Best Scotus in 50 Years .Scotus Took Stand Against Racism. Sowell's 93rd. Get Rid Of U.N. Much More.

One of the greatest men of our times.

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I have advocated I want to live in a merit based society for decades because it is the least racial, most challenging and truly progressive.  It challenges all societal and diversified groups to be equal and capable of competitiveness.

If we have begun a trend where presidents ,who circumvent Congress, are now being challenged and curbed that is one of the most significant acts SCOTUS has undertaken. 

Biden wants it has way and the constitution be damned. He is campaigning and lying all the time.  He knows nothing about being  president. He does not even know what Pelosi knows that the president has no authority to spend beyond what Congress authorizes.

To date we have one of the most outstanding and truly progressive Scotus'. Meanwhile,  Justice Jackson has proven she is a racist Jurist. Radical Democrats and progressives have done everything they can to destroy SCOTUS and attacking the conservative Jurists because, again, their desire to retain power transcends what is best for our nation.

And:

The Supreme Court took a stand against real systemic racism

Banning affirmative action in college admissions is the start of the fight against the left’s efforts to enmesh the country in a permanent race war that hurts Jews, not the end of it.

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN

President Joe Biden, the Anti-Defamation League and a host of left-wing organizations all agreed. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, handed down on June 29, was a blow against the effort to reverse racial inequality. The Democratic Party and its ethnic/religious auxiliary groups are fully committed to the notion that America in the year 2023 is not merely a nation with a tragic history of racial discrimination and bigotry. It is, in their eyes, one that remains irredeemably racist. And that’s why they supported the affirmative action admissions policies practiced by Harvard, as well as those in a related case involving the University of North Carolina, that were struck down by a 6-3 majority.

Their angry denunciations of the court and posturing about the plight of minorities should be seen for what it is: a mendacious effort to enshrine racial discrimination as a permanent feature of American life. The real problem is their support for a system that is not only discriminatory but fundamentally antithetical to the notion of individual rights, and of a country where race is not the primary and determining factor that shapes one’s life, not the vestige of a long-disappeared past. Though they allege that systemic racism requires us to continue discriminating on the basis of race to correct for past injustices, the policies they are defending are the real systemic racism.

Yet important as it is, the court’s decision should not be seen as the end of this fight. Rather, it is the beginning of what promises to be a long battle against the effort to implement diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that have taken the already misguided idea of affirmative action and turned it into a woke catechism for a new secular leftist religion of “anti-racism” that is itself racist. The Supreme Court has made it much harder for colleges to engage in overt racism in the name of ending racism. But the ability of leftists to impose DEI on academia, business and now the government in the form of the Biden administration’s decision to impose it on every federal agency and department has created a much larger and more dangerous challenge for those who wish to ensure individual liberty.

That’s particularly important for a Jewish community whose leading organizations, like the ADL, support the racialist DEI mindset and intersectional ideas that grant a permission slip for antisemitism.

Affirmative action was conceived and first implemented in the heyday of the civil-rights movement that, after much struggle, ended the era in which racial discrimination was permitted by the law in much of the country. The notion was that it was necessary to give those groups that had been the victims of America’s original sin of slavery and the subsequent century of “Jim Crow” laws that perpetuated its legacy a leg up in their efforts to achieve equality. But it didn’t take long to realize that however well-meaning this idea was, implementing it went against the very principles on which the achievements of the civil-rights movement had triumphed.

Affirmative action inevitably meant racial quotas. As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas aptly stated in his concurrence with the majority opinion: “It is not even theoretically possible to ‘help’ a certain racial group without causing harm to members of other racial groups.” The facts of the cases decided in this landmark decision made that abundantly clear.

At Harvard, affirmative action policies meant discriminating against Asian Americans. An African-American student with grades in the fourth lowest decile of academic achievement had a higher chance of admission to Harvard than an Asian student in the top decile. And in order to fully implement this bias, they invented methods to besmirch Asians by consistently rating them as lacking traits such as a “positive personality,” likeability, courage and kindness without any objective basis for doing so.

This combination of open discrimination and deceptive labeling should have resonated with American Jews. Or, at least, it did for those with any sense of their own history and a commitment to fairness. A century ago, the same sort of methods were used to limit the number of Jews admitted to elite universities. Yet the ADL, which was created to fight against such bias, now supports it. The reason is that its leadership—like the rest of the liberal political establishment—is invested in the toxic ideologies of critical race theory, white privilege and intersectionality that claim that the impact of past racism is immutable.

Despite the abundant evidence that they result in new forms of racial discrimination and the unpersuasive and unfounded arguments of the court’s minority, these policies don’t actually help African-Americans. Just as important, they give up on even the ideal of a color-blind society that is the only true path to justice for all. The problem is that the political left is now so committed to the ideology of racialism that it no longer thinks such a society based on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a country where his children “would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” is either achievable or desirable. Instead, they wish to lock Americans into a never-ending war in which race is the only way individuals are defined.

Were those, like Biden, the ADL and race-baiters like Al Sharpton, truly interested in aiding those who need help, they’d support the scrapping of racial schemes like affirmative action in favor of a system that would prioritize helping those who are on the lower end of the economic ladder regardless of race. Doing so would mean ending other practices followed by elite institutions like Harvard that benefit the children of alumni and wealthy donors. But as much as liberal elites seem determined to ensure that, as Heather Mac Donald’s excellent recent book argued, to replace merit with race, they don’t want to give up their own privileges.

The notion that the court’s decision will hurt African-Americans or set back race relations is entirely false. Nothing in the court’s ruling will prevent blacks from being admitted to colleges, which are eager to do so. But placing underqualified applicants in elite universities purely on the basis of their race only sets them up for failure, not success.

It’s equally true that such schools will do everything they can to evade or flout the court’s ruling, as schools in California did when its voters passed Proposition 209, which bans state institutions from using such discriminatory practices. And Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion, which said students could speak of their personal experiences with racial discrimination in their applications, may have given Harvard and other affirmative action die-hards a way to continue to prioritize race. The exemption the majority gave to the military service academies also undermines the equality principle that is the guiding force behind all that the American republic has accomplished.

