News of the Week for June 13^th, 2021

• Riots & Revolution
• Corona Virus
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Riots & Revolution

 

Is Anyone Else Noticing a Pattern With the Increase in ‘Random’ Attacks on White People?
A 350-pound, large-breasted man pummeled a diminutive woman (actually two women) in Gardena, Calif., over the weekend. Fortunately, the second beating was caught on video, leading to the suspect’s arrest.

Amazon Driver Tackles Elderly Woman Who Disagreed With ‘White Privilege’ Lesson
Amazon driver Itzel Ramirez, 21, is behind bars after pummeling a 67-year-old woman after allegedly telling her to “check her white privilege.”

NYPD in Riot Gear Enforce Curfew as Park Descends Into Drugs and Violence
Police in riot gear clashed with dozens of people in Washington Square Park in New York City. The crowd had been ordered to leave following a 10:00 p.m. curfew recently imposed by Mayor Bill DeBlasio.

“Start This War They Keep Asking For”
What is the goal of the Black Lives Matter movement? To make it impossible to arrest and prosecute criminals? Because that would seem a logical inference from recent events in Minneapolis

Business owners to Baltimore: No police protection, no tax payments
Adam Smith said, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” He meant that a nation can withstand a great deal of incompetent governance and misguided policies.

Oregon Dept of Education raided student absentee program funding to pay Nikole Hannah-Jones $50,000
The Oregon Department of Education paid $50,000 to “1619 Project” founder Nikole Hannah-Jones for two virtual speeches — a payment that amounted to over $14,000 per hour.

Chuck Grassley to DOJ: Explain Discrepancy In Application Of Law For BLM/Antifa vs. Capitol Rioters
“The law must be applied equally without regard to party, power or privilege. When the Department of Justice treats similar criminal acts differently, such conduct erodes faith in our governmental institutions and the law.”

Man gets home detention, probation for shining laser at federal officer during Portland protest
A Beaverton man who shined a high-powered green laser at a federal officer during a protest outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland last July was sentenced Wednesday to six months of home detention and three years of probation.

“It’s just like Vietnam, it’s just like Beirut”: Minneapolis tries and fails to reopen George Floyd Square … again
Maybe the third time will be the charm — but it might require the city of Minneapolis to enforce a reopening of George Floyd Square. For the second time in five days, city workers removed barriers yesterday to reopen the intersection at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where Floyd died in custody just over a year ago. And for the second time in five days, activists blocked traffic again hours later without any opposition from authorities

Wealthy BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Builds a Wall Around Her Posh Estate
“It will have an electronic gate at the driveway portion, a walk up door, and call box, and other safety measures, cameras – you know, to keep the riff raff out”

The Grim Trade-Off Of BLM?
Fewer African-Americans killed by cops; many more killed by civilians

Michael Brown Father Presses Black Lives Matter, Wants To Know Where $90 Million In Funds Went: Report
The father of Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by police in 2014, has signed on to a group demanding accountability and transparency from Black Lives Matter.

Woman Who Survived Mao’s Cultural Revolution Warns Critical Race Theory is the Same Thing
“I just want to let the American people know that what is going on in our schools and in our country is really a replay of the cultural revolution in China”

Andrew Sullivan: What if BLM’s success creates a trade-off?
There was a significant surge in violent crime last year, particularly shootings. Some researchers who study crime have attributed that increase to the pandemic. The theory goes that people were emotionally on edge because of the virus and the associated lockdowns, plus they had lost jobs and were stressed about being out of work. As a result crime went up.

 

Corona Virus

 

Scott Gottlieb: I was told Fauci briefed European health officials early last year on the possibility of a lab leak
This is circulating today as alleged further evidence of a cover-up, with Fauci dishonestly having reassured the American public that the virus probably jumped from an animal to human while he was quietly whispering to his peers about a possible lab leak.

Wait, Natural Bat-Virus Spillover to Humans “Is Relatively Rare”?
On the menu today: A Wuhan Institute of Virology study from 2018 examined the villagers who lived closest to the coronavirus-carrying bats in Yunnan Province and concluded that natural “spillover” from bats directly to humans is “relatively rare”; a new article and book lay out how Chinese researchers inadvertently admitted they had a supply of mice with “humanized lungs” lying around before the COVID-19 pandemic started; and a think tank offers a list of options to rebuke China and prevent the next pandemic.

Experts Assert “Rare” Genome Sequencing Shows Coronavirus Bioengineered, Optimized for Human Infectivity
Also, Chinese medical researchers created mice with “humanized lungs” mere months before the pandemic began, suggesting a gain-of-function focus.

Third wave sweeps across Africa as Covid vaccine imports dry up
WHO says continent urgently needs more jabs as eight countries report rise of 30% in cases in a week

Tourists returning from Portugal with hours to spare ‘ashamed to be British’
Tourists who only just escaped having to quarantine upon their return from Portugal said the UK’s decision four days ago to put the southern European country on the amber list is “disgraceful”

Who Loses When the China Bat Cave Implodes?
We still don’t know where the COVID-19

Anti-vaxxer tells Ohio legislature: The vaccines are magnetizing people and making forks stick to their foreheads
Maybe I got a bum dose of Pfizer because I can report this morning that forks do not, in fact, stick to my forehead.

Facing new outbreak of delta variant, China warns citizens to comply with the law or else
As Allahpundit pointed out earlier, the so-called delta variant of the coronavirus which has been spreading throughout India is now starting to spread here. But it’s also spreading in other parts of the world including China which has be dealing with a new outbreak in the city of Guangzhou. So far there have been just over 100 cases but that’s because China has used it’s usual methods to prevent it from spreading

Mongolia is using China’s Sinopharm vaccine. You won’t believe what happened next.
You won’t believe what happened next unless you read this post from Saturday, in which case you’ll totally believe it.

Sweden sees ‘dark clouds’ with outbreaks of COVID delta variant
Swedish health officials warned on Friday of worrying local outbreaks of the COVID delta variant and urged people to get vaccinated to avoid a fourth wave of the pandemic.

For the first time during the pandemic, U.S. positivity rate drops below 2%
Five months ago, in the thick of the winter wave, the share of tests in America that were positive for COVID nearly touched 14 percent. One out of every seven people tested. Today that rate has declined to slightly below one in 50. The virus has never been scarcer in the United States than it is right now.

