Elite higher education in America -- long unquestioned as globally preeminent -- is facing a perfect storm. Fewer applicants‚ higher costs‚ impoverished students‚ collapsing standards‚ and increasingly politicized and mediocre faculty reflect a collapse of the university system. The country is waking up to the reality that a bachelor's degree no longer equates with graduates being broadly educated and analytical. Just as often‚ they are stereotyped as pampered‚ largely ignorant‚ and...

Russian troops have been deployed to an airbase in Niger where American soldiers are located‚ US officials say. The move comes after Niger's military rulers ordered the US to withdraw troops who had been countering Islamic insurgents in the region. Russian forces were present at the base in Niger's capital Niamey‚ but were not mingling with American troops‚ US officials told the Reuters news agency. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Russians posed no &;quot;risk&;quot; to US forces. &;quot;The...

Speaker Mike Johnson will likely escape Marjorie Taylor Greene’s first attempt to fire him. The threat of an ouster vote will still haunt him all year long. Despite near-universal consensus in the House that allowing any one member to force a snap vote on booting a speaker is a recipe for chaos‚ lawmakers in both parties are increasingly acknowledging that they have almost no chance of changing that rule before January. It’s not for a lack of interest — in fact‚ the idea was brought up in...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer‚ D-N.Y.‚ has opted to join forces with House Speaker Mike Johnson‚ R-La.‚ to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress amid lingering tensions over the Middle East conflict‚ reported The Hill. Johnson revealed that he sent Schumer a preliminary invitation draft about a month ago‚ but it has remained untouched on Schumer's desk since then. &;quot;I sent a letter draft‚ because it's a bicameral invitation letter; it's...

President Biden’s fragile bid for a second term is under new threat from the powerful combination of two conflicts he has little direct control over: Israel’s war with Hamas and the deepening rift in the U.S. over America’s role in it. 

You may have heard of Shai Davidai‚ the Israeli professor at Columbia University who has launched a crusade against the school’s pro-Palestinian protestors. He’s rocketed to fame by calling students terrorists‚ comparing himself to Jewish victims of Nazi Germany‚ and demanding the National Guard forcibly break up the student encampments. After the NYPD stormed Columbia’s campus on Tuesday night‚ arresting hundreds of students‚ he retweeted a message...

The unofficial theme song for Bowie. The post The David Bowie song he thought sounded arrogant: “Baiting an audience” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

What societal institutions‚ other than mosques‚ show a greater receptivity to the pro-Hamas message than the campuses&;#63; Neither transgenders wearing keffiyehs nor the great number of students owning high-end glamping gear strikes as the strangest thing about the protests. Their location does. (READ MORE: American Universities Have Squandered the Public’s Esteem) Martin Luther King did not march on Cambridge Common or Telegraph Ave. He demonstrated in Montgomery‚ Selma‚ Birmingham‚ Atlanta‚ and points beyond where governments‚ businesses‚ and powerful people discriminated against African Americans. He risked hearing jeers rather than cheers because he wanted change‚ not an ego boost. He suffered not merely jeers but jail‚ hurled foodstuffs‚ a stabbing‚ the invasion of his privacy‚ and ultimately assassination so that others would not suffer. Demonstrations generally follow this pattern of addressing grievances directly at the source. PETA protests medical research facilities that perform experiments on animals‚ not vegan restaurants that serve sesame noodles. Strikers demonstrate outside of the factories that pay them less than they demand‚ not outside the union hall. Pro-lifers hold placards on the sidewalk next to Planned Parenthood clinics‚ not churches. (READ MORE: Squad Members‚ Defiant Amid Ouster Threats‚ Intensify Backing of Anti-Semitic Protests) If PETA did make its case in a vegan restaurant‚ then one imagines many a customer might shout “Hear‚ hear.” This would make the PETA protestors feel good. But it seems unlikely to advance the group’s principles. This hypothetical forces the question‚ for what purpose do the protestors make their voices heard in the very places where their voices dominate&;#63; Proximity seems the obvious and partly right answer. Other reasons pertain to the inability of many progressives to operate outside of their intellectual ghettos and the desire of many young people for affirmation. No explanation for why the campuses serve as the site of the protests involves the connection of the universities to the war‚ of which tangential seems too strong a word‚ or the grounds of elite schools serving as an effective platform to save Palestinian lives‚ which they are not. The protests that canceled classes at UCLA‚ forced Columbia to move to remote learning‚ and closed Cal Poly-Humboldt for the semester look like a performance. It all probably felt exhilarating and cathartic. But in terms of propelling the cause of the Palestinians‚ the demonstrations proved entirely ineffective. The situation