The question of who gets into Harvard or any other top college may appear momentous to aspiring high school seniors. However, it is merely a sidebar to the general campaign to implement a permanent racialization of American society that will, as with past quota schemes, hurt Jews whose accomplishments have been based on the idea of rewarding merit rather than the obsession with diversity.

Reversing the DEI campaign that seeks to make racial quotas the operating principle of American life to the detriment of the achievement of excellence in every field from the sciences to the arts will be much more difficult than winning a case at the Supreme Court. With the woke racialist mindset having largely taken over popular culture, as well as the academy and now dominating big business, ending DEI discrimination will require states to put in place bans such as the one implemented by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

More than that, it will require a generation of leaders throughout education, business and government to say that the obsession with race must end and be replaced by a new dedication to individual merit and fairness.

When they do, they will find that, contrary to Biden, the American people oppose racial quotas and discrimination, no matter their purported purpose. Indeed, even a recent New York Times poll showed that the overwhelming majority (69% to 74% depending on the way the question was worded, with 58% to 60% of Democrats among that majority) oppose them.

Jews should be at the forefront of that effort, but so long as their leading groups, like ADL, consider that staying in sync with fashionable liberal opinion is more important than defending the rights of individuals, that won’t happen. These organizations are out-of-touch with their founding principles, as well as the interests of their constituents. Like the affirmative action policies, the court just banned, they belong on the scrap heap of history.

Finally:

The Justices revive the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment in barring discrimination by race in admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

The The Editorial Board

The Supreme Court had one of its finest hours on Thursday as it reaffirmed, in logical but forceful fashion, the bedrock American principle of equality under the law. In barring the use of race in college admissions, a six-Justice majority took a giant step back from the racial Balkanization that risks becoming set in institutional stone.

The two cases at issue were brought against Harvard, a private institution, and the public University of North Carolina by Students for Fair Admissions. They each used race to favor some applicants at the expense of others—most often Asian-Americans. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts unequivocally declares their admissions processes to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

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“The Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” he writes. “Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.”

It doesn’t get clearer than that, in what is the most significant opinion of the Chief’s career. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” he writes.

The Court’s opinion is especially bracing because it clears up a half-century of muddled Supreme Court rulings. In 1978 in Bakke, it opened the door to racial preferences in a plurality opinion by Justice Lewis Powell. When the issue inevitably came up again in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, the Court again fudged by declaring the narrow use of race kosher while adding that it should not be necessary in 25 years.

As the Chief writes, 20 years later the two schools told the Court they could foresee no end to using race to achieve diversity on campus. The dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor goes further in suggesting that “systemic inequities” may always require discrimination by race to counter discrimination by race.

But this view turns the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment on its head. It also leaves Justice Sotomayor in the odd position of arguing that, as the Chief puts it, the Court should tell “state actors when they have picked the right races to benefit.” He adds that while the Court ruled in its landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that separate but equal is “inherently unequal,” Justice Sotomayor argues that “it depends.” Boom.

Thursday’s ruling is also notable for its concurrences. Justice Clarence Thomas navigates the long and fraught history of U.S. race and the law and why Justice John Harlan was right in his famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson that “our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch explains in a concurrence that Harvard and UNC both also violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And in a telling passage, he writes that, in our increasingly diverse country, divisions by racial “classifications rest on incoherent stereotypes.”

He notes that in federal government classifications, “The ‘White’ category sweeps in anyone from ‘Europe, Asia west of India, and North Africa.’ That includes those of Welsh, Norwegian, Greek, Italian, Moroccan, Lebanese, Turkish, or Iranian descent. It embraces an Iraqi or Ukrainian refugee as much as a member of the British royal family.” The Court’s reaffirmation of equality under the law recognizes that it is the only way to run a diverse democracy without breeding more racial resentment.

President Biden denounced the decision, perhaps because he understands that its declaration of moral and legal principle jeopardizes his policies that divide by race. Corporate diversity and equity programs that divide and classify by race should also be on notice that they will face legal challenges. Harvard issued a statement suggesting that it would follow the law but that it sees an opening in the ruling that colleges may consider an applicant’s views on how race has affected his or her life.

The Chief’s opinion anticipates such evasion and notes that “a benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination” and the student must be treated “based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.” He adds for emphasis: “[W]hat cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly.”

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No resistance can change the Court’s watershed declaration putting the country back in harmony with the principle of equal treatment at the heart of America’s founding promise. Notwithstanding the paean to equality in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution was flawed owing to slavery. The 14th amendment was passed in 1866 to extend the protections of the law to Americans of all races.

The American people seem to agree with the Court’s view. Even in liberal states such as California and Washington, voters have rejected race-based admissions. Pew’s latest polls show three-quarters of the population oppose the use of race in college admissions, including majorities of Asian-Americans, Hispanics and black Americans.

The U.S. still has much work to do to achieve a truly color-blind society. Above all it needs to liberate a K-12 education system that traps too many minorities in failure factories. But the attempt to discriminate by race in college admissions to make up for that failure creates other problems and judges individuals not by their talent or character but the color of their skin. As the Chief underscores, “Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

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It is long past the time. Most corrupt and anti-Semitic body in the world.

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It’s time to dismantle the United Nations

The moral corruption of this global body has knocked the free world off its compass. The world needs an alliance of democracies. 

The malevolent scapegoating of Israel by the United Nations has long been a scandal.

These abuses are regularly highlighted by tireless U.N. watchdogs such as Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, and Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices.

Last week, Neuer testified before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He described how Israel is routinely demonized by the U.N. General Assembly, the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Neuer also revealed that, in retaliation for exposing this bias, the head of UNHRC Eric Tistounet has been running an antisemitic dirty tricks campaign against him.

After hearing this, the chairman of the hearing, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) expressed outrage and promised to take up this harassment with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in order to put a stop to it.

The problem with the United Nations, however, is far more fundamental.

In May 2021, after Israel took military action in Gaza against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which had been firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians, the UNHRC created a commission that targeted not the attackers but their Israeli victims.

