JOHN LUCAS: An Immigrant’s View of Our Current Mess.

CRAZED CAMPUS GARBAGE BABIES DESTROYING LEFTIST INDOCTRINATION CENTERS: Columbia University Cancels Main Commencement Ceremony After Protests. “The ceremony, which was scheduled for May 15, has taken place outdoors on its New York City campus where students had set up a pro-Palestinian encampment that was taken down by police last week. The protests over the Israel-Hamas war that have swept campuses nationwide have prompted university administrators to rethink commencement plans with a goal of protecting students and guests from potentially ugly and violent political disputes.”

Crazy idea: Stop making “commitment to social justice” an admissions factor. Or, you know, just stick with the current approach. It’s changing the higher education world much faster than reformers like me ever could.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: This year’s Harvard commencement speaker compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

Everyone’s a Nazi, except for the people actually calling for the eradication of Jews.

CHAOS AT FORDHAM: Woman speaks out after protester rips Israeli flag from her hands, says it’s ‘Baffling.’

It’s only baffling if you close your eyes to the truth of what’s going on.

THE “EMERGING DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY” REPLACEMENT THEORY ISN’T WORKING OUT AS PLANNED: Survey: Texas Hispanics Support Abbott’s Border Crackdown, Jumping on the Trump Train.

MICHAEL WALSH: On Abortion, Take The Win and Move On. “Conservatives need to understand that handing the abortion club back to the Left is political suicide. They should instead be celebrating their Dobbs win, the partial restoration of the Tenth Amendment, and the option to put their morals where their mouths are and fight for their beliefs at the state level, as the Constitution intends — especially in a fraught national election year. To lose the White House over an issue that’s already been constitutionally decided is lunacy. So take the win and move on to the next battlefield. There’s no shortage of them.”

Related: On abortion, Trump gets what many conservatives don’t.

THEY ASSUME ANGRY LEFTISTS COME FROM A POSITION OF MORALITY: Ben Sasse criticizes other universities for ‘bizarrely’ giving attention to ‘smallest, angriest group’ amid protests. They don’t come from a position of morality. They come from a position of greed for power.

DON SURBER: Where are the anti-Hamas protests? Why does the world accept the rape, torture and slaughter of Jews?

Because protests in the world are organized by leftists, and leftists are garbage people.

JEFFREY CARTER: By Any Means Necessary: Yesterday Climate, Today Hamas, Tomorrow?

The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution. “You must participate. Hiding your head in the sand is exactly what the terrorists want. For an example, see voter turnout in Chicago. They have a Marxist for mayor. Let me try to help my liberal friends. Though it is very hard to understand, when someone says they want to kill you and they protest publicly, they really do want to kill you. We don’t think that way but they do.”

IF IT WEREN’T FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: DOJ’s Kristen Clarke Testified She Was Never Arrested. Court Records and Text Messages Indicate She Was.

Before becoming one of the Justice Department’s top leaders, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke was allegedly involved in a violent domestic dispute, according to court documents, records, and text messages—an incident that ended in her arrest and was ultimately expunged. During her Senate confirmation, Clarke specifically denied ever having been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime. . . .

Clarke’s ex-husband, Reginald Avery, alleged to the American Accountability Foundation’s Tom Jones in 2021 that Clarke attacked him with a knife, deeply slicing his finger to the bone, on the night of July 4, 2006, while they were married and living in Maryland.

According to messages and documents reviewed by The Daily Signal, police arrested Clarke that night. She did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

She’ll get a pass due to race, skin color, and — particularly — political affiliation.

IF THEY’RE HIDING SOMETHING, IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE:

For the 3rd consecutive year ⁦⁦the City of Pittsburgh run by Ed Gainey did not turn over its annual numbers to the FBI including homicides & assaults making it impossible for police & citizens get a true picture of crime in the nation from the FBI https://t.co/4rgQ58O2CE

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) May 5, 2024

A BLOW FOR CIVILIZATION: MIT becomes first elite university to ban diversity statements.

