EDUCATION Comments turned off

Christopher F. Rufo, Ryan Thorpe Harvard Researcher: the University Is “Totally Corrupted” Omar Sultan Haque condemns the school for abandoning truth in favor of racialism.

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/harvard-university-left-bias-trump-omar-sultan-haque

Omar Sultan Haque has spent 23 years at Harvard University. He is furious about what has happened within the school.

While the media have framed the recent fight between Harvard and President Donald Trump in partisan terms, Haque believes that the problem goes much deeper than political score-settling. As he rose through the ranks—from graduate student to postdoctoral fellow to medical researcher to faculty member at Harvard Medical School—Haque watched the university gradually abandon the pursuit of truth and replace it with left-wing racialism.

Rather than stay silent, Haque has spoken out. Last year, he wrote an essay about his experience and has continued to criticize the university throughout the recent campus turmoil. As Haque sees it, Harvard cannot be reformed from within. It’s an unconscious patient and requires CPR to survive.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

City Journal: Give us a sense of the ideological landscape and your experience at Harvard.

Omar Sultan Haque: Unlike many others at Harvard, I have no dramatic cancellation, or intellectual persecution, or struggle session to report. I stopped teaching at Harvard last year primarily because of its anti-truth-seeking culture, radical left-wing bias, racial and gender discrimination, and prevailing anti-intellectualism, which made continued participation a poor use of time. There are exceptions, but on the whole Harvard has strayed from its foundational mission of unbiased truth-seeking and has become ideologically driven, too often resembling a secular church or a partisan think tank. The university’s culture and practices prioritize ideological conformity over open inquiry and debate, suppressing dissenting viewpoints and compromising academic freedom. This shift undermines the core values of a secular university and poses a threat to the integrity of academia and broader society.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Christopher F. Rufo Donald Trump and the Problem of Force In our age of delicate sensibilities, reforms must be pursued through proxies and abstraction.

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/donald-trump-force-conservatism-doge-deportations-higher-education

Conservatism has two modes: peacetime and wartime. When the social order is stable and healthy, conservatives seek to cultivate and maintain institutions. In times of chaos, a different kind of conservatism emerges, focused not on preservation but reform.

Donald Trump is a wartime conservative. Since his first presidential campaign, he has argued that America is in decline and requires drastic measures to restore its national greatness. In the opening stretch of his second term, he has focused on three policies—mass deportations, cost-cutting through DOGE, and higher education reform—that are aggressive and have caused distress across the political spectrum. Some center-right critics have fretted about the president’s potential “overreach,” while the usual voices on the left have accused him of “fascism” and “authoritarianism.”

Neither analysis is correct, but both gesture at the same thing: Trump is using force. American culture has changed to such a degree that these measures, none of them unprecedented, now appear radical. Elites have become so habituated to highly regulated, feminized environments that any hint of force causes apprehension.

Educated Americans have trouble imagining the use of force, largely because they have isolated themselves from it. Ivy League faculty members cannot fathom, say, putting their hands on an MS-13 gang member and physically ejecting him from the country. The educated classes have become so inured to the physical world that many perceive a pink slip or reduced research funding as an act of genuine violence.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s New Reality: Proving Its Worth in Trump’s Mercantilist Middle East By Lawrence Haas

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/05/israels-new-reality-proving-its-worth-in-trumps-mercantilist-middle-east/?_gl=1*uu4df6*_ga*MTAxNTM5OTI0NC4xNzQ3NzQzMzk3*_up*MQ..

Israeli leaders must be suffering whiplash as they watch the dizzying events of recent days across the Middle East, with President Donald Trump sidelining the Jewish state and cozying up to some of its bitter rivals.

