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February 2024

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rafael A. Mangual Outrageous—But Not Surprising The Times Square assault of two NYPD officers, and the release of several of the suspects, are predictable outcomes of destructive policies on migrants and public safety.

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-falling-into-disorder

Last weekend, video cameras posted in Times Square captured a scene that has sparked outrage across the city. While struggling to arrest a resisting suspect, two NYPD officers were viciously attacked by at least six other men—all migrants, recently arrived in our “sanctuary city.” They all got away. Not long afterward, police made seven arrests related to the incident, on charges that included assault and robbery (according to reports, one of the officers’ cell phone was stolen during the fight). Adding insult to injury, at least four of the seven attackers have already been released. The attack and the subsequent release of the alleged perpetrators may shock the consciences of many New Yorkers, but anyone surprised by this hasn’t been paying attention.

The sad truth is that this episode reveals exactly what the politicians running Gotham’s city council and the legislature in Albany have invited. For years, my colleagues and I have called attention to the destructive policies that city and state officials have proposed and enacted. We’ve warned that those shifts would embolden offenders, make police more vulnerable, and put residents at risk. The Times Square episode is an amalgam of the obvious and expected effects of just a few of those policies.

New York City mayors and other city leaders have on multiple occasions defended the decision to make the city a “sanctuary”—which includes refusing to assist federal authorities seeking to deport migrants suspected of crimes. As noted in a recent article in City & State, this has been the city’s policy since 2014, and it has been state law since a state appellate court held as much in 2018.

The city council has also criminalized the use of basic police grappling techniques through the “diaphragm law,” which, on pain of criminal prosecution, prohibits the placement by cops of any pressure on the diaphragm, chest, or back of even actively resisting suspects, or otherwise restricting their airflow. The law was initially thrown out on constitutional grounds, but a state appellate court overturned that ruling in 2022. Handcuffing a grown man who is forcefully resisting is not easy, even when officers outnumber him. Yet, we ask our police to try to win these fights without running afoul of these restrictions—even when they’re surrounded by others willing to use violence to thwart the arrest.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Jeffrey H. Anderson A Border Crisis By Design It is unequivocally the intended result of Biden administration policy.

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-border-crisis-by-design

Three years into the border crisis, most Americans still don’t understand what’s actually happening at the border. This lack of understanding extends to the mainstream press and to most Republicans, who have struggled to communicate effectively on the issue.

The cause of the current crisis is President Joe Biden’s unprecedented refusal to enforce federal immigration law, which requires that all asylum-seekers be detained rather than released into the United States. The solution, therefore, is for Biden to start enforcing federal law as he is constitutionally required to do—or for Congress to deny the president something else he wants until he does.

Many observers, however, seem unclear about the cause of the crisis. Praising a not-yet-released Senate immigration bill, which a trio of senators is currently negotiating with the White House behind closed doors, the Wall Street Journal editorial board writes that “the President needs Congress to fix the underlying incentives at the border.” But the president, not Congress, has created the incentives that have attracted so many illegal aliens, by offering a near guarantee that asylum-seekers will get released into the U.S. rather than detained as their claims are adjudicated.

Under presidents of both parties before 2021, those trying to enter the U.S. illegally at least had to evade the authorities. This hasn’t been true under Biden. U.S. District Court Judge T. Kent Wetherell writes that U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) Chief Raul Ortiz “testified that the current surge differs from prior surges that he [has] seen over his lengthy career in that most of the aliens now being encountered at the Southwest Border are turning themselves in to USBP officers rather than trying to escape the officers.” Ortiz, whom the Biden administration selected as chief, said that aliens are likely “turning themselves in because they think they’re going to be released.”

