April Fool's Day - Hillarious and The FBI!
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Its is my understanding, and this should be taken with a grain of salt, the FBI is soon going to actually interview Hillarious.
They are probing not only her disregard of the manner in which she handled state secrets and classified information but also whether she used her position of Sec. of State to enhance The Clinton Foundation etc.
Should the FBI report conclude Hillarious violated laws several dilemmas will quickly surface.
First, how will Obama allow his hand picked and leashed Attorney General to act?
Second, if Obama concludes the evidence is not sufficient enough to prosecute , when it clearly might be, what will be the reaction of members of the FBI including Chief John Comey?
Third, what will be the impact on Hillarious' campaign regardless of any action Obama may or may not take? It could strengthen her because she would be more prone to give away more entitlements. Maybe Hillarious would resort to that reset button and select Putin as her running mate. That way her foreign policy would meld with Russia's.
Finally, if Obama should allow the recommendation to prosecute to move forward and thus, a Grand Jury is convened and Hillarious withdraws whom will the Demwits select as her replacement? Biden and Warren? Biden and Bernie? Biden and Michelle? Biden and Pelosi, Biden and the Mayor of New York or a member of ISIS or possibly an Iranian Qud member? Maybe Obama and Biden again? Think of the fun you could have conjuring up a winning team. Beats playing virtual football.
While this is happening the Republican Convention in Cleveland would also be confronted with whatever decision is allowed by Obama. Does this enhance Trump, does it force the Repubs to turn to a truly worthy candidate which would mean gutting Trump and Cruz? Would Jeb muster enough energy to reinstate his campaign or Kasich finally be successful in pulling his exhausted rabbit out of the hat? Would Romney and Ryan try another roll of the dice? Where does this leave Palin and Rubio? Would Christie have to become a car salesman?
Again, just think of how exciting this would be and how much money the media could charge for ads.
The Convention in Cleveland could go on for months as the Repubs fight it out and Cleveland Hotels, Restaurants and Bars would do land office business.
Well, I am always willing to provide interesting information and I have just given you some April Fool's insights - so now you take it from there!!!! (See 1 below.)
This from a dear friend whose family escaped Cuba, came here and is a very successful business man a good friend and fellow memo reader. (See 1a below.)
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Is England finally coming to grips with its deep seated anti-Semitism? (See 2 below.)
Has anti-Semitism moved to California Campuses? After all California is the nation where anything goes and eventually what starts there becomes acceptable because Hollywood is that town known for building character. (See 2a below.)
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Two very insightful articles . The first confirms what I have been writing about and the second is even more interesting because it really gets to the essence of what is happening vis a vis trade and does support some of Trump's trade arguments. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Russia and America have nuclear differences which are threatening. (See 4 below.)
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While "Gullible" Greens, The Savannah News and its owner applaud Kinder Morgan's announcement not to build a pipeline in Georgia, they fail to connect Warren Buffet's role, behind the scenes, on behalf of his Rail Line.
Also, they seem blind to the thousands upon thousands of miles of pipelines already criss-crossing our nation delivering energy etc.
So much for misguided objections and Buffet style crony capitalism.
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1)Subject: United States Code Title 18. Section 2071
Word for word from the Cornell Law Library !!!
Former United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey tells MSNBC that not only is Hillary Clinton's private email server illegal, it "disqualifies" her from holding any federal office.
Such as, say, President of the United States.
"If you do this or that bad thing, you've essentially disqualified yourself as being the leader of the free world," said Mukasey, referring to the illegal server and the illegal handling of classified materials.
Mukasey specifically points to one federal law, Title 18. Section 2071.
For those of us who do not have United States Code committed to memory, here's what it says:
“(a)Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b)Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.”
Yes, it explicitly states "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States."
Shouldn't voters know that? The media won't tell them. So it's up to us. Can you help hold Hillary accountable? Pass this on, please.
18 U.S.C.
United States Code, 2011 Edition
Title 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I - CRIMES
CHAPTER 101 - RECORDS AND REPORTS
Sec. 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
From the U.S. Government Printing Office, www.gpo.gov§2071. Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 795; Pub. L. 101–510, div. A, title V, §552(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1566; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(I), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)Historical and Revision Notes
Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §§234, 235 (Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, §§128, 129, 35 Stat. 1111, 1112).Section consolidates sections 234 and 235 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed.Reference in subsection (a) to intent to steal was omitted as covered by section 641 of this title.Minor changes were made in phraseology.Amendments
1994—Pub. L. 103–322 substituted “fined under this title” for “fined not more than $2,000” in subsecs. (a) and (b).1990—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 101–510 inserted at end “As used in this subsection, the term ‘office’ does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.”Effective Date of 1990 Amendment
Section 552(b) of Pub. L. 101–510 provided that: “The amendment made by subsection (a) [amending this section] shall be effective as of January 1, 1989.”
