Tag Archives: morality

Chit Chat

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The Trump administration has cut $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University, and a number of Federal agencies have ended their association with the school, both over the school’s management team’s overt decision to support pro-Hamas “protestors'” assaults on the school’s Jewish students and those “protestors'” seizure of and vandalism in school buildings. That tacit support clearly illustrates that management team’s own intrinsic antisemitic bigotry.

Now—and only now—is the head school manager, Interim President Katrina Armstrong, talking about beginning to enforce long-extant rules of comportment as applied to Jewish students and all other students and student groups. She wrote a letter.

“[T]he funding cuts will “immediately impact research and other critical functions,” she wrote.

She takes the cuts “very seriously” and is prepared to work with the government on its “legitimate concerns[,]” she wrote.

“When I accepted the role of Interim President in August 2024, I knew Columbia needed a reset from the previous year and the chaos of encampments and protests on our campus[.] The University also needed to acknowledge and repair the damage to our Jewish students, who were targeted, harassed, and made to feel unsafe or unwelcome on our campus last spring[,]” she wrote.

She “accepted” her role seven months ago.

Chit chat.

What has she actually done? She could have called in campus police and the city’s police to arrest these lawbreaking sham “protestors.” She didn’t do that beyond a couple of token/scapegoat arrests.

She could have expelled every one of those lawbreaking “protestors.” She didn’t do that.

She could have identified to the Federal government those lawbreaking “protestors” present on student visas with a view to having their visas canceled and those students sent back to their home countries. She didn’t do that.

In response to the funding and contract cancelations, she at the least could have done those last two. Instead, she chose to write a letter and call it a day. ‘Twas a very famous…victory.

Her words are insulting to our intelligence, and they’re insulting to the school’s Jewish student population.

A Good Start

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The Trump administration has pulled $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University in response to that institution’s management team’s decision to take no serious action against the antisemitic and terrorist-supporting “demonstrators” who seize university buildings and threaten the safety of Jewish students.

A federal antisemitism task force—convened by President Trump and including the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education, as well as the General Services Administration (GSA)—announced the barring of US taxpayers’ money from funding the school.

DoEd Secretary Linda McMahon:

Since October 7, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses—only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them[.]
Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.

It’s only a beginning, though. No substantive change can be expected for the long run unless and until there’s been a complete replacement of all of Columbia’s management team from the middle tier on up. The incumbents have shown themselves to be utterly unrepentant antisemitic bigots and terrorist supporters. They won’t change. They can’t change. They’ll only spend their energies, and Columbia’s money—their students’ and parents’ and investors’ and donors’ money—looking for ways to weasel-word around any agreements they might pretend to make to get those $400 million back.

Busting a Human Trafficking Ring

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Federal agents busted up a Guatemalan gang that had trafficked 20,000 illegal aliens into the US from Guatemala since 2019, at 15-18 stacks per illegal. In downtown Los Angeles,

Federal agents arrested two Guatemalan men on Friday accused of operating one of the largest human smuggling operations in the United States.

Acting US Attorney Joseph McNally:

These smuggling organizations have no regard for human life and their conduct kills. The indictment and arrests here have dismantled one of the country’s largest and most dangerous smuggling organizations.

Notice that: Federal agents got this done, not Sanctuary State agents. This is the governor who wants to be President.

Defeated?

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Transgender track and field athlete Sadie Schreiner likely thinks he’s a big deal for having finished first in some USA Track and Field Open Masters Championships running events. Lots of girls chose to sit out those events, considering it a waste of their time to run against a boy.

I have some…quibbles…about the news writer’s characterization of those events’ outcomes. In the 200 meter dash,

Schreiner defeated 14-year-old runner-up Zwange Edwards, 16-year-old third-place finisher Zariah Hargrove, 15-year-old Leah Walker, and 18-year-old Ainsley Rausch.

Defeated? Nah. He finished ahead of those girls because he ran faster than they did.

Nor were Edwards, Hargrove, Walker, or Rausch runner-up, third-place finisher, or lower down. Among the girls who were competing in that race, they were first, runner-up, third-place, and fourth-place respectively.

“Defeating” requires there to have been a contest in the first place. There was none of that here, and there nearly universally is no contest in which a boy competes against girls.

“Gambling with World War III”

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President Donald Trump really screwed the pooch on this one. In a public Oval Office meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump and his Vice President JD Vance ambushed Zelenskyy and blew up any hope of a peace that serves the Ukrainian people.

Trump repeatedly berated the Ukrainian leader as “not ready for peace,” for having “disrespected” the United States and for “gambling with World War III.”

No. It’s those who back down in the face of Putin’s threats who are gambling with WWIII. It is ex-President Joe Biden (D), too many European government managers, and now Trump who repeatedly accede to Putin’s demands lest he strike at them, thereby giving credence to his threats. Never mind that every time one of those politicians dipped a toe over a Putin red line—authorizing transfers of weapons to which Putin objected, authorizing attacks inside Russia, and so on—Putin…didn’t strike.

It’s Vance’s timidity in rejecting Zelenskyy’s offer for him to go to the Ukrainian front, to go to places like Bucha, Staryi Bykiv, Zabuchchya, Vorzel, the Kharkiv region, and I add, in no particular order, places like Bakhmut, Mariupol (surely Putin would let him in if there’s really nothing to see there), Odesa, Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River, Berdiansk (again Putin would let him visit—wouldn’t he?), and any of the plethora of hospitals, schools, apartment buildings that the barbarian has deliberately attacked. Vance hid behind the claim that such tours are just propaganda events. He could have, instead, agreed to the visits on condition that he go unannounced with no notice of any particular places, and on arrival he go wherever he chose to go on the spur of the moment, a stipulation to which Zelenskyy would have agreed readily. But no. Vance said no. Terrifying to have one’s world view challenged by facts. That’s gambling with WWIII.

Zelenskyy, however, has returned to his nation, where he routinely visits the front and the scenes of battle and of civilian carnage. And, unfortunately, he returned empty handed courtesy of the hysteria and timidity of Trump and Vance.

Which raises the question: with this steady backing away in front of Putin by Trump and by central and western Europe (yes, yes, Europe’s other nations natter on about supporting Ukraine, but so far only with words and a trickle of materiel), and so after Russia has gained control over the bulk of Europe from those backings away, when Putin threatens us if we don’t accede to his demands, what will Trump do then, with no nation left to support us? Will he surrender us to the barbarian, too, as he’s demanding Zelenskyy surrender his nation to the barbarian at the outset of this shameful chain? That, too, is Trump gambling with WWIII.