The commission’s scope is vast and one-sided, covering the “root causes” of the Middle East conflict and alleged “systematic discrimination based on race.” Unprecedentedly, it has no end date—because the U.N.’s animus towards Israel is never-ending.

The UNHRC appointed Navi Pillay as head of the commission. Pillay had previously called for sanctions against “apartheid Israel”—the signature big lie of Israel-haters. The second commissioner, Miloon Kothari, had ranted about “the Jewish lobby.” The third commissioner, Chris Sidoti, had said that “accusations of antisemitism are thrown around like rice at a wedding.”

The commission has now released a report that widens its scope still further, attacking not only Israel but also its defenders, including private individuals and non-governmental organizations “worldwide.”

The U.N.’s campaign of double standards against Israel, ignoring or sanitizing attacks against it while damning it falsely as a human-rights abuser, goes on week in, week out.

The U.N.’s resident representative in Jerusalem, Norwegian diplomat Tor Wennesland, recently made a series of willfully distorted, inflammatory and disgusting statements. Ignoring the barrages of rocket attacks from Gaza directed at Israeli civilians earlier this year, Wennesland condemned Israel’s remarkably precise military strikes against PIJ leaders as “unacceptable” because of the few civilian deaths that were unavoidably involved.

In an even more egregious attempt to avoid referring to Palestinian Arab terrorism, Wennesland referred to Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, who were shot dead at point-blank range in their car by Palestinian terrorists, as having been killed “by perpetrators in a car with Palestinian plates.”

Last December, Wennesland tweeted that he was “horrified” that a Palestinian Arab terrorist, who had attacked an Israeli soldier and border police officers, was killed in what he called a “scuffle.” He sent “heartfelt condolences” to the terrorist’s “bereaved family.”

Recently, the United States, United Kingdom and 25 other U.N. member states objected to the Pillay commission, which they said was “further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the council, and must stop.”

That was a welcome move. However, the United States and the rest of the free world should be going much further. They should be saying that the United Nations itself isn’t fit for purpose.

This is because the world body contained the seeds of its own corruption right from the start.

The United Nations was created after the Second World War as an institution that would bring the world together to promote peace and justice. Yet most countries are not democracies and do not uphold human rights. So, by definition, any such world body was unlikely to promote peace and justice and more likely to promote the opposite.

So it has proved.

Last year, the U.N. General Assembly condemned Israel in no fewer than 15 resolutions compared to 13 for the rest of the world together, with just one resolution on Iran, one on North Korea and one on Syria.

As Neuer observed, the U.N. gives most of the world’s worst human rights abusers a free pass. More surreal, abusers such as China, Cuba, Qatar and Pakistan actually sit on the UNHRC.

Last month, the UNHRC appointed to the chairmanship of its social forum the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s most dangerous terrorist state, which beats women to death for failing to wear approved head coverings and hangs gay people from cranes.

Yet the only country with a standing agenda all to itself at the UNHRC is Israel—the sole upholder of human rights and democracy in the Middle East. From 2006, the council has adopted more resolutions on Israel than on Iran, North Korea and Syria combined.

Last year, the UNHRC appointed Francesca Albanese as a special rapporteur on “Palestine” with a mandate to investigate only Israel’s supposed violations.

Albanese is not an honest broker. She has repeatedly equated Palestinian Arab suffering with the Holocaust, falsely accused Israel of war crimes and genocide, and in 2019 wrote that America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.” Last year, she told Hamas, “You have a right to resist.”

In May the U.N. commemorated “Nakba Day,” the propaganda term the Palestinian Arabs have given to the date on which the State of Israel was founded. It invited the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to address it.

He used that platform to repeat the P.A.’s murderous lie that Britain and the U.S. had decided “for their own colonialist purposes” to establish “another entity in our historical homeland” because they “wanted to get rid of the Jews and enjoy having them in Palestine—two birds with one stone.”

As for the WHO, Neuer observed that every year its annual assembly deviates from surveying global public health to hold a special debate singling out Israel. There is no such focus on Syria, where hospitals are repeatedly bombed by Syrian and Russian forces; nor on North Korea, which has one of the worst health systems in the world. On the contrary, the WHO recently elected North Korea to its executive board.

As ever, the deranged onslaught upon Israel stands proxy for the endangerment of the world itself.

A WHO mission to study the Covid pandemic’s origins in China announced in February that the possibility that the virus had escaped from a laboratory needed no further investigation. The mission had been put under pressure to reach that conclusion by Chinese scientists who made up half the team.

The United Nations has been impotent over China’s systemic abuses of its population and over Russia’s war against Ukraine. Who can be surprised? Both China and Russia have places on the U.N. Security Council with veto power. The United Nations places foxes in charge of its hen house.

In a similar vein, Iran, which is racing towards developing nuclear weapons to further its war on the U.S. and its intention to wipe Israel off the map, has been made vice president of the General Assembly.

Even more grotesquely, Iran has been made rapporteur of the General Assembly’s Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Committee. This is despite its persistent violations of the Security Council resolution banning its ballistic-missile program and its refusal to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The United Nations isn’t just anti-Israel. It is morally corrupt at its very core. As a result, it doesn’t just victimize Israel and empower its attackers. It doesn’t just betray its charter commitments by endangering the wider world.

By supposedly promoting global peace and justice but actually promoting those dedicated to war, terror and tyranny while demonizing their victims, the world body has also knocked the free world off its moral compass.

That world will only stand a chance of regaining its balance if it walks away from the United Nations and creates an alliance of democracies instead.

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, The Legacy, in 2018. To access her work, go to: melaniephillips.substack.com.

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US envoy on Iran placed on leave due to security issues.

Sources say Rob Malley has been placed on leave without pay after his security clearance was suspended amid investigation into his handling of classified material.

Rob Malley, the US special envoy on Iran, has been placed on leave without pay, after his security clearance was suspended earlier this year amid an investigation into his handling of classified material, multiple sources told CNN on Thursday.

A US official said that Malley’s clearance was suspended amid a State Department diplomatic security investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information. Another source familiar with the matter said he was placed on unpaid leave on Thursday afternoon.