evokes the peculiar thought process of an activist of an earlier age who did not solve the problem of poverty but did win the Nobel Peace Prize. “We have in America a fast-growing number of cultivated young people who have no recognized outlet for their active faculties‚” Jane Addams wrote in Twenty Years at Hull House. “They hear constantly of the great social maladjustment‚ but no way is provided for them to change it‚ and their uselessness hangs about them heavily.” (READ MORE: I’ll See Your Charlottesville and Raise You Columbia) The point of activism‚ at least in this telling‚ is to direct the energies of young people toward labors that provide them with a sense of usefulness and a boost in self-esteem. This seems‚ to borrow the terminology of Abraham Lincoln‚ bass-ackwards. Nevertheless‚ as the unproductive‚ non sequitur campus protests indicate‚ many still subscribe to the activism-for-the-activists mentality emphasized in those words from Addams. The protests on campus feel cowardly. On one level‚ it follows that the most coddled generation in human history exercises its activism in what amounts to ivy-walled safe spaces. On another level‚ cowardice begets cowardice. Student activists celebrate the murder of unarmed people their age who‚ like them‚ slept in tents at the Nova music festival. At the University of Wisconsin‚ UNC-Chapel Hill‚ and DePaul‚ they do not grasp the irony. The activism for activism’s sake on American campuses does not save a single Palestinian. It does salve the feelings of privileged American kids. The post Why Protest on Campuses With No Connection to the Israel-Hamas War&;#63; appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Elon Musk made headlines today by pledging to reinstate the X account of Nick Fuentes‚ the controversial 25-year-old pundit who has long served as one of a handful of conspicuous exceptions to Musk’s stated free-speech absolutism. Since taking over X‚ Musk has — in bits and spurts — allowed a number of previously banned accounts to return to the platform. But Fuentes‚ along with a few other “far-right” voices‚ has remained in digital exile. (During Musk’s initial mass amnesty‚ Fuentes was briefly allowed back on the platform — only to be suspended a day later.) Musk wrote: Very well‚ he will be reinstated‚ provided he does not violate the law‚ and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes. It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 2‚ 2024 “I cannot claim to be a defender of free speech‚ but then permanently ban someone who hasn’t violated the law‚ no matter how much I disagree with what they say‚” Musk added. “This will probably cause us to lose a lot of advertisers and makes me sad‚ but a principle is a principle.” READ MORE from Nate Hochman: Utah’s Republican Governor Goes to War With His Own Base The move was significant for a number of reasons. Musk clearly pays attention to (and often participates in) discourse on the right-wing corners of X‚ where Fuentes has long played a prominent role: Even in his absence‚ his army of young followers — known as the “groypers” — are one of the most energetic and active cohorts on the platform. (Look at the comment section of any prominent conservative account‚ and there’s a good chance you’ll find video clips of Fuentes and other posts from his fans.) Some of the groypers have substantial followings and have been spearheading a prolonged pressure campaign against Musk and X to reinstate Fuentes since he was banned in January 2023. “Nick Fuentes” has been the top trending topic on X at numerous junctures over the past year — including last month‚ when the young right-wing firebrand participated in a highly discussed conversation on the platform with Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing. It’s almost impossible to believe that Musk wasn’t aware of all this‚ or that he hadn’t seen the ubiquitous calls to replatform Fuentes‚ which would‚ like clockwork‚ appear en masse in Musk’s replies practically every time he touted X’s commitment to free speech. But until now‚ he neglected to address the issue publicly — and X routinely banned the various anonymous “burner” accounts that Fuentes made in the interim. To be sure‚ Musk has yet to actually make good on his pledge to lift the Fuentes ban — and he has a history of reneging on public promises in this context. “While he played a pivotal role in the anti-censorship campaign against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) earlier this year‚” I wrote last November‚ “many of his ambitious promises—including his pledge to sue the ADL and release a ‘giant data dump’ exposing the group’s efforts to lobby for censorship—never materialized.” Furthermore: Despite Musk’s laudable pledge to govern X as a “free speech absolutist‚” a March 2023 study found that censorship on the platform actually increased in the first four months of his takeover. While Musk himself has criticized gender ideology‚ censorship of “anti-trans” ideas and speech on X—including temporary bans of high-profile conservative journalists and at least one sitting member of Congress—have persisted under his leadership. While Musk promised (and briefly delivered on) a general amnesty for accounts suspended under previous Twitter leadership‚ he has presided over a succession of ban waves‚ often with no public rationale. Earlier this month‚ two British right-wing