April 18, 2024
WELL, THAT’S UNIVERSITIES’ RESPONSE TO EVERYTHING NOWADAYS, USUALLY CLOAKED — AS HERE — IN UNPERSUASIVE TALK OF “SAFETY.” “USC Canceling Valedictorian’s Commencement Speech Looks Like Calculated Censorship.” “To elaborate on the heckler’s veto point, behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated: If all it takes to cancel an event is that ‘discussion relating to [the event] has taken on an alarming tenor,’ that just encourages people with all sorts of views on all sorts of issues to try to shut down speakers simply by producing more ‘alarming’ chatter. And if there really were such serious threats that USC felt it had to shut down the event despite this risk, then USC should have at least expressly said that there were such serious threats, and stressed that it had called in law enforcement so that the threateners could be caught and punished.”
LOW ENERGY JOE:
Trump at an NYC bodega: Pandemonium.
Biden at a Sheetz gas station: Crickets. pic.twitter.com/iFRV6g22rd— Suburban Black Man đşđ¸ (@niceblackdude) April 18, 2024
Compare Trump at the Bodega:
President Trump will put New York in play this November!
It is only Day 2 of this show trial, and President Trump is already breaking the internet by visiting Jose Alba's bodega.
Alba was shipped to Rikers Island by Bragg after acting in self-defense.
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) April 16, 2024
NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO BUY, NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO SELL: New-home construction posts biggest drop in four years, despite America facing a housing shortage. “With mortgage rates beginning their ascent in February, home buyers may have pulled back from purchasing homes, which would explain the big drop in housing starts in March.”
Re-ascent, actually, as lenders took notice of January’s end of disinflation.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Crest 3D Whitestrips, Professional Effects Plus. #CommissionEarned
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Sydney Sweeney Should Win an Award for Triggering Miserable Lib Women. “Show me on the Gloria Steinem doll where Sydney Sweeney touched you.”
TRUMP DOESN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. HE’S A VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION JUST BY EXISTING AND THREATENING THEIR SELF-IMPORTANCE.
"Donald Trump is enjoying the same guarantees of fairness and due process before the law that he sought to deny to others during his term." [blurb] @NYTopinion gives zero (0) examples of Trump denying due process to others during his term. https://t.co/epZzR0FhK5
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) April 18, 2024
Ann Althouse: “I don’t like how the Board is conflating the prosecution and the court and the rule of law. The rule of law is an abstraction. Rights exist within the abstraction, but rights can be violated. The abstraction doesn’t guarantee the rights. People exercising power must ensure that those rights are protected, and they may deviously hide behind the abstraction… perhaps with the help of elite onlookers who make abstract pronouncements in print. Trump’s assertion that the prosecution is “unfair and politically motivated” is may be true even if the court carries out its duties perfectly. Trump may be “fortunate to live in a country” that has some dedication to the rule of law, but that doesn’t deprive him of the reason to complain that the prosecution seems politically motivated. Again, even if the court perfectly carries out its obligation to the rule of law, Trump is motivated to cry out about the onerous prosecutions, which are undercutting his ability to campaign for the presidency.”
Which is the point.
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Why the Media Ignore Anti-Semitism.
When the New York Times did get around to reporting on some of these incidents, the articleâs focus was not on the thuggish rhetoric and behavior of Palestinian activists toward Jews, but rather on how such behavior was affecting Democratic politiciansâ holiday parties and fundraisers. âProtests over the Biden administrationâs handling of the war are disrupting the activities of Democratic officials from city halls to Congress to the White House, complicating their ability to campaignâand, at times, governâduring a pivotal election year,â the story noted.
What the paper of record failed to mention, but is easily visible across social media on a regular basis, is that these protests are promoting and normalizing anti-Semitism, not taking a principled stand on behalf of the Palestinians (a majority of whom approved of Hamasâs attack on Israel on October 7, according to polling data). In New York in late March, for example, outside a fundraiser for President Biden, a male protester was captured on video following a young woman who was trying to get into the building. He screamed at her, âFâing murderous kike. Fâing die. Keep it moving, bitch.â
Why arenât these anti-Semitic attacks front-page stories? Why arenât they given the kind of relentless scrutiny that anti-Semitism on the right has properly received in these same outlets? The Times has published countless stories about the rhetoric of participants in the 2017 âUnite the Rightâ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Where are the big-think pieces and deeply reported stories about the organizations and funders behind the anti-Jewish groups staging protests outside synagogues and other Jewish institutions?
