Daily Digest |  |
- The Shame of Joe Biden
- The Geek in Pictures: Signals Edition
- Students for Fair Admissions files cert petition in Harvard case
- Shapes of things (22)
- Investigative journalism, Russian style
| Posted: 25 Feb 2021 04:20 PM PST (John Hinderaker) Politicians are not, in general, renowned for honesty. Spin is universal and exaggeration goes with the territory. But actual lying–verifiable, damnable lying about an important public issue–is relatively uncommon. Unless we are talking about Joe Biden. During the campaign, Biden absurdly alleged that President Trump had mishandled the COVID epidemic, and therefore had murdered the several hundred thousand Americans who allegedly died from that disease. The theory was that if Trump had done something differently–God knows what–the U.S. would have been the only country on Earth with zero Wuhan deaths. Reporters went along with Biden’s fantasy. Since his inauguration, Biden has continued his assault on his predecessor by claiming, repeatedly, that little was going on with regard to vaccinations until he took office, and that the Trump administration “had no plan” to effectuate vaccinations. This, too, is a damnable lie. Biden repeated it today:
Here is the chart:
Operation Warp Speed was President Trump’s last and in some ways greatest gift to the American people. Not because COVID is a disease of unprecedented or even unusual virulence, but because shutdowns have devastated the lives of many millions of Americans, especially children. The fact that Joe Biden does not have the grace to acknowledge this, but rather continues to baldly defame his predecessor, is testimony to his low character. There are a number of ways to look at Joe Biden, but my verdict is this: he is too stupid to be humble.     |
| The Geek in Pictures: Signals Edition Posted: 25 Feb 2021 02:06 PM PST (Steven Hayward) So, interest rates keep rising, along with commodity prices. (And gasoline prices.) And yet Democrats want to spend another $4 trillion right away. What could go wrong? Maybe the government will pay for it with gains on GameStop stock. Which is rising again.
Heck, this last chart makes me want to get a head start on Saturday:
Some data on race and policing, by ideology and race:
Some COVID perspectives:
Maybe that is because of this:
From Echelon Insights survey from this month:
Interesting that Pelosi scores lower than Trump:
Mark Perry strikes again:
 Trends in university faculty composition The dumbest chart ever made:
And finally. . .
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| Students for Fair Admissions files cert petition in Harvard case Posted: 25 Feb 2021 09:32 AM PST (Paul Mirengoff) Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), the plaintiff in a lawsuit alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants, has filed a petition for certiorari to U.S. Supreme Court in its case against the school. A liberal district court judge ruled in favor of Harvard and a liberal court of appeals panel affirmed that ruling. Perhaps the non-liberal Supreme Court will take the case and rule against Harvard, whose discrimination against Asian-Americans is obvious. Here is how SFFA’s cert petition opens: "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race." League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399, 511 (2006) (Roberts, C.J., concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part). "'[D]iscrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society.'" City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 521 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). "'[E]very time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all.'" Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin (Fisher I), 570 U.S. 297, 316 (2013) (Thomas, J., concurring). "Our nation gave its word over and over again: it promised in every document of more than two centuries of history that all persons shall be treated Equally." Price v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 604 P.2d 1365, 1390 (Cal. 1980) (Mosk, J., dissenting). "Our constitution," as Justice Harlan recognized, "is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 559 (1896) (dissent). The Court vindicated the promise of equality in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), rejecting "'any authority … to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities.'" Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 747 (2007). Ten years later, Congress passed Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to extend Brown's command to private universities that accept federal funds. Yet Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 390 (2003), abandoned the principle of racial neutrality that Brown and Title VI vindicated. Grutter did so by improperly affording broad deference to university administrators to pursue a diversity interest that is far from compelling. To this end, Grutter endorsed racial objectives that are amorphous and unmeasurable and thus incapable of narrow tailoring. Unsurprisingly then, universities have used Grutter as a license to engage in outright racial balancing. This case shows that judicial scrutiny under Grutter is anything but strict. But given Harvard's flagrant violations of Title VI, it fails strict scrutiny even under Grutter. Harvard's mistreatment of Asian-American applicants is appalling. Harvard penalizes them because, according to its admissions office, they lack leadership and confidence and are less likable and kind. This is reason enough to grant review. That Harvard engages in racial balancing and ignores race-neutral alternatives also proves that Harvard does not use race as a last resort. All of this makes intervention that much more urgent. . . . SFFA has also filed a federal lawsuit challenging Yale's discriminatory admissions policy. Last Fall, it attempted to intervene in a suit by the Justice Department alleging that Yale's admissions practices discriminate against Asian-American and White applicants. That request was denied. This month, the Biden Justice Department withdrew the suit against Yale. Fortunately, SFFA has stepped into the breach with a lawsuit of its own. The Harvard and Yale suits attempt to uphold a fundamental proposition — one that shouldn’t be subject to dispute. As Edward Blum, SFFA’s president puts it: “Students applying to undergraduate and post-graduate programs should be judged on their individual talents, character, academic skills, extra-curricular achievements and socio-economic background but not the color of their skin."   |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2021 06:02 AM PST (Scott Johnson) Amazon isn’t talking about its suppression of Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally, but it has referred an inquiring reporter to its new hate speech policy. So Daniel Payne reports at Just the News. I infer that Amazon isn’t talking, however, because there is nothing that can reasonably described as hate speech in Anderson’s book. Anderson himself comments in his First Things essay “When Amazon erased my book.” The Washington Free Beacon’s Santi Ruiz followed up on Payne’s story in “Amazon quietly ends sales of books it labels ‘hate speech.'” Ruiz’s story drily concludes: “Adolf Hitler’s tract Mein Kampf can currently be ordered on Prime for single-day shipping.” It is obvious that such examples could be multiplied endlessly. Need it be said that Quotations From Chairman Mao by the greatest mass murderer of all time remains for sale at Amazon? (Ilya Somin: “[B]oth Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people – easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.”) Amazon is engaged simply in the suppression of heterodox views. Amazon, by the way, has an entire store dedicated to Che Guevara. Jay Nordlinger devoted the 2005 essay “Che chic” to the phenomenon. (Jay has more here, including a citation to Maria Werlau’s “Che Guevara’s forgotten victims.”)   |
| Investigative journalism, Russian style Posted: 25 Feb 2021 04:40 AM PST (Scott Johnson) New York Times media reporter Ben Smith has the intensely interesting story “How Investigative Journalism Flourished in Hostile Russia.” The crazy brave dissident Alexei Navalny turns up in Smith’s bullet points:
Smith elaborates:
It figures that Navalny has been CANCELED by Amnesty International, as Tom Goodenough puts it in his Spectator column. (The Spectator has made Goodenough’s column accessible for us this morning.) The editors of Spiked have declared “Amnesty International: useful idiots for censorship.” Subhead: “It has revoked Alexei Navalny's status as a 'prisoner of conscience,' accusing him of 'hate speech.'” Below is the Navalny video that has racked up more than 100 million views. It is hilariously derisive toward Putin. The production values are excellent. Although it is not easy to keep up with them, it has English subtitles. Watching the video, I thought, Mister we could use a man like Alexei Navalny right here right now to do Joe Biden.   |
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