“I have been informed that my security clearance is under review. I have not been provided any further information, but I expect the investigation to be resolved favorably and soon. In the meantime, I am on leave,” Malley told CNN.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller also confirmed that Malley is on leave, adding that Abram Paley is filling in on an acting basis.

"Rob Malley is on leave and Abram Paley is serving as acting Special Envoy for Iran and leading the Department's work in this area," Miller told Reuters in an email.

Malley was appointed special envoy for Iran in January of 2021 and had led the Biden administration's unsuccessful effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal from which then-US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

Talks between Iran and world powers on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have been stalled since September.

At that time, Iran submitted a response to a European Union proposal to revive the deal. A senior Biden administration official said the Iranian response "is not at all encouraging.” A US official later said that the efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have “hit a wall” because of Iran's insistence on the closure of the UN nuclear watchdog's investigations.

Recent reports indicated that the US and Iran were close to an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week denied that an agreement had been reached between the Biden administration and the Iranian government on Iran's nuclear program.

"There is no agreement in the offing, even as we continue to be willing to explore diplomatic paths," Blinken said.

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You got to admit he is smooth.  Maybe that is why he slips and falls so much?

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Biden walks off interview set before MSNBC host is finished talking: ‘The Biden presidency in one clip’

By Victor Nava

President Biden on Thursday wandered off the set of a live television interview on MSNBC before the show even cut to a commercial break.  

With the cameras still rolling, Biden got out of his chair, shook hands with host Nicolle Wallace and awkwardly walked away after she thanked the 80-year-old president for granting her a rare interview.

“Don’t go anywhere,” the MSNBC host told viewers as Biden made his exit, walking directly behind her. 

It is unusual for guests to leave the set of cable news shows before the host tosses the program to a commercial break. 

The clip of Biden walking off, apparently oblivious that the program was live, quickly went viral. 

“WHAT ON EARTH IS JOE BIDEN DOING? It’s live TV!” former Republican National Committee staffer Steve Guest wrote in a tweet.

“The Biden Presidency in one clip,” former Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wrote in a tweet sharing the video. 

Some guessed that the oldest president in US history was in a rush to get somewhere. 

President Joe BidenWith the cameras still rolling, Biden got out of his chair, shook hands with host Nicolle Wallace and awkwardly walked away after she thanked the 80-year-old president for granting her a rare interview.MSNBC President Joe BidenPresident Biden on Thursday wandered off the set of a live television interview on MSNBC before the show even cut to commercial break.MSNBC

“Bathroom run? Biden gets out of his seat before the commercials start and awkwardly walks off-set,” Media Research Center associate editor Nicholas Fondacaro speculated. 

“Oh goodness! Joe Biden is really lost,” media and political consultant Jim Pfaff wrote in a tweet.

During the 20-minute long interview the president discussed the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday to outlaw affirmative action in higher education acceptance decisions, arguing that “the vast majority of the American people don’t agree with a lot of the decisions this court is making.” 

Biden, however, stopped short of endorsing calls for Democrats to pack the court with liberal judges. 

“I think it’s a mistake,” Biden said.

“If we do start the process of expanding the court, we’re going to politicize it maybe forever in a way that is not healthy.”

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What gives?
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> https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-picks-after-journalist-calls-secret-burner-phone-revealed-hunter-scandal?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1615