Amazon’s Partnership with Chinese Genome-Sequencing Firm Raises Eyebrows
Insider has a noteworthy report on Amazon’s use of COVID-testing kits from BGI Genomics, a Chinese genome-sequencing firm that U.S. intelligence officials have flagged as potentially sharing Americans’ genetic information with Beijing

Defector Claims to Have Evidence That Chinese Military Coordinated Creation and Release of COVID-19
Last week, Jen Van Laar at our sister site RedState broke the news that a high-ranking defector had been working for months with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), unbeknownst to either the FBI or CIA. The defector claims to have knowledge of special weapons programs in China that include bioweapons.

Unvaccinated students “branded” at New Hampshire prom
A New Hampshire high school is facing the heat for “branding” unvaccinated students at the prom.

Newly Found Video Proves Wuhan Lab Kept Live Bats: WHO Investigation Wrong (Or Lied?)
Award-winning investigative journalist for the Daily Telegraph and Sky News show host, Sharri Markson, has taken a lot of heat for her reporting examining the origins of the coronavirus — especially for saying that there is a possibility that it may have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Federal judge issues ruling in hospital staff COVID vaccination mandate lawsuit
The first federal ruling on COVID-19 vaccination mandates has been issued. A lawsuit was filed by staffers at Houston Methodist Hospital who refuse to receive a COVID-19 vaccination though the hospital is requiring that its staff is fully vaccinated. The judge ruled in favor of the hospital and against the staffers.

 

Gun Rights

 

DOJ Successfully Chipping Away at Gun Rights
The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued two new gun proposals today, one regarding stabilizing braces and the other about red flag laws, keeping Biden’s promise of shredding your 2nd Amendment rights.

A Booming U.S. Gun Industry Is Adding More Jobs
Gun companies have been hiring thousands of workers throughout the coronavirus pandemic, riding an unprecedented swell in gun sales and bucking a steep overall decline in manufacturing employment in the U.S.

Judge Benitez upholds constitutional rights of Californians
California is one of only six states that does not guarantee a right to keep and bear arms in its state constitution, but the rights of gun owners are still protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, even in California.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Swamp Rights Constitutional Amendment Pushed in Florida
This is serious. Signatures are being gathered in Florida to qualify a “rights of waterways” constitutional amendment for Florida. The proposed amendment is a form of “nature rights” and is being pushed by (among others) the Florida Rights of Nature Network, the slogan for which is, “Nature is not just an object. It is alive. It has as much right to live as we do.”

Climate Scientists: The Pandemic Shutdowns Didn’t Reduce Carbon Emissions Much
If you can tear your eyes away from the messy home office below, climate scientists are now warning that the COVID-19 pandemic, with its sweeping lockdowns, closed businesses, limited travel and far-reaching restriction on human freedom, had only a brief, fleeting effect on greenhouse gas emissions.

Biden Permanently Kills Keystone XL Pipeline, Developer Abandons Project After Permit Pulled
Meanwhile, energy costs are fueling inflation and Russian oil will soon be flowing through its new pipeline.

Keystone XL Cancellation Shows Why “Pro-science” Can’t Be an Agenda
“In this house, we believe,” among other things, “science is real,” reads the sign in front of your most insufferable neighbor’s house. The idea is to signal sophistication and allegiance to the Party of Science. Your most insufferable neighbor wants everyone driving past his house to know that he isn’t one of those slack-jawed Neanderthals he reads about in the New York Times from far-out places like central Pennsylvania or South Jersey. No, he’s pro-science, and he voted for Biden and wrote a stemwinder of a Facebook post back in March praising the president when he announced, “Science is back.”

Gore pressed Biden to stick with climate plans as liberals fear White House is softening its agenda
A number of Democrats are growing increasingly nervous that the White House could agree to a bipartisan infrastructure deal that scales back key climate-change initiatives, prompting a lobbying push that has included former vice president Al Gore making his case directly to President Biden.

Oat Milk and Environmentalism
It is hard to deny that certain forms of environmentalism, often (but certainly not exclusively) when climate change is involved, take on strong religious characteristics, frequently of a distinctly millenarian nature.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Medical School at U. Texas Austin Will Focus on “Health Equity” in Curriculum
“They will be taught how to advocate for inclusion and intervene when they see barriers, discrimination, biases and microaggressions.”

Biden halts program that brings down cost of insulin, EpiPens
One focus during the Trump administration was lowering prescription drug costs, especially for low-income individuals. When he struck a deal with Big Pharma to lower the cost of insulin and epinephrine (EpiPens) for low-income patients, the White House rightly celebrated the accomplishment. Now the Biden administration has halted that initiative. Why does Joe Biden want to raise the price of such lifesaving drugs to those in greatest economic need?

 

War & Terror

 

Justice Department Recovers Most of Colonial Pipeline Ransom
It’s a very welcome development that the FBI has managed to seize most of the ransom Colonial Pipeline paid to the hackers, believed to be Russia-based, in order to get its operations and fuel deliveries back on line. As the Wall Street Journal reports, based on a Justice Department announcement, investigators recovered approximately 64 bitcoin, valued at roughly $2.3 million.

Uyghurs are being deported from Muslim countries, raising concerns about China’s growing reach
Amannisa Abdullah and her husband, Ahmad Talip, were on their way to shop for baby clothes in Dubai, when the message that changed both their lives came through. Ahmad read it and announced an abrupt change of plan: He had to report to a police station immediately.

China military flybys near Taiwan plunge after US-Japan statement
Beijing looks to avoid tensions ahead of Communist Party centennial

China, Be Afraid: The U.S. Navy Is Upping It’s Game With 20 New Destroyers
The number of destroyers now being built by the Navy is itself quite significant. Yet of even greater significance is the fact that many of the emerging Navy Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyers are new, far more capable Flight III DDG 51 configurations.

Chinese Fishing Fleet Going “Dark” as it Plunders Argentina’s Waters
Chinese fishing vessels switch off their tracking beacons to evade detection while sailing into Argentina’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

House Republican demands West Point cease critical race theory trainings to military cadets
Rep. Mike Waltz said enemies ‘don’t care about race, religion, or socioeconomic background’

Battalion Commander Reportedly Tells Troops “White People Are Part of the Problem”
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Rhodes, commander of the 1-8 Infantry – “Fighting Eagles”, has a message for all serving in the military: if you’re white, you’re the problem.

