BUT THEY’RE TRYING TO FIRE AMY WAX FOR INSENSITIVITY: UPenn reportedly sponsored Palestinian writer who joked about Hamas burning baby in oven after it allegedly ignored warnings.
Archive for 2023
November 6, 2023
NOW THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: SpaceX selling ‘Starshield’ will be a gamechanger.
Space Force and SpaceX announced that they’ve reached a deal for a brand-new military capability: Starshield. Is it a new laser defense shield against nuclear missiles? An Ultron for our time to destroy alien armadas? Or Starlink, but with new branding and (probably) a new fleet of satellites?
Yup, the last one. But with how clutch Starlink is in Ukraine, a military-controlled version of the network could change operations there. And it would dramatically improve U.S. and allied military communications in future conflicts. Now, the American military will lead military space-based communications with the start of Starshield. But expect allies to clamor aboard and other nations to try developing rival platforms.
Low latency, redundancy, and plenty of lift for replacement satellites is a very good look for communications.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Chris Christie’s Trump Tantrum Campaign Has an Audience of None. “The longer Trump lingers at the top of the polls, the more that the candidates who thought attacking him was the ticket are probably rocking back and forth in the dark on their hotel room floors, muttering ‘Why won’t they love me?'”
NATE SILVER: Free speech is in trouble.
College Pulse and FIRE — the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a pro-free speech advocacy group — recently published the latest edition of their annual survey. Although I don’t love using data from political groups — even ones I generally agree with — the good in this survey outweighs the bad. The methodology is detailed and transparent. And in surveying more than 55,000 undergraduates, the poll provides a look at student opinion across all sorts of colleges and universities — not just from the loudest or most privileged students at elite institutions.
Although I’ve seen a lot of media coverage about the FIRE survey, I’d never really dug into the details. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to see. But given my own political philosophy, I can tell you what I was hoping for: robust student support for free speech — perhaps in contrast to the often lukewarm support it receives among university administrators. Unfortunately, that’s not what the survey found. Here’s what it says instead:
College students aren’t very enthusiastic about free speech. In particular, that’s true for liberal or left-wing students, who are at best inconsistent in their support of free speech and have very little tolerance for controversial speech they disagree with.
The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect fundamental individual rights from overbearing government and from public passions. Free speech, in particular, isn’t popular with either one. Progressives understand this all too well and that’s why they’ve been at war with the Consitution for over a century.
LOL:
Masked Antifa man calls me a f***ing fascist and appeals to Muslim women for support.
Intersectional comedy ensues. They destroy him.pic.twitter.com/P2WqfQL00X
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) November 4, 2023
Breaking: An America or Canadian militant Antifa activist who attended the London Palestine protest called @BillboardChris a fascist for opposing transitioning children. The Antifa man tries to rally Muslim women to his cause but they tell him they disagree with him too. pic.twitter.com/UJYPLX7iNs
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) November 4, 2023
“Intersectional comedy:” This is the kind of thing I had in mind when I wondered if pranksters would plaster the Harvard campus with ISLAM IS RIGHT ABOUT WOMEN and ISLAM IS RIGHT ABOUT GAYS posters.
MICHAEL WALSH ON JOE BIDEN: Dead Man Shuffling. “As with any Times political story (and nowadays, they’re almost all political), the question we must ask is: why now? Why on a Sunday, the most important day of the week in Timesland.”
STOPPED CLOCK: Wait… Who Actually Just Said NO to a Ceasefire with Hamas?
IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN OR NEAR WHAT J. EDGAR HOOVER CALLED THE “SOG” ON FRIDAY: I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers’ Convention. The title for the panel is “SFFA and Beyond.” I’ll be trying to predict what will happen next, now that the Supreme Court has held race-preferential admissions unconstitutional. I’m hoping the future will resemble this.
If you’re wondering, Hoover used the term “SOG” to mean Seat of Government–Washington, DC. The Federalist Society’s National Lawyers’ Convention is held at the Mayflower Hotel there. The Mayflower’s restaurant was J. Edgar Hoover’s favorite place for lunch. He was there on a daily basis. Alas, that exact restaurant no longer exists. But in honor of Hoover’s patronage, the new restaurant at the Mayflower (which is in a slightly different spot) is called “Edgar.” It’s probably not the memorial Hoover was expecting, but it’s more than most of us get.
IF YOU’RE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Jeff Jacoby, longtime columnist for the Boston Globe, will be coming to the University of San Diego School of Law to deliver our annual Bowes Lecture. He’ll be here on Tuesday, November 14, at the School of Law’s Grace Courtroom. The reception is at 5:30 pm, and the lecture begins at 6:15. If you’re a Jeff Jacoby fan and you’re in Southern California, then please join me there. It’s the cool place to be.
