Why Evolution Is True | May 4, 2014

DEI statements are affirmations made when you’re applying for college admission, university jobs, or even science-society grants, recounting to the authorities your philosophy of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” your history of DEI activities, and how you will implement DEI initiatives if you get the admission/job/grant.  I have posted quite a bit about them (see collection here), and object to them because they are not only compelled speech and are often completely irrelevant to what you’re applying for, but also ignore the fact that there are many ways to make contributions to society beyond enacting DEI. (For example, what about a college applicant who has taught illiterate adults to read?)  And I think many institutions are eliminating them. For one thing, some of them may violate the recent Supreme Court decision on race-based admission. Now MIT has joined the statement-eliminators.

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Bloodstained currency, smuggled gold bars and a $200,000 check.

Daniel Greenfield | Front Page Magazine | May 3, 2024

On March 1, 2018, Joe Biden got a $200,000 check. The story of where that check came from involves everything from “bloodstained currency” to smuggled gold bars to ‘The Exorcist’.

But above all else it involves an enemy Muslim tyranny with ties to 9/11 and Hamas.

When I first broke the story a week before Election Day, it was about how hospital patients in smaller poorer hospitals, including one that had inspired ‘The Exorcist’, had suffered because of the corrupt greed of the Biden family. But even then there was a strange element which led to one of the key figures in the case receiving “blood-stained currency from a Middle Eastern country” and a “torture ticket” after suing James Biden: Joe’s brother.

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“I think that the energy story is a lot of what drove the military side of this…”

Mike Benz | MikeBenzCyber | May2, 2024

Mike Doran | Hudson Institute | May 4, 2024

Jonathan Hosts Dr. Michael Doran, former Senior White House Advisor on the Middle East, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC. The main discussion focuses on what message is being sent by the US to both allies and enemies alike as a result of its weak military policy in the Middle East, part of which includes negotiating with Israel’s enemies, as well as internal politcal division and uncertainty within the US itself. Also discussed is the US’s view VS Israel’s view on how the Gaza conflict should end, what does the “day after” in Gaza look like, and how is the US-Israel alliance viewed by its enemies in the Middle East?

Peloni:   I have yet to see a reasonable explanation why this bill should not be passed if Title VI is to be maintained at all.  People whom I respect and dislike oppose it, yet the reasons for doing so are well diminished by Tobin in this article.  Meanwhile the best defense for passing this bill is that its need is palpably obvious as campuses all across the US are being subjectd to violent Jew Hating mobs as the astroturf movement against Jews continues unabated.

A bizarre coalition of left- and right-wingers opposes a measure to mandate the enforcement of Title VI protections for Jewish students on campus. They’re both dead wrong.

Jonathan Tobin | JNS | May 4, 2024

The UCR sign at the center of the University of California, Riverside, covered in pro-Palestine, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist symbols, April 30, 2024. Credit: Fluffy89502 via Wikimedia Commons.

Faced with an opportunity to do something that would actually help give the federal government the ability to punish American universities that have let their campuses become hotbeds of antisemitism, a bipartisan majority of Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives did the right thing and passed a bill that can make that possible this week by a vote of 320-91.

But the number of “no” votes was still discouraging for two reasons.

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E. Rowell:  In this article the author explores the ties that bind us to prior generations of Jews.  All of the family members from my father and mother’s side of the family who did not leave Europe or Russia prior to World War II perished.  It is a strange kind of loss.  It is not the loss of loved ones I knew and cared for.  It is the loss of family members I never got a chance to know, and lost.

My grandfather kept a picture from his childhood school in prewar Bratislava. Most of his classmates were murdered by the Nazis, but those who survived the Holocaust remained connected for the rest of their lives.

By Nomi Kaltmann, TABLET MAGAZINE    3 May 2024

The author’s grandfather’s class photo/MELBOURNE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

My grandfather Yossi Kaltmann always kept a picture of his classmates on his living room mantle. The black-and-white photograph of him and more than 30 of his peers was always given a place of prominence. For most people, looking at a photo of their school friends is a form of nostalgia. For my zayde, it was a form of remembrance, because most of his classmates were murdered by the Nazis. Captured during the 1936-37 school year at Bratislava’s Yesodei HaTorah School in Czechoslovakia, the image portrays young Jewish boys aged 8-9, many of whom would only live a few years more before being killed.