Iran sends warships to Atlantic amid Venezuela concerns
An Iranian destroyer and support vessel are now sailing in the Atlantic Ocean in a rare mission far from the Islamic Republic, Iran’s state TV reported on Thursday, without offering the vessels’ final destination.

The Next Ten Largest Militaries? The U.S. Budget Isn’t Even Larger Than the Next Two
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, warned that China and Russia together spend more on defense than the United States does “if they put all their cards on the table” during a Senate Armed Services Committee this morning.

Gun Sales Decrease, Ammunition Reappearing In Stores
Firearm sales in May, at least those reflected in the number of FBI NICS checks performed for a transfer, came in at roughly 1.4 million, according to an estimated from Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF). The figure represents a 0.3 million drop in purchases when compared to the same month in 2020.

Amnesty: China has created ‘a dystopian hellscape’ in Xinjiang
If you’ve paid any attention to this story over the past year then you already know what China is doing in Xinjiang. Still it’s good see reminders get a little attention in the media.

U.S. Unilaterally Lifts Some Sanctions on Iran. Says No Connection to Nuke Talks
I don’t know if they hired a bunch of comedy writers at the White House or not, but the administration’s explanation for lifting some economic sanctions on Iran strains credulity and would elicit some giggles if it weren’t so incredibly serious.

Rep. Chip Roy Introduces Legislation That Bans China From Purchasing U.S. Land
Rep. Chip Roy has introduced legislation that would ban the sale of U.S. land to members of the Chinese Communist Party. Citing the “security threat,” Roy wants Biden to take steps to “prohibit the purchase of public or private real estate located in the U.S. by members of the CCP.”

Sen. Tom Cotton Grills Defense Secretary over Race-Based Programs in U.S. Military
Cotton also asks Lloyd Austin if military is a ‘fundamentally racist organization’. The response is astonishing.

 

National

 

Georgia Board of Ed bans CRT and protest civics
Last week, the Georgia Board of Education adopted a resolution that would (1) bar the practice of protest civics (extracurricular political protest and lobbying as required schoolwork) and (2) prevent Georgia schools from instilling in students the key tenets of critical race theory. The week before, the Texas legislature passed a bill barring both protest civics and critical race theory. A similar bill was introduced in Ohio by state representative Don Jones in late May.

KAGAN Writes 9-0 Supreme Court Opinion Rejecting Liz Warren’s Subversion of Immigration Law
On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected an illegal immigrant’s attempt to twist immigration law and create a loophole that would allow thousands of illegal immigrants to become lawful permanent residents. Democratic senators and attorneys general advocated for this loophole, but a liberal justice wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Upscale Residents Protest as Biden Converts Scottsdale Hotel into ICE Detention Center
The precinct for Scottsdale’s Homewood Suites voted for Joe Biden, 51% to 47%. Today, this upscale Arizona neighborhood regrets its decision.

Men make more extreme choices and decisions, find scientists
Men are more likely to make extreme choices and decisions than women, according to new research on economic decision-making, led by an international team of scientists.

Support for the death penalty surges
A new Pew Research poll finds that 60 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder. This result is a stunning turnaround. Less than five years ago, Pew found that only 49 percent of Americans favored the death penalty for convicted murderers. This was the lowest level of support in more than four decades.

Today’s College News: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
First up, Washington and Lee University in Virginia has decided, after a long and stupid debate, not to change its name because, you know, Robert E. Lee, who as president of Washington College after the Civil War, rescued the institution from bankruptcy, whereupon the faculty had moved to have his name added to the institution. That was then, and this is now, to naturally the imperatives of the wokerati had demanded Lee be sent packing.

Federal Judge Orders Chicago Mayor to Explain Her Racist Interview Policy
Following an order from U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee, attorneys for Chicago’s unabashedly racist mayor Lori Lightfoot told a judge on June 7 that they will file a sworn declaration clarifying the mayor’s policy on allowing interviews only to “people of color,” according to The Daily Caller.

US general: China’s Xi Jinping wants to rule the world as ‘only’ superpower, surrounded by ‘vassal states’
Chinese officials want to seize the mantle of the world’s “only” superpower from the United States, a four-star U.S. Air Force general is warning Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies.

Judge Orders Reinstatement of Virginia Teacher Tanner Cross, Who Objected to Proposed “Preferred Pronoun” Policy
Alliance Defending Freedom: “A massive victory for freedom of speech.”

The Criminals Thought the Devices Were Secure. But the Seller Was the F.B.I.
The cellphones, procured on the black market, performed a single function hidden behind a calculator app: sending encrypted messages and photos.

Being White as a Malignant Condition
NYC psychiatrist Aruna Khilanani is not an outlier. She had reason to expect a sympathetic response when she proclaimed before a Yale School of Medicine audience that she fantasizes about murdering random white people. Radicals are establishing critical race theory as the official ideology of the liberal ruling class. In Khilanani’s field, it is already so entrenched that the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association recently published a piece entitled, “On Having Whiteness.”

NY High Court to Rule Whether Elephants Are “Persons”
The greatest threat posed by the animal-rights movement is an advocacy thrust known as “animal standing.” The idea is to have animals declared “persons” and treated akin to human beings with developmental disabilities so that “they” can bring lawsuits in court directly, which of course would actually be brought by animal-rights zealots. That would grant “rights” to animals — first, those sometimes called “higher” mammals, chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, etc. — but eventually all fauna.

Gallup: For the first time, a majority of Republicans support gay marriage
“It’s been 17 years since the big wave of gay-marriage bans. Makes you wonder how the stuff in this year’s state-level anti-trans bills will poll in 2038,” said Reason’s Jesse Walker in response to this new data.

Trump Sees a Potential New Running Mate in 2024…
On Monday, Donald Trump revealed that he would consider a different running mate if he decides to run for president again in 2024.

“Police Chief Charged With Civil Rights Violation” for Threatening Criminal Charges over Critical Posts
“The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced today that Brian Buglio, age 45, of Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, was charged in a criminal information on May 27, 2021, with a civil rights violation”

NH political leaders ready to battle – again – to keep presidential primary first in nation
Nevada Legislature passes bill to try to make that state first on 2024 presidential nominating calendar

Report: Biden leaning towards running again in 2024
I believe it, for this reason: Who’s going to run if he doesn’t?

