Thursday, May 2, 2024
The pro Hamas intifada is going to get more violent
Armed 39-Year-Old Arrested at Anti-Israel Protest at University of South Florida
I really do love living in Florida, and how we have handled these antisemitic whackjobs openly proclaiming their love of Hamas on college campuses just further demonstrates why. Down at the University of South Florida in Tampa, police arrested several pro-Hamas demonstrators after dispersing them with tear gas.
According to Fox News, many had been saying on social media that they intended to bring weapons to fight off university security and staff, raising red flags. One of the ten protestors arrested was a 39-year-old man named Atah Othman, who was caught with a gun on his person during the protest. Given what we have seen as these college kids grow more unhinged in their protests, it was quite likely Othman would have opened fire at some point had police not intervened when they did.
Naturally, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Tampa chapter that organized the protest, which could easily have become a riot, threw a hissy fit about it. The group posted on social media, "SHAME ON USF! USF administration allowed for the brutalization of students and community members utilizing their rights to free speech and assembly. We will not be silenced. We call upon students, faculty, and the community to attend an emergency rally in solidarity with students and Palestine!"
I'm sorry, but when your little minions are openly talking about bringing weapons to the protest, it's not a protest anymore. Besides, what was a 39-year-old man doing at this protest anyway? Even more worrying, he got out on bond.
If you expect honesty from the Progressive left you're mistaken
DOJ official Kristen Clarke comes clean after falsely testifying to Senate that she had never been arrested
An army of paid protestors
Of the 300 Pro-Hamas Agitators Arrested at Columbia, Most Weren't Students
The anti-civilizational ideology at the heart of higher education exposed
The anti-civilizational ideology at the heart of higher education exposed
Even after the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania lost their jobs, too many others have failed to respond consistently and effectively to policy violations on their campuses.
After Israel suffered atrocities that should have shocked the conscience of the entire world, 34 student groups at Harvard University inaugurated the academic year by cheering on Hamas’ savagery and blaming Israel for the terrorist attack it endured. Now the school year is ending with protesters camping out on campuses across the country, nominally to protest Israel’s response but, in reality, to call for the destruction of the Jewish state. These events bookend a year of virulent and disruptive protests that have laid bare the moral and intellectual corruption of America’s elite academic institutions and paralyzed their leaders.
Americans already knew higher education leaned to the left. What many did not know is how many faculty, staff, and students are so committed to corrosive, anti-civilizational ideologies that they could not even pause to acknowledge victims of terror or condemn their attackers.
This cannot all be explained by an imprudent or soft commitment to leniency. These institutions are what they want to be.
As some unleashed their hatred of Israel, Jews, or both in the wake of October 7, large numbers of others applied the simplistic oppressor-oppressed, post-colonialist narrative they have imbibed during their time in our educational institutions and turned out to protest and disrupt their campuses.
Meanwhile, most college and university presidents were dumbfounded. Perhaps they, like many Americans, did not know what some of their employees and students really thought. More likely, they knew but did not expect so many of them to say the quiet part out loud.
Either way, they had to contend with a problem they had not faced when responding to past social and political events. They could denounce Hamas and stand with Israel but alienate a large contingent on their campuses, or they could appeal to principles of neutrality and freedom they had historically violated and incur the wrath of donors, alumni, politicians, and many others who would rightly smell the rank hypocrisy.
As they fumbled their responses, they allowed disorder to spread across their campuses, mostly without consequence, even as Jewish students filed lawsuits and Title VI complaints reporting alleged incidents of anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.
Jews and others who believe laws have been broken should absolutely pursue legal action, but authorities can and should have readily dispersed many of the disruptions, including the current encampments, for violating content-neutral policies regarding time, place, and manner.
Some administrators have acted and should be applauded for doing so. When students rushed into Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr’s office building a few weeks ago, she gave them 10 minutes to leave and then suspended the students and had them arrested.
At Vanderbilt University, 27 protesters who forced their way into a building housing the chancellor’s office lasted less than 24 hours before the administration had them marched out by police, some in handcuffs. In the end, four students were arrested, three expelled, one suspended, and over 20 placed on probation. Chancellor Daniel Diermeier explainedthe school’s approach: “We clearly state the principles and rules that support our mission as a university. Then we enforce them.”
This is precisely what campus leaders must do. Allowing students to break the rules with impunity or applying rules inconsistently leads them to push the limits further while opening leadership up to charges of hypocrisy when they discipline some offenders but not others.