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In my estimation, there is no patch of geography in this country that is the "middle of nowhere." This is America; everywhere is the middle of somewhere. By Salena Zito LANSING, North Carolina —Nestled in the rolling farmland in Ashe County is a tidy white-clad building whose wistful charm beckons you to stop. It's the kind of place you may only spot if you set your navigation app to avoid highways. And even if you're trying to make good time down Silas Creek Road, you will find it impossible not to stop here. Across the very top of the storefront reads "Phipps General Store," accompanied with signs for Schwan’s Ice Cream and one noting that it is the Silas Creek United States Post Office. All around it are barns and postcard-perfect farmland. It is only upon closer inspection that you learn this is now the former post office and that the store is closed. Or is it?   Phipps General Store holds a secret. Every Friday night, this store, which has been shuttered since 1953, opens for the sole objective of forming a community of musicians and music lovers from all across Ashe County — from all over North Carolina, in fact, and even from nearby Virginia and West Virginia. They come here with their banjos, guitars, fiddles, and mandolins to play old-time music and bluegrass. The musicians, along with anyone else who comes to sit a spell with them, keep time, sing stories, and form friendships and bond with each other. Click for the full story. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/the-general-store-that-cultivated-a-community ++++++++++++++++++++++  Tom Fitton: +++ The Supreme Court has ended race-based admissions at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina. It was long past time for the Supreme Court to require our higher education system to follow the Constitution and stop blatant and unconstitutional race discrimination. As the Supreme Court majority observes: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” This decision could not come at a better time, as the extremist left embraces outright racial discrimination, racial separatism, and racial segregation under the guise of “anti-racism.”  As Justice Thomas observed in his concurring opinion: The solution to our nation’s racial problems cannot come from policies grounded in affirmative action or some other conception of equity. Racialism simply cannot be undone by different or more racialism. Instead, the solution announced in the second founding is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law. We filed several amici curiae briefs alongside the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in support of Students for Fair Admissions’ Supreme Court cases challenging both Harvard College and the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) race-based affirmative action admissions programs (Students for Fair Admission v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (No. 20-1199)) and (Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et al. (No. 21-707)). We and AEF argued in our briefs that the court should reject a prior 1978 Supreme Court opinion that seemingly authorizes racial discrimination in college admissions (Regents of Univ. of Cal. V. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)). Since Bakke, there have been “at least 26 separate opinions. Many of these have attempted to explain the constitutional rationale for allowing race-based preferences, even though those rationales appear to directly conflict with the original meaning and text of the Equal Protection Clause.” The amici brief highlighted how race-based discrimination (and the resulting quota mentality) is permeating government. The brief quotes Vice President Kamala Harris’s attack on equality and implicit call for race-based quotas: There’s a big difference between equity and equality. Equality suggests, “everyone should get the same amount.” The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place…. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place. Referencing this and other Biden administration actions promoting racial favoritism, the brief noted: There is, however, no constitutional guarantee that we will all “end up in the same place.” The foregoing statements reveal a distorted view of the Equal Protection Clause that would guarantee racially proportionate outcomes under the name of equity, not the equality of opportunity the Equal Protection Clause has always guaranteed. These are more than mere words or theories. Racial preferences have increasingly become incorporated in real-world, governmental decisions and policies. For example, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials recently sought to use race as a basis for deciding who receives governmental loan forgiveness … In a similar vein, New York issued guidelines … govern[ing] which COVID-19 patients are eligible to receive life-saving monoclonal antibodies and therapeutics [which required] that the patient be a person of color or Hispanic ethnicity.  Last year, we and AEF filed an amici curiae brief in support of the Coalition for Thomas Jefferson High School’s challenge to race-based admissions policies put in place by the nationally known public high school in Fairfax County, Virginia. In January 2022, the city of Asheville, NC, settled our federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a city-funded scholarship program. Additionally, the city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators. The City Council approved the settlement on January 11. We are also challenging a public teachers’ union contract in Minneapolis that requires race discrimination in layoffs and hiring. And our lawsuit ended a racially discriminatory scholarship program in North Carolina. Expect the Left to try to do an end-run around the law to keep up the racialist agenda. But you can be sure Judicial Watch will monitor and, when necessary, take legal action to uphold America’s core ideal that we all be treated equally under the law, regardless of our skin color! Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Document Alleging Bidens’ Bribery Scheme with Burisma The Biden administration isn’t going to investigate the Biden family, of course, but we are, and there’s a new development this week. We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice for a copy of the FBI document, FD-1023, that describes “an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.” Our request also asks for communications about the FD-1023 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-01849)). This FBI document, which is being hidden contrary to law, could be the Rosetta Stone to uncovering unprecedented corruption by our nation’s top elected official. The American people have a right under to law to see this FBI document so they can judge for themselves whether their president and his family are crooks. On May 3, 2023, we submitted unanswered FOIA requests to the Justice Department and FBI for: 1. The unclassified FBI FD-1023 (CHS Reporting Document) described in the May 3, 2023 letter from Sen. Grassley and Rep. Comer to Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray (Grassley-Comer-letter.pdf (house.gov). 2. All records of communication between Attorney General Garland and any other official or employee of any branch, department, agency, or office of the Federal government regarding the letter and/or the FD-1023 described therein. This includes but is not limited to, any such communications between the Attorney General and any other official or employee of the Department of Justice. 3. All records of communication between Director Wray and any other official or employee of any branch, department, agency, or office of the Federal government regarding the letter and/or the FD-1023 described therein. This includes, but is not limited to, any such communications between Director Wray and any other official or employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. In a Senate floor speech on June 12, 2023, Senator Grassley said: The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses fifteen audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden. These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden. A June 8, 2023, Washington Examiner story states: Republicans said the FBI form indicated Ukrainian businessman and Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly told the FBI informant that he paid $5 million apiece to Hunter and then-Vice President Biden to shake off a corruption investigation. House Republicans have threatened to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress for not producing the full FD-1023 document but have yet to follow through on this threat. We continue to lead the fight to expose the Biden administration's corruption. In May 2023, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the National Archives for Biden family records and communications regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as communications between the Bidens and several known business associates. On October 14, 2022, we sued DOJ for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’ investigation of Hunter Biden. We filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on April 20, 2022, for messages sent through the SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter Biden. On December 10, 2020, we received 210 pages of records from the State Department which show that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings. On October 27, 2020, we received 116 pages of records from the State Department which include a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings. I expect a big fight with DOJ about this smoking-gun Biden corruption issue and I will report back to you as events warrant! Former Virginia Magistrate Gets Resolution in Suit Challenging Her Termination Former Virginia magistrate Elizabeth Fuller and officials of the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia (“OES”) have agreed to resolve Ms. Fuller’s First Amendment lawsuit challenging her termination. The lawsuit, which Judicial Watch filed on Fuller’s behalf on March 1, 2022, alleged that Fuller was fired from her position as a City of Alexandria magistrate after commenting to the Alexandria Times about the public outcome of a 2020 complaint she filed against Virginia bail bondsman Man Nguyen.  Fuller alleged in the lawsuit that the termination violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.  In response, the OES officials denied Fuller’s allegations and stated that her termination was lawful as her comments as published in the October 7, 2021, Alexandria Times article related to criminal proceedings in the circuit in which she served as a magistrate, violating the Canons of Conduct for Virginia Magistrates. We strongly believe public employees do not sign away their free speech rights when answering the call to public service. We are pleased Ms. Fuller and OES were able to resolve their differences. Happy Independence Day! Independence Day is a day to celebrate American freedom and the heroics of our nation’s founders that gave the world the best example of liberty for a free people in all of history. Our continued liberty depends on fidelity to the principles of our founding, as described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. To that end, to celebrate Independence Day, here is the Declaration of Independence, in full: In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. Have a safe and wonderful Independence Day and God Bless the United States of America! Until next week, ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++   In my estimation, there is no patch of geography in this country that is the "middle of nowhere." This is America; everywhere is the middle of somewhere.

 

 

Trash Hunter Plea. New Poll WH Hire Feeds White Supremacist's and Anti-Semites. Elitest Bigots Want Power.

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Perhaps I do not emphasize enough , I  always invite comment.  I will always respond.

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 Throw Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal in the Trash

The IRS whistleblowers say Justice sabotaged the investigation, so how can the agreement stand?

By Eileen J. O’Connor

Supervisory Special Agent Gary A. Shapley Jr., a 14-year veteran of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division, sat on May 26 for hours of sworn and transcribed testimony with members of the majority and minority staffs of the House Ways and Means Committee. On June 1, an IRS criminal investigator who chose to remain anonymous did the same. These whistleblowers came forward because they believe that Attorney General Merrick Garland gave false assurances to Congress when he testified that he had empowered U.S. Attorney David Weiss with full authority to investigate Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal activity and bring any resulting charges.