The president traveled the region without stopping in Israel, surprised Jerusalem by unilaterally cutting deals to free a U.S. hostage in Gaza and to stop the Houthis from bombing U.S. vessels, lifted sanctions on Syria and met with the former al-Qaeda fighter who now presides in Damascus, struck a huge arms deal with Riyadh while letting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) pursue Israeli-Saudi normalization “in your own time,” re-launched nuclear talks with Iran while sending mixed signals on his bottom line for a deal, and gushed over the gift of a new Air Force One from a nation that supports Hamas.

As a result, Israel will have to fight the Houthis alone while MBS got his coveted arms deal without normalizing relations with Israel, Iran got a chance to stretch out nuclear talks long enough to free itself from expiring global sanctions, and Hamas got to help widen the rift between Washington and Jerusalem.

The larger challenge for Israel, however, is less about how to prevent any future U.S. slight than it is about how best to respond to Trump’s revolutionary new approach to the region and the world.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

When Sharia Gets a Tax Break Islamic Law is being funded by the very system it seeks to replace. by Aynaz Anni Cyrus

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/when-sharia-gets-a-tax-break/

In America, tax-exempt status isn’t a loophole. It’s a privilege—one meant to serve the public good, not undermine it.

Under 26 U.S. Code § 501(c)(3), that privilege is reserved for institutions that are religious, charitable, educational, or scientific in nature. But the law is explicit: these organizations may not promote criminal conduct, engage in substantial political lobbying, or advocate ideologies that undermine the U.S. Constitution.

Yet that’s exactly what many Islamic nonprofits are doing—with the IRS’s blessing, and in some cases, with taxpayer funding.

These groups hide behind “religious freedom.”

What they’re really advancing is Sharia—a totalitarian legal system that stands in direct opposition to American law and values.

They preach that man-made laws are illegitimate.

That Islam’s legal code is supreme.

And American citizens are subsidizing it.

Take Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. Marketed as America’s first Islamic liberal arts college, it presents itself as an academic institution committed to interfaith dialogue and scholarship.

But behind the polished branding lies a very different reality.

Zaytuna’s curriculum includes Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller)—a classical Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that is explicitly anti-Western in its rulings.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Biden cancer announcement has my sympathy and my skepticism

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/liz-peek-biden-cancer-announcement-has-my-sympathy-my-skepticism

Former President Joe Biden announced over the weekend that he had just recently been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. A statement from the former president’s office identified the cancer as “aggressive” but also “hormone sensitive,” indicating the possibility of “effective management.”

The news generated an outpouring of sympathy from friends and foes alike. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.” We share that concern and optimism; we hope the former president beats the disease.

But, like much of the public, our initial sympathy has turned skeptical. Doctors say that it is highly unlikely anyone could be “suddenly” diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Especially one which, according to Biden’s statement, had metastasized into his bone.

Nearly every man over 50 gets checked regularly for prostate cancer. Certainly, a U.S. president, and especially one under close surveillance for age-related illnesses, would have been examined rigorously for a disease that strikes one in seven men during their lifetime.

Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, an oncologist and Democrat policy-maker, told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, that Biden had certainly had the disease for “more than several years.” “He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that.”

ISRAEL, POLITICS Comments turned off

Fetterman: Israel ‘deserves much better from my party’ The Pennsylvania Democratic senator’s criticism of his party drew loud applause from pro-Israel activists

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://jewishinsider.com/2025/05/john-fetterman-democrat-antisemitism-israel-norpac-deserves-better/

As Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) faces attacks from the media and fellow lawmakers in the Democratic Party, he hit back at members of his own party on Tuesday in remarks to a group of bipartisan activists in Washington.

Speaking to members of NORPAC, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, Fetterman offered some of his sharpest criticism yet of the Democratic Party’s approach to Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

“Israel and your community deserves much better from my party,” Fetterman said, earning loud applause. 

He described how American universities have produced a “monoculture that produced, actually, rampant antisemitism,” and called to address it — but suggested Democrats are not interested in doing so. 

“We have to address that. But in my party, you will pay a price,” said Fetterman. “That’s OK. I think that’s what defines character … that you’re going to support things even if it moves against your own political interest.”