1a)) "In the history of politics there never has been a more coordinated assault on a candidate like Donald Trump has seen....people are supposed to trust the media...well watch what they are trying to do and remember they had a huge part in delivering Barack Hussein Obama and his cronies to your television and home to do nothing but disrupt this country.
Everyone should be keeping that in mind. When was the last time you saw the news/cable anchor people badger Clinton on Benghazi, Russia, Planned Parenthood, black unemployment, health insurance cost, murders in her home town....Chicago...yes, that is where she is from ! Want another political Chicago style President ?? Why has no one not one time asked her about the 11 trillion dollar debt the democrats piled up the last 7 years? Etc......Or asked her why she would not change that ? BUT WANTS TO CONTINUE IT !!!!!
People better realize that hundreds of thousands of people in this country are not allowed to work more than 29 hours a week because the Democrats voted 100% for a law that forced that consequence.....what has that done to collections for social security ??? You never hear anyone realizing that unspoken collateral damage of Obamacare !!
It is as simple as ABC ......Anyone But Clinton !! A---."
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2) As I see it: Bewildered Britain still doesn't get it
By Melanie Phillips
A man wears a kippa. . (photo credit: Reuters)
3)The One Kind of Diversity Colleges Avoid
Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images
2) As I see it: Bewildered Britain still doesn't get it
By Melanie Phillips
The British still don’t understand that the UK and Europe have long funded and connived at not just Palestinian terrorism, but the incitement that causes it.
A man wears a kippa. . (photo credit: Reuters)
What is that unfamiliar rustling in the British cultural undergrowth? It’s the sound of people suddenly acknowledging a problem with anti-Semitism.
For years, anti-Semitism in Britain was the prejudice that dared not speak its name. The hostility toward Israel endemic in educated circles was emphatically declared to have nothing whatever to do with hatred of Jews. Anyone who claimed a connection was denounced as “waving the shroud of the Holocaust” to silence legitimate “criticism” of Israel.
Jewish students have long run the gauntlet of vicious Israel- and Jew-hatred. “Israel apartheid” weeks, BDS motions and campus conferences declaring Israel is a “settler-colonial state” have morphed into intimidation, stigmatization and discrimination against Jews at university.
VIRTUALLY NO ONE outside the Jewish community has paid this any attention.
Now, though, unease has begun to seep into British national consciousness.
The reason is a shift in perspective. Israel is no longer seen as the world’s major flashpoint. The TV news is instead pumping images of Syrian atrocities and floods of displaced migrants into the living rooms of the nation.
Security officials repeatedly warn of the likelihood of coordinated Islamist attacks in Britain. The terrorist atrocities last year in Paris and most recently in Brussels have ratcheted up anxiety levels.
After the Paris attacks, though, something else changed. Many, from Prime Minister David Cameron downward, expressed their shock when British Jews said they no longer felt safe in Britain, specifically as Jews. How could this be, Britain asked itself in blinkered bewilderment.
With the election of the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labor Party, moreover, two further things happened to propel the issue of Jew-hatred to center-stage.
First, people became aware that this potential future prime minister had been “honored” to host members of Hamas and Hezbollah, and supported people who had promoted blood libels or 9/11 conspiracy theories against the Jews. At the same time, however, Jew-bashers became bolder as the far-left started to dominate the Labor Party. As a result, the party has become engulfed by more and more revelations of anti-Semitism, which Corbyn has been unable or unwilling to put to rest.
Vicki Kirby, a former Labor parliamentary candidate, was suspended for tweeting that Jews had “big noses,” Adolf Hitler was the “Zionist god” and Islamic State should attack Israel. She had her suspension lifted and became vice chairwoman of a local party branch before exposure of these events forced Labor to suspend her again.
Another Labor member, Gerry Downing, who has extolled “Hamas heroism” and demanded that the “Jewish question” be solved, was expelled from the party but then readmitted. He was expelled again only after Cameron raised the case in Parliament.
Meanwhile, the issue of campus Jew-hatred exploded when Alex Chalmers, the non-Jewish co-chairman of the Labor Party-affiliated Oxford University Labor Club (OULC), resigned with a devastating account of the Jew-bashing in such circles.
“Whether it be,” he wrote, “members of the executive throwing around the term ‘Zio’ (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon, senior members of the club expressing their ‘solidarity’ with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians, or a former co-chair claiming that ‘most accusations of anti-Semitism are just the Zionists crying wolf,’ a large proportion of both OULC and the student Left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews,” he wrote.
The Chalmers statement received huge attention from the British media. For the first time, non-Jewish commentators started expressing horrified concern about the swell of anti-Semitism.
