by Lewis Morris:  American higher education is in crisis. And not just because of $1.45 trillion in crippling student loan debt or declining enrollment or the even the violence that seems to pass for accepted behavior on college campuses.

          The real crisis here is a complete lack of intellectual diversity in America’s colleges and universities. Faculty and administration in a vast majority of America’s institutes of higher learning are not just overwhelmingly left of center politically but nearly unanimously so. A 2016 study found that America’s left-of-center college faculty outnumber right-of-center faculty 10 to one. That used to be two to one.
          To be clear, we are not talking about people who lean left. In most cases, these academics are unapologetically, vocally and even militantly leftist if not outright Marxist. And they are in positions of power in many of America’s colleges and universities, teaching our children, shaping their academic curriculum, and running the student life of college attendees.
          This is a trend that has been going on for 50 years. When the protest era of the 1960s came to an end, a number of avowed leftists were forlorn that they did not achieve their dream of tearing down the United States of America. They realized that direct confrontation would not work. They didn’t have the numbers, and their arguments supporting the leftist political viewpoint were intellectually and morally bankrupt. What to do?
          They stayed in school. The protesters became professors. They wormed their way into the higher education apparatus and changed the rules of the game. Over the intervening decades, they slowly but steadily slipped their ideology into the curriculum of America’s colleges and universities. They taught their leftist propaganda to students, who grew up to become professors, who taught their leftist propaganda… You see where this is going?
          We are now at a point of critical mass. This leftist takeover of the American education system, which also includes public grade schools, has been going on for years. It has become painfully evident since the election of Donald Trump. Leftists thought they were assured victory when liar-Hillary Clinton was within reach of following Barack liar-nObama into the White House. But the country came to its collective senses, and the Left did what it does best: It got really angry.
          The damage from the leftist takeover of American higher education is immense and growing. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, University of California, Santa Cruz, professor John Ellis points out, “The imbalance is not only a question of numbers. Well-balanced opposing views act as a corrective for each other: The weaker arguments of one side are pounced on and picked off by the other. Both remain consequently healthier and more intellectually viable. But intellectual dominance promotes stupidity. As one side becomes numerically stronger, its discipline weakens. The greater the imbalance between the two sides, the more incoherent and irrational the majority will become.”
          This is why we don’t see intellectually stimulating debate when Ben Shapiro or Milo Yiannopoulos appear on a college campus. Leftists would rather shout down and attack people. They are constantly surrounded by like-minded views, so they don’t have the intellectual capacity to frame their thoughts in a coherent way when challenged. In short, their brains don’t get exercise.
          Of course, any free-thinking person knows that the Left’s viewpoints are generally indefensible anyway. And leftists know that, too. That’s why they have purged America’s college campuses of intellectual opposition. And this has had a ripple effect that has impacted our whole society.
          The anti-male, every-man’s-a-rapist meme and the hostile social environment pushed by radical feminists on campus plays a major role in the 30% dropout rate among freshman males. A Brookings Institution study revealed that one in five college students believe that violence is an acceptable response to unacceptable speech. No wonder college enrollment is down. Who would want to put their family in massive debt sending their kid to school in such an environment?
          If the American higher education system remains in the grip of rabid leftists posing as academics, then the whole country will suffer. The social squishes who emerge from these institutions are ill-prepared to handle real life, shrinking back from every “micro-aggression” they experience, unable to take criticism and learn from it, and unable to be the leaders that this country’s next generation will need.
          Ellis points out that there is a solution — making these institutions of higher learning accountable. “What if voters were to insist … answers to some elementary questions? For example: How can a department of political science that excludes half the spectrum of viable political ideas be competent to offer degrees in the field? How can a history curriculum be taught competently when only one extremist attitude to social and political questions is present in a department? How can these extraordinary deficiencies deserve either accreditation, or support by state and federal funds?”
          Americans need to take back their schools and stop letting the Left run them as re-education camps. Higher learning is supposed to prepare you for a better life where you have the freedom to make your own choices and plan your own way to success as you define it. It’s not supposed to serve the ends of a bankrupt ideology whose only way to win an argument is to beat down the opposition.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52435

by Nate Jackson:  “Can My Children Be Friends With White People?” That was the title of a weekend op-ed at The New York Times. The author, Ekow N. Yankah, is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. And he answers the provocative title question in exactly the way you’d expect: With a “no.” He writes, “I will teach my boys to have profound doubts that friendship with white people is possible. … For many weary minorities, the ridiculous thing was thinking friendship was possible in the first place.”