Several recent reports have suggested that Fetterman is struggling with mental health challenges, which Fetterman has denied. 

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Our Feckless Nature Fakery Confronting the inhumanity of nature. by Bruce Thornton *****

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/our-feckless-nature-fakery/

Recently, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced that the Trump administration is documenting the value of what we the people own: “enormous stores of oil, coal, minerals, timber, and geothermal power, all held within a vast property portfolio,” Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal writes, including “480 million surface acres, more than 2 billion offshore acres, and 750 million acres of subsurface minerals.”

These abundant assets potentially can create revenue for the federal government that could obviate the need to borrow trillions of dollars, and to extract billions more from our most productive citizens, in order to “rob selected Peter to pay collective Paul,” as Rudyard Kipling in 1919 described redistribution schemes. But as Strassel understates, such common-sense action will require “hard political choices.”

That’s because for two centuries, the West has practiced what Theodore Roosevelt called “nature fakery.” In a 1907 article, Roosevelt attacked Jack London and other romantic writers for practicing what TR called “nature fakery,” which made them “an object of derision to every scientist worthy of the name, to every real lover of the wilderness, to every faunal naturalist, to every true hunter or nature lover.”

Roosevelt was alluding to the Western transformation of how we think about the natural world and our relationship to it. Rather than recognizing nature’s “fierce eternal destruction,” as John Keats put it, we have idealized and romanticized nature, and indulged what Victorian art and social critic John Ruskin called the “pathetic fallacy.” This is the idealization of nature by attributing to it and animals the conduct and emotions of human beings. Thinking your dog “loves” you, for example, is wish-fulfillment, not a statement of reality. Stop feeding it and see how much it loves you.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

More Truth About Global Warming

Posted By on May 21st, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/20/more-truth-about-global-warming/

Editor’s note: In its ongoing effort to silence dissent about “climate change,” Google’s AdSense immediately stripped its network ads from this page, saying this editorial contains “unreliable and harmful claims” (see below). Because, you know, the truth is unreliable and harmful. You can tell Google where to stuff its policy violations by donating directly to I&I. Just click here.

Media reports are laced with unsubstantiated claims that man is overheating his planet. Every time climate change is mentioned in a story, even features in a newspaper’s food or fashion pages, it is understood that humans are turning Earth into a muggy greenhouse by burning fossil fuel. No evidence is provided to corroborate the claim. Man-made global warming just is and skeptics are deplorables.

But the facts tell a different story.

Roy Spencer, a University of Alabama-Huntsville climate scientist, has determined that “65% of the U.S. linear warming trend between 1895 and 2023 was due to increasing population density at the suburban and urban stations; 8% of the warming was due to urbanization at rural stations. Most of that (urban heat island) effect warming occurred before 1970.”

In other words, man has built heat sinks, which skew the temperature data upward.

Researchers have known about the urban island effect for almost two centuries. It “is mostly due to the replacement of vegetation and aerated soils with buildings and impervious pavement.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Open Letter to President Trump Urging Him to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Arsenal by Alan Dershowitz and Andrew Stein

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21634/trump-iran-nuclear-weapons

There can be no reasonable doubt that Iran’s mullahs are determined to obtain nuclear weapons, despite their assurances to the contrary. Nor can Israel, which is the intended target of an Iranian bomb, be expected to rely on deterrence or containment. Iran must be prevented from achieving their dangerous goal.

[U]nless your deal includes the complete and total destruction of all Iranian nuclear facilities, there will be no guarantee that its scientists could not surreptitiously use civilian nuclear infrastructure to build military weaponry. The only deal that would prevent this catastrophe would be one modeled on the agreement made with Libya made back in 2003. That deal completely dismantled Libya’s nuclear facilities and made it impossible for them to weaponize nuclear energy infrastructure. Anything short of that will create an unacceptable risk.