Law Professor Skipped Teaching Plessy v. Ferguson, Edited Dred Scott to Two Paragraphs
“I wasn’t comfortable giving [Taney’s] words to my students because I was afraid it would hurt them and destroy the kind of community I want to foster in class.”

Princeton Drops Standards in Name of “Equity.” Here’s Why That’s Pernicious.
Ideology and virtue signaling apparently are replacing both education and standards at America’s top schools.

Update: Smear of Mom Nicole Solas Was Prepared By Public Relations Firm Hired By South Kingstown (RI) School Committee
Emily Cummiskey steps down as Chair of School Committee, blames others for smear of Nicole: “The PR firm delivered me three statements, one for social media, one for Fox news, and one to read at last Wednesday’s meeting.”

NY Times Defends Editorial Board Member “Disturbed” by American Flags on Long Island
“New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay’s comments on MSNBC have been irresponsibly taken out of context.”

Feckless Santa Barbara: woke, broke and on fire
A wise guy came up with a map of renamed California counties. The new names depicted the sobriquet of each county. For instance, Kern County was dubbed “Basically Texas.” Santa Barbara was dubbed “Usually on Fire.” Not funny, right? Well, the truth still hurts.

English teacher resigns from NJ prep school over ‘culture of conformity and fear’
The Dwight-Englewood School in New Jersey is a private prep school where high school tuitions costs just over $50,000 per year. Tuesday an English teacher at Dwight-Englewood named Dana Stangel-Plowe announced she was resigning her position because of the school’s embrace of Critical Race Theory, an ideology she believes is harming students at the school.

MN lawsuit wonders: Can you be fired for supporting Trump?
The moral of this story appears to be … choose your business partners carefully. A group of attorneys have filed suit in Minnesota against their former senior partner for cashiering them and others over social-media posts supporting Donald Trump.

U.S. envoy: Agreement with Mexico “marks a new level of cooperation”, but what is the deal?
It is being reported that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Kamala Harris looked on as representatives signed a memorandum calling for economic development in Northern Triangle countries on Tuesday. There are no further details of what is in this memorandum. The memorandum sounds like Kamala’s trip to Mexico and Guatemala in general – much ado about nothing.

When the State Comes for Your Kids
Social workers, youth shelters, and the threat to parents’ rights

New spacecraft will use lasers to transmit video, data in seconds
New space missions being launched this summer will attempt to revolutionize space communications by using laser beams to quickly transmit large amounts of data, including high-definition video from the moon.

Customs and Border Protection: More Than 180,000 Caught at the Border in May
U.S. Customs and Border Protection just released the agency’s operational statistics for May, and somehow, they caught even more migrants attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexican border than in April and in March.

A speed bump on the road to indoctrinating federal workers in CRT
Team Biden isn’t content with imposing critical race theory (CRT) on America’s students. It also is bent on indoctrinating federal workers in CRT’s grotesquely racist anti-American tenets.

Donald Trump WILL be “reinstated” as president by the end of this year, a third of Republicans believe
ALMOST a third of Republicans believe a farfetched conspiracy theory that Donald Trump will be “reinstated” as president by the end of the year, a poll has found.

Black Republican Sought to Join the Congressional Black Caucus. Democrats Never Even Responded to Him.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) came to Congress in January and wanted to join the powerful and influential black caucus. Obviously, since most in the CBC are Democrats, Donalds wasn’t going to see eye to eye with them on many issues. But Donalds saw the potential to cooperate on issues such as police reform, where he believes there could be bipartisan agreement.

‘Whiteness’ Is ‘a Malignant, Parasitic-Like Condition’ Creating ‘Deformed Appetites,’ Journal Warns
As Marxist critical race theory (CRT) continues its march through the institutions, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association published a paper warning about the “malignant, parasitic-lik” condition of “Whiteness.” The article’s author, Donald Moss, M.D., argued that the condition of “Whiteness” is not the same thing as “whiteness” as a marker of racial identity, but his article arguably furthers the CRT demonization of the roots of Western society.

Psych Prof: Whiteness “a Malignant, Parasitic-Like Condition”
“Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples.”

English Teacher Quits Exclusive New Jersey Private School Over Critical Race Theory
“students have found comfort in their moral certainty, and so they have become rigid and closed-minded, unable or unwilling to consider alternative perspectives”

Iowa Latest State to Ban Critical Race Theory in Public Schools
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation Tuesday that bans the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in Iowa public schools and universities. The move comes as Republican lawmakers across the country seek to tamp down the Marxist ideology in American classrooms.

Public School Teacher Warns Parents: Be Afraid of Kids “Rooting for Socialism” by Middle School
Editor’s note: At a Tuesday night meeting of the Loudoun County School Board in Virginia, teacher Lilit Vanetsyan delivered these remarks, according to Fight for Schools, a nonpartisan political action committee focused on education. The Daily Signal previously has reported on the court-ordered reinstatement of an elementary school gym teacher in Loudoun County’s public school system and the diverse books list promoted in county schools.

She Won Her School Board Race by Opposing Critical Race Theory
Hannah Smith ran for school board in her Texas community on a platform opposing critical race theory. Smith won, earning nearly 70% of the vote last month.

Astronomers discover nearby exoplanet with substantial atmosphere
Astronomers have discovered a temperate, sub-Neptune-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby M dwarf star.

Twitter’s Calvinball Rules on Illegally Obtained Materials
You may recall, in the fall of 2020 in the heat of the presidential campaign, Twitter locking a major American newspaper, the New York Post, out of its account over the Post’s story on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. It did the same to the Trump campaign and its press secretary for sharing the Post‘s reportage. According to Twitter at the time, this was not due to any issue with the authenticity of the Post’s journalism (which turned out to be well-supported and all-but-admitted by the younger Biden), but because of a Twitter policy, purportedly in place since 2018, that “prohibits the use of our service to distribute content obtained without authorization. We don’t want to incentivize hacking by allowing Twitter to be used as distribution for possibly illegally obtained materials.”

