Tell me how you really feel! The Fire Department

This is an excerpt from an essay about a volunteer fire department with a board out of control, but it's so well written I thought I'd capture it.

"Even our pillars of “higher education” have vanished from the critical thinking circles of rigorous public discourse. They have fallen fast and hard for intersectional identarian ideologies and gross sexual deviancies; so much so that they are now simply mindless delusion factories. Factories whose sole product are the feckless, soulless acolytes of enforced groupthink and Marxism. Graduates devoid of the critical thinking skills that were once hallmarks of these institutions, are now just carbon-copy idealogues with witheringly expensive credentials and huge student loan debt.

Last year’s Harvard plagiarism debacle illustrates this clearly – over 400 years of rigorous scholarship have been thrown into the mud at the feet of the new god of academia: the DEI dynasty – an institution that John Carter’s Substack, Postcards from Barsoom aptly identifies in his essay, Fake Gay and DEIing of AIDs.

This same indifferent disregard and breathless arrogance that has destroyed Harvard appears to be continuing its cancerous boardroom sweep across the country by power-drunk venomous apparatchiks who gleefully issue destructive diktats from on high, seeking to tear down anyone and anything remotely opposing their newfound authority. The days of working out minor quibbles and personality differences are long gone – replaced by angry Maoist HR-scolds swinging administrative battleaxes around in politically fueled blood-rages."

A good read about a community in the Pacific Northwest now without its volunteer fire department.

Firing The Fire Board - by Michael Carter (substack.com)

Plagiarism accusations

Harvard President Claudine Gay is being accused of plagiarism by Dr. Carol Swain. If the big guns of academe and the Democrat party decide to attack Dr. Swain, look out because they are joined at the hip and extremely well-funded (Harvard has billions). They'll never admit she, like Vice President Harris, was chosen because of skin color and sex. And maybe she wasn't. 

Both of the women put the lie to the "Woke" mythology and the systemic racism philosophy foisted on our school children. Dr. Gay is the daughter of well-educated and successful Haitian immigrants. Dr.  Swain worked her way up from poverty, daughter of parents who didn't finish high school and her mother was disabled. Swain didn't finish high school either and eventually got her GED and worked at McDonald's. She worked hard and got a PhD and later a Master's in Legal Studies. Neither woman let her race or personal challenges stop her, and both succeeded far beyond the level most women can dream of.

If Swain can prove her case (and she's not the only author who Gay is said to have plagiarized), then it was a crime not perpetrated by a racist society, but by a fellow academic, black and female. It could be that Harvard was virtue signaling in appointing Gay president, trying to flee the reputation liberals had created. If Harvard loses this one, well, if I believed in karma . . .

Dr. Gay made herself look ridiculous last week during the House hearings on the failures of college presidents to limit the bullying and harassment of Jewish students. The woman who cancelled people for using the wrong pronoun, suddenly became a big freedom of speech advocate. That said, the plagiarism charges were already being investigated before she performed so poorly before the nation.

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College

Democrats are not getting the memo. They are rubbing their hands with glee even though the majority of Americans agree they shouldn't be discriminating against Asian Americans, who [shock and awe] are not "one" group. Harvard has always had quotas for certain groups and it always will. It's been women, or Jews, or Asians. They look for work arounds, like the word "diversity" in Powell's opinion in the Bakke decision 45 years ago. That one word which now means the opposite of what it meant opened the door to sneak in DEI at every level from kindergarten to grad school as a "positive." They claimed to end quotas and affirmative action with "diversity." Then among themselves they agreed to not look at cello or violin accomplishments or nerdy computer hobbies so they could eliminate students with immigrant parents who work for Google in favor of one who produced hip hop videos with a millionaire dad.

 
I'd give you a good link, except this crazy AI Chat-gpt keeps trying to write my argument. So this will remain an opinion, mine and thousands of others.

Tip:  Save anything you have in print.  It is lost forever on the internet, especially with the AI and as we librarians say, To the victor belong the archives.

A week to celebrate, or not?

Churches across the nation should have been celebrating today for the First Amendment victories this past week. But that probably didn't happen because so many congregations have members who only listen to MSNBC, CNN and NPR lie to the nation. The rest have jaded members (like me) who already know that it's a game of whack a mole with the colleges and universities. Their massive DEI bureaucracies for racism in academe won't give up and the "shop for a judge" political hacks will continue to sue the little baker and candlestick maker who doesn't have the resources to fight back.

Freedom of religion (establishment and free exercise) is first among the Firsts. Without it, nothing else matters, and the founders knew it.

 
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

In 21st century America the bureaucracy just gets a non-government agency to deprive people of their Constitutional rights.

Happy July 4.

Biden v. Nebraska (22-506)
The Secretary of Education does not have authority under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) to establish a student loan forgiveness program that will cancel roughly $430 billion in debt principal and affect nearly all borrowers. I won't need to pay off someone's student loans.

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (20-1199)
The admissions programs at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Asians being discriminated against; end of affirmative action supposedly.