Many, though, still don’t get it. Where did all this come from, they ask – unable to comprehend that, for the answer, they need to look within themselves.
The former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, now master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, has said he is shocked by a series of anti-Semitic incidents at British universities and criticized the “muted” official response.
However at Christmas 2006, while Williams was in charge of the Church of England, he preached that Christians were being driven out of Bethlehem by Israel’s policies and its security barrier. Yet it is Bethlehem’s Muslim administration that the town’s Christians have fled, while Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians are safe.
In a similar vein, Chris Bryant, Labor’s shadow leader of the House of Commons, has warned against “anti-Semitism by proxy” in his party, and observed: “Questioning the very existence of the State of Israel is a not-too-subtle form of anti-Semitism.”
Yet he also wrote: “The Israeli settlements are illegal and must stop. All too often, the Israeli government has made it impossible for the Palestinians to build homes, develop infrastructure or even have access to basic utilities.”
Like Williams’ comments about Bethlehem, these charges by Bryant are false, grossly unfair and part of the demonization of Israel that leads directly to Jew-bashing.
ANTI-SEMITISM IS NOT merely one of many prejudices. It has unique features, the same ones that characterize the demonization of Israel. Both are irrational obsessions consisting entirely of grotesque lies and libels. Both accuse a group of people of a conspiracy of evil of cosmic proportions. Both accuse those people of committing abuses of which they are not only innocent, but are, in fact, the victims.
In Britain, there is virtually no reporting of the murderous Palestinian attacks on Israelis occurring almost daily. There was no mention of last year’s report by the committee of high-level military folk from nine countries, including the US, France and Germany, which stated that the standard the IDF set in protecting innocent Arab civilians during the 2014 Gaza conflict was too high for any of their own countries to match.
Instead, the British media and politicians portrayed Israel in that conflict as the willful killer of Palestinian children and civilians. They depict as callous aggression Israel’s attempts to defend its population against mass murder. And then people wonder why there is an eruption of Jew-bashing.
In the past couple of weeks, the media has begun to pay attention to the contribution made by British and EU taxpayers to Palestinian Authority backing for terrorism.
The British still don’t understand, though, that the UK and Europe have long funded and connived at not just Palestinian terrorism, but the incitement that causes it.
They don’t understand that this incitement is based on anti-Semitism, not a dispute over land boundaries.
They don’t understand that anti-Semitism is the signature motif of a deranged culture that should be treated as a pariah rather than excused, sanitized and rewarded, as Britain does with the Palestinians.
They don’t understand that the anti-Semitic derangement that drives the Palestinians also drives the Muslim war against the West.
They don’t understand that by indulging the lies, intimidation and moral inversion of Palestinian Jew-hatred, Britain and Europe have made it impossible to fight off the Islamist threat to themselves.
They will only start to defend themselves properly when they start treating Israel as their indispensable ally rather than a cosmic foe.
Melanie Phillips is a columnist for The Times (UK).
By Richard L. Cravatts
- The problem on campuses across the country is that pro-Palestinian activists, in their zeal to seek self-affirmation, statehood, and “social justice,” have waged an extremely caustic cognitive war against Israel and Jews.
- Being pro-Palestinian on campuses today does not necessarily mean that one is committed to helping Palestinians be productive, live well, build a free and open nation or create a civil society with transparent government, a free press, human rights, and a representative government.
- What being pro-Palestinian seems to have come to mean is continually denigrating and attacking Israel with a false historical narrative and the grotesquely misused language of human rights. What is claimed to be anti-Israel sentiment often rises to the level of raw anti-Semitism.
- It is enough to make Jewish students, whether or not they care about Israel at all, uncomfortable, unsafe, or even hated on their own campuses.
The California university system seems to have the dubious distinction of being the epicenter of the campus war against Israel. The situation that has apparently reached such intolerable levels that the Board of Regents of the University of California (UC Regents) was forced to take some action. This effort resulted in a study entitled the “Final Report of the Regents Working Group on Principles Against Intolerance.” The study attempts to establish guidelines by which any discrimination against a minority group on campus would be identified and censured. The report, however, specifically focused on the thorny issue of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism as a prevalent and ugly reality throughout the California university system.
The report examined a range of incidents that occurred during the 2014-15 academic year. It cited unfortunate transgressions that “included vandalism targeting property associated with Jewish people or Judaism; challenges to the candidacies of Jewish students seeking to assume representative positions within student government; political, intellectual and social dialogue that is anti-Semitic; and social exclusion and stereotyping.”
The problem on California campuses, and on campuses across the country, is apparently that pro-Palestinian activists, in their zeal to seek self-affirmation, statehood, and “social justice” for Palestinians, have waged — presumably as a tactic in achieving those ends — an extremely caustic cognitive war against Israel and Jews. That, however, appears to be just part of a larger, more invidious intellectual jihad against Israel led by some of those in the Muslim world together with some Western elites who also wish to weaken, and ultimately destroy, the Jewish state.