Your Government at Work
Criminals stole as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. pumped out over the past year, Axios’ Felix Salmon reports.

Rashida Tlaib to Her 1.5 Million Twitter Followers: “Freedom of Speech Doesn’t Exist for Muslim Women In Congress”
Earlier today, David Harsanyi observed how Representative Ilhan Omar has a familiar playbook whenever she “says something incendiary and/or idiotic.” It mainly involves smearing her critics and claiming to be the victim of efforts to silence her. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is now picking up the baton after House leadership was finally forced to criticize Omar for her conflation of the U.S., Israel, Hamas, and the Taliban.

Voters reject woke education in Rapid City, South Dakota
Rapid City, South Dakota held elections for its school board this week. The result? Two incumbents, including the school board president, went down to defeat. Insurgent candidates won all four contested seats.

The Kamala Konundrum
By now it is clear that Kamala Harris has had the worst week for a Vice President since Dan Quayle misspelled “potato” and attacked Murphy Brown almost 30 years ago. There are news reports, no doubt aided and abetted by some cagey White House staff, that the White House is “troubled” or even “dismayed” by her poor performance. I’m guessing a lot of Biden’s long-time loyal staff have discovered the unappealing and imperious side of Harris that has been well-known in California for years, reminding me of the line Reaganites used to take about Richard Darman: “Why do people take an instant dislike to Darman? Answer: Saves time.”

Battling the Left on the Ground
The Left controls almost all of America’s public schools, as well as its allegedly elite private schools. Leftists are moving rapidly to refashion education to inculcate our children in a bizarre revisionist history that is intended to cause them to hate their own country. This effort proceeds mostly under the banner of Critical Race Theory. It represents, I think, an existential threat to our country’s future.

New Jersey school district removes names of all holidays from school calendar
After an outcry at a raucous public meeting over a previous decision to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day, the board of education at a New Jersey school district decided to strip all holiday names off of the school calendar.

400,000 without power in Puerto Rico after fire, cyberattack
There were at least 400,000 people without power in Puerto Rico on Thursday night as the company that took over the island’s power transmissions has been faced with fire and cyberattack.

Black Florida Mother EVISCERATES Critical Race Theory in 2 Minutes
On Thursday, black Florida mother Keisha King testified against critical race theory (CRT) as Florida’s Department of Education considered a new rule that would ban CRT from public schools. The rule ultimately passed. King’s testimony went viral on social media, and even Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who proposed the ban (which originally did not explicitly condemn CRT), shared a video of her testimony.

Axios: Nervous Swing Voters Aren’t Buying White House Inflation Spin
It’s never too early to start looking ahead to the next election and take the pulse of the electorate. Sure, we all complain about endless campaigns but a lot of us start gazing toward the future almost as soon as one election is on the books.

Florida Bans Critical Race Theory in Schools
On Thursday, the Florida Department of Education approved a policy that explicitly bans Marxist critical race theory (CRT) from public schools.

Critical Race Theory motivates summer reading list, ‘cluster hire’ at ASU
A new professor at Arizona State University publicized her recommended summer reading list after being part of a ‘cluster hire’ based on CRT tenets.

Is the Democrats’ worst case scenario for Justice Breyer’s retirement already here?
The progressive push to force Justice Breyer into early retirement is still going on in the media but at least so far there’s no indication that Breyer is going to give in. In fact, the effort may have backfired by leading Breyer to determine he can’t leave under a cloud of partisan pressure.

CDC sees huge spike in teen girls needing ER care for suicide attempts — but no spike in teen boys
Horrifying and mystifying. Horrifying, of course, because the pandemic and resulting school lockdowns have done tremendous psychological damage to kids. Mystifying because I can’t figure out why the difference between the sexes would be as dramatic as it is.

59-1: Oregon state legislature expels Republican for helping to organize breach of the capitol
The breach happened on December 21. The Oregon legislature was in a one-day special session that had been called to pass a raft of diverse legislation, although from what I can tell nothing so controversial that it would obviously inspire a small mob to gather outside the capitol. It may be that Trump’s “stop the steal” campaign had galvanized righty protesters to want to show their strength to legislators at that moment even when the business of the day had nothing to do with the election. Sixteen days later, the same impulse transformed his rally in Washington into a riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Politico Admits Colluding with “Rival Campaigns” to Take Out Leading NYC Mayoral Candidate
Eric Adams, the Brooklyn Borough president and ex-cop who has surpassed Andrew Yang to become the front-runner in the New York City mayoral race (whose Democratic Party primary takes place June 22), is looking like a victim of bad journalism by Politico this week. Politico New York’s would-be hit piece questioning Adams’s residency status took a startling turn when it revealed that it was produced in collusion with Adams’s mayoral rivals. “POLITICO and sources on rival campaigns observed him arriving at the government building close to midnight four nights in a row last week and several nights the week prior,” the site’s story noted on Tuesday.

Manchin Says He’ll Support the Hyde Amendment in “Every Way Possible”
President Biden has proposed a budget scrapping the Hyde amendment, an annual budget measure that prevents federal funding of elective abortions for Medicaid recipients and thus saves tens of thousands of lives from abortion each year.

Scientists Make Male Rat Give Birth
Years ago, the late Joseph Fletcher — an anything-goes utilitarian, sometimes called the “patriarch of bioethics” — yearned for a time when men would give birth. He wrote in his 1988 book, The Ethics of Genetic Control

NYC public school asks parents to “reflect” on their “whiteness”
A city public school principal is asking parents to “reflect” on their “whiteness”” — passing out literature that extols “white traitors” who “dismantle institutions,” education officials confirmed to The Post on Tuesday.

GOP governors: Hey, why are planes landing in the middle of the night with migrant children on board?
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has a question for federal government officials – why are planes landing at the Des Moines airport in the middle of the night with migrant children on board? Why isn’t the federal government giving the governor a heads-up warning that this activity is taking place? Tennessee Governor Bill Lee joins Governor Reynolds in raising questions about the transportation of minors into Tennessee.

Federal Reserve Warns Employees Not to Use ‘Biased’ Terms Like ‘Founding Fathers’
Employees of the Federal Reserve received some guidance from the Board of Governors back in April on how to communicate properly both in-house and with the public. As you might expect, it was an adventure in wokeness.