activists‚ Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson‚ were abruptly reinstated on X without explanation‚ while their counterparts in the Twitter gulag remained banned. It’s difficult to escape the sense that X’s decisions on these matters are being driven by internal political maneuvering rather than any objective standard. But those who support Musk’s stated goal of a true “free speech platform” should urge him to make good on his promise and follow through. Even if some conservatives can’t emotionally bring themselves to support Fuentes’ speech rights for principled reasons‚ they can and should do so for entirely self-interested ones. As I wrote in these pages last month: By claiming to defend all free speech in principle but only defending some in practice‚ the Right concedes‚ by omission‚ that certain ideas fall outside the bounds of free expression — and that it’s perfectly appropriate (or‚ at least‚ not particularly objectionable) to bring the full force of regime power to bear against any individual so unwise as to express them…The irony‚ of course‚ is that the ideas and individuals in question — i.e.‚ those who stray too far to the right — are often the subject of the most vigorous‚ aggressive‚ and consistent censorship‚ both from major tech platforms and the apparatus of the American state. But the so-called far Right tends to be a canary in the coal mine. Invariably‚ censorship of the right-wing fringe is only ever a pretext for much broader censorship of ideas and figures well within the conservative mainstream. In 2016‚ the first few rounds of permanent Twitter bans came for figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer (as well as Spencer’s think tank and journal). In 2017‚ the censors graduated to Roger Stone and Andrew Tate; in 2018‚ Alex Jones. By 2020‚ the scope of censorship had expanded to include factual reporting from the New York Post‚ and‚ by 2022‚ comedy from the Babylon Bee. One need not agree with anything that Fuentes says to understand the critical significance of securing freedom of speech — true free speech‚ which includes the most controversial or otherwise objectionable ideas and voices — on one of the most powerful social media platforms in the world. Elon Musk should be commended for taking an important step toward realizing that goal. The post A Step in the Right Direction for Elon Musk’s Free Speech Agenda appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I wasn’t going to get into all of this. I don’t think there’s any real way to get into it without fanning the flames of idiocy that are already engulfing our culture. On the other hand‚ the viral “I Choose The Bear” thing which has percolated into a cloud of online scuffling this week probably deserves some treatment here at The American Spectator‚ and maybe it falls to me to get into it. So I’ll do my duty‚ and bear all the slings and arrows that will undoubtedly come. Before we get into my explanation of this‚ which will take up a couple of today’s Five Quick Things‚ here’s the quick version of this dumb meme — there’s a viral video out there from a woman hiker who says that‚ if she were faced with a choice between encountering a bear in the woods or a man‚ she’d choose the bear because that’s less dangerous. Reactions to this have run a pretty impressive gamut. Here was one of my favorites: This was maybe not quite as smart a take: While this discourse was starting on tiktok I saw this “take” and I cried for hours after watching it. I then had a great session w/my therapist who for the first time in my life explained what I’m feeling is grief for my old self after being assaulted. Anyways I choose the bear&;#33; https://t.co/7limj3SHom pic.twitter.com/ZTlVsDYSRt — no name (@pradaice) May 1‚ 2024 And this was an even less smart take: You’re missing the entire point. A bear is a bear and we know exactly what to expect from a wild animal when we’re in their space. Men are unpredictable and attack unprovoked &; often after they’ve pretended to be someone they’re not to gain our trust. I choose the bear https://t.co/9R2RHv72fr — Catherine (@WildeMagnolias) April 28‚ 2024 It’s a dumb controversy‚ and the response from men on social platforms isn’t a whole lot better. There are‚ however‚ a couple of things to glean from this‚ and they’re worth discussing even if the underlying hypothetical is not. 1. The ‘I Choose The Bear’ Thing Is Just How Bad It Is Out There The reason this has exploded like it has is it’s a pretty decent mirror of just how terrible the dating scene‚ or even basic interpersonal relationships‚ have gotten between men and women. A short clip from Rich Cooper’s podcast is pretty standard in explaining the attitudes out there: Here’s the thing: there are a whole lot of toxic male reactions to the meme‚ reactions I’m going to leave aside because they’re too dumb to bring into the discussion. The point is not to castigate women for this meme‚ because both sides are behaving badly. As a man‚ there is no point in being outraged that so many women default to believing you’re a sexual predator waiting to expose yourself‚ though that is certainly insulting. The thing to do is rise above all that‚ as difficult as that might be. The problem is that you’ve now got people in relationships bringing this up to their significant others. One Reddit user reported: I shared the bear versus man dilemma with my boyfriend and didn’t get