Suh-prize, Suh-prize, It Was Never About Anti-Semitism. Just MAGAts going after an institution they don’t like:
The intensely hostile letter that Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent to the leadership of Harvard yesterday has a lot going on. But the most notable thing about it is what it leaves out.
To hear McMahon tell it, Harvard is a university on the verge of ruin. (I say McMahon because her signature is at the bottom of the letter, but portions of the document are written in such a distinctive idiolect—“Why is there so much HATE?” the letter asks; it signs off with “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”—that one detects the spirit of a certain uncredited co-author.) She accuses it of admitting students who are contemptuous of America, chastises it for hiring the former blue-city mayors Bill de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot to teach leadership (“like hiring the captain of the Titanic to teach navigation”), questions the necessity of its remedial-math program (“Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics?”), and accuses its board chair, Penny Pritzker (“a Democrat operative”), of driving the university to financial ruin, among many other complaints. The upshot is that Harvard should not bother to apply for any new federal funding, because, McMahon declares, “today’s letter marks the end of new grants for the University.”
What you will not find in the McMahon letter is any mention of the original justification for the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on elite universities: anti-Semitism. As a legal pretext for trying to financially hobble the Ivy League, anti-Semitism had some strategic merit. Many students and faculty justifiably feel that these schools failed to take harassment of Jews seriously enough during the protests that erupted after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. By centering its critique on that issue, the administration was cannily appropriating for its own ends one of the progressive left’s highest priorities: protecting a minority from hostile acts.
Now, however, the mask is off. Aside from one oblique reference to congressional hearings about anti-Semitism (“the great work of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik”), the letter is silent on the subject. The administration is no longer pretending that it is standing up for Jewish students. The project has been revealed for what it is: an effort to punish liberal institutions for the crime of being liberal.
I linked to the McMahon letter so you can read that word salad for yourself. Please do. And comment. Also, feel free to speculate as to who really wrote it.
Another One Bites The Dust. Hey, $67 mill is merely a drop in the bucket Red Sea:
A Navy fighter jet failed to land on an aircraft carrier and plummeted into the Red Sea on Tuesday, marking the fourth major mishap involving the vessel and the third loss of a fighter jet deployed with it since the warship left home last year.
The F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet, worth about $67 million, went overboard after an unsuccessful attempt to slow it down upon landing on the USS Harry S. Truman, the Navy said in a statement. Both aviators aboard the jet safely ejected and were rescued at sea by helicopter with minor injuries, and no one aboard the warship’s flight deck was harmed, the service said.
Trump Gets Rid Of Everything Good, A Continuing Series. Energy Star. Hmmm, low-flow shower heads have anything to do with that?:
The agency is also planning to close its Energy Star program, a longstanding public-private partnership certifying energy efficient appliances and helping consumers find products and tax credits to bring down the cost of energy efficient appliances like air conditioners, heat pumps, refrigerators and washing machines.
President Donald Trump floated dismantling or privatizing Energy Star in his first term, but the fate of the program has been unclear so far in his second term. Bipartisan groups have been urging the administration to save it.
“Eliminating the Energy Star program would directly contradict this administration’s promise to reduce household energy costs,” said Paula Glover, president of the nonprofit coalition Alliance to Save Energy, in a statement to CNN. “For just $32 million a year, Energy Star helps American families save over $40 billion in annual energy costs. That’s a return of $350 for every federal dollar invested.”
Other than Trump, is there anybody in America who wants to get rid of this?
Didja Know Who Lives Right Next Door To Wilmington’s ‘Gibraltar’? I didn’t. Turns out it’s former ‘Mayor Mike’ Purzycki, whose administration coughed up huge chunks–of money–to rehab the property.