Apple tightens rules after Justice Department targeted U.S. lawmakers
Apple Inc on Friday said it has tightened some of its rules for responding to legal requests after the U.S. Justice Department during Donald Trump’s presidency subpoenaed it for information on Democratic lawmakers.

Airlines have seen an unprecedented rise in disruptive passengers. Experts say it could get worse.
The headlines had barely faded after a Southwest passenger reportedly knocked out a flight attendant’s teeth during an in-flight altercation when the next high-profile example of bad airline behavior emerged. A man was arrested last week after allegedly banging on a Delta cockpit door, demanding the plane land and tussling with a flight attendant.

Students say the American flag symbolizes oppression
With Flag Day coming up on Monday, June 14, Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson went to The University of Texas at Dallas to talk with students about what the American flag means to them.

Austin Mass Shooting: Media Won’t Describe Suspect Because “Stereotypes”
You might think that when 13 people are shot in downtown Austin, and the gunman is still at large, that it would be a public service to describe this murderous maniac.

San Diego Parents Rally to Stop Teaching of Critical Race Theory
“If the district is really about uniting the kids, then get this course out of the way.”

FBI Director: “No Question That the Cartel Activity From” Mexico “Spilling Over” the Border
Wray to Congress: “But there’s no question that the cartel activity on the other side of the border is spilling over in all sorts of ways”

Rep. Byron Donalds to CNN: “As a Black Man in America, I’m Allowed to Have My Own Thoughts”
Donalds’ office: “The bar isn’t very high for those on CNN. They usually aren’t interested in telling the truth. They are solely focused on their narrative…”

Politico: Leak prosecutor no “Barr crony” after all
Readers of the New York Times may have been shocked to read their report on the Trump-era Department of Justice’s secret search warrants on communications of members of Congress. Friends and colleagues of federal prosecutor Osmar Benvenuto were even more shocked to find him characterized as a “crony” of then-AG William Barr. The New Jersey Democrat got tapped for the job over his own misgivings, not because he knew Barr but because Barr had been told that Benvenuto was a tough, action-oriented independent thinker within the DoJ.

Cancel Culture Comes for … Birds?
Those who think bird names reinforce prejudice have gone stork raven mad.

Journo Who Broke 2016 Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting Found Dead
Christopher Sign, a news anchor for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Alabama, who broke the story about former President Bill Clinton’s secret 2016 tarmac meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was found dead Saturday morning.

What will come of Biden’s meeting with Erdogan?
Most of the foreign policy attention surrounding President Joe Biden’s trip to the G7 has been focused on his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin. But there’s another guest at the party waiting to speak to Uncle Joe that may prove even more impactful. The Tyrant of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has scheduled a meeting with Biden and it could potentially pose an opportunity for the United States to accomplish something productive. While Erdogan had what many described as a friendly relationship with Donald Trump, things got off to a rocky start with Joe Biden when he decided to recognize the Armenian genocide earlier this year. Still, Biden has pointed to his long relationship with Erdogan as part of his supposed foreign policy mastery. But will Erdogan actually put anything meaningful on the table?

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
The First Amendment behind bars, illegal antiquities, and architecture as expression.

Microsoft Appears to Be Dropping Windows 10 Support by 2025
Make way for Windows 11

 

Economy & Taxes

 

“Do We Need to Be in Hong Kong?” Global Companies Are Eying the Exits
Buffeted by political upheaval, a crackdown by mainland China and the pandemic, global companies are heading for rival cities such as Singapore and Shanghai

Democrats push 95% drug tax rate
It’s one tax increase after another from President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats in Washington.

SCOTUS refuses challenge to male-only military draft
Consider this an application of judicial restraint — applied across the Supreme Court’s ideological spectrum. The court turned down the opportunity to strike down the male-only Selective Service registration system on the basis of sex, a closely watched case about which Jazz wrote earlier. The effect is neither an end to or expansion of the military draft, but a punt toward Capitol Hill

“Diversity Training” Continues Its Kudzu-like Growth
If you’ve driven through the South during the summer, you will probably have noticed fields being overrun with kudzu. Kudzu was brought into the U.S. almost a century ago. Some thought it would be a nice ground-cover plant. Nobody knew that it would turn into an invasive blight.

California shrank by 165K taxpayers, $8.8 billion in gross income: IRS
California residents of all ages and incomes are leaving for more tax friendly climates, and they’re taking billions of dollars in annual income with them.

Job Openings Are Through the Roof
We just got the numbers from April, and they drive home the point that businesses are having trouble finding workers. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Journalists Got Thousands of Americans’ Confidential IRS Data
What?!?!? That’s bad. Tax data are supposed to be private — and zealously guarded — and yet “thousands” of people’s information got out.

We Can’t Trust the IRS
That’s the real lesson to be learned from ProPublica’s exposé of the richest Americans’ tax information.

Baltimore Tea Party? Businesses Refuse to Pay Taxes as Public Safety Crashes
When I lived in Baltimore I used to joke that Charm City, as the city called itself, should be honest and drop that first “c.” Harm in the form of violent crime was terrible and it was everywhere. There were open-air drug markets and the mid-sized city with so much history and such great potential was often the murder capital of the United States. This was the day of the infamous “Stop Snitchin'” DVD warning against going to police to inform against criminals or for any other reason.

Here we go: Wyden rides ProPublica disclosure to demand wealth tax
Quelle surprise. Does anyone doubt that this was the precise intention of the IRS bureaucrat who committed a crime in leaking individual tax returns? Or ProPublica’s precise intention in cooperating with the crime by publishing the private data?

Romney to Biden: We won’t raise taxes for infrastructure — period
Oof. Joe Biden dumped Shelley Moore Capito as a negotiating partner yesterday after failing to get any concessions on new taxes out of her. The Associated Press reported late yesterday that Biden instead reached out to “moderates” within the Senate GOP caucus, hoping to get more traction

There’s So Much Cash in Our Economy That Banks Don’t Want More Deposits
The Wall Street Journal reports that bank are telling their corporate customers to stop making deposits. Yes, you’re reading that correctly: Banks don’t want more deposits.

The California union exodus
Anybody with eyeballs is pretty thrilled to read the news out of California: one of the state’s most powerful government unions is getting out of politics.

