THE SHOW NOTES: Charlottesville and Columbia, Funding Ukraine, & Kicking Out US Forces
Welcome! A German surfer broke the world record by catching a 93-foot wave.
NEW: The U.S. Department of Education has produced a list of schools under investigation for antisemitism.
LA CRIME: The mayor’s home was burglarized while she was home.
HEADLINE: Supreme Court waves off Kari Lake lawsuit over electronic voting - CNN
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Columbia University
The President of Columbia University announced that classes would be moved online today following antisemitic protests that have plagued the campus for more than a week.
What happened: Last night, anti-Israel students “formed a human chain” to prevent Jewish students from entering the university. More than 100 students have been arrested after the university asked police to break up an encampment that anti-Israel protestors created last week. Vulgar threats and physical intimidation were directed at Jewish students and faculty members which resulted in Columbia’s Orthodox Rabbi urging Jewish students to “go home and stay there” because the school refuses to guarantee their safety. Columbia has roughly 5,000 Jewish students on campus.
What do the protestors want: Following the Columbia President’s remarks to Congress, student protestors are demanding the university divest from any company associated with Israel. Protestors have erected a sprawling encampment on campus property including dozens of tents on the main campus lawn that has served as the base for the antisemitic threats.
Spreading: Similar anti-Israel encampments have popped up on the campuses of Harvard, MIT, and Emerson.
Must read: They Were Assaulted on Campus for Being Jews - The Free Press
Chinese-Americans Are Pushing San Francisco Toward the Political Center
Long a reliable voting bloc for the left, Chinese-Americans have been important drivers of a recent backlash against progressive policies in San Francisco, which has grown in support and been backed by tech industry money.
Members of the Chinese community, who make up one-fifth of this city of 810,000 and a slightly smaller percentage of registered voters, say they have been particularly incensed by incidents of anti-Asian violence, school policies they believe have emphasized equity over merit, and street homelessness. Many are also upset that property crime has long been higher in San Francisco than most other major cities, though it has dropped this year.
Chinese-Americans were among the most emphatic backers of ballot measures passed last month mandating drug screening for public welfare recipients and expanding police powers, as well as the 2022 recall of the three school board members and the district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Their margin of support for those efforts was 10 to 30 percentage points higher than the overall San Francisco voting population, according to an analysis of publicly available data by research firm Data Second. The firm is run by the husband of Marjan Philhour, a candidate for San Francisco Board of Supervisors running on a moderate platform.
Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall).
Niger’s Eviction of U.S. Commandos, Drones Derails America’s Counterterror Strategy
Niger has formally ordered the U.S. to withdraw counterterrorism troops and aerial drones from the country, driving the final nail in the coffin of American strategy to defeat a violent Islamist insurgency overrunning the heart of western Africa.
The decision to expel American forces will likely accelerate contingency plans that would pivot U.S. strategy from trying to defeat al Qaeda and Islamic State where they are strongest to trying to keep militants from infiltrating neighboring countries along the West African coast.
In meetings in Washington this week, Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine told Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell that virtually all of the 1,000 U.S. commandos and other personnel will have to leave, including those at a $110 million, U.S.-built drone base in the desert town of Agadez.
“Loss of basing in Niger complicates the Pentagon’s ability to achieve U.S. security objectives in the region,” a senior U.S. military officer said Saturday.
Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall).
DUMB: Gavin Newsom
California Governor Gavin Newsom shared a video suggesting women in Alabama could be arrested and forced to take a pregnancy test by police.
Trending news:
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Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal solar power grants - AP
Finland Long Believed It Could Tame Russia. Now Moscow Is Enemy No. 1. - WSJ (paywall)
TikTok Braces for US Divest-or-Ban Law — And a Legal Fight - Bloomberg (paywall)
Market snapshot:
There is a famous narrative called, "First They Came" by Pastor Martin Niemoller
It ends with:
"Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me"
We need to speak out for Israel and Jewish folks. This is a battle of Good v. Evil. To borrow a line from John F. Kenndy, "If not us, who? If not now, when?
These 'protests' are just the beginning. After the Jews, they'll come for Christians, then Hindus, then Sikhs. Eventually they'll get to the LGBTQ+ crowd and they won't stop till either everyone surrenders or is dead.
It remains beyond credulity that such prestigious universities allow this happen. Does one really think students bring camping equipment with them to campus?
That Columbia has 5,000 Jewish students who now are unsafe not to mention other students who likely feel the same suggests the Columbia University Administration has dramatically failed in a primary responsibility. Students ought to get a refund.