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May 2017

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 23, 2017 5 Comments
We previously wrote about the firestorm that erupted over the appointment of Professor N. Bruce Duthu to be Dean of the Faculty at Dartmouth College, New Dartmouth Dean of Faculty endorsed academic boycott of Israel, here’s what that entails. In that post, I questioned how Duthu could fulfill the duties of the position of Dean of Faculty in light of the sweeping nature of the academic boycott guidelines:

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 22, 2017 29 Comments
*We will update this post through the night* (UPDATES BELOW) An explosion occurred at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Police confirmed 19 dead and 50 injured, but have not confirmed exactly what caused the explosion or who caused it. Police have told Sky News that they decided to treat the incident as a "possible terrorist incident" until the officials know otherwise.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 22, 2017 20 Comments
Congress will have to wait for Former FBI Director Comey's first public statements since being canned by Trump. After he met with Comey Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz announced via Twitter that the hearing originally schedule for Wednesday would be postponed.

Posted by New Neo on May 22, 2017 19 Comments
Lately it seems as though there's a story a day reporting some new Trump administration scandal based on a leak from an anonymous government "official." We are asked to take the facts in those stories on trust, without a chance to evaluate the veracity or motives of the source of the remarks. This over-reliance on the anonymous source gives both the journalist and his/her informant an overwhelming power. The most famous anonymous source of them all, of course, was Deep Throat of Watergate fame. He was not only a seminal figure in Nixon's denouement (and thus a hero to liberals everywhere), but he was so renowned that he had his own nickname, taken from a popular porn flick. The reporters involved in the story became famous too; Bob Woodward was played by movie star Robert Redford and Carl Bernstein by Dustin Hoffman in the film "All the Presidents Men."

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 22, 2017 8 Comments
The Turkish government has summoned the U.S. ambassador over a brawl that Turkish bodyguards instigated in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., last week. From USA Today:
In a statement Monday, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the ambassador was summoned and “a written and verbal protest was delivered due to the aggressive and unprofessional actions taken, contrary to diplomatic rules and practices, by U.S. security personnel toward the close protection team of H.E Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 22, 2017 23 Comments
The Supreme court has ruled that Republicans in North Carolina used race and not politics when they drew congressional districts in 2011. A lower court ruled the same, which "forced legislators to create new maps last year." The News & Observer continued:
The 5-3 ruling, written by Justice Elena Kagan, is among a series by the justices against the excessive use of race in redistricting that state lawmakers across the country take up every 10 years after the release of new Census data. Justice Clarence Thomas joined the majority, taking a stand with more liberal justices with whom he often disagrees.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 22, 2017 23 Comments
Between 2010-2012, the Chinese government murdered or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA agents after it demolished America's spying operations within the country. The CIA has been investigating how this happened, whether a mole leaked information to Beijing or the Chinese managed to break our codes. The New York Times reported:
Assessing the fallout from an exposed spy operation can be difficult, but the episode was considered particularly damaging. The number of American assets lost in China, officials said, rivaled those lost in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of both Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., who divulged intelligence operations to Moscow for years.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 22, 2017 17 Comments
Lou Reed passed away in 2013. At least he's not here to witness one of his best songs become the newest thing campus snowflakes have deemed problematic. Students at the University of Guelph in Canada played "Walk on the Wild Side" at a campus event and were ultimately forced to apologize. Dave Huber reports at The College Fix:
Student group issues apology after playing Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ This is where we are: A student group at the University of Guelph in Canada has apologized for including the Lou Reed song “Walk on the Wild Side” on a playlist at a campus event. Because, don’t you know, the tune contains “transphobic lyrics.”

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 22, 2017 26 Comments
The MSM is hating President Trump's foreign trip. Why? Because it takes the spotlight off what they'd much rather be covering: the investigations back home into Russian involvement in the election. Yesterday, we witnessed a CNN host fretting that President Trump's successful speech in Saudi Arabia might be "normalizing" him. Now it's Mika Brzezinski's turn to insist that she won't let Morning Joe be distracted by the foreign trip. On today's show, when HuffPo's Sam Stein said that despite the investigations, people are "going about our business," Mika jumped on him.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 22, 2017 9 Comments
President Donald Trump has arrived in Israel, which he will visit for two days. In fact, his flight to Israel from Saudi Arabia is the first non-stop flight between the two countries that have no diplomatic ties. We will publish updates on Trump's visit, a truly historic one since Israel remains our most important ally in the Middle East. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and his wife Nechama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara greeted Trump and First Lady Melania Trump as the two descended from Air Force One.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 21, 2017 26 Comments
Donald Trump will be leaving Saudi Arabia overnight (Eastern time) and flying directly to Israel. That direct flight itself is historic, since the Saudis do not allow flights directly to or from Israel. One of his first stops in Israel will be the Western Wall, the holiest place at which Jews are permitted to pray. The holiest place is the Temple Mount. As Prof. Miriam Elman has explained, Jews are not permitted to pray on the Temple Mount, where conquest mosques and monuments have been built on top of the ancient Jewish Temples. That prohibition is both theological and geo-political.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 21, 2017 19 Comments
Back when Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) still claimed to be a Republican, she came up with the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). That idea, however, morphed into a partisan Democrat operation under Obama, with a structure that sought to exclude itself from Executive or Congressional oversight.  The constitutionality of the CFPB will be decided, yet again, on Wednesday by the D. C. Circuit Court.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 21, 2017 26 Comments
Bob Schieffer is an old-school newsman. There's no doubt that the former Face the Nation host leans left, but he is still capable of reporting, you know, the news. That is too much for denizens of the modern MSM to tolerate. On today's Reliable Sources on CNN, Schieffer reported the glaringly obvious truth: that President Trump gave a good speech in Saudi Arabia today. Guest host John Berman had to push back: "you know, Bob, though, that there will be people who look at that last comment you made and say you're normalizing the president." Schieffer gave the perfect response: he wasn't trying to normalize Trump, he was trying to do what reporters [are supposed to] do: report.
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