          Moreover, Yankah continued by — what else — slamming Donald Trump: “Of course, the rise of this president has broken bonds on all sides. But for people of color the stakes are different. Imagining we can now be friends across this political line is asking us to ignore our safety and that of our children. … His election and the year that has followed have fixed the awful thought in my mind too familiar to black Americans: ‘You can’t trust these people.’”
          As Gary Bauer properly noted, “The Times would never and should never publish a column by a white professor asking if his children could be friends with black people.”
          That’s because what Yankah is writing is pure racism. Not only is he ignorant of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of a world that judges by character and not color, he turns that dream into a nightmare — deliberately. He argues, “The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s famous dream of black and white children holding hands was a dream precisely because he realized that in Alabama, conditions of dominance made real friendship between white and black people impossible.”
          What now makes those friendships impossible is the continued grievance-mongering of race-baiters like Yankah and leftist rags like The New York Times.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52423

by Political Editors:  With the mainstream media blaming Donald Trump for promoting hatred and all the talk of America being a society steeped in “white privilege” and racist nationalism, one might expect to see hate crime statistics support such claims. The FBI has released its “hate crimes” data for the year 2016. Now, as we have argued in the past, the designation of “hate crime” injects a rather subjective standard into motivating factors for crime and it’s often used to artificially increase the level of guilt beyond the actual criminal act. Moreover, leftist social justice warriors love to implicate the criminal’s entire social, religious or racial group, so long as it’s white or Christian. But for the sake of argument, let’s accept the FBI’s designation and look at some things.

          According to the data, over the past decade the total number of reported hate crimes has changed very little, with anti-black crimes remaining the highest reported percentage at 50.2%. However, over that same period there has been a significant shift in the percentage of white offenders. In 2007 — before the Age of Hope ‘n’ Change™ — nearly 63% of all known offenders were white; by 2016 and the rise of that big “hater” Donald Trump, that percentage had dropped to 46.3%. And while the percentage of white offenders has decreased, the percentage of anti-white crime saw an increase in 2016 to 20.5%, the highest level recorded since 2006.
          It’s not surprising to see an uptick in the number of anti-white hate crimes, since those who have been widely demonized by politically motivated leftists will tend to see a greater backlash against them by other groups who feel newly justified in their anger.
          Finally, one interesting stat not noted by the FBI were the number of crimes committed against politicians, particularly of the Republican variety. With all the rhetoric about Trump and Republicans supposedly fomenting hatred, it was Republicans who were violently attacked this past year, specifically when a Bernie Sanders-supporting leftist targeted and shot GOP House members practicing for a baseball game. And more recently there is Sen. Rand Paul, who is sporting six broken ribs after a blindside attack at the hands of his leftist neighbor. Are we the only ones detecting a pattern here?  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52414

by Todd Johnson:  Following last week’s election defeats in Virginia and New Jersey, many members of the Republican Party are wondering if the results are a one-time anomaly or potentially a harbinger of things to come in next year’s congressional contests. And while it’s tempting to write off the results as being due to the particular candidates not performing well or the locations leaning Democrat, the Republican Party must do its due diligence moving forward. Republicans must examine the facts, identify key lessons learned, and then push to all future candidates salient advice so that the same errors are not made for next year’s elections.