RSVPs are not required, but appreciated.
It’s almost as if those “elites” are on the payroll of our enemies.
#JOURNALISM:
What he actually said is that he installed accountability software on his son's devices to keep his son from using porn, and he put the same software on his own devices to show his son he wasn't using porn either. But Rolling Stone is a dishonest publication. https://t.co/EhlzOD1UUh
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) November 5, 2023
AN ADULT ON CAMPUS, FINALLY: “Tulane University’s president schools his mealymouthed peers in responding to students’ anti-Semitic violence.”
COLD WAR II: Via Big Mac Index, CCP Defense Spending May Exceed America’s. “To be clear, the Big Mac Index does not suggest $1.07 trillion in CCP military spending; it describes received value. Though a nominal budget of 4% China’s GDP may seem unbelievable, let alone a PPP valuation of $1.07 trillion, the results suggest fair valuation. While the U.S. Navy fights to maintain a fleet smaller than requirements, the PLAN raised the world’s largest fleet backed by a shipbuilding capacity 2000% America’s. Additionally, the PLAN fields over 80,000 sea mines of increasing quality and various methods of deployment while American minelaying and mine countermeasure projects struggle. While American air forces face material readiness and recruitment troubles, the PLAF pushes its boundaries and the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) fields the largest and most diverse missile force in the world – alongside 3200+ acres of reclaimed seabed bases patrolled by maritime militias. While American ground force sealift capacity struggles, China weaponizes their world class civilian maritime industry. China may be short on reliable friends and field systems of debatably lesser quality – but their 20 year military realignment shows value-for-money.”
ICYMI: OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY: Power Corrupts but Sunlight Disinfects.
“You don’t look Asian because your eyes are round instead of oval.”
“She’s the most pregnant woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Prospective law students prefer to see young faculty faces rather than old faculty faces.”
“I suppose you think you owe Professor Gerber because he practically wrote your paper.”
“The law school shouldn’t engage in illegal hiring practices.”
While one might expect a storm of consequences for the individual responsible for the first four statements, the story at Ohio Northern University (ONU) unfolds quite differently.
Behind the first four comments is, of all people, the current Dean of ONU’s College of Law, Charles Rose, who, in spite of uttering such statements, received a five-year contract extension.
Professor Scott Gerber, on the other hand, who opposed illegal hiring practices, found himself removed from his classroom by campus security officers on April 14 and was escorted to a meeting with Rose, who handed Gerber a “memorandum initiating his suspension from all faculty duties.”
Make them pay.
YOU’LL NEVER HEAR A SANCTIMONIOUS BARACK OBAMA SPEECH ABOUT THIS: “The root cause of the violence we have seen in Israel and Gaza over the past month is the sick culture that prevails in Gaza. Jew-hatred is the only value in that culture, and terror its only product.”
A much less truthful or useful take: Obama: We Are All Complicit For the Violence in Israel-Hamas War. Of course, aside from his usual anti-Western shtick, he’s trying to spread the blame here because in fact the policies he championed, under his own administration and under Biden’s, are substantially at fault.
And what does he mean about “the occupation?” Israel withdrew from Gaza before Barack Obama was elected President for the first time. Or by “the occupation” does he mean Israel’s simple existence? Because that’s what Hamas means by it. Does Obama want it to be Jew-free “from the river to the sea?”
Hell, he probably does.
IF HE WERE MUSLIM, THE PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT WOULD BE CELEBRATING HIM: The Christian Faith Of Speaker Of The House Mike Johnson.
ICYMI: THE AMY WAX DOUBLE STANDARD AT PENN: Amy Wax, Liz Magill, and Hypocrisy.
I represent Professor Amy L. Wax, a tenured professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She is the target of charges brought by the former dean of the law school; he asked the school to strip her of tenure and fire her for remarks she made in the media and on campus.
Whatever you may have heard or read about the case, the events of the last few weeks concerning a “Palestine Writes Literature Festival” at Penn and the University’s response to it, and the rallies on campus and statements that have been made since, proves one thing: My client is the victim of a glaring double standard which can only be explained by Penn’s naked, left-leaning partisanship. If you are a Jew-hating and Israel-bashing propagandist, you can say anything and invite anyone you want to campus and you are protected by the school’s commitment to academic freedom. However, if you are a white Jewish conservative thinker who openly challenges the notion that “institutional” or “structural racism” explains life for many African Americans today and you assign books and invite speakers who support those views, then you need to go.
Yep, that’s pretty much how they see it at Penn.