The plea agreement reportedly reached between Mr. Weiss and the president’s son gives credence to the whistleblowers’ statements. The judge to whom that agreement is presented on July 26 ought to consider rejecting it.

Was the Hunter Biden Investigation Handled Improperly?

IRS special agents are the agency’s criminal investigators. They are the best in the world at tracking down the proceeds of crime. Because of this, they are frequently invited by other federal law-enforcement agencies to participate in matters far removed from tax crimes. They work hand-in-glove with assistant U.S. attorneys and Justice Department tax prosecutors to obtain search warrants and other authorizations necessary to explore leads.

The IRS opened its investigation into Hunter Biden in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation it was conducting of a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform. In October 2019 the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned of certain devices, including laptops, that had been abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. According to Mr. Shapley, FBI agents had confirmed within weeks that the devices belonged to Mr. Biden and that their contents were authentic. After taking possession of the devices in December 2019, FBI agents notified the IRS that they likely contained evidence of tax crimes. Notwithstanding this notification and that the FBI had legitimate possession of the devices and unfettered access to their contents, Mr. Shapley’s testimony describes how prosecutors never permitted the IRS special agents to examine them.

This is only one of the roadblocks the whistleblowers claim prosecutors threw in the way of their investigation into Mr. Biden’s financial dealings. The IRS special agents testified that they requested and were denied permission to search the guest house at Joe Biden’s Delaware mansion and the storage locker Hunter Biden maintained in Northern Virginia. The whistleblowers claim they had reason to believe they would find records in those locations of at least some of the numerous pass-through entities that reportedly served as conduits for illicit and likely unreported payments to Hunter Biden and possibly other members of his family.

Federal rules provide that the government generally must prosecute an offense in the district in which it was committed. Charges brought in an improper venue can be dismissed. U.S. attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers for their districts. When a U.S. attorney discovers crimes that need to be charged in another district, he generally transfers the case and, if necessary, details some of his own staff to handle it.

By June 2021, Mr. Weiss’s prosecution team had gathered enough evidence to understand that Delaware wasn’t the proper venue in which to prosecute Hunter Biden’s tax crimes. Crimes allegedly committed in 2014 and 2015 would have to be charged in the District of Columbia and those allegedly committed 2016-19 would have to be charged in the Central District of California.

According to the whistleblowers’ testimony, the U.S. attorneys in the capital and Central California refused Mr. Weiss’s requests to charge Hunter Biden in their districts. Mr. Shapley testified that Mr. Weiss then asked “Main DOJ” to name him special counsel and was denied—possibly not for the first time. In March testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee the attorney general said that although he hadn’t made Mr. Weiss special counsel, he had given Mr. Weiss all the authority he needed to bring charges in any district he deemed appropriate.

But on Oct. 7, 2022, Mr. Shapley claims, Mr. Weiss declared in a meeting of the prosecution team that in fact he wasn’t the final decision maker with respect to charges that might be brought against Hunter Biden. It was this statement that shocked and troubled Mr. Shapley such that he braved the consequences of becoming a whistleblower and sought legal counsel on how to do so.

The Justice Department’s alleged foot-dragging and refusal to permit IRS special agents to follow the evidence allowed the statutes of limitations for 2014 and 2015 to expire, notwithstanding that Mr. Biden’s defense counsel had, according to Mr. Shapley, agreed to more than one extension. Far worse, Mr. Garland’s failure to designate Mr. Weiss a special counsel essentially guaranteed that Mr. Biden wouldn’t be prosecuted for any of his alleged tax crimes.

The “criminal information”—the charging document in the absence of an indictment—prepared by Mr. Weiss’s office, to which Hunter Biden will reportedly plead on July 26, states that Mr. Biden received but didn’t pay federal taxes on “taxable income in excess of $1,500,000.00” in 2017 and in 2018. House Oversight Committee Republicans claim to have seen Treasury Department suspicious-activity reports suggesting that Mr. Biden received vastly more than that during the years the IRS was investigating.

Judges can reject plea agreements. That would be an appropriate disposition here. And Congress, in fulfillment of its oversight obligation, must learn and share with the American public what evidence the IRS gathered, what evidence its agents weren’t permitted to obtain, and what charges might have been brought if they had.

Ms. O’Connor, a Washington lawyer, headed the U.S. Justice Department’s tax division, 2001-07. Jay Starkman contributed to this article.

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New Poll Shows the Battle Between Trump and DeSantis Is Too Close to Call

By Sarah Arnold

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White House Hires Anti-Israel Professor From University Engulfed in Anti-Semitism Controversy

CUNY professor Ramzi Kassem says 9/11 terrorists were not driven by 'intrinsic evil'

By Adam Kredo

The White House's newest hire is a City University of New York (CUNY) professor who has accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and "systematic genocide," a move that is raising alarms among the many people who are already concerned about the Biden administration's failure to combat anti-Semitism on America's college campuse

Ramzi Kassem, a professor at CUNY's law school, was tapped to serve as a senior policy adviser for immigration in the White House's Domestic Policy Council. Kassem is a vocal Israel critic who spent a portion of his time as an undergrad at Columbia University writing scathing criticisms of the Jewish state, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Kassem, who helped defend terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, charged the Jewish state with genocide and decried "unconditional" support for Israel.

Kassem's hiring comes as the Biden administration fights the perception it is feeding Israel's opponents. A closely watched White House plan on combating anti-Semitism, for instance, was recently watered down by anti-Israel activists. The State Department admitted on Monday that it is boycotting research partnerships with certain Israeli organizations.

CUNY announced that Kassem "will work to support the Biden-Harris agenda across a range of immigration issues" using his expertise as "a national leader on progressive immigration reform." Kassem enters the White House after working for more than a decade at CUNY, which has repeatedly found itself in hot water for promoting anti-Semitic hate speech and, in some cases, subjecting Jewish students to "severe and persistent anti-Semitic harassment." CUNY's law school, in particular, promotes anti-Semitic boycotts against Israel and recently featured a graduation speaker who accused Israel of sending "lynch mobs" after Palestinians.