Even after the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania lost their jobs, too many others have failed to respond consistently and effectively to policy violations on their campuses.
This can partly be explained by administrators’ historic antipathy toward disciplining their students. Unlike what happened at Pomona, when Princeton University students occupied President Christopher Eisgruber’s office for 33 hours in 2015, he responded by agreeing to address their demands and punishing no one. Is it any surprise that the students planning the encampment there told recruits not to expect serious consequences even though they knew they were breaking the rules?
This cannot all be explained by an imprudent or soft commitment to leniency. Matters have clearly gotten out of hand. But these institutions are what they want to be. They screen for professors who are committed to the right causes using devices such as mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion statements, and they admit students who focus on activism instead of learning.
A few years ago, Stanford University admitted a student whose application essay simply repeated #BlackLivesMatter 100 times. At Vanderbilt, one of the ringleaders was a known activist who was admitted on a “merit scholarship for activists and organizers,” according to the Associated Press.
Now campus administrators across the country are faced with a monster of their own creation in the form of unruly encampments that violate university policies and create a hostile environment not only for Jews, but also for students who simply want to attend class and learn. Some university presidents have shown leadership, calling in the police when they could not disband the encampments on their own, but too many others have failed to stand up for the rights of others at their institutions.
At Columbia University, President Minouche Shafik called in the police, only to allow the students to set up camp again. Then she waffled and pleaded as the protesters held the university’s commencement hostage, and they repaid her by smashing windows and occupying Hamilton Hall.
Shafik has finally done the right thing, calling in the police again and this time asking them to stay through graduation. But she should have nipped the whole thing in the bud at the start. She was lucky that the NYPD cleared out the protesters so flawlessly. At UCLA, administrators were slow to stop their campus from descending into violent chaos.
Free expression includes the right to protest, but these encampments have gone beyond free speech and violated campus rules and the rights of others. It should have been an easy decision to shut them down and to make an example out of the disruptive students with suspension or expulsion. Instead, too many administrators have tolerated them and made things worse.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Islamic imperialism is a worldwide problem
Hamburg 'caliphate' rally prompts calls for punishment
2 hours ago
House COVID panel urges criminal probe over gain-of-function virus research in Wuhan
House COVID panel urges criminal probe over gain-of-function virus research in Wuhan
A House subcommittee investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic urged a criminal investigation of EcoHealth Alliance president Dr. Peter Daszak ahead of a Wednesday hearing, releasing a trove of documents about the Manhattan-based nonprofit’s controversial virus experiments in Wuhan, China.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released a 59-page report and interview transcripts with half a dozen National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials and scientists linked to EcoHealth’s research — including Daszak himself.
EcoHealth has received millions in federal grants to conduct research around the globe — including more than $4 million for an NIH project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.
Beginning in 2014, the project conducted experiments at the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that modified SARS-like viruses and made them 10 times more infectious — but “failed to report” that fact to the NIH.
NIH principal deputy director Lawrence Tabak — who was interviewed by the House COVID subcommittee — disclosed to Congress in 2021 that EcoHealth had violated the terms of its grant in the Wuhan lab, leading to the grant’s suspension.
The same day that Tabak made the disclosure, the NIH scrubbed its website of the agency’s longstanding definition of gain-of-function research, which enhances the transmissibility of viruses.
The report also calls out former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci — who was also interviewed by the subcommittee in January — for having “played semantics” with the definition of gain-of-function research.
“EcoHealth Alliance president Dr. Peter Daszak is not a good steward of US taxpayer dollars and should never again receive funding from the US taxpayer,” Wenstrup said in a statement.
The cost of homeless crime
Homeless man who fatally shoved Michelle Go in NYC subway explodes in court as DA claims he’s now mentally fit for trial
The war with Islamo Nazis
Wife of convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian was hanging out at Columbia encampment before dramatic raid
Raising the minimum wage is not economically free
Barely A Month Old, California’s $20-Hr. Fast-Food Minimum Wage Is Already An Economic Disaster
California Democrats who pushed through the state’s punitive new minimum wage must be feeling mighty proud about now. Not only are fast-food joints closing or replacing low-end employees with overseas workers and robots, now the law is costing the very people it was supposed to help while decimating consumers’ wallets. Well done!
The $20-an-hour wage floor foisted on California’s fast-food restaurants, dubbed with the innocent-sounding moniker Assembly Bill 257, was signed into law last fall. It didn’t take long to become a disaster.
Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Lee Ohanian showed just how quickly bad policies can wreck an economy. And the damage was done even before the law officially went into effect a month ago today.
“Between last fall and January,” Ohanian wrote, “California fast-food restaurants cut about 9,500 jobs, representing a 1.3% change from September 2023.” By comparison, overall employment in California during that period fell just 0.2%.
Those who are losing their jobs in this new higher-wage environment are those most easily replaced, with the lowest productivity — which usually means minority youths with minimal education and little or no work skills. In short, the most vulnerable among us.
“This includes losses at Pizza Hut and Round Table Pizza which are in the process of firing nearly 1,300 delivery drivers. El Pollo Loco and Jack in the Box announced that they will speed up the use of robotics, including robots that make salsa and cook fried foods,” Ohanian added.
Because of escalating costs, many restaurants are also adding “ordering kiosks,” basically firing workers and replacing them with user-friendly computer terminals.
And, to repeat, this was even before the law went into effect. In the coming weeks and months, expect more job devastation, business closures and sharply higher prices paid by consumers.
Indeed, that latter point — higher prices — is already slamming Cali consumers.
Wendy’s has already boosted prices 8%, Chipotle by 7.5%, Starbucks by 7%. “McDonald’s has announced it will be raising prices, and many other fast-food franchises have announced hiring freezes,” Ohanian observed. Since last September, prices have shot up 10% total.
A recent Washington Times headline put it best: “Fast food chains find a way around $20 minimum wage: Get rid of the workers.”
The same Washington Times story adds, “Rather than make less money, restaurant owners are exploring alternative strategies to maintain profitability. Reducing staff numbers appears to be their primary solution for lowering overheads.”
For consumers, there’s nowhere left to hide from the ravages of inflation. If you voted for the people who passed the bill in California’s legislature, and the person who signed it into law — that’s you, Gov. Gavin Newsom — you have no one to blame but yourself.
And it will get worse, much worse.
Part of the bill that has gotten little notice created a “Fast Food Council.” Sounds innocuous, but in fact it’s a non-elected council that will have near dictatorial powers over fast-food outlets’ labor policies, including pay.
In earlier, more-honest times, this used to be called “fascism.” But today the more fashionable term is “worker-friendly progressivism.”
Isn’t it just a noble idea gone bad? Nope. It’s a cynical deal between so-called progressive politicians, frightened food industry groups and unions to bleed consumers, workers and the fast-food industry, all at once.
“After fast food industry representatives tried to block the bill via a ballot measure, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) sat down with the International Franchise Association and California Restaurant Association to hammer out a deal,” wrote the now very left-wing Teen Vogue, which credits “organizing” for the victory.
Actually, it was blackmail. The California Restaurant Association sold out the national fast-food chains, which are the targets of this law. The SEIU, which had used “strikes” at 450 fast-food locations to show they mean business, basically extorted the fast-food chains.
No doubt, some of those who went on strike are now collecting unemployment. You’ll pay for that, too. “Would you like higher taxes with that burger?”
If you live in another state, this is still very relevant to you. The current national minimum wage is $7.25. But a move is afoot to raise it to $15 an hour or higher.
While $7.25 doesn’t sound like much, virtually no one other than short-term, part-time teenagers earns that amount. In California, for instance, the median hourly wage in fast-food enterprises was about $14 an hour (according to Salary.com), with essentially no workers earning the national minimum, which is almost half less. Same is true across the country.
So if raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour won’t hurt that many people, why care? Because it will hurt those who can least afford it.
Why?
“The consensus among economists is that 1% to 2% of entry-level jobs are lost for every 10% increase in the minimum wage,” writes David John Marotta at Forbes. “Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 could mean a reduction in entry level jobs of 11% to 21%. These estimates would suggest between 1.8 and 3.5 million of jobs lost.”
That’s why.
Those are jobs for people who are the most disadvantaged in our society — mostly living in poor minority communities — who lack decent education, have few if any tradable work skills, might not know how to follow simple instructions or speak English fluently, and don’t yet understand the importance of showing up on time or finishing a job once started.
These are the very basic skills that get you a better job at higher pay. A future, in short. But you have to get that first job to learn them. Do the Democrats that passed this bill want a permanent underclass of unemployables that depends on government handouts? Sure looks that way.
Here’s a modest alternative proposal that would benefit everyone, but especially low-end workers: No minimum wage at all, neither in California nor in the rest of the U.S. Then, everyone who wants a job will have one, and businesses won’t have to hire robots instead of people.