Being pro-Palestinian on campuses today, it turns out, does not necessarily mean that one is committed to helping the Palestinians be productive, live well, build a free and open nation or create a civil society with transparent government, a free press, human rights, and a representative government.
Being pro-Palestinian on campus today involves very little that actually benefits or makes more likely the birth of a new Palestinian state that will live side by side in peace with Israel. What being pro-Palestinian seems to have come to mean is continually denigrating and attacking Israel with a false historical narrative and the grotesquely misused language of human rights.
The moral uprightness that anti-Israel activists feel in denouncing what they perceive to be Israel's supposedly “racist,” “apartheid” character, combined with its purportedly being an “illegal occupier of stolen Muslim land,” has manifested itself in ideological assaults against Zionism, Israel, and, by extension, Jews in general.
Of great concern to those who have observed the invidious byproduct of this radicalism, including the Regents Working Group, is the frequent appearance of what is claimed to be anti-Israel sentiment, which often rises to the level of raw anti-Semitism, when criticism of Israel bleeds into a darker, more sinister level of hatred. It is enough to make Jewish students, whether or not they care about Israel at all, uncomfortable, unsafe, or even hated on their own campuses.
 Being pro-Palestinian on campus today seems to have come to mean continually denigrating and attacking Israel with a false historical narrative and the grotesquely misused language of human rights, which often rises to the level of raw anti-Semitism. (Image source: Hamas on Campus video screenshot) |
A 2014 study commissioned by then-UC President Mark G. Yudof, to measure the climate faced by Jewish students, found that
“Jewish students are confronting significant and difficult climate issues as a result of activities on campus which focus specifically on Israel, its right to exist and its treatment of Palestinians. The anti-Zionism and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movements and other manifestations of anti-Israel sentiment and activity create significant issues through themes and language which portray Israel and, many times, Jews in ways which project hostility, engender a feeling of isolation, and undermine Jewish students' sense of belonging and engagement with outside communities.”
If anything, since that study was written, matters have gone from bad to worse. This latest report only affirmed Yudov's earlier findings, and stated more specifically, that
“Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California. Most members of the University community agree with this conclusion and would agree further that the University should strive to create an equal learning environment for all students.”
The reference to anti-Zionism being henceforth prohibited as unacceptable speech or behavior received immediate and thunderous denunciation from, not surprisingly, those very groups and individuals who have been the worst perpetrators — groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, Jewish Voice for Peace and other groups, students and faculty who supposedly support human rights. They have been joined in their outrage by supposedly “free speech advocates” and others who feel that guidelines proscribing speech about a topic that many see as merely political is contrary to the notion of academic free speech — not to mention unconstitutional in seeking to censor people's speech at all.
However, the guidelines crafted by the Regents were not cobbled together for the purpose of criminalizing or suppressing free speech. One of the difficulties pro-Israel groups and activists have had in making the Regents see the necessity of a workable code for gauging what is, and what is not, anti-Semitism has been the difficulty university officials themselves have had in knowing when pro-Palestinian activism on their campuses has become something more in keeping with the elements of classic anti-Semitism. For that very reason, pro-Israel groups had encouraged the Regents to incorporate in their report the working definition of anti-Semitism used by the U.S. Department of State, which defines anti-Semitism existing as
“Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis; drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis; blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions; … applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; … denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist…”
These are exactly the type of attitudes and accusations expressed regularly on California campuses.
If the UC system adopts the use of the State Department's working definition of anti-Semitism, and incorporates it into the “principles against intolerance,” does that mean, as critics of the principles have suggested, that the free speech of pro-Palestinian activists will be suppressed, censored, or punished? Not even slightly.
Pro-Palestinian students and faculty can continue to sponsor virulent “Israel Apartheid Week” events, promote annual divestment and boycott resolutions against Israel, construct mock “apartheid walls,” hang blood-strewn Israeli flags, accuse Israel supporters of being racist and genocidal, give tacit support to the murder of Jews by being apologists for Palestinian terror, and continue to chant “Long live Intifada.” They can continue supporting murderous Arab campaigns against Israeli civilians, and chanting, “Palestine will be free, from the River to the Sea” — meaning that a new Palestinian state should displace Israel, not exist in peace beside it. They will still enjoy their constitutionally-protected right to speak freely and in whatever manner they choose, even if that speech is corrosive, factually defective, hate-filled, biased, historically-inaccurate, defamatory, and what is usually defined as “hate speech.”