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Just like Columbia, Democrats have a history.

By Jeffrey Lord, AMERICAN SPECTATOR    3 May 2024

The scene: the Democratic National Convention of 2012. The job at hand: renominate President Barack Obama.

But first, as is standard procedure for both political parties, a party platform had to be adopted. As such, headlines like this one from the U.K. Guardian emerged:

Democratic convention erupts over reinstatement of Jerusalem to policy

Row over Israel mars second day of convention as party moves to add back ‘God’ and ‘Jerusalem’ language to platform

It took the personal intervention of Obama to reverse the removal — because, according to reports, Jewish donors were livid.

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Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced in a counter-terrorism court after allegedly speaking out against male guardianship laws and “her choice of clothing.”

By DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD, JPOST

Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment by a secret court in Saudi Arabia for “her choice of clothing and support for women’s rights,” according to international media reports from the last week.

Saudi officials confirmed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that al-Otaibi had been sentenced on January 9 for what the officials described as “terrorist offenses,” the Guardian reported.

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By William R. Hawkins, AM THINKER

As campus protests turned violent, necessitating police operations to clear illegal encampments, the true agenda of the activists became apparent. Initially, the demonstrations were presented as saving innocent lives in Gaza with a cease-fire and humanitarian aid. Within this demand lurked the desire to save the Hamas terrorist group from defeat; a group that was using civilians as human shields. They charged that Israel was conducting “genocide” in Gaza with its offensive to clear out the thugs who had purposely massacred civilians in Israel on October 7, 2023. However, the genocide issue quickly shifted as the campus radicals openly embraced the Hamas objective of destroying Israel “from the river to the sea.” Indeed, the only side in this conflict calling for genocide is Hamas.
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By Stephen Soukup, AMERICAN GREATNESS    4 May 2024

This week, with the global celebration of May Day and with the ongoing protests on the nation’s college campuses, it is worth remembering that the man who largely inspired both was a hateful, intellectually shallow misanthrope, remembered by history and admired by jesters and dupes largely because of his odiousness.

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By Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE    30 April 2024

Muslims pray during “Islam on the Capitol Hill 2009” event at the west front lawn of the US Capitol  September 25, 2009 in Washington D.C./Photo by Alex Wong Getty Images

Tucked away in the $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is a $3.5 billion slush fund to open new processing centers for Muslim migrants, in what Sen. Eric Schmitt described as a bid to “supercharge mass migration from the Middle East.”

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E. Rowell:  The author states that the authoritarians derive meaning from the idea that they are saving the world from various armageddons.  But, in fact, these armageddons, whether they be climate “armageddon”, killer virus “armageddon”, or Putin’s “desire to take over the world”, are fake and created by the authoritarians themselves who just claim to be saving the world.  They are as worthy of trust as any con man.  It is what any psychopath does to cover up his criminality:  pretend to be your friend.  Once they are found out, they vanish from the scene, hoping to find another vulnerable group of people somewhere else to con.

From Scotland to New Zealand to Canada, politicians are on a collision course with the public.

By Tom Slater, Editor, SPIKED    3 May 2024

If you – like me – loathe authoritarian, faux-progressive scolds, it’s actually been a good few years. I know it might not seem like it, with the ‘Queers for Palestine’ contingent currently running riot on American university campuses, but hear me out. Across the Anglosphere, one politician after another, beloved by the media but increasingly disliked by the public, have exited the stage, often jumping before they were pushed.

This week, we bid farewell to the SNP’s Humza Yousaf, whose year-and-a-bit-long premiership in Scotland produced more scandals and disparaging nicknames – Humza Useless, Humza the Hapless, etc – than it did any positive legacy. In the end, he proved himself to be as illiberal as he was inept. His flagship policy, the Orwellian, broad-sweeping Hate Crime Act, alarmed voters and sparked a tsunami of spurious complaints, many of them about Yousaf himself. We can only hope it will now collapse under the weight of its own absurdity. (One thing’s for sure, voters are furious about it: only one in five Scots wants the Hate Crime Act to stay.)

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A website reveals the planning and strategy behind the current college mayhem.