Meet Your New Landlord: Wall Street
Big investors transform suburban neighborhoods by buying up single-family homes and renting them out

House antitrust panel expected to introduce five anti-Big Tech bills
The Democratic chairman of the House antitrust panel is expected to introduce five bipartisan bills to rein in Big Tech platforms such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google through new anti-monopoly legislation.

Deutsche Bank issues dire economic warning for America
As the world economy awakens from the 15-month slumber caused by the pandemic, Deutsche Bank has launched a series of research articles to spark debate and discussion about pressing post-pandemic economic issues.

That 70s Show: Prices shoot up 5% in May while initial jobless claims plateau
Getting a sense of déja vu yet? The 1970s involved more than just disco and progressive rock, and pants legs weren’t the only thing that suffered inflation. Two key economic metrics released today send up red flares about what may be coming, which could end up being the worst kind of kitsch nostalgia.

POLITICO G7 Playbook: Carbis Bay fitness regime — Hug-and-walk — Turbot-charged dinner
Good Friday afternoon from the POLITICO team in Falmouth, Cornwall.

Yes, NPR, “CaPitAliSm bReEds InNovAtiOn”
Now, the piece itself is a benign story about stiletto-heeled Crocs, a collaboration between the Colorado company and Balenciaga. Many contemporary journalists like to blame capitalism for all the alleged frivolousness and wastefulness of society. Me, I prefer consumerism and materialism to the utilitarianism of collectivist-induced poverty, but to each his own.

Biden restoring nearly a billion dollars to Cali high-speed rail boondoggle
For some reason, I’d thought that this particularly unpleasant chapter in California’s history of flushing money down the drain was behind us, but clearly, I was mistaken. Rising from the grave like a zombie on Halloween night, the California high-speed rail project, also known as the “bullet train” is back in the news thanks to President Joe Biden. After Donald Trump closed the federal funding spigot for the massively over-budget and blown deadline effort, interest in the new transportation line seemed to be waning, even in the Golden State. But the White House announced this week that a $929 million grant for the project that had been blocked by Trump was now going to be heading to Sacramento. Hey… don’t worry, taxpayers. I’m sure they’ll get it right this time.

 

International

 

Mexico President’s Grip on Congress Slips, Showing Limits of His Mandate
Mexico’s leftist ruling coalition was on track to lose its absolute majority in Congress following midterm elections on Sunday, putting brakes on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s ambitious plans to overhaul the country’s economy and society.

Party of Peru’s leading presidential candidate is Marxist — and wants to nationalize everything
If front-runner Pedro Castillo wins Peru’s June 6 presidential elections, he could be the most radical leftist candidate to win a Latin American election in recent years. The platform he presented to run for the first-round election in April looks like it was lifted from the Russian Revolution in 1917.

France plans to oust English as the bloc’s most common tongue and use French in EU meetings
FRANCE is reportedly plotting to use its EU presidency to topple English as the bloc’s most commonly spoken language.

Scottish Feminist Arrested For Offensive Tweets
From Count Dankula

French President Macron Slapped in the Face in Visit to Small Town
French President Emmanuel Macron is not having a very good year. The pandemic in France continues to take its toll and the people are chafing at the partial lockdowns that continue to be a drag on the economy. His handling of the vaccine rollout has been a disaster according to many observers as France lags behind nations like the UK and Israel in vaccinating its people.

The G-7’s Tax Cartel Is Bad News
Back during the tax-reform debate of 2017, I warned that while moving to a territorial tax system and lowering the corporate-income-tax rate was great, adopting a global minimum tax was dangerous.

Turks Enraged as Ancestry.com Reveals the Truth: Most of Them Are Greeks
The Turkish DNA Project, an online endeavor to track Turkish genetics, is enraged at the popular genealogy site Ancestry.com and has called for it to be boycotted for stating an inconvenient truth: many, and possibly most, modern Turks are the descendants of the Greeks who once formed the overwhelming majority of the population of the land that is now Turkey. In this as in so many other instances, the truth hurts, but that doesn’t make it any less the truth.

Maya Forstater: Woman wins tribunal appeal over transgender tweets
A woman who lost her job after saying that people cannot change their biological sex has won an appeal against an employment tribunal.

Life as an enslaved Cuban doctor in Venezuela
And to think, some want to give the communist Castro dictatorship a Nobel Prize for sending doctors as slaves to a foreign country to be mistreated and punished for not obeying their slave masters.

Unvaccinated forced to wear skull and crossbones in part of India
Good lord. And I thought vaccine passports were a bit heavy-handed in pressuring people to get vaxxed. When India wants to shame someone socially for behaving irresponsibly, they don’t f*** around.

How Far will South Africa be Pulled in to Mozambique?
As we first pointed out here last August, Mozambique needs to be in your scan.Though we may be pulling back from engaging with global Islamic extremism, it is not pulling back from the world. Especially on the African front of the bleeding edge of Dar al-Islam, they are pressing wherever opportunities reveal themselves.

120 Works From Modigliani To Monet Vanish From Italian Broadcaster
The story of the missing artworks at Italy’s public broadcaster Rai would make a riveting televised mystery.

A Bridge to Somewhere
Representative Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) has some solid ideas about what an infrastructure bill should look like.

Japan’s upper house of Parliament passes motion to support Taiwan’s bid to join WHO assembly
The upper house of the Japanese Parliament on Friday passed a resolution supporting the self-governed island’s participation in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) annual assembly.

Israel swears in new coalition, ending Netanyahu’s long rule
Israel’s parliament on Sunday narrowly approved a new coalition government, ending the historic 12-year rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sending the polarizing leader into the opposition.

Israeli Arabs assert their Palestinian identity. . .and join Israel’s government
When I visited Israel for the first time in 1982, I was told that relations between Jews and Israeli Arab were fairly good. In Haifa, where my father-in-law lived, relations were said to be exemplary. After spending time in Haifa and the surrounding region, it seemed to me that this was true.

 

Opinion

 

How much longer will the Grutter racial preferences regime last?
The U.S. Supreme Court has before it a petition for certiorari in the race discrimination suit brought by Asian-American students against Harvard. I hope the Court agrees to hear the case.

What the Critical Race Theory Left Seeks Is the ‘Dictatorship of the DOA’
When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in 1925, he clearly described his intent to gain revenge, especially against France, for the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I and imposed a host of humiliating limitations on Germany”s ability to regain its military might.

