Category Archives: morality

Harvard Admissions and Racism

Posted on by
Reply

David Phillips, Johns Hopkins University Vice Provost, wrote a letter to the editors of The Wall Street Journal, published in the outlet’s Friday Letters section. In it he responded to a WSJ week-prior op-ed opining on Harvard’s still-racially oriented admissions technique, now transferred to Harvard’s applicant essay.

In furtherance of his defense, he made this astonishing claim:

In crafting a question that invites students to discuss their background and life experiences, including the effect of a host of different factors such as race, religion, or community, we explicitly tell prospective students in our online application and checklist section that Hopkins will consider applicants only based on their experiences as individuals, not based on information about their race. This is in strict compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, to which we explicitly refer.

No, Phillips’ question is in strict disobedience of the Court’s decision. If Harvard were considering applicants not based on information about their race, Harvard’s application essay question would not ask prospects about their racial experience. This is just another cynical attempt to consider race by hiding it inside a host of different factors, just as Harvard did with the admission policies which the Court struck.

If Phillips truly believes his claim, it would be a demonstration of just how deeply steeped he is in his racism, given a deep-seated obliviousness. If he does not, his claim demonstrates breathtaking dishonesty.

Dishonest Press

Posted on by
Reply

The New York Times and the tabloid’s cronies in the journalism guild ran long and hard about Justice Clarence Thomas’ gift from Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, a gift the NYT and its parrots claimed was an authentic Cowboys Superbowl ring. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News are among the Texas tabloids that repeated the rumor, and joined the NYT in masquerading their rumor as fact.

Never mind two trivial, if actual, facts.

The ring Jones gave Thomas was a $12 replica.

Thomas reported even that tiny gift in his 1994 ethics form, which he filed with the Court.

Mark Paoletta, longtime friend of Thomas who worked on his 1991 confirmation:

I expect the New York Times to issue a retraction on this falsehood, and an apology to Justice Thomas[.]

And

How could New York Times reporters get this so wrong?

Good luck with that apology. The NYT made no “mistake;” this was the outlet’s, and that of its fellow rumor mongers’, deliberate smear of a Supreme Court Justice whom they view as nothing more than an uppity black man who left the Liberals’ and their press’ plantation and runs his mouth too much. Thomas, shamefully, is their 21st century Dred Scott to the press’ Chief Justice Roger Taney.

Press Censorship

Posted on by
Reply

This time, it’s NBC‘s Dasha Burns’ dishonest censorship, along with that of her bosses a the legacy broadcast network.

Correspondent Dasha Burns pressed DeSantis during an interview about whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if he won the Oval Office next year.
DeSantis: I would not allow what a lot of the left wants to do, which is to override pro-life protections throughout the country all the way up really until the moment of birth in some instances, which I think is infanticide.
Burns: I’ve gotta push back on you on that because that’s a misrepresentation of what’s happening. I mean, 1.3% of abortions happen at 21 weeks [of pregnancy] or higher.
DeSantis: But their view is is that all the way up until that, there should not be any legal protections.
Burns: There is no indication of Democrats pushing for that.
The network then cut off DeSantis in its news package as he started to reply.

DeSantis’ cogent response, which Burns had censored from her segment because it demonstrated the lie of her underlying narrative, was this:

Well, yes, they are. They’ve done it in California. They’ve done it in other states.
I don’t say that that’s the norm in terms of this. But I do think that the left in this country has moved on from a position that said, “You know what, we do want to discourage abortion, it’s not something that’s a good thing,” to now viewing it more as a positive good for society. I don’t think most Americans think it’s a positive good for society. It’s obviously a tragic circumstance.

It’s breathtaking, and not a little insulting, that the press thinks us ordinary Americans are so mind-numblingly stupid that we cannot see through their blatant, censoring, dishonesty.

Backwards

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R, AL) has a hold on a number of President Joe Biden’s (D) DoD appointments and promotion lists—something often distorted into being an outright block, but in fact is only a requirement that these appointments and lists go through by floor votes in the Senate rather than by rubber stamp, unconsidered unanimous consent. Tuberville’s hold is motivated by his opposition to SecDef Lloyd Austin’s insistence that DoD fund military members’ abortions, travel to locations providing abortions, and abortion-related services. It’s bad enough that DoD would cover these expenses—can only cover these expenses—with taxpayer monies, but Austin’s insistence is in direct violation of the Hyde Amendment, which blocks just such taxpayer-funded expenses.

And that’s before we get to the immorality of killing unborn babies in the first place.

Lucas Kunce is a Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Senate from Missouri and is running against the incumbent Josh Hawley. He decries Tuberville’s hold. He thinks Tuberville’s hold is negatively impacting national security, and he cynically wraps himself in his 13 years as a Marine, including his time in the badly bloated (my characterization) Pentagon.

Kunce has it backwards, and cynically so. To the extent the lack of these appointments and lists affects national security, that is solely from Austin’s insistence on DoD support for abortion. If Kunce—and Austin and Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D), the latter whom controls the Senate’s vote schedule—were serious about claims of national security risk, they’d leave off from holding out for abortion at taxpayer expense. They’d drop that matter and allow the appointments and lists to go through, or they’d push for the floor votes; either way, they’d desist from using the disagreement for their personal political gain.

It’s Safer This Way

Posted on by
Reply

Recall that, in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’ (D) slur regarding Florida’s updated education curriculum, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) invited her to Florida to discuss with him that curriculum.

Harris doesn’t want to. She made it to Florida, though, to talk to the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention. That’s where she made her excuses and backed away.

They attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated roundtable[.]
Well, I’m here in Florida, and I will tell you there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact. There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.

The core of her excuse-making is that strawman of hers, a dolly she’ll have to play with by herself. No one is suggesting, including in the curriculum, that there are, or were, any redeeming qualities of slavery. Nor was that the subject of the discussion DeSantis offered; he offered to discuss the curriculum and how it proposed to teach, in the proximate matter, black history, including slavery, in the United States and in Florida.

It’s easy to sit in the safety of the sidelines and carp. It’s cowardly, too, but it’s entirely consistent for the border tsar who’s never been to our southern border.