The existence of the “principles against intolerance” and the working definition of anti-Semitism will not prevent anyone from spewing forth whatever intellectual sewage he or she chooses. But, importantly, administrators will finally have the ability to identify instances when pro-Palestinian activism crosses the line into anti-Semitism. They can then publicly and immediately condemn that speech when it occurs, just as they regularly — and appropriately — do if a hangman's noose is found on campus, or slurs are made against gay students, or if students wear little sombreros at a tequila-fueled off-campus party, or if, in those rare instances, Muslim students are characterized as supporters of terror.
University administrators have been reluctant to identify and condemn anti-Semitic behavior and speech when it occurs. Armed with the State Department's working definition and the other language in the “principles against intolerance,” school officials will, without moral or ethical qualms, be able to stand up against intolerance when directed at Jewish students and other pro-Israel members of the campus community, as in the past they have been unwilling or unable to do.
Pro-Palestinian activists have been trying to elevate the Palestinian cause by degrading Israel and its supporters with virulent language, slanders, blood libels, and racist inversions of history and fact. As former Harvard president Lawrence Summers put it, they have unleashed forms of expression that are “anti-Semitic in their effect, if not their intent.”
That is the issue here, and why it is both necessary and important that, in the effort to help Palestinians achieve statehood and promote their cause, another group — Jewish students and pro-Israel individuals on American campuses — do not themselves become victims in a struggle for another group's self-determination. This is a situation that leaders on campuses, at least, can now prevent from taking place.
Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, is author of Genocidal Liberalism: The University's Jihad Against Israel & Jews, and president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
I’ve seen faculty searches up close. Somehow teachers with conservative views just don’t make the cut.
PHOTO: ISTOCK
Many universities are redoubling their efforts to diversify their faculties in response to
last fall’s wave of protests from student groups representing women and minorities. Yale,
for example, has announced a $50 million, five-year initiative to enhance faculty diversity.
Brown has committed $100 million to hire 60 additional faculty members from historically underrepresented groups over the next five to seven years. America’s institutions of higher education seem committed to faculty diversity. But are they really?
In the more than 20 years that I have been a professor at Georgetown University, I have
been involved in many faculty searches. Every one begins with a strong exhortation from
the administration to recruit more women and minority professors. We are explicitly
reminded that every search is a diversity search. Administrators require submission of a
plan to vigorously recruit applications from women and minority candidates.
Before we even begin our selection process, we must receive approval from the provost
that our outreach efforts have been vigorous enough. The deans and deputy deans of each
school reinforce the message that no expense should be spared to increase the genetic
diversity of our faculty.
Yet, in my experience, no search committee has ever been instructed to increase political
or ideological diversity. On the contrary, I have been involved in searches in which the
chairman of the selection committee stated that no libertarian candidates would be
considered. Or the description of the position was changed when the best résumés
appeared to be coming from applicants with right-of-center viewpoints. Or in which
candidates were dismissed because of their association with conservative or libertarian institutions.
I doubt that my experience is unusual. According to data compiled by the Higher Education Research Institute, only 12% of university faculty identify as politically right of center,
and these are mainly professors in schools of engineering and other professional schools.
Only 5% of professors in the humanities and social-science departments so identify.
A comprehensive study by James Lindgren of Northwestern University Law School
shows that in a country fairly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, only
13% of law professors identify as Republican. And a recent study by Jonathan Haidt of
New York University showed that 96% of social psychologists identify as left of center,
3.7% as centrist/moderate and only 0.03% as right of center.
The advocates of diversity in higher education claim that learning requires the robust
exchange of ideas, which is enhanced when students and faculty have the greatest possible
variety of backgrounds. They argue that exposure to people from different backgrounds
breaks down unfair stereotypes and promotes understanding of those who come from
different circumstances than oneself.
It is also claimed that being in a diverse academic environment better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce, and that this preparation can only be developed through
exposure to people of diverse cultures, ideas and viewpoints. And a diverse faculty
provides students with role models who demonstrate that people from all backgrounds can
achieve intellectual excellence and are worthy of respect.
These are good arguments. But surely the robust exchange of ideas is enhanced by
exposure to and interaction with people who have diverse political and philosophical
viewpoints, not only cultural or ethnic backgrounds. Actually engaging with those with
whom one disagrees can break down stereotypes and promote understanding across
ideological divides. And if students see faculty members who share their unpopular
viewpoints, they may be more inspired to pursue intellectual excellence.
The relentless call to actively recruit women and minority candidates arises from the fear
that if left to their own devices, predominantly white male faculties will identify merit
with those who look and think like them, undervalue the contributions of those from
different backgrounds, and perpetuate a white male stranglehold on the academy. Yet
without an exhortation to pursue viewpoint diversity, this is exactly what happens.
Predominantly liberal faculties identify merit with positions that are consistent with theirs,
see little value in conservative and libertarian scholarship, and perpetuate the left-wing stranglehold on the academy.