Kassem's past writings strike a similar note. In an April 1998 article, the White House adviser claimed there is "sufficient evidence" implicating Israel in a "systematic genocide" against the Palestinians. The Jewish state's behavior, Kassem wrote in the Columbia Spectator, is "a clear-cut case of ethnic cleansing." In another April 1998 article, titled "Zionism Impedes Middle Eastern Peace," Kassem claimed European Jews came to the Middle East "with the intention of conquering the land." A two-state solution between the parties "is not viable, nor is it desirable," he insisted.

Kassem also maintained that peace will only be achieved if Israel affords Palestinians the "right of return," a long dormant policy proposal that would erase Israel's Jewish majority.

"It doesn't make sense that Jewish Americans living in Brooklyn have more rights to the land than Palestinians who live in Lebanon and can't return to their historical land," Kassem was quoted as saying in a November 2000 Spectator interview.

In a separate piece authored in October 2000, Kassem claimed that Israel has no business defending Jews from terror attacks in Nablus, a Palestinian city where militants frequently clash with Israeli security forces.

"The fact that Israel has no internationally recognized right to be there in the first place is conveniently omitted, and never mind that the citizens in question happen to be illegal settlers armed to the teeth by the Israeli military and heavily subsidized by their government," Kassem wrote in that Spectator article, which includes several other bylines.

Kassem also decried "unconditional" U.S. support for Israel, saying in the November 2000 interview with the Spectator that "the power of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee and other lobbying groups has allowed Israeli 'ethnocracy' to flourish."

Kassem's role at the White House is generating scrutiny among pro-Israel advocates already upset by the Biden administration's efforts to undermine the current Israeli government.

"The peril lies in the White House's choice to enlist an individual who has espoused profoundly offensive and injurious rhetoric concerning Israel and Jews," Hen Mazzig, a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute, which combats anti-Semitism, told the Free Beacon. "History has shown us that individuals harboring anti-Israel notions may attempt a performative transformation upon assuming public office, yet their stand remains the same within."

"Were any other marginalized community at stake," Mazzig said, "unequivocal consensus would swiftly denounce the wisdom of appointing such a person with employment."

Kassem also took issue with Columbia University's 1999 decision to call one of its sandwiches an "Israeli wrap," writing in a letter to the editor of the Spectator that the term is offensive to Muslims and Arabs.

"The hiring of an anti-Israel college professor from CUNY Law, a school riddled with anti-Semitism, to the highest levels of the United States government is incredibly concerning," StopAntisemitism.org executive director Liora Rez told the Free Beacon. "With anti-Semitism skyrocketing across the country, the last thing we need are bigots with anti-Semitic views advising the president on immigration policy. Kassems hiring is antithetical to the White House's anti-Semitism strategy , which has already been watered down plenty by anti-Israel groups that share his values."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and recently appointed chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, said that Kassem should commit to upholding the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's widely recognized standard definition of anti-Semitism.

"There is only one question I would ask Ramzi Kassem: 'As a senior policy White House adviser do you endorse and will you apply the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism?'" Cooper told the Free Beacon.

In addition to his anti-Israel advocacy, Kassem has sought to downplay the impact of the 9/11 terror attacks, writing in September 2001 article that the attackers were not evil.

"The perpetrators were probably not driven to their actions by some intrinsic evil or inherent hatred of the good United States. These acts of violence were gratuitous only in the sense that they wantonly and indiscriminately targeted innocent civilians," Kassem wrote. "The resentment these terrorists felt towards the United States was rooted in political realities shaped by our country's policies."

As a law professor and CUNY employee, Kassem has helped free several accused terrorists from prison, according to his online profile. He is also the founding director of CUNY's CLEAR program, a legal advocacy group that helps Muslims and other communities pursue allegations of unjust surveillance by local authorities

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. An request for comment sent to Kassem's CUNY email address returned an auto-response saying he is on leave.

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Netanyahu Revives Judicial Overhaul Stripped of Most Controversial Piece

By Dov Lieber and Michael Amon

JERUSALEM—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would drop the most controversial part of his plan to remake the country’s court system, pushing ahead with legislation stripped of a provision that would have given the national legislature the power to overturn rulings by the Supreme Court.

“It’s out,” Netanyahu said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that also touched on relations with the U.S., his decision not to supply weapons to Ukraine and his concerns about deepening ties between Russia and Iran.

Netanyahu’s initial judicial-overhaul plan, which sparked large-scale unrest that paralyzed the country earlier this year, was opposed by many secular and liberal Israelis who said they feared the measures would give the government too much power and lead to a rollback in civil liberties.

“I’m attentive to the public pulse, and to what I think will pass muster,” said Netanyahu, who has previously said he wouldn’t support an “unlimited override clause.”

Netanyahu allowed lieutenants to advance the initial legislation, but he has taken control of the plan’s substance and messaging since he paused the effort in March after civil unrest. The prime minister also said he would revise another controversial piece of the legislation, which would have given the ruling coalition more power to appoint judges, though he said he wasn’t sure yet what the new version would look like.

The revisions are unlikely to persuade opposition politicians to support the plan, and risk alienating the religious far-right and ultraorthodox parties that play a critical role in Netanyahu’s coalition government and see the country’s courts as too activist and hostile to their agenda.

It is unclear whether they go far enough to forestall a repeat of mass protests that grew so severe that Netanyahu in March suspended the legislation and started compromise talks with the opposition. He said the sides failed to reach an agreement and that he would move forward with his own revised plan.

He said that with his new version of the law he was determined to find a middle ground so any changes would “stick for a generation.” The opposition says Netanyahu risks plunging the country back into turmoil if he doesn’t return to the negotiating table.

The prime minister said he has also sought a middle ground in Israel’s response to the war in Ukraine.

Netanyahu rejected calls from some Washington lawmakers and Ukrainian officials to join the West’s effort to arm Ukraine, saying, “We have concerns that I don’t think any of the Western allies of Ukraine have.” He said he needs to ensure Israel has “freedom of action” in Syria, where Israeli pilots often bomb Iranian targets in the vicinity of Russia forces, which prop up the Damascus government.