GERALD E. GROFF, PETITIONER v. LOUIS DEJOY, POSTMASTER GENERAL
Mr. Groff, a Christian, not required to work on Sunday.

CREATIVE LLC ET AL. v. ELENIS ET AL. (21-476)
Lorie Smith, graphic artist, Christian, does not need to serve same sex couples in wedding celebration.

The Left can be very, very vicious

 Julie Hartman, a student at Harvard, wasn't very political, but like most college students, she was "liberal."  Never even thought there's another way.  She came across Prager U and Dennis Prager, and through his radio program had an epiphany. She's a conservative now, and in 2022 her description of a senior trip to Israel came out in which she defended America and criticized her generation, her classmates at Harvard on the trip, for their ignorance about our history. They are using their freedom to destroy freedom she said.  https://youtu.be/6iD09hBRL-Q

She was invited to appear on Prager's radio show, and when she did and her Harvard classmates found out, they were outraged and got really nasty.  But after some soul searching, she decided "coming out of the closet" was much less painful than holding back. She graduated in 2022, and now has her own podcast called Timeless. Timeless with Julie Hartman on Apple Podcasts

https://youtu.be/0xtv8XtjzdA  Her senior address at Harvard "If we lose freedom here."

Today's podcast is on Iraqi society now--on the 20th anniversary of the invasion. And on Ukraine. Timeless with Julie Hartman: The War in Iraq on Apple Podcasts

20 years after the fact, Julie dissects the events that lead to the US invasion of Iraq. Topics include: Defiant Putin visits Mariupol in first trip to occupied eastern Ukraine, the facts on ‘De-Nazifying’ Ukraine, and the long battle over Crimea; HHS Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine says gender affirming care will be normalized …when did tolerance become unabashed support?

  

The Left eats its own

www.theconservativeinsider.com/harvards-insatiable-identity-politics-cannibals/?

One of the Leftists' own is an infamous lecher (Harvey Weinstein), so they don't want another of their own (Dean Ronald Sullivan of impeccable leftist credentials and also black) to defend him so Harvard fired him. Both conservatives and liberals are crying foul--some liberals have even discovered academic freedom and diversity of thought, something they won't allow for conservatives, in defending Sullivan.

Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans

Harvard violates the law by discriminating against Asian Americans.  If unbiased standards were followed their Asian American incoming class would be about 43% instead of 19%.  The Left's desire to balance everything by race doesn't seem to apply to basketball and football, does it.

https://www.prageru.com/video/is-harvard-racist/

Manning is a pardoned traitor

Lipstick, hormones and blonde hair does not make a man a woman and a pardon by Obama doesn't make him less a traitor. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/09/14/former-cia-directors-shun-harvard-after-the-school-invites-chelsea-manning-to-campus/?

• "After serving in Iraq since October 2009, Manning was arrested in May 2010 after Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker in the United States, indirectly informed the Army's Criminal Investigation Command that Manning had acknowledged passing classified material to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks. Manning was ultimately charged with 22 specified offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source, and the most serious of the charges, aiding the enemy. Other charges included violations of the Espionage Act, stealing U.S. government property, charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and charges related to the failure to obey lawful general orders under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Manning entered guilty pleas to 10 of 22 specified offenses in February 2013." (Wikipedia) 
•  "Among the records Manning has admitted to passing on to WikiLeaks were a video showing a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed 11 men and 750,000 classified documents that contained military and diplomatic dispatches." (NPR) 
• "Manning placed the lives of at least 900 Afghans aiding U.S. troops at risk by orchestrating the biggest leak in American military history." (Breitbart) And he has the gall to claim discrimination because he's a transwoman. (Twitter)

More research on diverging classes going nowhere

“In 2013–14, Harvard Business School (HBS) conducted its third alumni survey on U.S. competitiveness. Our report on the findings focuses on a troubling divergence in the American economy: large and midsize firms have rallied strongly from the Great Recession, and highly skilled individuals are prospering. But middle- and working-class citizens are struggling, as are small businesses."

Isn't that a shock.  Here’s my take, Porter and Rivkin.

1)  The transfers, billions and billions, are not factored in for the lowest income;

2) those transfers often result in a single mom with 2 kids using 5 or 6 of the more popular programs like SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8, EITC, will have twice the income of the new minimum, so even if she wanted a good job, we've disincentivized her from accomplishing anything.

3) Government regulations are killing the very small businesses, maybe in her neighborhood, that would employ her and provide the tax base which would give her and the kids a future.

4) The most recent Obamacare mandates and EPA regulations are hurting the poor and low income the hardest by damaging small businesses, further preventing them from moving up. Beefing up the bridges and roads and stiffening education requirements will hardly undo that damage.

Quickly looking through the report I see the authors suggest more money for public transportation and more money for education and basic skill building.

http://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/an-economy-doing-half-its-job.pdf

Breitbart Harvard tape of Obama

I'm puzzled that people are so excited with the tape of the Harvard student era Barack Obama speaking on behalf of Derrick Bell, radical racist professor (nice to see he could speak without a teleprompter, though). I'm more concerned about Obama's behavior today. When word got out the tape was going to run at Breitbart.com, it was then edited by another source and sanitized, taking out Obama and Bell hugging. Would it have made a difference in 2008? He sat in the pew at Jeremiah Wright's church for a decade and ignored the hate and racism there, so this doesn't look too outlandish. Other than the massive cover-up the media did in not vetting him, what's new here? And didn't we know already that the media had his back?