Having a diverse faculty is a genuine value for a university and its students. Indeed, it
may be valuable enough to justify spending $50 million or $100 million to increase the
percentage of women and minority professors. But if diversity is really such an important academic value, then why are universities making no effort to increase the political and ideological diversity of their faculties?
Mr. Hasnas is a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and executive director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics.
3a)
Lee Hsien Loong’s American Exceptionalism
Singapore’s prime minister says the U.S. might be roiled by
politics, but its leadership on trade and security is indispensable.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2015. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
By any global measure, a prime minister of Singapore presides over a
minuscule patch of earth and speaks for a tiny fraction of the world’s
population. Yet notwithstanding the city-state’s small size—or maybe
because of it—its prime ministers often have a keener grasp of American
interests than Americans do.
So it’s no surprise that Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s current prime
minister, would come right to the point in a meeting with The Wall Street
Journal editorial board. When asked for his take on the Obama
administration’s unratified Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal,
which neither the leading Democratic nor Republican candidate for
president supports, he answered this way:
“You have an administration which understands America’s international
responsibilities and interests, but you have a population which is anxious,
tired, and doesn’t want to bear any burden and pay any price. And that’s
very difficult for whoever becomes president.”
The TPP is a trade deal with 11 other Pacific nations that would cut tariffs
on American goods and services, improve intellectual property rights, and
help write the trade and investment rules for an area that is home to about
40% of global economic output.
The agreement notably does not include China. There’s an irony here,
because at a moment when trade opponents in the U.S. are hollering that t
hese deals are always stacked against Uncle Sam, China’s leaders fear the
opposite is true with TPP. They believe, Mr. Lee says, “that you are trying to create rules which will favor you.”
Every one of America’s important trading partners in Asia, he points out,
now has China as its “biggest trading partner.” These nations know they
will have a freer and more open trading system if America, not China, is
that China is “beating us” on trade, the view from Beijing is hardly
triumphant: Its leaders see a Chinese economy that is slowing down and in
need of major structural reform.
Nor is China the only one facing challenges. Though most know of
Singapore’s storybook rise from Third to First World status, Mr. Lee points
out that the obvious gains have all been made. Given its limits on
manpower and resources, Singapore’s only avenue for growth is by
constantly boosting know-how and productivity.
“I don’t have farmers I can convert into factory workers,” he says.
In short, American “angst and disquiet” over trade is by no means unique
these days, though Mr. Lee believes that in the U.S. the worries have been
exacerbated by the legacy of Occupy Wall Street. The “psychological
impact” of those protests, he says, was to teach “a significant chunk” of the
American population to regard the economic status quo as illegitimate.
His take is different. The pain caused by trade and globalization is very real. The failure is not to put it in perspective.
“There are downsides, there are adjustment problems, you have Michigan
and Detroit and difficult places like that,” he says. “But overall America has
benefited and you are wealthy enough and resilient enough to be able to
help those who are buffeted and to take advantage of the opportunities
which are out there, rather than say ‘I don’t want the competition, I don’t
want cars which are made overseas,’ and ‘I want to pull back and forget
about the rest of the world.’ ”
As for the calls to renegotiate the TPP from both Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton, he regards them as a nonstarter. The only effect, he says, would be
to undermine American credibility. He cites Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe, who has gone out on a limb—further than other Japanese
prime ministers dared—by agreeing to open domestic markets.
“If at the end of it all you let him down,” says Mr. Lee, “which next
Japanese prime minister is going to count on you—not just on trade but on
security? If you are not prepared to deal when it comes to cars and services
and agriculture, can we depend on you when it comes to security and
military arrangements?”
Mr. Lee is equally skeptical about Mr. Trump’s vow to make China cry
“uncle.” It’s too big. Asked how Chinese President Xi Jinping would
respond to a Trumpian ultimatum to do what he demanded on trade or face
a 40% tariff, Mr. Lee says Mr. Xi would not go along. Instead, he would
conclude that he couldn’t work with America.
And if in the end the TPP were to die as a result of domestic American
politics? The likely fallback, says Mr. Lee, is something called the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership that includes China but excludes the
U.S. To put it another way, an American failure to ratify TPP would bring
about the very thing critics of the trade deal complain about: a more
empowered China and bad terms for U.S. goods and services.
What makes it all so twisted, says Mr. Lee, is that no one in Asia is rooting
for an American retreat. To the contrary, Asian leaders are eager to make
America great again, however much they might disagree with Mr. Trump
about what this means. If you held a “secret poll,” Mr. Lee says, every
nation would vote for broader American engagement no matter what they
might say in public.