He said he is also concerned that Israeli weaponry could be captured on the Ukraine battlefield and turned over to Iran, which has developed a closer military relationship with Russia in recent months. Specifically, he said Israel couldn’t allow the U.S. to give Ukraine the Iron Dome air-defense system—developed jointly with the U.S.—which has protected Israelis from frequent attacks by Iran-backed militants.

“If that system were to fall into the hands of Iran, then millions of Israelis would be left defenseless and imperiled,” Netanyahu said. He added that Israel had joined United Nations resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion and had delivered an early-warning system for detecting missile attacks to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel called fears of weaponry ending up in Iranian hands “entirely fictional and speculative assumptions.”

Netanyahu said he has conveyed his concerns to Russia about its growing military ties to Iran, which has supplied Moscow with drones that have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine. In exchange, Moscow has helped Iran with its cyber capabilities and is considering requests to help Iran with jet fighters, combat helicopters and potentially its missile-production capabilities, the Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

“It’s a very disturbing relationship,” he said. “We’ve made our concerns known to the Russians.” Netanyahu declined to comment on what Moscow communicated in return.

Netanyahu said Israel’s relations with the U.S. remained strong, though he has yet to receive an invitation to visit the White House from President Biden. “I think it may take some time, but I think, of course, I should expect to meet President Biden,” he said.

The two men have known each other for four decades, but Netanyahu’s government has pursued policies that have upset the Biden administration, including approval of new Israeli settlements and raids on Palestinian militants in the West Bank. His far-right senior ministers have been unable to meet with Biden administration officials.

“This issue of the invitation clouds people’s views,” Netanyahu said. “In fact, the security cooperation, the military cooperation and the intel cooperation, including cyber, is stronger than it’s ever been under our two governments.”

Netanyahu could meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping before President Biden. Netanyahu’s office said this week that he would soon visit China, though no date was given, a decision political analysts said could further strain relations with Biden. Netanyahu’s office said this would be his fourth China visit and that the U.S. was notified of the visit a month ago. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is set to visit the White House in July.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in 2017 and could visit China again soon. Photo: Etienne Oliveau/Press Pool

In the West Bank, where Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has been deadlier than at any point since the early 2000s, Netanyahu blamed the Palestinian Authority for failing to provide security. He said he rejected suggestions from some in his government that the authority should be dissolved and said he supported efforts to strengthen the U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership.

“My policy has been to definitely keep the Palestinian Authority. I don’t want it to dissolve the way people are talking. It’s simply ridiculous,” he said.

He said freedom of Israeli security services to operate anywhere in the West Bank was a crucial element to restoring order in the territory. Netanyahu said any peace deal with the Palestinians wouldn’t happen soon, saying Palestinians still don’t accept Israel’s right to exist.

Palestinian Authority officials say that they recognize Israel’s right to exist within its internationally recognized borders, and that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its Egypt-backed blockade of Gaza are the reasons the conflict continues.

While some Palestinian officials say their control of the West Bank has eroded, they blame frequent Israeli military raids, a lack of funding and widespread despair over Israel’s occupation.

The West Bank has also seen a series of Israeli settler mobs attacking Palestinian towns in revenge for deadly attacks against Israelis. Scores of settlers have set fire to dozens of cars and homes, injured more than a dozen Palestinians and left one Palestinian dead from gunshot wounds, according to the Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem.

Netanyahu called the settler attacks “misguided, unacceptable and criminal.” The heads of Israel’s security services have called the mob violence “nationalist terrorism.” Asked whether he agreed with his security chiefs, Netanyahu said: “You can call it nationalistic terrorism. It’s fine, but it doesn’t solve the problem.”

He added: “I will not tolerate any of this vigilantism. The ones who have the monopoly on the use of violence are the military and our security forces, not any individual.”

An Israeli military raid in the West Bank last week destroyed the home of a Palestinian accused of taking part in the killing of an Israeli soldier. Photo: Alaa Badarneh/EFE/Zuma Press

Netanyahu said that he would continue seeking peace agreements with more Arab and Muslim-majority countries, and that over time that would bring Palestinians closer to accepting Israel’s presence.

“I think peace is possible with additional Arab states, effectively ending the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he said. “And I think that would lead to peace with the Palestinians too.”

While Netanyahu says he is focused on expanding the series of peace agreements between Israel and Muslim-majority countries in 2020 known as the Abraham Accords, his coalition has presented a challenge.

In March 2022, the foreign ambassadors of Israel, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. met in Israel’s Negev Desert to discuss regional cooperation following the Abraham Accords.

The sides decided to reconvene every year to continue the work, but that has been delayed because of the discomfort of Arab participants over the escalating tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

Netanyahu rejected the idea that his coalition, which includes parties seen internationally as holding extremist views on the Palestinians, represents a stumbling block to advancing the Abraham Accords.

“They joined me. I didn’t join them,” he said of his coalition partners. “And ultimately, policy is determined by me and my colleagues in the Likud.”

Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and Michael Amon at michael.amon@wsj.com

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I do mot know how long Biden can stonewall but I would assume the problems will mount.

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More Evidence Against Hunter Biden Is Coming

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I have a black friend who told me affirmative action may be against the law but was necessary to get the ball rolling. I understood where he was coming from and I responded murder was ok as long as it called attention to crime.   He had no response.

Elites want to retain power and they will resort to anything to retain it. Discrimination to end discrimination is nonsense but if it dumbs the nation down and helps the elites retain power so be it.  "When all else fails lower your standards."

Flying in a plane whose pilot is black and less competent is preferable to flying in a plane whose pilot is Asian and excellent.   I get it. A kid who believes 1 and 1 is 3 is preferable to the correct answer.  I get it.  Going to a doctor who graduated at the bottom is acceptable as long as he get's a degree. Patronizing black incompetence is our goal? .  I get it.

I want to live in a society that doing everything to become less than it is capable of is a society I want to embrace.  I get it.

America's real bigots are Democrat elitists.

And:

Clarence Thomas' Concurring Opinion on Affirmative Action Is Incredible ++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++