The difference in the number of releases under Biden and under his immediate predecessor is like the contrast between the Himalayas and a pitcher’s mound. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, in December 2020, the last full month under President Donald Trump, the USBP released 17 aliens into the U.S. In December 2023, the most recent month for which statistics are available under Biden, the USBP released 191,142 aliens into the U.S. In other words, the USBP released 0.009 percent as many aliens into the U.S. during the final month under Trump as it did during the most-recent month under Biden—for every one alien released under Trump, 11,244 were released under Biden. That’s not a normal increase; it’s a flash flood.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Politics and Merit in the Academy If professor positions were political appointments, chosen by state governors, those appointments would reflect to some degree the politics of the governors and of voters who chose them. By Michael S. Kochin

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/03/politics-and-merit-in-the-academy/

We want judges who know the law and whose primary motive is the desire to do justice without fear or favor. We would like judges who are incorruptible, and to ensure that they are not corrupted in practice, we pay them salaries that exceed what all but the top echelon of lawyers make from the practice of law, for duties that give judges plenty of time for golfing, writing books, or watching Frozen XIV with their grandchildren. When judges enter their courtrooms, we stand up for them, we speak in their presence only when called upon, and even outside the court, their presence inspires fear and respect.

We might think that to get such judges, we would rely on the judgment of judges themselves. Most US states, however, elect judges by popular vote. And even where judges are appointed rather than elected, the final say on the appointment of judges is in the hands of politicians. In many US states, merit panels make formal recommendations to state governors, and in the US Federal System, the president and his advisors consult informally with sitting and retired judges before making the most senior appointments. Similar mixtures of merit and political selection, with the politicians having the last word, exist in every country regarded as a democracy except India and Israel. In India, politicians ignore judges (who are entirely self-appointed) when they feel they have to, and in Israel, judges in fact have final say over every supposedly political or legislative decision.

Judges are thus, in actual democracies other than India, either elected or appointed by the elected. Therefore, judges, by and large, reflect the various opinions of the voters who pick the politicians. They are, in democracies, widely respected, highly professional, and, on the whole, honest and decent. Some judges are liberal, some are conservative, and a small minority (like a small minority of the voters) are extremists, but hardly any are legal incompetents or personally corrupt.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iranian Regime’s Proxies: Target the Head of the Snake by Majid Rafizadeh

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20363/iran-proxies-head-of-snake

By not directly targeting the source of support and funding, the Iranian regime, the administration may inadvertently be treating the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem, and, instead of decreasing Iranian aggression, escalating it.

One viable approach involves focusing on the economic lifelines that sustain the ruling ayatollahs. These lifelines include immediately restoring the “maximum pressure” sanctions the US had imposed earlier, targeting key components of Iran’s infrastructure — such as oil facilities, which serve as vital resources and revenue streams – and banning anyone who trades with them from trading with the US. Disrupting these critical elements not only weakens the economic foundation of this terrorist regime but also undermines its ability to finance proxy activities.

It is equally important to target the leaders and bases of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, where proxies are trained and the attacks originate. By hitting Iran’s economic and military infrastructure, the US can exert significant pressure, sending a clear message that the support for proxy warfare — and Iranian attempts to finalize their nuclear bombs — would come at an intolerably high cost.

The last few months unfolded with a marked escalation in the activities of Iran’s proxies, militias and terror groups. Iran’s proxy Hamas launched its attacks on Israel, unleashing a barrage of violence across the region. Simultaneously, Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq escalated their assaults on US bases and personnel. Another proxy of Iran, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, also caused turmoil in the Red Sea, which is vital to maritime traffic. Their actions not only threaten regional stability but also sent shockwaves through global trade routes and raised concerns about the broader implications of their destabilizing activities.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard Hosts ‘Gathering To Breathe And Heal’ Event To Help Students Grieve Claudine Gay’s Ouster The event hosted by Harvard Divinity School’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging will allow participants to ‘process the departure’ of Claudine Gay By Kassy Dillon

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://www.dailywire.com/news/harvard-hosts-gathering-to-breathe-and-heal-event-to-help-students-grieve-claudine-gays-ouster

The Harvard Divinity School’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging hosted a “Gathering to Breathe and Heal” event on Thursday to help students grieve the resignation of disgraced former President Claudine Gay.

“For this gathering, we will create a space for us to discuss and process the departure of our former president, Claudine Gay,” the office wrote in a newsletter announcing the event, obtained by The Daily Wire. The event was intended to give participants the opportunity to “gather to breathe and to heal.”

Gay was forced to resign from her position last month amid allegations of plagiarism in various academic works that came to light while she was already under immense pressure for her failure to address the rise of antisemitism on campus.

The newsletter stated that many students are feeling grief upon their arrival to campus.