We urge you to use your incredible negotiating skills to achieve the goal that you have set out: namely a 100% certainty that Iran will never get a nuclear bomb.

Dear Mr. President,

You are about to make a decision for which you will be remembered by history. Your legacy will either be as a world leader who saved, or failed to save, many lives. The decision concerns Iran’s intention to develop a nuclear arsenal. There can be no reasonable doubt that Iran’s mullahs are determined to obtain nuclear weapons, despite their assurances to the contrary. Nor can Israel, which is the intended target of an Iranian bomb, be expected to rely on deterrence or containment. Iran must be prevented from achieving their dangerous goal.

Obviously it would be better if the mullahs could be stopped by negotiation rather than military action. Previous negotiations resulted in a terrible deal under President Barack Obama. You yourself understood that under the Obama deal, Iran would almost certainly have obtained a nuclear arsenal, and so you quite correctly withdrew from the agreement. Now there are rumors that your administration is working on a “better” deal – longer and stronger. But unless your deal includes the complete and total destruction of all Iranian nuclear facilities, there will be no guarantee that its scientists could not surreptitiously use civilian nuclear infrastructure to build military weaponry. The only deal that would prevent this catastrophe would be one modeled on the agreement made with Libya made back in 2003. That deal completely dismantled Libya’s nuclear facilities and made it impossible for them to weaponize nuclear energy infrastructure. Anything short of that will create an unacceptable risk.

We urge you to use your incredible negotiating skills to achieve the goal that you have set out: namely a 100% certainty that Iran will never get a nuclear bomb. You should give the mullahs a short period of time to dismantle and destroy, subject to American inspection, their entire nuclear program. If they refuse or fail to do so, the military option should be deployed.

Nearly a century ago, the British and French governments faced a similar decision with Germany, and they failed, costing tens of millions of lives.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Stop Listening to Fake Experts and Pretend Historians on the Middle East by Seth Mandel

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/stop-listening-to-fake-experts-and-pretend-historians-on-the-middle-east/

The propaganda campaigns against Israel rely on an industry of manufactured “expertise.” Without the ability to appeal to the authority of such “experts,” the campaigns collapse. For anyone who’s been paying attention in the past few days, the collapse is everywhere you look.

First there was the Sky News anchor hectoring Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon over Israel’s strike on a tunnel system beneath a Gaza hospital to eliminate senior Hamas officials, notably its de facto leader Muhammad Sinwar, brother of Oct. 7 architect Yahya Sinwar. The anchor insisted Israel was wrong to say there were tunnels underneath the hospital and surrounding area because “our experts”—a phrase she repeated in the vain hopes it would sound convincing—said so.

You’ll never guess what happened next. That’s right—Hamas confirmed that the targeted area was indeed the site of a tunnel system, and added more context. It was, Hamas said, destroyed by the IDF in the 2014 Gaza war and since rebuilt. It was there that Israel attempted to take out Sinwar.

Then yesterday, along with reports of another Sinwar’s elimination (Mohammad’s brother Zakaria) came reports that Muhammad Sinwar’s body was indeed found in the tunnel system targeted by the IDF.

Who are Sky News’s “experts”? One of them is Corey Scher, who was a key “expert” behind a 2023 Associated Press story that claimed “The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in history.”

Experts say! As I noted at the time, that claim is obviously false. But Scher’s research depended on radar readings that were mostly mysterious to Scher as well. As a separate article on that study noted, “the researchers said they were able to detect the number of buildings damaged, but were not able to determine how badly the buildings had been affected.”

The research also based its findings on the assumption that any change in the echoes of radar waves was from Israeli bombing.

And so by reading the actual article, one learned that this study was childish nonsense. Now its leading researcher is back to say that the IDF lied about tunnels, only to be immediately contradicted by Hamas itself.

Sky News, the Associated Press, ABC News—where else will these “experts” show up? The answer is: wherever they’re needed to lend an academic gloss to rank speculation and conspiracy theories.