Tag Archives: culture

It’s Not Just Security Failures

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Oh, please, spare us the whining about failures to adequately protect our political leaders. The violence that slips past our security details also result from deliberate provocation, and that comes primarily from the Left and from Progressive-Democratic Party politicians.

The arson attack targeting Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence is the latest in a recent spate of security failures that have left America’s VIPs in danger, raising questions about what has led to the breakdown.

Vermont’s Socialist Independent Senator Bernie Sanders’ inflammatory rhetoric was followed by a mass murder attempt on Republican Congressmen at a baseball game.

New York’s then-Senate Majority Leader and now-Senate Minority Leader Progressive-Democrat Chuck Schumer stood on the Supreme Court building steps and directly threatened, by name, two Supreme Court Justices. That was followed by an attempt to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the two named.

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden wanted to put a bullseye on Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s back. That was followed by two attempts to murder him.

It was a Leftist radical who openly murdered a health insurance company CEO in broad daylight and who now is lionized for his murder by the Left.

The arson (and murder attempt?) on Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor Josh Shapiro and his family, ironically himself a Progressive-Democrat, came against the backdrop of the ongoing decision of Leftists and Party to excuse, if not merely ignore, the climate of antisemitic bigotry and open support for terrorists related to Palestine and Hamas that pollutes so many of our institutions (not just “education”) and our politics. That, in turn, comes against the broader backdrop of excusing violent criminals, repeatedly releasing them on no bail, or not bothering to charge them at all, or even going so far as to charge criminals’ victims and victim defenders for the heinous crime of defending themselves or others.

Spare us all the crocodile tears, the hypocrisy, the outright dishonesty of pretending to be upset over “failures to protect” Americans, VIP or otherwise.

Harvard Doesn’t Need the Money

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The Federal money transfers in the form of grants and contracts, that is.

Some thoughts on the matter:

The school’s fundraising machinery has swung into gear, sending several email blasts to alumni seeking gifts during what one solicitation called “a critical moment,” and many donors say they are stepping up their efforts.
At the same time, school leaders including President Alan Garber are focusing on conversations with the school’s heaviest-hitting donors as they seek to offset the Trump administration’s $2.26 billion federal funding freeze, according to people familiar with the efforts.

To the extent these efforts are successful, and early indications are that they are succeeding, this strongly suggests that Harvard has no intrinsic need of Federal—us taxpayers’—dollars. That’s eliding the more than $53 billion endowment with its 9.6% return on investment and roughly 5% year-on-year growth, net of disbursements from the endowment.

Some big donors…said Harvard, and not the federal government, should steer the school’s operations and priorities.

That, by itself is entirely true. However, just as private donors get to call the shots on how their donations must be used by the school, so it is with Federal dollars: the government gets to specify how its transfers are used by the school. Even more, just as those private donors have no intrinsic obligation to donate at all, so it is with the government—it has no obligation at all, intrinsic or otherwise, to send any money at all to the school.

Harvard can operate entirely freely if it does not accept Federal dollars, and Harvard has no obligation, intrinsic or otherwise, to accept those dollars.

Little donors illustrate another reason for donating to Harvard. Lawyer Jim Ehrman:

…I am convincing myself that I am making a statement in support of Harvard’s “No” to Trump.

This has nothing to do with the legitimacy, or lack, of the Federal government continuing to fiscally support, with its funding transfers, the school’s antisemitic bigotry and support for terrorist-supporters on its campus. This is, instead, centered on knee-jerk Never Trumpism.

They Don’t Have to Accept the Deal

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The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in funds for Harvard, out of some $9-ish billion in progress, over Harvard’s refusal to rid itself of the antisemitic bigots and terrorist-supporters in its student, professor, and school management populations. The editors at The Wall Street Journal object, but they’re missing the point.

Stipulate that the feds have a duty to enforce civil-rights laws, and Harvard failed to protect Jewish students during anti-Israel protests. But the university agreed to strengthen protections for Jewish students in a legal settlement with Students Against Antisemitism, which praised it for “implementing effective long-term changes.”
The Trump Administration nonetheless demanded last week that Harvard accede to what is effectively a federal receivership under threat of losing $9 billion. Some of the demands are within the government’s civil-rights purview, such as requiring Harvard to discipline students who violate its discrimination policies. It also wants Harvard to “shutter all diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, under “whatever name,” that violate federal law.
But the Administration runs off the legal rails by ordering Harvard to reduce “governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization.” It also orders the school to review “all existing and prospective faculty…for plagiarism” and ensure “viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit.”

Leave aside the underlying premise that the words of “the university” have any value given the ongoing assaults against Jewish students, interference with their getting to class and the ability to participate in class/hear the lecture of those who do make it, interference with their ability to speak at all, and the ongoing disruptions by the terrorist supporters.

Stipulate that Harvard is a private institution, and it can do pretty much what it wants concerning “governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization,” “plagiarism,” and “viewpoint diversity.” As long as the school takes Federal dollars, the Federal government gets to specify how those dollars get used, just as any other donor can do.

Harvard doesn’t have to accept the deal on offer. Harvard also doesn’t have to get Federal dollars. The one is intrinsic in the school’s status as a private enterprise. The other is not at all intrinsic in it. Those Federal donations are nothing more than that—a privilege being received by Harvard, not anything to which Harvard has any right, in any sense of that term.

Responsibility

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The Republican caucuses in the Senate and House are considering restrict[ing] the [provider] taxes’ use to finance state Medicaid contributions entirely, which would have the effect of putting more of a State’s expenditures under Medicaid on the State itself: overall, the restriction would save the Federal government—which is us taxpaying citizens writ nationwide—some $600 billion over 10 years.

There are objections, of course, by those whose money tree would be severely pruned. Ryan Cross, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System’s Government Affairs VP:

If you end provider taxes, you’re going to shift that burden to the state, either harming Medicaid patients and healthcare-provider reimbursement, or leading to higher state and local taxes[.]

This is disingenuous. Any harm done Medicaid patients, who as citizens of their State are the responsibility of that State, and of healthcare providers, who as operators in that State also are the responsibility of that State, is done by that State through its own decisions regarding the tax remittals of that State’s own citizens. Regarding those decisions, it apparently is inconceivable to Cross and the rest of the Leftists that the State could reallocate its spending to cover the costs rather than just knee-jerk and willy-nilly raise its taxes.

These are $600 billion dollars for which us taxpaying citizens of our nation have better use.

An Alternative Question

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A writer to The Wall Street Journal‘s Thursday’s Letters section responded to Alicia Finley’s column A Good Man for US Manufacturing Is Hard to Find, writing,

Ms Finley says “a good worker, like a good man, can be hard to find these days” and that women struggle to find “suitable mates.” Perhaps that is because they largely want men who make more than $150,000 a year as “professionals.” Why would men want to enter “blue collar” professions only to be rejected by women?

An alternative question, and a more cogent one, I claim, is this: What self-respecting man, blue- or white collar, would want a self-identified gold digger for a wife?