Broader U.S. engagement would also leave America better placed to handle,
say, the tensions raised by China’s habit of setting up outposts on islands in
the South China Sea whose sovereignty is contested. Though the islands
are themselves insignificant, major sea and air lines of communication pass
through this area. Unfortunately, notes Mr. Lee, Washington does not always speak with “one coherent voice”—such as when the National Security Council or the
Defense Department give different explanations when the U.S. sends a ship
through the area in a freedom of navigation operation.
Not to mention terrorism. Squeezed in as it is between Malaysia and
Indonesia—two Muslim-majority nations—Singapore probably feels a
particular vulnerability to the advance of radical Islam. It’s getting worse,
too, says the prime minister, because Islamic State, or ISIS, has proved far
better at recruiting from his part of the world than al Qaeda ever was.
In Singapore, he says, several people have gone to the Middle East, most of
them “self-radicalized” via the Internet. More than 100 from Malaysia and
about 500 from Indonesia have made their way to the Middle East. In fact,
such has been the recruitment success, says Mr. Lee, that ISIS now has a
battalion of Southeast Asian fighters called the Katibah Nusantara, or
Malay Archipelago Combat Unit. The worry is that ISIS might use these
fighters to set up a base in some remote and ungoverned part of Southeast
Asia.
In the end, says Mr. Lee, the world simply has found no substitute for
American leadership. So in the midst of a U.S. presidential campaign
defined by anger and anxiety, he finds himself rooting for a recovery of
America’s self-confidence and its sense of American exceptionalism.
“Your role,” says Mr. Lee, “remains indispensable, whether you are
prepared to step up to it or whether you decide to chuck it.”
Mr. McGurn writes the Journal’s Main Street column.
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4)
U.S.-Russia Tensions Jeopardize
Effort to Lock Down Loose Nukes
Obama’s sparring with Putin is hampering the push to prevent nuclear
terrorism — and even raising the risk of an accidental nuclear confrontation.
Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images
When President Barack Obama hosts leaders from dozens of countries at a
summit in Washington on Thursday to discuss nuclear security, the nation with
the world’s biggest atomic arsenal — Russia — will not be at the table.
Russia’s boycott of the Nuclear Security Summit reflects a widening rift between
Moscow and Washington that has undermined the U.S.-led effort to lock down
radiological material, effectively destroyed prospects for arms control between
the two powers, and even raised the risk of a potential nuclear confrontation not
seen since the Cold War.
Russia has an indispensable role to play in any effort to prevent nuclear terrorism
because it has a vast amount of nuclear material on its territory — by far the
most of any country in the world. And U.S.-Russian collaboration has formed the
cornerstone of groundbreaking efforts over the past two decades to secure weapons stockpiles across the former Soviet Union and prevent the theft of material that could be used to
make atomic bombs or more crude “dirty bombs.”That cooperation has come to
an end, much to the alarm of many U.S. officials.
The Defense Department is concerned by the threat posed by weapons of mass
destruction and trafficking of radiological material, “particularly as we are no
longer able to ensure that nuclear material is being controlled at the source in
Russia,” Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza said in an email.
Moscow’s absence at the summit illustrates how the discord caused by its
incursion into Ukraine has spilled over into the arena of nuclear arms and security
. Russia’s willingness to work with the West started to decline in recent years as
Moscow’s disagreements with Washington escalated over issues like U.S. plans
for a missile defense shield. In 2013, Russia pulled out of a 1990s-era U.S.
program called the Nunn-Lugar Act that helped track and secure tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
Under the former program, the United States had provided detection devices,
security equipment, and training to help the Russians keep tabs on its radiological
material. And the effort helped sustain a useful communication channel for
American and Russian scientists. Now that cooperation has been abandoned,
even as the threat of terrorists getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction
has grown.
The Islamic State extremists who launched the deadly March 22 attacks in
Brussels that killed 32 people are suspected of planning to target the country’s nuclear reactors as well as employees there, and Belgian authorities have come under criticism over reports of lax security at the sites.
Given the threat posed by the Islamic State, the nuclear summit hosted by
Washington — the fourth since Obama took office — will focus on how
countries can work “to prevent the world’s most dangerous networks from
obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons,” the U.S. president wrote in an
made no mention of Russia’s decision to skip the summit or cancel its
cooperation on security efforts.
The Russian withdrawal from the U.S. effort to counter nuclear terrorism is “a
disappointment,” William Courtney told Foreign Policy, the former U.S.
ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan. “The Russians not participating doesn’t
derail it, but it hinders it.”
Moscow has halted all U.S. access to so-called “closed cities” that house a
significant amount of Russia’s weapons-grade material, preventing American
experts from certifying whether security measures are sufficient.
“The concern is not that Russia doesn’t take its nuclear materials seriously,”
Kingston Reif, the director of disarmament and threat reduction policy at the
Washington-based Arms Control Association, told FP. “The concern is that it
raises questions about Russia’s willingness to strengthen nuclear security and
improve the architecture in place.”