“This grief and loss may be connected to our personal lives; national and global unrest, harm, and violence; storms and natural disasters; or these increasing times of tension and divide on our campus and in our communities,” it said. “For many of us, this grief and loss also includes the resignation of former President Claudine Gay after her short tenure.”

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

An Incredible Exposé of the Illegal Immigrant Pipeline and the Players Involved

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://twitter.com/realmuckraker/status/1747334332421714056?t=y5RdUovNBUbk-mBToNeeaA&s=09

The breadth of this coordinated operation and the so-called legitimate NGOs and foreign governments cooperating with cartels and other criminal elements in what is a lucrative and dangerous enterprise is astounding!  (Plus, many of our political leaders are on board to facilitate this feature of the Great Reset even while it is opposed by the vast majority of “we the people.”)

With rampant death, disease, rape, human, weapons and drug trafficking and other crimes along the route, it is anything BUT a “humanitarian” mission.  

The unchecked invasion of our once sovereign nation is changing the face of America and imperiling all citizens, stressing our infrastructure to the breaking point and damaging the economy.

The country we leave our children and grandchildren will be unrecognizable in the not too distant future. Janet Levy

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

PENTAGON TO AUDIT SPENDING ON VIRUS RESEARCH IN CHINA, OTHER FOREIGN NATIONS

By on February 3rd, 2024

Taxpayers will finally learn what their hard-earned tax dollars are funding on research of Coronviruses, Ebola and more.

OpenTheBooks had a record-breaking year in 2023 thanks to your support.

Our investigations were cited at least 20 times in congressional floor speeches or in congressional oversight letters to federal agencies. Then – Congress voted on seven of our budget amendments and five of them passed – each was a direct result of our exposures.

Now we’re turning our investigations into 2024 wins!

Just this week, we had a major victory when the National Defense Authorization Act included language that directs the Inspector General to quantify and report on all Defense spending into Chinese entities and on virus research over the last 10 years. 

This doesn’t just include coronaviruses like COVID, but also Ebola, nipa, influenza and more. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Strangest Case of E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump Victor Davis Hanson

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://victorhanson.com/the-crazy-story-behind-the-ridiculous-news-part-five/

80-year-old E. Jean Carroll, a former relationship- and sex-advice columnist, just won a huge $83.3 million settlement from Donald Trump in connection with a previous finding that she was “defamed” by Donald Trump.

New York is not a hospitable place for any conservative politician or celebrity, much less one ex-president Donald Trump—as we have seen from prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Letitia James, who both promised voters that they would get Trump if just elected.

But here are some strange facts about the case—with the proviso we have no idea of what exactly happened when both Carroll and Trump consensually and strangely entered into ribald banter in a department store’s lingerie section, then mutually and apparently willfully entered a dressing room, at which point their stories radically diverge (as opposed to somewhat diverged, since Trump at various times said he didn’t recall meeting her at all).

Trump appeared raucously in person in court to turn the civil suit into a referendum on the supposedly coordinated leftwing efforts to damage his presidential candidacy. But he was fighting with a Bill Clinton-appointed judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, and with a New York liberal jury pool, in a suit concerning his denials of a sexual assault of Carroll some 30 years ago. She won an earlier ruling that his meae culpae were excessive and entered the realm of character assassination and therefore was suing for defamation damages. 

Judge Kaplan certainly grew tired of Trump’s editorialization and like most New York jurists probably did not enjoy Trump in his courtroom in the first place. And although a jury earlier did not find Trump guilty of “rape,” Kaplan de facto has stated that it was OK to claim publicly that Trump was nevertheless guilty of rape.Or as the judge put it, “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

But if that’s true, Judge Kaplan, why didn’t the jury, on the judge’s prior own instructions, simply convict Trump of rape, which it certainly had the power to do? How can someone not guilty of the definition of rape be guilty of rape?

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

US’ Middle East policy defied by Middle East reality Yoram Ettinger

By on February 3rd, 2024

http://bit.ly/3SoVuLR

*For the last 45 years, the US has attempted to pacify the anti-US Iran’s Ayatollahs, via dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures, to advance the cause of human rights and democracy in Iran, and to promote peaceful coexistence between Iran and its Sunni Arab neighbors. In fact, the 45-year-old US diplomatic option toward the Ayatollahs, has downplayed the centrality of the Ayatollahs’ ideology and their track record, assuming that “money talks.”  The US expected that dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures would induce the Ayatollahs to abandon their 1,400-year-old fanatical vision and become a constructive member of the global community.