the response I expected. Now I’m sad His response was: “I think there are two questions there 1) the fear that women feel of men 2) the total lack of knowledge that women have about what it means to meet a bear” then I said that it wasn’t about the bear‚ but rather our perception of men… but he wanted to take another route: “How many people know how to judge the differential danger of all these animals‚ you know&;#63;” and even an audio about statistics on the number of bears you encounter versus the number of men and the rate of bad interactions then I said “I’m not going to talk to you about this‚ ok&;#63;&;#33;” because clearly we were having two separate conversations and at that moment I thought it was insensitive for him to go that route and I didn’t want to hear about it. I’m not dating anybody right now‚ so my gut reaction is a mixture of confusion and indifference. But if I was dating somebody and she brought this up‚ I think I’d suggest that she ban herself from hiking in the woods based on her questionable ability to evaluate threats. The point is‚ you’ve got a society that is so divorced from the real world that people don’t rationally consider a physical‚ existential threat with the same weight that they consider social commentary. Additionally‚ relations between men and women are possibly the worst they’ve ever been. If it weren’t for those two factors this “I Choose The Bear” thing would never have gotten any legs. 2. Remember Four Numbers. They Explain This Completely. How does this happen&;#63; Well‚ let’s remember our four most telling numbers in American politics and culture‚ shall we&;#63; In the 2022 elections‚ it turned out that there were some very telling results where voting by party among four substantial groups was concerned. Namely: Married men voted Republican by 20 points more than Democrat (R+20); Married women were R+14; Unmarried men were R+7; and Unmarried women were D+37. I come back to these numbers repeatedly because they explain so much about our politics and culture. It’s a little scary. Remember‚ the people who control pretty much all of the cultural institutions in America aren’t just Democrats but hard-core leftists of the Obama stripe. What we know about these guys is that they don’t respect any limits at all on their cultural revolutionary behavior — anything representing traditional America has to be cast as villainous. We’ve seen over and over again that straight men — particularly straight white men‚ although straight men of other ethnicities don’t come in for friendly treatment either — have been in the crosshairs of most of their cultural aggressions large and small. That’s evident in movies and TV‚ commercial spots‚ art‚ fashion — everything. We also know there are efforts by various nonprofits‚ NGOs‚ and PR firms paid by leftists to drive narratives and push memes. The #MeToo thing was hardly an organic expression‚ after all. It had been around since 2006 and all of a sudden it popped viral in 2017 after Harvey Weinstein’s long-standing casting-couch behavior was finally exposed‚ and suddenly a number of PR firms started using it on social media for various purposes other than “raising awareness” of sexual misconduct. If you couldn’t tell how agenda-driven the #MeToo thing was‚ then you probably need the cultural-warfare “this is a football” speech‚ which we don’t have time for in this column. There is an unmistakable‚ obvious effort afoot to drive a wedge between men and women to preserve and grow that D+37 contingent. It’s impossible not to recognize this “I Choose The Bear” dreck as a manifestation of those efforts. There are an awful lot of women who subscribe to this thinking‚ yes‚ and sure‚ there are more men than there should be who give rise to suspicions about bad behavior. But if somebody wasn’t ginning up this crap on social media it wouldn’t have come this far. And the D+37 number explains exactly why. Once you see that number‚ you can’t unsee it. It explains everything. These people don’t care what kind of damage they cause; all they care about is power‚ and D+37 is an avenue toward getting it. 3. Paging Uncle RICO A quick thought on those protests/riots we’re seeing on all those campuses: Seeing as though these demonstrations are clearly funded from outside sources and staffed with non-students‚ and seeing that they chronically violate campus policies and state laws‚ the question then becomes why haven’t district attorneys and state attorneys general begun investigating them with an eye toward charging the organizations responsible under the various state RICO statutes. We already know there’s one NGO responsible‚ Students for Justice in Palestine‚ which is a Soros operation. It’s time to arrest the “fellows” of this organization who are heading up these protests on campuses they don’t attend‚ haul them in for questioning about their funding and control‚ and start squeezing out a cascade of stool pigeons until you get to the top. I guess we’ll have to wait until next year for the feds to get involved because Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray are worse than useless on this (and practically every other) issue. However‚ at the state level‚ and particularly in red states‚ this can get started now. 4. Dirty Joe Wants to Ramp Up a Migrant Invasion of Palestinians Boy‚ this just gets more and more fun‚ doesn’t it&;#63; President Joe Biden is considering bringing Palestinian refugees into the U.S.