By The Editorial Board, WSJ

Wonder Land: On April 30, 2024, Columbia’s Gaza encampment invaded Hamilton Hall via Instagram. And unless Joe Biden separates himself from the violence-prone left, his candidacy could die this summer in Chicago. Image: Stephani Spindel/Shutterstock

The recent anti-Israel protests are often portrayed as a spontaneous uprising of student indignation against the Gaza war. But we’re learning that behind the young idealists is an organized movement of leftists who want to spread disorder and whose candid strategy is to defy school administrators and police to achieve their radical goals.

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Peloni:  This article describes the one great strength which the Mullahs have and why they are still in power despite not holding a majority support in Iran: the intractable divisions and conflicting visions which divide the Iranian opposition.  In fact, the communists, the royalists, the republicans stand in greater opposition to eachother than they do to the Mullahs.  When these divisions are finally ended with a consolidation of support for one of the many dissedent groups or some working coalition, so too will end the rule of the Mullahs.

Iran International Newsroom | May 3, 2024

Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei during a religious ceremony in Tehran

Alex Traiman & Josh Hasten | JNS TV | May 2, 2024

Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared that a Rafah operation will happen regardless of whether Hamas accepts the new hostage deal offered by Israel. But how much longer will Israel wait to go in? How much of this rhetoric is public diplomacy and how much can be trusted as actual policy? JNS CEO Alex Traiman and Middle East correspondent Josh Hasten analyze this story in all its angles as well as top stories happening in Israel – ICC threatening arrest warrant against Netanyahu – Biden administration accusing whole IDF units of human rights violations – Violent anti-Israel protests across campus – Antony Blinken’s Middle East trip and much more!

The hostage deal is stuck between Netanyahu’s ‘rock’ and Sinwar’s ‘hard place,’ as the world waits for Hamas’ answer to the current proposal ? The much anticipated Rafah offensive has been mythologized to Stalingrad status, but its strategic value is hardly the ‘total victory’ it has been chalked up to be

Amos Harel | Haaretz | May 3, 2024

Israeli soldiers rest on top of a tank, near the Israel-Gaza border, Thursday.Credit: Amir Cohen/ REUTERS

As the wait drags on for the reply of the real decision-maker – Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip – it’s best not to develop inflated expectations this time either. As of Thursday evening, Sinwar, located somewhere in “Lower Gaza,” was still silent. But top Hamas figures abroad, though it’s unclear whether they speak in their leader’s name, maintain that their view of the latest Egyptian mediation proposal is negative and are hinting that behind the proposal is an Israeli scheme.

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Francisco Gil-White | The Management of Reality Substack | May 3, 2024

Developments in Doha’s West Bay district have seen an increase in the population density of the area with the construction of several high-rises. Source: Wikipedia.

If you inferred from my headline that I would report on the progress of anti-Qatar protests on US campuses, that’s on you. I didn’t say that. And there are no such protests.

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The series of arrests is driven by security concerns distinctly connected to the deadly events of Oct. 7, Riyadh-based diplomats and human rights groups state.

By  Adi Nirman | Israel Hayom | May 3, 2024

Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool | Photo: REUTERS

As the war between Israel and Hamas drags on, Saudi Arabia is intensifying arrests of citizens for social media posts criticizing Israel or expressing pro-Palestinian views, according to Bloomberg.

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The White House and its supporters are using Muslims in Michigan to justify a slew of deeply hostile policies against Israel. Will that matter come fall?

By Caroline Glick, JNS    3 May 2024

Former U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. President Donald Trump on the campaign trail in 2020. Source: Trump campaign via Facebook/Biden Campaign via Facebook

A few weeks ago, a sermon by Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi at the Steven Wise Free Synagogue in New York, shocked millions from that city to Tel Aviv. Standing at his pulpit, Hirsch delivered a stern warning to the Democrats.

Noting that he is someone “who is finely attuned to American Jewish sentiment,” Hirsch told Democratic elected officials: “Do not take American Jews for granted.”

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By Robert Williams, GATESTONE    3 May 2024

The terrorist threat to Europe from the Islamic Republic of Iran — and Hamas and Hezbollah, its proxies — is growing. In the past five years, Iran has been behind at least 33 terrorist plots in Europe. There are, it is estimated, 450 Hamas operatives in Germany alone. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

• “Hamas sees Western countries such as Germany as a refuge in which the organization can concentrate on collecting donations, recruiting new supporters, and spreading its propaganda.” — Germany’s domestic intelligence service, apnews.com, November 23, 2023.

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