Current “Social Justice” Movement Seeks Identity-Based Retribution
Trying to debate woke activists has proven hopeless. They dismiss opposing arguments—because they believe all such arguments are oppressive.

Take the Harvard Case
The Supreme Court’s justices are scheduled to decide later this week whether to grant review for next term in the case challenging Harvard’s use of racial and ethnic preferences in its admissions. They should do so, and then hold that such discrimination is illegal. Only by overthinking could they have any trouble ruling that this racial discrimination violates the law. It is not only at odds with the relevant legal text but also unfair, and not only unfair but also unpopular — and not only unpopular but also making race relations in our country worse.

Our Politics And The English Language
What would Orwell say about our debased discourse?

Is Safetyism Destroying a Generation?
In recent years behaviours on university campuses have created widespread unease. Safe spaces, trigger warnings, and speech codes. Demands for speakers to be disinvited. Words construed as violence and liberalism described as ‘white supremacy’. Students walking on eggshells, too scared to speak their minds. Controversial speakers violently rebuked – from conservative provocateurs such as Milo Yiannopoulos to serious sociologists such as Charles Murray, to left-leaning academics such as Bret Weinstein.

Predicting SCOTUS Assignments for the November Sitting
Who will write Fulton and the Obamacare case?

Biden’s Bureaucratic Plans for American Families: Child Care and Paid Leave
Family policy professionals won’t want to miss this 30-minute “Policy Pulse: about child care and paid family leave policies proposed in Biden’s American Families Plan.

Sherif Girgis on the Supreme Court’s Options in the Next Abortion Case
There are “Two Obstacles to (Merely) Chipping Away at Roe in Dobbs,” he writes

The Definition of Courage Has Shifted Since Normandy
Last Sunday marked the 77th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. On that day, Operation Overlord began, launching the Allied invasion of Europe that would spell the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime. At least 4,400 Allied troops died in the Normandy landings, and another 10,000 were wounded.

Alzheimer’s Breakthrough and the False Compassion of Assisted Suicide
Great news. The FDA has just approved a new drug that appears to slow the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease by 28 percent as compared to a cadre of subjects receiving placebo. The help with everyday tasks was most significant.

What’s So Elite about Our “Elite” Colleges?
Do students who go to our so-called elite colleges and universities receive a better education than those who go to schools that aren’t so prestigious? That is seldom the case, and often the reverse is true. Students who go to “lesser” institutions may get more time from their professors and the curriculum may be stronger. The “elite” schools are called that because they admit such a tiny percentage of applicants, most of whom are excellent students, and not because the education they offer is superior.

Attacked by Tyrants
Should Marx and Marxism be debated, given all we have experienced since 1917 or so? I mean, shouldn’t it be like debating smallpox? Marxism is bad and murderous, right? Well, the Cambridge Union, at the University of Cambridge, hosted a debate last week: “This house believes that Marx was right.” Arguing against the proposition, brilliantly, was Daniel Hannan.

How Our Political Parties Stopped Accepting Each Other’s Victories
On the menu today: A long, deep look at why so many Americans no longer believe that those who politically disagree have any “legitimacy.”

The Phrase “Systemic Racism” Clouds Productive Debate
We can’t discuss issues usefully if we shout each other down even when we agree.

This Isn’t Your Father’s Left-Wing Revolution
Starry-eyed radicals in the 1960s and 1970s dreamed that they either were going to take over America or destroy it.

Whose “Democracy” Is This?
Since January 6, every liberal on cable TV news has been declaring that “our democracy” is endangered by Trump voters who don’t believe Joe Biden won the election fairly. The latest outburst, by New York Times columnist Mara Gay, depicted the American flag as a racist symbol of this alleged threat to :our democracy.”

How John Locke Influenced the Founding, and the Advice He’d Give America Today
Arguably no philosopher had a greater influence on America’s founding than John Locke, says Joseph Loconte, director of the Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Cancel the Geneva Summit
As President Biden begins his “America is back tour”— his first trip abroad as president — there’s been a lot of discussion about a Biden doctrine, the administration’s approach to alliances, and how it will work to maintain America’s role in the world post-pandemic. On a more tactical level, we’re seeing the emergence of a certain Biden playbook when it comes to engaging with authoritarian regimes.

Saying “No” to the Pollution of Academe
The latest offensive by leftist forces in their century-long push to control how people are educated is the incursion of critical race theory, an incomprehensible mush of ideas that are intended to sow mistrust and grievances. It also creates the need for ever-more government coercion so as to make things “equitable.” If CRT didn’t justify increased government power, the Left wouldn’t be interested.

The university show trials: what have I done?
I thought about my colleagues, the small college team I worked with every day. We were friends. We sometimes dined together. We would have walked across campus together after a hearing. It had honestly never occurred to me how that would look to an outsider desperately seeking a fair hearing for her son. In her eyes, the fix had been in. She told me what college her son had been expelled from. I knew some of those people. I knew my counterpart there, knew him to be a highly regarded senior student-affairs professional. I offered no defense, however, because I had none.

We must hold the perpetrators of Soviet crimes to account
Eighty years ago, a targeted campaign of Soviet communist repression against the people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania peaked with mass deportations carried out over several nights in June of 1941.

“Biphobia” and Other Updates
Remember my post about Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner “coming out” as bisexual? It was noticed by a Reddit contributor who responded with a thread called “I really hate biphobes” under the category of “BIGOTRY.” And you know what? I don’t care. If considering bisexuality to be pathological is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Biden Divides Us. Here Are 12 Principles That Can Unite Us.
Americans are woke. They woke-up and realized President Joe Biden is no moderate. He is spearheading the most radical policies in modern history, policies that would transform this nation into an unrecognizable country—far less safe, more impoverished, and more unfree.

Relevant classic texts
I just finished reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America for the first time. I read it over the past two years or so in weekly lunch meetings with my friend Bruce Sanborn. Carleton College’s Professor Larry Cooper, also a friend, served as our preceptor. We used the terrific edition translated, edited, and introduced by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop that is published by the University of Chicago Press.

Fixing the Electoral Count Act Is a Good Idea
Clarity now can prevent a constitutional crisis later.