (and my favorite), Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who questioned his ever more elaborate mask mandate recommendations. According to the New York Post:

“You’ve been vaccinated and you parade around in two masks for show,” Paul told Fauci. “You can’t get it again there’s almost zero percent chance you’re going to get it.”

“And you’re telling people that have had the vaccine who have immunity — you’re defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear masks who have been vaccinated,” he continued.

“You want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy? Tell people to quit wearing their masks after they get the vaccine,” Paul added.

In response, Fauci quipped, “Here we go again with the theater.”

“Let me just state for the record that masks are not theater, masks are protective,” Fauci said.

Paul snapped back: “If you have immunity they’re theater. If you already have immunity you’re wearing a mask to give comfort to others.”

“I totally disagree with you,” Fauci responded.

What Fauci revealed in that exchange is that he has a stake in continuing the coronavirus lockdowns and maskings forever. That’s his source of power and influence and he’s not ready to leave the spotlight or go back to his former obscurity. Fauci essentially told Paul that the vaccine is a nothingburger, COVID-19 will never end (despite the evidence seen in Texas and Florida) and masks are to be a way of life.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Policing Speech Bill de Blasio wants the NYPD to investigate constitutionally protected conduct. Seth Barron

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/mayor-tasks-nypd-to-investigate-noncriminal-hate

Amid a staggering wave of gun violence in New York City, with shootings this year measuring 42 percent higher than the same period in 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he plans to deploy the NYPD to track down and question people who have expressed “hate,” albeit without committing any crime or violation.

Speaking to reporters about anti-Asian attacks that have occurred around the country, the mayor encouraged people who have “witnessed or experienced any act of hate” to report it. “Even if something is not a criminal case,” the mayor explained, “a perpetrator being confronted by the city, whether it’s NYPD or another agency, and being told that what they’ve done was very hurtful to another person and could if ever repeated, lead to criminal charges, that’s another important piece of the puzzle.”

Asked how the NYPD would confront someone who has done something “hateful” but committed no crime, de Blasio enlarged on his prescription. “One of the things officers are trained to do is to give warnings,” he said. “If someone has done something wrong, but not rising to a criminal level, it’s perfectly appropriate for an NYPD officer to talk to them to say that was not appropriate. . . . I assure you if an NYPD officer calls you or shows up at your door to ask about something that you did, that makes people think twice.”

The mayor did not go into detail about the kind of behavior he was talking about, but we can surmise—since he explicitly stated that it wouldn’t rise to the level of criminality—that it must involve speech. Racial slurs or negative references to racial or ethnic identity, while nasty and rightfully unacceptable in civil society, are generally not prosecutable. Promising to involve the police in pursuing people who make intemperate, obnoxious remarks seems like an odd way to prioritize public-safety concerns.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Higher Ed Approaches the Antiracism Training Abyss By William A. Jacobson

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/19/higher_ed_approaches_the_antiracism_training_abyss_145442.html

William A. Jacobson is a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to free expression and academic freedom on campuses.

Free expression and open inquiry in higher education are under attack by ideologues seeking to impose neo-Marxist “critical” theories, most prominently critical race theory, which places race at the center of all political and social issues.

Critical race theory training, misleadingly characterized as “antiracism” training, has spread widely throughout higher education and is often compared to Maoist struggle sessions, where dissent incurs public shaming, job loss, and harassment. This training often turns into race-shaming and Kafka-trapping, using denial of racism as proof of racism. The result is self-imposed racial conflict and systemic retaliatory discrimination masquerading as “equity.”

Claims of “white privilege” and “white fragility” are used to bully people into submission. Columbia University Professor John McWhorter refers to this delusion as “neoracism,” which “teaches that racism is baked into the structure of society, so whites’ ‘complicity’ in living within it constitutes racism itself.”

Rather than lessening racism, these approaches adopt discriminatory racial practices and verbiage that in any other context would be rightfully deemed racist. Instead of focusing on inherent human worth without regard to skin color, race becomes the obsessive focus and measure.

The ubiquitous term “antiracist” thus is one of the greatest linguistic sleights of hand and deceptions of our time, yet it is unmistakably transforming education in America today. As the Manhattan Institute’s Coleman Hughes points out, “the modern antiracist movement is not against discrimination. It is against inequity, which in many cases makes it pro-discrimination.”

The foundational text for this corrosive philosophy is “How to Be an Antiracist” by Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi, who insists that “[t]he only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination” and foments a perpetual struggle session by artificially dividing people into “antiracists” and “racists.” According to Kendi, it is impossible to be “not racist.” Those who do not actively seek to dismantle systemic racism, including in one’s own psyche, are racist by this definition.

