ROGER KIMBALL: The disgraceful, ducking, diving, dodging college presidents.

It was a clarifying moment, wasn’t it? The presidents of MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania testifying for the House Education Committee about the wave of rabid antisemitism on their campuses. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York asked the same question of UPenn’s Liz Magill, MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Harvard’s Claudine Gay. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your campus’s rule of conduct, yes or no? That was the question.

You might think it was a pretty simple question. Stefanik, exhibiting a mixture of incredulity and barely contained rage, stressed: “This should be be the easiest question to answer.”

Well . . . .

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Reverse Speech Codes Aren’t the Answer: Fighting Campus Hate and Anti-Semitism at the Roots of the Problem.

I also note how much easier the lives of the embattled Ivy League presidents would be if they had just had some principles all along.

And as always, if you like this, please sign up for a paid subscription.

CLAUDINE GAY’S CAREER IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Rabbi Resigns From Harvard’s Anti-Semitism Advisory Committee: ‘Ignoring Jewish Suffering Is Evil.’

THE REST OF THE MONEY, HE WASTED:

Hunter Biden has been federally indicted on new felony tax-related charges. The indictment said he spent millions on drugs, luxury hotels, prostitutes, exotic cars and luxury clothing while defrauding the government and evading taxes. Read: https://t.co/6ki9LeWp69

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) December 8, 2023

I take this to mean that the establishment has decided that Biden has to go. Probably in favor of Newsom. Remember, the primaries aren’t necessary for the Dems to field a candidate.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY FOR THE IVY LEAGUE: Universities Face Congressional Inquiry and Angry Donors Over Handling of Antisemitism: Congress has opened an investigation into Harvard, M.I.T. and University of Pennsylvania, a $100 million gift was withdrawn, and demands have grown for the universities’ presidents to resign. “Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said all three presidents should leave their posts.”

OPEN THREAD: Just run with it.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: DARPA picks 14 companies for lunar architecture study.

YEP: Father’s “straight pride” flag lawsuit against Denver Public Schools could succeed in court. “CBS News Colorado has been following this lawsuit closely, which was first filed back on Nov. 10 by two Washington D.C. lawyers, Mike Yoder and ChadLaVeglia. The lawsuit argues Nathan Feldman, a father of two children attending the K-8 Slavens School in Denver, was denied being able to put up a cisgendered, heterosexual flag at school. He says a ‘straight pride’ flag represents his children’s beliefs and should be allowed on campus in the same way LGBTQ+ flags are allowed.”

I REMEMBER WHEN THE PRESS PRETENDED CAIR WAS A CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP: CAIR Applauds Massacre of Jews.

Who am I kidding, they’ll keep pretending.

GOOD QUESTION: Why Aren’t We Attacking the Houthis?

EASY COME, EASY GO: Bittersweet Findings – Scientists Discover Three New Marsupial Species, but They Are All Likely Extinct.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Sex With My Partner Is Good. So Good I Can’t Orgasm.

FLASHBACK: A Syllabus For The Occupy Movement.

CHANGE: More Than a Quarter Million New Gun Owners in Israel Prove the Need for America’s Second Amendment.

HMM: Kia’s EV9 can power an average home and then some. It’s cool, but its output equals three or four hours of my home generator’s.

RON HART: America is Failing Young Men.

Related: Jonathan Haidt: Why I’m Increasingly Worried About Boys, Too: Since the 1970s, boys have been pushed away from the real world and pulled into the virtual.

HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG: Making the case for the location of the Bolaven extraterrestrial impact crater.

WELL, GOOD: Research shows allergy medicine ingredient can reduce lung cancer tumors.

RON DESANTIS CALLS ON HARVARD PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY TO RESIGN: Audio via Hugh Hewitt.

HH: Yeah, that is, that is an unfortunate, that was just unfair, and that is going to end next year. Governor, I want to begin with a very straightforward question. I’m a graduate of Harvard College. You’re a graduate of Harvard Law School. I want the president of Harvard, President Gay, to resign based upon her testimony. Do you have a position on whether or not she ought to go?

