Nuclear Missile Defense

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In their Thursday missive to The Wall Street Journal‘s Letters section, Laura Grego and Lisbeth Gronlund, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote correctly that defending against relatively low-flying and short-range rockets that Israel’s Iron Dome does so well is different from defending against long-range, fast, exoatmospheric missiles.

But then they segued to their strawman argument.

…potential adversaries will develop systems to counter a potential buildup or improvement in defenses.

Missiles and missile defense are in an arms race. Who knew?

Instructively, these two scientists offered no alternative solution to the national security problem of defending against nuclear attack.

Apparently, their position—implied by their careful silence on how actually to defend against nuclear attack—is that we should stop trying to defend ourselves; we should instead merely surrender when an enemy mentions its own nuclear capability.

Australian Regulators’ Mistake

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Australian regulators are pressuring X to take down—to delete—a video posted to X showing the real-time terrorist attack in a western Sydney suburb on a Bishop of the Christ the Good Shepherd Church. X has blocked access to the video from locations within Australia per the regulators’ request, but is balking from going further. The regulators, though, are demanding the video be deleted altogether. Musk has responded that that would set the dangerous precedent of allowing one nation’s regulators to control the content of the Internet everywhere in the world, not just within the regulators’ own nation.

That’s a valid beef, but it misses entirely the much larger problem.

Deleting a posting altogether is nothing more than rewriting history and pretending the event posted about, and the post itself, never happened.

History is how we know where we were—geographically, economically, politically, socially, genetically, and on and on—how we know where we are (itself at immediate risk due to demands for real-time excision of current events), how we know how we got from then to now, and how we can learn how to get from now to a desired future. Rewriting history as every bit as dangerous to us as is any war and far more dangerous to our civilization.

X needs to stand tall against the Australians’ demand for revisionist history, and its fellow social platforms, vis., Meta, who so meekly complied with the regulators’ demand to rewrite history, need to find some courage, and some understanding of what they’re doing, and stop deleting postings, however repugnant, or merely government-disapproved, they may be.

Our Minds Are Made Up

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The House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs held a hearing in Plano, Texas, Tuesday on energy from the perspective of a number of oil and gas industry leaders.

The 15 Progressive-Democrat members of the subcommittee were invited to the hearing—as all members of a (sub)committee must be when that body meets in its official capacity—and all 15 chose not to attend. That refusal is within House rules, but it’s no less unethical or downright chickens** for that.

Congressional hearings often are puppet theater presentations, with the Congressmen often occupying their time allocations for questioning witnesses with speeches rather than with efficiently asked questions that leave the bulk of the time for witness answers. Too, witnesses often are chosen for their ability to support a political narrative.

All of that, though, is easily enough refuted by Congressmen proceeding from their own lines of questioning. Actual questions, mind you, not self-aggrandizing speech-ifying.

Instead regarding the Plano field hearing, the Progressive-Democratic Party subcommittee members said, “Don’t confuse us with facts,” with their decision to absent themselves.

 

The hearing itself can be viewed via C-SPAN here.

Are Some Jews More Important than Other Jews?

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The home of Progressive-Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) was visited by anti-Israel, pro-HamasPalestinian protestors the other night. They were arrested.

This is while those same anti-Israel, pro-HamasPalestinian protestors (not the same bodies, of course, but the same kind of terrorist-supporting “protestors”) are busily shutting down college and university campuses in Schumer’s New York as well as Ivy League campuses around the northeast and colleges and universities across our nation. Those same “protestors,” while doing their disruptive (not protest-y) things, are zealously threatening Jewish students, chanting their threats of destruction, actively blocking Jewish—and all other—students from attending the classes for which they and their parents paid several pretty pennies to have access to.

This is the same Jewish Majority Leader who has called for regime change in Israel because he doesn’t like the way the Israelis are fighting for their existence against Hamas terrorists.

Schumer didn’t want to talk about the protests at his house or the differential treatment of those “protesting” the schools vs those operating at his house.

Schumer did not respond directly to the arrests or protests, but referred to an earlier comment on the protests happening at college campuses nationwide….
“College campuses must be places of learning and discussion,” Schumer said in his statement. “Every American has a right to protest, but when protests shift to antisemitism, verbal abuse, intimidation, or glorification of October 7 violence against Jewish people, that crosses the line. Campuses must remain safe for all students.”

Empty words, since he’s attempting nothing to back them up.

However, when you’re a Progressive-Democrat Senator from New York and the sitting Senate Majority Leader, it seems that yes, some Jews are more important than others.

Responsibilities

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The subheadline illustrates the misunderstanding of where responsibility lies.

School officials reap what their politically monoculture faculties have sown.

The WSJ‘s editors then went on about how those thinking antisemitic bigotry are exaggerating are mistaken, pointing out in their examples the rampant antisemitic bigotry on college campuses.

Antisemitism has too often been tolerated within Near Eastern Studies departments. On October 8, 2023, Columbia professor Joseph Massad praised the “awesome” scenes of the October 7 massacre “witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs.” In 2018 Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi posted on Twitter (now X) that “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world” could soon be traced to “the ugly name of Israel.”

Then they wrote,

The liberal elites who run these institutions seem to lack the moral self-confidence to stand up to these student bullies. College presidents have to take charge, restore order and protect Jewish students, or the trustees should fire them and find someone who will.

But that’s closing the chicken coop after the weasels have moved in and taken over. Monocultural faculties have not created the schools’ problems, including the schools’ systemic (to coin a word) antisemitic bigotry. Schools’ management teams have created their environment of bigotry by allowing—perhaps even encouraging—from the start the creation of their faculties as monocultural, and bigoted.

It’s long past time those management teams were fired for cause, and the bigots on those faculties also fired for cause. Bigotry should not be allowed to survive contracts or tenure.