However, as expected, Iran’s Ayatollahs would not allow financial and diplomatic temptations to transcend their imperialistic violent ideology. Moreover, they have leveraged the lavish US gestures, intensifying domestic oppression and persecution, and boosting their determination to humiliate and defeat “the Great American Satan,” expanding anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced weaponry, increasingly in Latin America from Chile’ to the US-Mexico border.

Furthermore, the US’ eagerness to conclude another agreement with the anti-US Iran, the courting of the anti-US Moslem Brotherhood (the largest Sunni terror organization), and delisting the anti-US Houthis from the terror list, while pressuring the pro-US Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, has pushed these countries closer to China and Russia, militarily and commercially.

*In 2024, the US State Department promotes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, contending that it would peacefully coexist with Israel.
However, all pro-US Arab regimes have systematically limited their support of the proposed Palestinian state to an embracing talk, while displaying a lukewarm-to-negative walk.    

Furthermore, the State Department has downplayed the Palestinian track record and ideology, basing its policy on subjective and speculative future scenarios and diplomatic Palestinian statements.  But, the pro-US Arab regimes have focused on the subversive and terroristic intra-Arab Palestinian track record in Egypt (1950s), Syria (1960s), Jordan (1968-70), Lebanon (1970-1982) and Kuwait (1990).  These pro-US Arab regimes recognize the despotic, corrupt and terroristic nature of the Palestinian leadership, its rogue education system, and its global track record (e.g., collaboration with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Iran’s Ayatollahs, No. Korea and Venezuela and training international terrorists from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America).

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Trial Of Mann v. Steyn, Part III: More On Damages; Simberg And Steyn’s First Witness Francis Menton

By on February 3rd, 2024

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=4b9ad9bd14

Readers seem to be enjoying my posts on the Mann v. Steyn trial, so I’m going to continue with one more today. Meanwhile, the court does not hold trials on Fridays, so the proceeding has recessed for the weekend, to resume Monday morning. It’s likely that the trial will get very interesting next week, as the defendants present the heart of their case and as things wrap up. In the interim, I’ll provide some comments on the events yesterday, which was the 11th day of the trial.

My previous post on Wednesday, January 31, was devoted mostly to the issue of plaintiff Mann’s claimed damages in the case. The post described what I found to be an extremely odd back and forth during Mann’s own testimony, where it emerged that Mann during the discovery process had provided three different, inconsistent and contradictory interrogatory answers on the topic of his main theory of damages, namely that he had lost grant funding due to the defamation. After initially being confronted on cross-examination with an interrogatory answer where he had refused to provide any list of allegedly lost grants and said the whole subject was “irrelevant,” Mann then on re-direct (highly unusual) attempted to use a second interrogatory answer as a basis for quantifying his damages from lost grants; only then to be confronted with a third interrogatory answer, which he had never mentioned under questioning by his own lawyer, where he had changed most of the numbers in the second answer, in the most notable case reducing the claimed loss from over $9 million to only about $100,000.

Well, it turns out that that oddity became the subject of extensive argument before the judge, in parts of the trial that were not broadcast to the public viewers. Yesterday, in connection with Mann resting his case, Steyn filed with the court something called a “Motion for Sanctions for Bad-Faith Trial Misconduct” against Mann, addressing many issues about the claimed damages and Mann’s proof of same. Steyn made a copy of that document available via a link on his website. The document gives much history of the subject of Mann’s damages claim in the case, including events that occurred at parts of the trial that have not been broadcast publicly. The document, only 11 pages long, makes for very entertaining reading if you have the time.

But first, some background. The law of defamation is one of the more complex subjects of American law. It arises under state rather than federal law (with D.C. defamation law arising out of D.C.’s role as a state/local governing entity, rather than out of federal law), and differs substantially from state to state. And then there is an overlay of Supreme Court case law interpreting the First Amendment to the federal Constitution, thus impacting the law in every state.

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