Read the whole thing.
STUDENT SUSPENDED FOR USING LEGAL TERM: Ever wonder where the term “illegal alien” originates? I don’t know if federal law was the originator, but, as Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader points out this morning, the term appears in both federal and state law codes.
So why is North Carolinian Leah McGhee’s high-school student son being penalized for using the term? Bader explains:
“Leah McGheeâs son has a teacher who assigned vocabulary words during class last Tuesday, including the word âalien.â McGhee says her son made an effort to understand the assignment and responded to his teacher, asking, ‘Like space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards?’
“According to an email describing the incident, sent to local officials and shared with Carolina Journal, a young man in class took offense to his question and reportedly threatened to fight him, prompting the teacher to call in the assistant principal. Ultimately, his words were deemed by administrative staff to be offensive and disrespectful to classmates who are Hispanic.
â’I didnât make a statement directed towards anyone; I asked a question,’ said the student in response to his suspension. ‘I wasnât speaking of Hispanics because everyone from other countries needs green cards, and the term illegal alien is an actual term that I hear on the news and can find in the dictionary.'”
Prediction: Leah McGhee is raising one sharp young man who just might end up in law school someday and advance to a position where he can help restore common sense and justice to American public education.
HEADLINES FROM FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY: Canadian âSocial distancingâ police fine Christian Pastor $1,200 for feeding homeless people.
LOL: She’s the loony left establishment in a nutshell.
While she is a small scale donor, her second biggest donation was to Stacey Abrams PAC — you remember her? She's the election-denying failed gubernatorial candidate from Georgia.
— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) April 17, 2024
KEEP THE BUREAUCRATS OUT: Why the White House and Congress canât see eye-to-eye on regulating commercial space. And this is at best a stretch: “The FAA, Department of Transportation, has been doing human spaceflight safety for many years.” The FAA has done a great job with human spaceflight by not regulating it. The “learning period” law has prevented anyone from doing so. And that’s how it should stay for the foreseable future.
ATHENA THORNE: Trumpâs Brilliant Prosecution Juxtaposition Campaign. “Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan conspire to keep the presidential frontrunner locked up in a dingy courtroom during the day, but he is free to roam after court hours. An irrepressible and brilliant marketer, Trump seizes on those hours to communicate. And he is off to a pitch-perfect start.”
YOU COULD MAKE A MUCH BETTER CIVIL WAR MOVIE OUT OF HIS BOOKS: That Civil War Movie Is a Symptom of Hollywoodâs Problems.
The problem with “Civil War” isnât its point of view, to the extent it has one. Now, you can tell that, beneath the surface, it has a generic left-wing orientation. The bad guy president is vaguely Trumpy. Heâs a straight white male, of course. In fact, every single villain is a straight, white male. None of the major heroes is a straight, white male. You can make movies where the villains are straight, white males, and where none of the heroes are straight, white males, but itâs now a woke Hollywood cliche to make all the villains straight, white males, and none of the heroes straight, white males. You canât unsee it. Rural white guy? Definitely a villain. Black woman? Hero!
But the mandatory pseudo-diversity of Hollywood is not the main problem with “Civil War.”
Plus: “This was a missed opportunity. Weâre at a very dangerous time in our country.” Read on.
THE INFLATION CAFE: 2% Inflation, My Ass!
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Over 40% Of Full-Time Faculty Depart West Virginia Law School.
REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: Impeachment âWhistleblowerâ Was in the Loop of Biden-Ukraine Affairs That Trump Wanted Probed.
âHe got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals at the time,â Biden initially told reporters after visiting a war memorial that bears his uncleâs name in Scranton, Pa.
âThey never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there and they checked and found some parts of the plane.â
âHe got shot down in New Guinea and they never found the body because there used to be â there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,â Biden told United Steelworkers union members.
The cannibals wore onions on their belts, which was the style at the time.
More seriously, Biden also repeated the long-disproved “Suckers and losers” smear against Trump.
If we had an honest press… alas.
But here’s the thing. They don’t hate Trump voters because of Trump. They hate Trump because they hate his voters. Contempt for middle- and working-class Americans is the glue binding our ruling class together.