          And while many prognosticators and political pundits are quick to say that the Republican Party is in dire trouble — whether it’s the on-going Roy Moore saga in Alabama or President Donald Trump’s low approval ratings — the media is conveniently forgetting the political maxim that one set of off-year elections doesn’t make a trend.
          Take for example the media’s recent coverage of Republican House members and senators who have announced they won’t be running for re-election. The narrative by many outlets is that this movement portends disaster for the Party of Lincoln when nothing could be further from the truth.
          As of Nov. 13, two GOP senators and 12 House members have announced their retirements, two have resigned from office, and another 10 are leaving to pursue other elected offices. While these numbers sound like a lot, they are actually right in line with the last couple of election cycle’s turnover data.
          In 2014, 27 Republican representatives and senators choose not to run for re-election, while another eight decided to leave office early. In 2012, the number of GOP representatives and senators who decided to retire was 23, while one quit his office early.
          More importantly, we must remember that the vast majority of the seats being vacated by Republican incumbents are in GOP strongholds. Recent analysis shows that only a handful of seats are currently identified as competitive races. This dynamic, of course, can change but Republicans currently hold the tactical advantage — especially given that Senate Democrats are defending 25 seats (including two “independents”) while the GOP must hold just eight that are nearly all in solidly red states.
          That’s why it’s critical for the Party of Reagan to pass significant legislation (like tax reform) over the next year, as well as to keep putting conservative judges on the federal bench so that the members have some accomplishments to tout to their constituents. A look at the current and proposed 2018 House Calendar reveals that there are only 120 work days prior to next year’s election. That’s why it is imperative for Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader RINO-Mitch McConnell to work closely with President Trump in 2018. Unfortunately, neither Ryan nor RINO-McConnell has shown the leadership conservatives are craving.
          With 248 seats in the House of Representatives and 52 seats in the Senate, this Congress began with the largest Republican majority since the 71st Congress of 1929–1931. While there have been some very positive things have been accomplished in Trump’s first year, there have been too many missed opportunities. 2018 must be the year that the national Republican leadership coalesces, steps up to the plate, and delivers for the American people.
          They need to heed the advice of Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote back in 1811, “If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.”  ~The Patriot Post  https://patriotpost.us/articles/52409 

by Culture Beat:  GQ magazine named Colin Kaepernick its “citizen of the year” for his instigation last year of NFL kneeling protests. The magazine noted that Kaepernick refused to be interviewed for the cover article, explaining, “As his public identity has begun to shift from football star to embattled activist, he has grown wise to the power of his silence.” Seeking to suggest that Kaepernick is sacrificing himself for the cause, GQ quotes rapper J. Cole, who states, “Had [Kaepernick not taken a knee], this guy would be making millions of dollars right now. Period, point blank. And more important than the money, he was living his dream. He sacrificed his dream.” World’s smallest violin, please.

          Ironic how little respect and honor Kaepernick was willing to show for those who literally sacrificed their very lives to ensure that pro football players and other celebrity athletes enjoy the freedom of being able to make millions of dollars doing what they love to do. If Kaepernick were truly concerned about sacrificing himself for the cause of others, he’d march down to the nearest military recruiter’s office and sign up to fight for Liberty.
          In the meantime, Kaepernick may want to read up on famed abolitionist and escaped slave Frederick Douglass’ perspective on this nation Kaepernick so clearly despises. While Douglass was not shy about criticizing that “peculiar institution” of slavery, he encouraged black Americans to sign up with the Union to fight for freedom. He was also known to regularly play “The Star-Spangled Banner” on his violin, and in an 1871 speech at Arlington National Cemetery he said that “if the Star-Spangled Banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army.”
          The problem for leftists like Kaepernick and GQ is that they no longer believe, and may have never believed, that the United States of America is a noble nation that has consistently espoused and defended the ideals of justice and Liberty. So on the heels of Veterans Day, GQ honored the wrong kneeler.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52401

by Thomas Gallatin:  Every headline should be focused on the corrupt behavior of the DNC, liar-Hillary Clinton and the liar-Clinton Foundation — especially its funding of the phony dossier on Donald Trump. Instead, what America gets is more anti-Trump obsession as the mainstream media continues to beat the dead horse of the Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy. Evidently, for the MSM fantasy is preferable to reality.

