Tariffing the tabs -- or appealing them ...
On my way out of town for a story yesterday, I read “My Brush With Trump’s Thought Police” in the New York Times. Nobel laureate and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz described having his publicly funded lecture on “The Road to Freedom: Economics in a Good Society” canceled:
A core element of freedom is the ability of each person to live up to his or her potential. A liberal education is essential for this to happen, because it helps students develop their skills and capabilities to the utmost, frees them from shibboleths and enables them to think critically. But this kind of approach is threatening to authoritarianism, which wants to impose particular views on a nation’s citizens.
In the case of the Danish lecture series, simply discussing diversity, equity and inclusion was apparently deemed threatening to the administration, which asserts that those qualities, by their very nature, are discriminatory against a majority of the population. But Mr. Trump’s “1984”-ish thought police have not stopped at D.E.I. Climate change and gender are other terms that are being expunged.
I almost spit out coffee at the last line. Probably no three terms in the English language are more associated with groupthink-truisms or “shibboleths” than D.E.I., climate change, and gender.
Ed: After the Nina Jankowicz/Ministry of Truth/'misinformation' attack on dissent and debate in the Biden administration, no one has any standing whatsoever to claim a "thought police" under Trump. Matt Taibbi is too kind to Stiglitz and his ilk in this piece, but not from a lack of excoriation of these morons. Read it all.
===
A lot of Americans agree with Trump: higher ed needs a kick in the rear end. Those with high confidence in higher ed has collapsed: 57% in 2015 to 36% now. 68% (!) say higher ed is on the wrong track.
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) May 29, 2025
Also, a plurality of Americans & the GOP agree: colleges have a liberal bias. pic.twitter.com/JZtup3BoGV
Ed: Donald Trump didn't drive this -- he recognized it and embraced it. Now he's become the champion of the people against the sneering elitists. If you want to know how Trump can remain popular, this is his secret.
===
In February 2019, Hayden Williams set up a table at UC Berkeley, where he was helping recruit students to join Turning Point USA, a youth-outreach group founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk. A man taunted Williams and delivered a sucker punch. Neither the attacker, who was later arrested, nor Williams were students at the school.
Video of the attack went viral and Williams, sporting a black eye, appeared on Fox News.
Kirk recalled Trump saying at the time, We’ve got to do something about this.
Ed: The outrageous campus riots and "occupations" that started in October 2023 crystallized this for Americans who already harbored suspicions about Academia. But those suspicions and opposition go back to the BLM riots, this incident, the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, etc. Trump probably should have seized on this more in his first term. Now he's not worried about re-election and is letting loose.
===
BREAKING: In a letter sent today, @AGPamBondi informed the American Bar Association that they will no longer enjoy "special access to judicial nominees." The ABA will no longer be granted waivers allowing the ABA access to non-public information, and judicial nominees will no… pic.twitter.com/QugLesKfwB
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 29, 2025
Ed: Make no mistake about it -- this is also part of the Trump effort to bring Academia to heel and to strip the progressive elite from their definitional role in American public life. Next up: stripping the American Medical Association of its monopoly on accrediting medical schools.
===
On one side of the fight within the DSA is the group’s so-called “right wing,” as its critics call it, which believes that the DSA should avoid any association with violence—and either condemn the act or not speak of it at all. This camp includes members who described themselves as a 69-year-old “radical,” a union member from Virginia, and a travel writer based in Louisiana, according to messages reviewed by The Free Press.
Then there are the DSA extremists, some of whom argue violence is necessary for revolution and others who openly celebrate it.
“Where is our commitment to non-violent resistance stated?” a DSA member from Seattle with the username “ChrisW” wanted to know. “It’s not in the constitution or bylaws, the closest thing is that we reject ‘brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.’ ”
A DSA member from northern New Jersey with the username “Conordachisen” wrote that “non violent, peaceful action” isn’t the only way to achieve socialism—“there’ll also be comrades who understand that violent revolution is a thing, too.”
Ed: You can't take the violent revolution out of the Marxist, nor the Marxist out of the violent revolution. This is why it's necessary to fight back against the hijacking of American higher education by Marxists who have turned it into an indoctrination process for radicals.
===
🚨Jim Acosta is convinced that President Trump will order the arrest of Jasmine Crockett.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 29, 2025
Yes, really.
“They would like to arrest you!”
“That’s just me thinkin’ that!”
Crockett says he’s “absolutely right.” pic.twitter.com/hlZFwTAmaa
Ed: In fairness, those two deserve each other.
===
Currah sets out to prove the claim that Trump’s efforts to enforce an executive order aimed at “defending women from gender ideology extremism” is, in fact, “a war on government” because it is designed to make public administration less competent. Readers of a certain age will recognize the familiar left-wing shibboleth here — the implication that conservatives want government to be dysfunctional to popularize the concept of smaller government.
That theory certainly doesn’t apply to Trump. Nor is it supported by the analogy that Currah establishes in his opening sentence, which throws caution to the wind in pursuit of a metaphor that links Trump’s executive order to “Nazi Germany’s progressive targeting of maligned groups.” The Nazis weren’t all that high on limited government, either.
“The push to eradicate so-called ‘woke gender ideology’ is also part of the assault on the government itself,” Currah declares. But in the attempt to substantiate his allegation, the professor demonstrates the degree to which he hasn’t had to convince a skeptical audience in a long while.
Ed: It also demonstrates the degree to which Brooklyn College has avoided accountability for its hiring decisions, and for how long. This is part of the indoctrination process I referenced above, recognizable chiefly by its utter mindlessness.
===
“We’re cowards not hacks!” is an incredible defense https://t.co/DQX4QoRAsf
— Aelfred The Great (@aelfred_D) May 29, 2025
===
🚨 Karoline Leavitt just CALLED OUT Jill Biden for LYING about Joe Biden’s mental capacity
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 29, 2025
“She still thinks the American public are SO STUPID that they will believe her. She needs to answer for it.”
DRAG JILL IN FRONT OF CONGRESS AND MAKE HER TESTIFY UNDER OATH! pic.twitter.com/ZKHXJiltCa
Join the conversation as a VIP Member