RD: 100%, and I think what this has revealed is the rot and the sickness that’s been festering inside higher education for a long time. And you understand that, Hugh. A lot of your listeners do. But I think now the broader public is seeing this, and I think that they’re appalled by what was going on. And I would put in a plug for Florida and say how we’ve done it differently. If you look at how, say, Ben Sasse, who’s the president of the University of Florida has handled the post-October 7th matters, much different, moral clarity, things that you can be proud of. And we need universities that are going to serve a function of pursuing truth and preparing students to be citizens of the republic. They should not be these hotbeds of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. But that’s what they’ve become, and I think back to my time. And I joke when I’m out on the campaign trail speaking with Republican primary voters. I say listen, I’m one of the few people that have gone through both Harvard and Yale and came out more conservative than when I went in. That’s not easy to do. And everyone acknowledged, they all kind of get it. But back in my day, you would not have had, I think, this level of vitriol like you have now. It has gotten much worse.

HH: Governor, in 1996, the Congress passed something called the Solomon Amendment, which you may recall. It barred law schools that would not allow the ROTC to recruit there from receiving federal funds. Would you be in favor of cutting off, and notwithstanding any other law provision in the supplemental, cutting off funds to universities like Harvard, Penn and MIT that have not taken action against the anti-Semitic assaults that have occurred on their campus?

RD: 100%.

Maybe just cut federal funding off anyway. Why are these absurdly rich institutions getting federal aid? Or even tax exemptions? It’s not clear that they’re a net positive for society, and in fact they’re looking like a toxic industry.

CULTURE OF IMPUNITY: Defying presidents and Congress, the ATF, DEA, FBI and U.S. Marshals shroud their shootings in secrecy: Despite nearly 30 years of demands for transparency, the DOJ’s law enforcement agencies release little data about whom they shoot, why and when, and they rarely use body cameras.

To be fair, they can’t even be trusted about other people’s shootings: Massive errors in FBI’s Active Shooting Reports from 2014-2022 regarding cases where civilians stop attacks: Instead of 4.6%, the correct number is at least 35.7%. In 2022, it is at least 41.3%. Excluding gun-free zones, it averaged over 63.5%.

Also: FBI agent who shot a man while showing dance moves at Denver nightclub allowed to carry weapon again.

Related: FBI Hiding the Ball on Communications With Twitter.

WHY ARE THEY TAX-EXEMPT? Elite universities grew endowments by $65 billion while raking in taxpayer cash.

Related: Higher Ed Has Become a Threat to America: Our corrupt, radical universities feed every scourge from censorship and crime to antisemitism.

INTERFERENCE! Officials at the University of Michigan have canceled votes on two student government referenda regarding this Israel-Hamas conflict, citing ‘unprecedented’ election interference by pro-Palestinian students.

LOOK AT THIS COMMUNITY NOTE AND IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY THEY HATE ELON:

We’ve created close to 800,000 manufacturing jobs since I’ve taken office.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 5, 2023

Haha you got fact checked.

— Melanie (@Imagecaptured) December 5, 2023

GEORGE KORDA: Trump’s ‘vermin’ comment was vile, but Democrats should also stop dehumanizing opponents.

Meh, once you’ve called a guy Hitler, I don’t think you can complain about what he calls you back. There’s been no restraint in political language (aimed at the right) at least since the GWB era, and probably for longer. After all, Thomas Dewey was compared with Hitler, too.

THE PENN DEBACLE: After President’s Remarks on Antisemitism, Penn Should Consider Her Future, the State’s Governor Says.

A day after M. Elizabeth Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, testified at a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism, the state’s Democratic governor said she had “failed” to “speak and act with moral clarity” and made an implicit call for her removal.

In her remarks, Magill did not directly answer pointed questions about whether students’ calling for the genocide of Jews violated Penn’s code of conduct. Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters on Wednesday that Magill’s evasiveness was “absolutely shameful” and “unacceptable,” adding that Penn’s Board of Trustees “has a serious decision they need to make.”

Shapiro, a nonvoting member of the board, urged the trustees to meet soon, though their next scheduled public meeting is not until February, according to the board’s website.

Magill testified on Tuesday alongside Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay, the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, respectively, at a hearing convened by the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The committee had demanded that the three leaders “answer for mishandling of antisemitic, violent protests” on their campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war, according to a news release.

Late on Wednesday, Magill issued a video statement about her comments. “In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies, aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.”
Penn’s board chair did not respond immediately to requests for comment from The Chronicle. A Pennsylvania state senator on Wednesday called for Magill to resign, vowing not to support any state funding for the university until she does.

Everything is going swimmingly. Related: Harvard President Gay Traveled to Washington to Quell the Backlash. Her Testimony Only Made it Worse.