‚ but news of that potential decision sparked a wave of criticism for Biden. A group of Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate sent a letter to the president condemning the alleged plan‚ which was reported by CBS News . “U.S. and allied officials have very little access to Gazans living in the area‚ making it nearly impossible to conduct thorough vetting before admitting them into our country‚” the letter said. “We must ensure Gazans with terrorist ties or sympathies are denied admission into the United States – no easy feat‚ given the fact that the Gazans were the ones who voted Hamas into power in 2006. Without thorough vetting‚ your administration may inadvertently accept terrorists posing as refugees into the interior. “This is especially the case as Hamas terrorists have a long track record of co-mingling with civilian populations in Gaza‚” the letter added. I’m going to hold off on most of my outrage on this because there has to be some point at which Biden’s handlers realize that their political/cultural/economic aggressions tip the scale and cost them power. This would have to be that point‚ no&;#63; A mass importation of Hamas-supporting Palestinian refugees‚ the people who passed out candy in the streets of Gaza when the World Trade Center towers came down on 9/11‚ would have to be a tipping of that scale. When even the Saudis and Egyptians don’t want those people it’s pretty obvious we don’t. Or maybe it’s not that obvious. The last column in this space talked about how Republicans need to stop complaining about the horrors of Team Biden and start reveling in the predatory opportunities those stupidities and abuses of power present. Accusing Joe Biden of seeking to bring in tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza‚ people who are perfectly in sync with the morons on those college campuses chanting “From the river to the sea&;#33;” genocidal slogans‚ is fantastic politics. Pointing out that bringing in those people would make life infinitely less enjoyable for lots of members of the Democrats’ current coalition‚ like for example secular Jews‚ feminists‚ LGBTQ Alphabet people‚ and others owing to the less-enlightened cultural sensibilities of the dominant portion of Palestinians‚ makes for even more fun. There really ought to be a spate of TV spots pumping out there with the accusation that Biden’s next migrant flood will be a bunch of Oct. 7 alumni. Hell‚ why not&;#63; It’s probably true and nobody would be surprised if he did it. 5. I’m With The Critical Drinker On Fallout Who am I kidding&;#63; I’m pretty much always with The Critical Drinker. His reviews are more or less the best guide for quality (and otherwise) movies and TV‚ and I’ll disagree with him very‚ very infrequently. Having found myself with an unexpected hole in my schedule Wednesday afternoon and evening‚ I took his advice on Fallout and plowed through all eight episodes. Oh‚ yeah. This was his advice: I didn’t expect to get much out of the show‚ which is streaming at Amazon Prime at present. I never played the game it’s based on‚ though I’d heard Fallout was one of the most imaginative role-playing video games ever produced. I played video games as a kid. I fought off a double addiction to Sim City and the Civilization games as a younger adult. I’m too busy to ever return to gaming (which‚ while fun‚ is not living productively). A TV series based on one of these games is plenty enough for me now‚ though after suffering through Resident Evil‚ HALO‚ Mortal Kombat‚ and a couple of other adaptations that the Drinker notes were colossal misses‚ my expectations of Fallout were not all that high. Maybe they should have been. I didn’t make the connection until I saw the Drinker’s review‚ because he doesn’t look like himself in the show‚ but Walton Goggins is masterful in Fallout. It’s a performance that reminds the viewer of his portrayal of the delightfully glib villain Boyd Crowder in Justified‚ but of course‚ The Ghoul‚ Goggins’ character in Fallout‚ does not look the same. There are things in the show I’m guessing you’d need to have played the game to fully understand‚ but those don’t ruin the series. It’s a very entertaining romp through a post-nuclear holocaust wasteland of a world‚ where hard-bitten and highly uncivilized surface dwellers survive the best way they can while the denizens of the underground nuclear bomb shelters (or vaults‚ as they’re known in Fallout) enjoy a false corporate-sponsored utopia. That might sound woke‚ but it isn’t. Goggins’ portrayal of The Ghoul is matched by Ella Purnell’s Lucy‚ a naive vaulter forced to the surface to search for her kidnapped father. As the Drinker notes‚ Lucy is a strong female character without being the Strong Female Character we all hate in movies. She’s human‚ she survives on her wits rather than by beating the hell out of men twice her size‚ and she’s likable. The Drinker notes it’s not that hard to write characters like Lucy so long as you aren’t preaching woke pieties to the audience. You don’t get all that much of that from Fallout‚ though it’s a bit of a sendup of the military-industrial complex. Most of all‚ though‚ it’s just a fun show. As post-apocalyptic dystopian action romps go‚ this is as entertaining as it gets. The post Five Quick Things: The ‘I Choose The Bear’ Meme appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.