NO RELATION, BUT GOOD FOR HER: Governor Reynolds Signs Texas-Style Immigration Law. “Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is following the path forward on illegal immigration blazed by the Republican governor of Texas. She signed a law that she said would allow Iowa to enforce immigration laws that already exist. Senate File 2340 passed in the state Senate by a vote of 34-16. It passed in the state House by 64-30 last month. It is now a crime for a person to be in Iowa illegally or as an illegal immigrant who previously has been deported. . . . If Biden and Mayorkas continue to refuse to do their jobs, states should not be penalized for doing Biden’s job for him. What are the governors supposed to do? Just as Biden’s top job is to protect the homeland and American citizens, it is the top job of governors to protect their states and their residents.”
CHRISTOPHER RUFO: Quotations from Chairman Maher.
Maher understands the game: Americaâs elite institutions reward loyalty to the narrative. Those who repeat the words move up; those who donât move out.
Next, you notice the partisanship. Maher was âexcitedâ about Elizabeth Warren in 2012. She âjust [couldnât] wait to voteâ for Hillary in 2016. She once had a dream about âsampling and comparing nuts and baklava on roadside standsâ with Kamala Harris. She worked to âget out the voteâ in Arizona for Joe Biden but slightly resented being called a âBiden supporterâ; for her, it was simply a matter of being a âsupporter of human rights, dignity, and justice.â
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a âderanged racist sociopath.â
If you read Maherâs tweets closely, you also get glimpses of the human being. She spent much of her time in airports, taxis, meetings, and conferences. She expressed anger over the fact that most first-class flyers were white men, then noted that she went straight âto the back of the bus.â In her thirties, unmarried and without children, she felt the need to explain that âthe planet is literally burningâ and that she could not, in good conscience, âbring a child into a warming world.â
Behind the frenetic activity and the moral posturing, you wonder. Maher once posted her daily routine, which involved yoga, iced coffee, back-to-back meetings, and Zoom-based psychotherapy. She resented being served maternity advertisements on Instagram, she said. She was not âcurrently in the market for a babyâ and would not be âtending her ovariesâ according to the dictates of American capitalism.
Americans, even CEOs, are entitled to their opinions and to their own life decisions, of course. But the personal and psychological elements that suffuse Maherâs public persona seem to lead to political conclusions that are, certainly, worthy of public criticism.
The most troubling of these conclusions is her support for radically narrowing the range of acceptable opinions. In 2020, she argued that the New York Times should not have published Senator Tom Cottonâs op-ed, âSend in the Troops,â during the George Floyd riots. In 2021, she celebrated the banishment of then-president Donald Trump from social media, writing: âMust be satisfying to deplatform fascists. Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place.â
As CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, Maher made censorship a critical part of her policy, under the guise of fighting âdisinformation.â In a speech to the Atlantic Council, an organization with extensive ties to U.S. intelligence services, she explained that she âtook a very active approach to disinformation,â coordinated censorship âthrough conversations with government,â and suppressed dissenting opinions related to the pandemic and the 2020 election.
In that same speech, Maher said that, in relation to the fight against disinformation, the âthe number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States.â These speech protections, Maher continued, make it âa little bit trickyâ to suppress âbad informationâ and âthe influence peddlers who have made a real market economy around it.â
Related: Where are Uri Berlinerâs defenders in the press?
What should be most troubling, however, is that Maher flaunted a Biden campaign hat in a post from 2020, as she canvassed a Get Out the Vote operation in Arizona. NPR now has a dilemma: they can keep Maher as CEO (which I believe they will), but they can no longer dispute the accusations of what Berliner claimed the network has become in recent years. I would argue this is what NPR wants, and has wanted for a while. NPR, their hosts and their CEO can now exhale and stop pretending to be anything other than another progressive media outlet. The problem for NPR in that realm now becomes an issue of public funding (cue a Marsha Blackburn bill to defund NPR). This debate has be re-energized by Berlinerâs resignation and NPRâs stiffening spine in defending their new activist CEO.
What cannot be ignored is the lack of outcry from Berlinerâs fellow journalists and his union. Berliner was made to be a leper in the media cool-kidsâ clique simply for telling the truth of what NPR is. Berlinerâs public flogging is a warning to anyone else who dares speak out about what media organizations, and the journalists working for them, have become. They all know what they are, and they all now know what happens to them if they speak out about it like Uri Berliner did.
More: Dozens of NPR Staffers Sign Letter to CEO and Unwittingly Prove Uri Berliner’s Point.
MATT TAIBBI: On Uri Berliner’s Resignation from NPR.