Perhaps worst of all is that the so-called antiracist movement sets up an interracial struggle that never can be absolved. Racial struggle is the entire point of so-called antiracist movement, around which a lucrative industry of authors, consultants, and administrators has been built. Too many people are making too much money from so-called antiracist training for a return to the colorblind ideals of the civil rights movement.

This corrosive ideology has swept American culture, especially on college campuses, where it threatens irreversible damage to academic freedom. Cornell University, where I have taught law since 2007, is approaching this abyss under an “antiracist” initiative launched after George Floyd’s death. Unfortunately, Cornell may become an example of how a desire to address racism can go horribly wrong.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Should Anything Be Off-Limits to Debate and Discuss? by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17189/should-anything-be-off-limits-to-debate

The fact that we even have to ask these questions demonstrates the precarious state of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas in the cancel culture….

Professors are being fired for private discussions of grades and race. Students are terrified of expressing politically incorrect views, especially about race, sex, sexual orientation and even politics. Even silence is not always an option.

There are several exceptions to this cancel culture rule. You can say almost anything negative about Jews, as evidenced by the recent Grammy awards, during which three overt anti-Semites were honored. These bigots did not even try to disguise their anti-Semitism behind the facade of anti-Zionism.

There has never been a time when respectful and nuanced debate has been more needed, especially about race and other taboo subjects— taboo unless you toe the line of political correctness.

Slate’s decision to suspend Peska strikes a blow against diversity. Yes, diversity! —which includes diversity of views about every issue including how best to deal with racism and how best to achieve equality.

Slate should end Peska’s suspension, apologize to him, and encourage debate about the issue over which he was suspended.

Slate — the online magazine known for its provocative content—has indefinitely suspended one of its star podcasters, Mike Peska, for debating with a colleague, on an inter-office messaging platform, whether it is ever appropriate for a non-Black person to use the N-word in the context of a discussion about race. It is not clear whether in the course of the discussion Peska actually uttered the word itself or just used the term “n-word.”

In defending Slate’s decision, a Black staffer argued that “For Black employees, it’s an extremely small ask to not hear that particular slur and not have debate about whether it’s OK for white employees to use that particular slur.” Not have debate?

Should anything be off limits to debate and discuss? Is this issue not reasonably debatable? Can only Black people debate this issue, as my colleague Randy Kennedy brilliantly did in his book whose title is the actual word—spelled out? Can the issue be discussed in racially mixed classrooms? Should that depend on the race of the teacher? Must a teacher who wants to have such a discussion issue a trigger warning? Is a trigger warning enough? Must he obtain permission from Black students in the class to discuss the use of the word even if the word itself is not uttered? Do these restrictions apply only to this word and only to slurs against Blacks, or do they apply as well to derogatory words against other groups.

ELECTIONS, POLITICS Comments turned off

Ohio sets November special election, leaving Pelosi with empty seat most of the year Democrats’ progressive-establishment split could affect race

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.rollcall.com/2021/03/18/ohio-sets-november-special-election-leaving-pelosi-with-empty-seat-most-of-the-year/

Ohio’s Secretary of State announced Thursday that the special election to replace former Rep. Marcia L. Fudge in the 11th District will take place on Nov. 2, leaving Speaker Nancy Pelosi with an empty seat for most of the year.

The November election is the latest for the five House seats that are vacant. Louisiana has a special election for two open seats on Saturday, while Texans will vote in May and New Mexicans in June. The decision of when to fill Fudge’s seat in a heavily Democratic district was up to Ohio’s Republican state officials, who said in a news release that they followed a similar process when then-Speaker John A. Boehner, a Republican, resigned in 2015. At the time, the GOP majority in the House was more than 30 seats.

But with the House narrowly divided — there are currently 219 Democrats and 211 Republicans — Pelosi has few votes to spare, and an empty seat that the party won with 80 percent of the vote in November could put pressure on more vulnerable members. 

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

‘Tough’ U.S.-China talks signal rocky start to relations under Biden By Humeyra Pamuk, David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-alaska/u-s-chinese-diplomats-clash-in-first-high-level-meeting-of-biden-administration-idUSKBN2BA2A7?il=0

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – U.S. and Chinese officials concluded on Friday what Washington called “tough and direct” talks in Alaska, which laid bare the depth of tensions between the world’s two largest economies at the outset of the Biden administration.