          Over the weekend, a clearly apoplectic CNN reported that Trump was “done confronting President Vladimir Putin over his country’s election meddling.” When questioned, Trump stated, “[Putin] said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times.” Trump added, “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.” It was this kind of nuanced language that prompted the Leftmedia to fawn over Barack liar-nObama, and yet with Trump, somehow all the nuance is lost. Notice that Trump never said that he believes Putin didn’t meddle…
          And there’s a good reason for Trump’s rather cryptic response. As he stated earlier, “You have President Putin very strongly, vehemently, [saying] he has nothing to do with that. Now, you are not going to get into an argument, you are going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine.” He also tweeted, “Hope for [Putin’s] help to solve, along with China, the dangerous North Korea crisis.” Regardless of the fact that Russia sought to meddle in the election, something we’re certain has long been Moscow’s practice, the U.S. must still attempt to maintain some semblance of a working relationship. Trump clearly understands this priority over that of the Leftmedia and its continuous anti-Trump Resistance™ crusade.
          But back to that dubious dossier and the Russian story on which the media should be focused. We now know that Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, met with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya on the same day she had the infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. An innocent coincidence? Why won’t the Leftmedia, which has been so concerned with Russian election meddling, bother to dig into this interesting piece of information? Given that Fusion GPS was the firm responsible for the phony dossier, this meeting was most certainly not an “unrelated coincidence.” Ah, but that would mean digging into liar-Hillary’s campaign, something the MSM is loath to do.
          On another note, it’s now being reported that there is evidence of a second dossier — and this one alleges financial misconduct by major donors to the liar-Clinton Foundation. It would seem that this second dossier, also created by Fusion GPS, may have been the pretext of dirt on liar-Clinton that Veselnitskaya used to set up the meeting with Trump Jr. National Review’s Andrew McCarthy writes:
          My conjecture is that there are three explanations for what happened here, none of which excludes the others: (a) The Russians do not understand American political campaigns well enough to appreciate that alleged misconduct by a donor does not hurt a candidate if the candidate is not complicit in the misconduct; (b) the Putin regime attempted (unsuccessfully) to lure the Trump campaign into its anti–Magnitsky Act [adoption law] effort by convincing Don Trump Jr. and other campaign officials that there was a useful anti-liar-Clinton angle to be exploited; and (c) the Putin regime calculated that, simply by taking a meeting with a Kremlin emissary on the promise of damaging information about liar-Clinton, the Trump campaign would foolishly expose itself to blackmail by Putin.
          As we have stated repeatedly, Putin couldn’t care less who won the election. Russia’s aim was to sow distrust in the American electoral system, and Fusion GPS evidently played a key role.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52390

http://video.insider.foxnews.com/v/5642396223001

          On Friday afternoon, Moore interviewed with Sean Hannity to defend himself. He not only denied the story of Leigh Corfman, the primary accuser in The Washington Post’s exposé, he denied even knowing her. “I don’t know Ms. Corfman from anybody,” Moore said. “The allegations of sexual misconduct with her are completely false.”
          Three other women claim Moore either had or attempted to have a dating relationship with them when he was in his 30s and they were teens (above Alabama’s age of consent, 16). When Hannity asked about these or similar relationships, Moore was ambiguous: “No, not generally. … I’m not going to dispute anything. … It would have been out of my customary behavior. … I don’t remember going out on dates. I knew her as a friend. If we did go out on dates then we did. But I do not remember that. … I don’t remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother.”
          The problem with his denial of Corfman’s story is that witnesses at the time — including her mother — corroborate the story. And according to former deputy district attorney Teresa Jones, a prosecutor who worked with Moore in the early 1980s, “It was common knowledge that Roy dated high school girls. Everyone we knew thought it was weird. We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall … but you really wouldn’t say anything to someone like that.”
          Other women who experienced sexual abuse say that Corfman’s story — and especially her reasons for taking so long to tell it — resonate with them.
          Gloria Allred, feminist extraordinaire, will hold a press conference today with a new accuser. Horrible that it’s a new accuser; dismissible because Allred’s involved.
          Even Moore’s defenders are either not denying his odd relationships or they’re bizarrely using Scripture to justify the behavior.
          All of this is to say the allegations are hard to dismiss as unbelievable … except for the timing of what was an obvious smear by the Democrats’ favorite paper, The Washington Post. In fact, Moore has threatened to sue the Post. Furthermore, one of the women talking about her dating relationship with Moore, Deborah Gibson, was a liar-Clinton campaign volunteer, though Corfman says she’s a Republican.
          In any case, as we said Friday, things don’t look good for Moore. He’s losing both endorsements and money from fellow Republicans. Recent polling shows the gap closing between him and Democrat opponent Doug Jones, and it’s too late to remove his name from the ballot. That, of course, was the point of the Post running the story when it did.
          As Mark Alexander puts it, “It is prudent to leave the door open for an ounce of doubt when The Washington Post runs a story with 40-year-old allegations of sex abuse a month ahead of an election, against a candidate who has been a public figure for most of those 40 years with not a (public) peep about these allegations previously. At best the allegations are totally unprovable and false, but the Post colluded with his accusers and timed the release of the story to affect the outcome of the election. At worst the allegations remain unprovable and true, but the Post colluded with his accusers and timed the release of the story to affect the outcome of the election.”  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52393