Russia has insisted it does not need American assistance to keep its nuclear
material safe. But the country’s growing economic woes, including plans for a 5
percent cut in the defense budget, have raised fears that funding for security and
monitoring at nuclear sites could suffer, experts said.
William Tobey, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs, said that “Russia’s nuclear security is not what it
should be.”
“The Russians try to preserve personnel amid budget constraints, and while they
have kept nuclear inspectors, the inspectors are very limited in their travel
budget now,” Tobey told FP. “So they can’t go out and inspect the facilities they
are in charge of regulating like before.”
Apart from the standstill on nuclear security initiatives, Russia and the United
States have hit a dead end on arms control talks, marking the first time in
decades that the two sides have no agenda and no negotiations underway on a
new deal to reduce their vast nuclear stockpiles.
In combative rhetoric that harked back to the Soviet era, Moscow also has made
frequent references to Russia’s nuclear arsenal. In March 2015, Russia’s
ambassador in Copenhagen said Danish warships would be “targets for Russian
nuclear missiles” if they installed advanced radar equipment. Russia has said the
Iskander missiles it has placed in its territory of Kaliningrad are dual-use,
meaning they could carry nuclear warheads.
NATO and U.S. officials say Russia is blurring the line between conventional
and nuclear war. In a speech to the Munich Security Conference in February,
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia’s threats and exercises of
its nuclear forces were “aimed at intimidating its neighbors,” while U.S. Defense
Secretary Ash Carter said at a November 2015 forum that “Moscow’s nuclear
saber-rattling raises questions about Russian leaders’ commitments to strategic
stability.”
Against the backdrop of an escalating war of words, the prospects for
communication designed to reduce the risk of a conflict between Moscow and
Washington have steadily dimmed. In the wake of Russia’s armed intervention in
Ukraine in 2014, Washington suspended military-to-military relations with
Moscow and imposed travel bans on some officials. Moscow has responded with
its own travel bans.
Some arms control advocates and former senior U.S. officials and lawmakers,
including former Sen. Sam Nunn, have questioned the Obama administration’s
decision to introduce travel bans on some Russian officials, saying any step that
reduces the chance for dialogue is a mistake.
“Common sense would seem to tell us that it is counterproductive for both the
U.S. and Russia to have sanctions on individuals and policymakers who need to
talk to each other to protect the security of the citizens they represent,” Nunn
said in a speech in Moscow in February.
Despite the suspension in military relations, communication between the two
armed forces on essential missions related to nuclear weapons continues,
Pentagon officials told FP. But the accumulative effect of the acrimony has
created the worst climate between the two countries since the Cold War.
Encroachments by Russian nuclear-capable bombers near NATO countries in the
Baltics and sorties into Swedish and Finnish airspace, along with Russian
military exercises that simulate the use of tactical nuclear weapons, have sent
alarm bells ringing in Europe. In response, Russian officials have accused NATO
and the United States of behaving recklessly, citing the deployment of more U.S.
tanks and personnel to NATO states bordering Russia and the use of B-2 bombers in drills close to the Russian border.
“There is no goodwill on either side,” Alexey Arbatov, the chair of the Carnegie
Moscow Center’s nonproliferation program and a former member of the Russian
State Duma, told FP.
“Our militaries have stopped communicating, and they are losing understanding
of each other,” said Arbatov. “There is growing mistrust and exaggeration of the
other’s capabilities and intentions on both sides.”
Nunn, the former Georgia senator, was one of the architects of the Cooperative
Threat Reduction program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar Act, which was
launched amid warming ties between Moscow and Washington after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Designed to address fears over nuclear weapons or material
falling into the hands of terrorists or rogue governments, the joint U.S.-Russian
program provided improved security and detection at Russian facilities. The
program also helped secure nuclear weapons from former Soviet territories such
as Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine by bringing the armaments back to Russia
and dismantling them. Both countries also agreed to drastically cut their weapons
stockpiles and took steps to reduce the risk of losing control over nuclear arms or
accidental launches.
By the early 2000s, cooperation had started to slow down. In 2002, the United
States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a hallmark of Cold War
nuclear arms control. There was a rare burst of optimism in 2010 when
Washington and Moscow signed the New START Treaty, which further reduced
U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Still, the countries retain enormous numbers of the world’s most dangerous
weapons: As of January 2015, Russia and the United States had more than 7,000
nuclear warheads each, about 90 percent of world stocks, according to the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. And those numbers may not
go down anytime soon. Russia has made it clear that removing U.S. missile
defense weaponry from Europe is a precondition for any talks on a new arms
control treaty. The Obama administration has said that is out of the question.
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