The two days of meetings, the first high-level in-person talks since President Joe Biden took office, wrapped up after a rare and fiery kickoff on Thursday when the two sides publicly skewered each others’ policies in front of TV cameras.

The talks appeared to yield no diplomatic breakthroughs – as expected – but the bitter rivalry on display suggested the two countries had little common ground to reset relations that have sunk to the lowest level in decades.

The run-up to the discussions in Anchorage, which followed visits by U.S. officials to allies Japan and South Korea, was marked by a flurry of moves by Washington that showed it was taking a firm stance, as well as by blunt talk from Beijing warning the United States to discard illusions that it would compromise.

“We expected to have tough and direct talks on a wide range of issues, and that’s exactly what we had,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters moments after the Chinese delegation left the hotel meeting room.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Journalists, Illustrating How They Operate, Yesterday Spread a Significant Lie All Over Twitter Eager to obtain vindication for the pre-election falsehood they spread about the Hunter Biden story, journalists falsely claim that the CIA blamed Russia for it. Glenn Greenwald

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-illustrating-how-they

Journalists with the largest and most influential media outlets disseminated an outright and quite significant lie on Tuesday to hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, on Twitter. While some of them were shamed into acknowledging the falsity of their claim, many refused to, causing it to continue to spread up until this very moment. It is well worth examining how they function because this is how they deceive the public again and again, and it is why public trust in their pronouncements has justifiably plummeted.

The lie they told involved claims of Russian involvement in the procurement of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, The New York Post obtained that laptop and published a series of articles about the Biden family’s business dealings in Ukraine, China and elsewhere. In response, Twitter banned the posting of any links to that reporting and locked The Post out of its Twitter account for close to two weeks, while Facebook, through a long-time Democratic operative, announced that it would algorithmically suppress the reporting.

The excuse used by those social media companies for censoring this reporting was the same invoked by media outlets to justify their refusal to report the contents of these documents: namely, that the materials were “Russian disinformation.” That claim of “Russian disinformation” was concocted by a group of several dozen former CIA officials and other operatives of the intelligence community devoted to defeating Trump. Immediately after The Post published its first story about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine that traded on his influence with his father, these career spies and propagandists, led by Obama CIA Director and serial liar John Brennan, published a letter asserting that the appearance of these Biden documents “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

News outlets uncritically hyped this claim as fact even though these security state operatives themselves admitted: “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails…are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.” Even though this claim came from trained liars who, with uncharacteristic candor, acknowledged that they did not “have evidence” for their claim, media outlets uncritically ratified this assertion.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

For One Brief Moment, WH Calls Border Surge a ‘Crisis’ . By Philip Wegmann

Posted By on March 20th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/19/for_one_brief_moment_wh_calls_border_surge_a_crisis_145441.html

At the White House on Thursday, the president’s press secretary was confirming reports that the United States had agreed to supply Mexico with excess coronavirus vaccine when she stumbled into a potential problem.

The two nations have struggled to stem the surge of migrants at the southern U.S. border, and reporters wondered whether the agreement to send doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine was part of a larger agreement to increase cooperation on border security.

“There have been expectations set outside of, unrelated to, any vaccine doses or requests for them, that they would be partners in dealing with the crisis on the border,” Jen Psaki said, accidentally repeating the exact term the White House has taken pains to avoid.

Even as the number of crossing attempts reaches its highest level in two decades, Democrats have rejected Republican claims that the situation is “Biden’s border crisis.” In fact, the administration has refused to call it a crisis at all. That is, until Thursday afternoon.

“When you were talking about how to go about diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Mexico, you said ‘crisis on the border,'” RealClearPolitics started to ask.

“Challenges on the border,” Psaki quickly interjected.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

WATCH: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL-19)Says Biden’s Tax Increases Will Hurt Low-Income Americans By Gabe Kaminsky

Posted By on March 19th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/18/watch-rep-byron-donalds-says-bidens-tax-increases-will-hurt-low-income-americans/

Freshman congressman Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., blasted President Biden’s for hinting at tax increases during his recent “Good Morning America” interview Wednesday.

Speaking to Jan Jeffcoat on The National Desk Thursday, Donalds explained why raising taxes hurts even lower-income Americans.

“If you take money away from people, even the quote-unquote rich, what happens is they have less money to spend. If there is less money to spend, there is less money flowing through the economy. If there is less money flowing through the economy — who does that hurt? It hurts middle-income Americans and poor Americans,” Donalds said.