Dear President Obama

When I found out you had paid your parking tickets from 1989-1990 when you were a graduate student at Harvard in 2007, I decided it was time to pay my Ohio State University Libraries over-due book fines. Who knows, I might be tapped to be someone important in the future. So today I went to the Ackerman Road location (temporary home while the Main Library is being rebuilt /restored/ revitalized). After asking directions twice (I don't pay my bills on-line like you did--it's a generational thing), I finally found a nice lady who said she could help me pay my fine. I gave her my name, and there it was on her computer. $16.00 for 3 fines, one of which just happened last week. The other two I had no idea how old, but from before I retired, so I thought maybe the late 1990s.

I wrote her a check, she printed out the information, took it to a copy machine to copy the check, then gave me a copy of the bill. It's not that we weren't hi-tech in the old days nine years ago, but for some reason I was really surprised to see how much detail there was. I had no idea what had been overdue--maybe it's on my accessible record and I never noticed. When I saw the titles (1999 and 2000, so the fines were from 2000) I only remembered "Horse heaven," by Jane Smiley. I was the veterinary medicine librarian, you see, so I suppose I thought a novel about horse racing would be interesting. But it wasn't, and I think I only read about two chapters, until I forgot about it and it went over due. Truth be told, Mr. President, I really don't care much for fiction.

The second was one about which I have no memory at all but I'm assuming it was non-fiction, Anthony Arthur's "The Tailor-King," an account of the 16th-century takeover by Anabaptists of the city of Münster and its rapid descent into despotism and anarchy. Oh my! I can see why Martin Luther was so unhappy with the Anabaptists--the 16th century guys were certainly not the pacifist Mennonites and Brethren I grew up knowing! This guy ended up with 16 wives, one of whom he beheaded!!

"It says much about this strange young man's personality and character that he could so effectively turn his mentor's disaster into his own triumph. Of all the qualities that the preceding episode reveals about Jan van Leyden - ingenuity, imagination, timing - the one that stands out most is his intuitive mastery of what would later, in our own century, be called the technique of the big lie. Told with sincerity to a people anxious for reassurance, deriving from some source beyond and greater than its speaker, the big lie is so outrageously improbable that no one could possibly make it up. Therefore, it must be true." (p. 73)

Although some of this does have a familiar ring to it, doesn't it? The part about the big lie so outrageous and the people being so gullible.

But I was just thinking--I mean about the detail in my book fine information after all these years that even I had forgotten. You said you didn't remember you had fines, until the Boston Globe reporters began sniffing around asking questions. (This was back when they were tight with Hillary.) It was really smart of your advisers to get those tickets off the books before the Clintons even realized that you really were serious about becoming President of the United States. I don't know how a poor grad student in 1989 was able to even afford a car in Boston, but the ticket records would have had your DL number, the auto registration, whose house you were parked in front of, how many times it happened, and any other registered autos who were ticketed around the same time. Considering the hay the anti-Bush crowd tried to harvest over an old DUI, this could have gotten nastier than the certificate of live birth or the transcripts from Columbia and Harvard that have disappeared down the rabbit hole.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know I'm one of the many you've inspired to do the right thing. Also, I respect you for not pulling any strings to just make those parking tickets go away. Tim Geithner probably would have. Watch your back with that guy.

He hasn't changed much, has he?

In an interview with Jet, Feb. 26, 1990, a pop culture magazine published in Chicago for African Americans, we find that no accomplishment of an African American is good enough, high enough, or satisfactory enough for Mr. O. Not even his own.

Barack Obama, a 28-year-old second-year Law student, was elected in balloting by last year's editors [student law review, Harvard]. Obama, a native of Hawaii, said his election shouldn't be seen as a sign social barriers have been broken down.

"I wouldn't want people to see my election as a symbol that there aren't problems out there with the situation of African-Americans in society," he said. "From experience I know that for every one of me there are a hundred or a thousand Black and minority students who are just as smart and just as talented and never get the opportunity," he added.

By 1999, 58% of Chicago's blacks had some college or a college degree; 54% were home owners; 39% were married; and 43% were white collar workers. (Marketing stats from N'DIGO). I'm sure the 2008 stats are even higher. And I'm just as sure, it's not good enough for Mr. O.

Can you name another nation in the 21st century with a black president or black presidential candidate who could claim statistics like this for his black population?

It's possible you weren't even aware of the black middle class because our race baiting media hide their wealth, accomplishments and achievements. It's also possible you didn't know that 100% of American historically black Protestants believe that God is alive and well, compared to about 63.6% of Mainline Protestants (mostly white). Unfortunately, about 98% of those God-fearing folk are going to go to the polls and vote for a false Messiah.