JIM MEIGS: Unscientific American: Science journalism surrenders to progressive ideology.

Today’s journalistic failings don’t owe simply to lazy reporting or a weakness for sensationalism but to a sweeping and increasingly pervasive worldview.

It is hard to put a single name on this sprawling ideology. It has its roots both in radical 1960s critiques of capitalism and in the late-twentieth-century postmodern movement that sought to “problematize” notions of objective truth. Critical race theory, which sees structural racism as the grand organizing principle of our society, is one branch. Queer studies, which seeks to “deconstruct” traditional norms of family, sex, and gender, is another. Critics of this worldview sometimes call it “identity politics”; supporters prefer the term “intersectionality.” In managerial settings, the doctrine lives under the label of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI: a set of policies that sound anodyne—but in practice, are anything but.

This dogma sees Western values, and the United States in particular, as uniquely pernicious forces in world history. And, as exemplified by the anticapitalist tirades of climate activist Greta Thunberg, the movement features a deep eco-pessimism buoyed only by the distant hope of a collectivist green utopia.

The DEI worldview took over our institutions slowly, then all at once. Many on the left, especially journalists, saw Donald Trump’s election in 2016 as an existential threat that necessitated dropping the guardrails of balance and objectivity. Then, in early 2020, Covid lockdowns put American society under unbearable pressure. Finally, in May 2020, George Floyd’s death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer provided the spark. Protesters exploded onto the streets. Every institution, from coffeehouses to Fortune 500 companies, felt compelled to demonstrate its commitment to the new “antiracist” ethos. In an already polarized environment, most media outlets lunged further left. Centrists—including New York Times opinion editor James Bennet and science writer Donald G. McNeil, Jr.—were forced out, while radical progressive voices were elevated.

In other words, journalism went from a sometimes-propaganda enterprise to a full-time propaganda enterprise.

IT WAS MY UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE WOULD BE NO CONSEQUENCES: ASU Senior Is Triggered After Learning Her Arrest During Pro-Hamas Protests Has Consequences. “Notice how she repeats “the cause” several times, without sharing much detail on this oh-so-important movement that she’s willing to throw away her future for. This attitude reminds me of a recent piece by RedState’s Brandon Morse; he pointed out that based on the naive answers these student revolutionary wannabes gave, so many of them just glommed onto the protests out of a desire for community, while not truly understanding what they’re truly supporting.”

OPEN THREAD: Expatiate at will.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX reveals EVA suit design as Polaris Dawn mission approaches.

I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: We’ve Probably Been Wrong About T.Rex Again, New Study Says.

WELL, HE’S NOT WRONG: Trump Accuses Democrats Of Running A ‘Gestapo Administration.’

“THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL!” Ten More Boeing Whistleblowers. You’ve got to admire their bravery, considering.

LET’S HOPE IT COMES TO THIS: “At Washington dinner parties, dark jokes abound about where to go into exile if the former president reclaims the White House.”

WELL, GOOD, I TAKE THAT: Scientists Have Discovered Cognitive Benefits of Creatine. “Various studies have already reported improvements in cognitive performance after a long creatine diet. The substance also counteracts the metabolic changes caused by sleep deprivation.”

VITAMIN D UPDATE: New study challenges one-size-fits-all approach to vitamin D supplementation guidelines. “The first key insight is that ambient UVB emerges as a critical predictor of vitamin D status, even in a place like the UK, which receives relatively little sunlight. The second is that age, sex, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol level, and vitamin D supplementation significantly influence how individuals respond to UVB. For example, as BMI and age increase, the amount of vitamin D produced in response to UVB decreases.”

IT’S NOT BY ACCIDENT: Digital addiction starts early: 30% of K-2 kids use TikTok.

WELL, IT WAS DEFINITELY ABOUT POWER, YOU KNOW. Did Elon Cut Tesla Supercharging as a Power Move?

HASN’T THIS BEEN KNOWN FOR CENTURIES? Beer and spirits have more detrimental effects on the waistline and on cardiovascular disease risk than red or white wine.