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by GregC
by GregC
Join Jim and Greg serve up three good martinis to start the week. First, they watch new Argentinian President Javier Milei with great interest, especially after he shuttered 12 of 21 government ministries on his first day in office. What impact will these libertarian principles have on the nation and beyond?
They also breathe a sigh of relief for Houston, Texas. While they have no great expectations for incoming Mayor John Whitmire, they’re glad that voters rejected longtime far left Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee by a wide margin.
Finally, they discuss a survey of college students showing 86 percent support the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Yet only 47 percent know which river and sea are involved. And the good news is that the vast majority of students who realized that the chant implies the eradication of Israel then oppose it.
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by GregC
Jim and Greg discuss 88-year-old Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley announcing he will run for an eighth term next year and how he is probably the best GOP option to hold the seat. They also highlight the fact that dozens of California school kids are desperately trying to leave Afghanistan and the Biden administration and the media pretend it’s not even happening. And they hammer Biden for promoting the despicable lie that border patrol officers on horseback were whipping Haitian migrants.
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by GregC
Listen to “The Cost of Closed Schools, Warren Revives Wealth Tax, Dems Ditching Cuomo” on Spreaker.
Join Jim and Greg as they discuss the staggering number of students who fell through the cracks because schools were closed and the impact that could have. They also roll their eyes as Elizabeth Warren and a couple of allies in the House propose a wealth tax, and they discuss why New York Democrats suddenly seem so eager to boot Gov. Cuomo.
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by GregC
Jim Geraghty of National Review and guest host Gregory Knapp discuss the Mexican government deploying 10,000 troops to the border to crack down on illegal immigration to the U.S. They cover the real concentration camps that the Chinese have constructed. And they discuss Bernie Sanders’ plan to wipe out all student loans.
by GregC
Donald Trump’s election triggered an avalanche of grief and defiance on many college campuses, and administrators are accommodating the grieving students through a variety of efforts, but a top official at one of America’s best known traditional schools says the actions of both students and administrators are way off course.
Since Trump became president-elect on the morning of Nov. 9, schools around the country are taking great pains to comfort students traumatized by the GOP victory. Some are setting aside “election processing spaces.” Others options include counseling for students, vigils, and even sharing the suicide hotline numbers. The University of Michigan Law School even planned a therapy event featuring Play-Doh before eventually canceling it.
Not all campuses are seeing so much volatility. One is Hillsdale College in Michigan. The school is well known for is 172-year refusal to accept any federal money. Even federal student loan money is no good there.
Hillsdale Provost Dr. David Whalen says the emotional fragility seen on so many campuses comes as no surprise. .
“These are really the predictable consequences of an entirely politicized environment in higher education,” said Whalen.
“For a long, long time now, higher education has been entirely political. It’s forsaken it’s original purpose to foster a keen-sighted intellectual awareness on the part of students and instead indoctrinate them politically. This is what you get. You get what can only be described as an infantilized student body,” said Whalen.
In addition to creating an environment where such emotional demonstrations are becoming common place, whether about election results or perceived discrimination, Whalen says the way administrators are responding to the outcries is also very harmful.
“If the student is in your face, shouting and bellowing demands, you have failed that student in some fundamental way. The most important thing at this moment is not publicity but what you can do to restore the student to a receptive educational context,” said Whalen.
“You’re a teacher. That’s a student. The student needs you. The student needs to be informed by you in some significant respect. Don’t forget that’s your primary role,” said Whalen.
So why do administrators regularly cater to the student demands. Whalen sees multiple reasons.
“Administrators are often quite sympathetic with the students making the demands. They wish they could move as quickly as the students are urging them to move,” said Whalen. “The second reason is they, in too many cases I should say, lack the moral and intellectual resources to respond to the students or at least respond coherently.”
“The administrators, as a rule, are very concerned with appearances; too concerned about appearances and not sufficiently concerned…about the moral and intellectual formation of the students, of the intemperate person making the demands,” said Whalen.
The result, he says, are college graduates not ready to face the real world.
“It’s the same thing that happens when you give in to a two-year-old’s demands repeatedly and then they hit adolescence. You get somebody who is completely incapable of governing himself,” he said.
Why does this not happen at Hillsdale? Whalen says students at Hillsdale know exactly what is expected of them.
“The students here understand they are partners. They are colleagues in an enterprise. They are not consumers unhappy with a product they are buying. They are undergoing a formation that they have to contribute to willingly. They’re plugged in. They’ve bought in. They’re engaged,” said Whalen.
Due to it’s independent nature, Hillsdale attracts a more conservative student body than most colleges and universities but debate and disagreement are everywhere on campus. Whalen says the difference is how students are taught to approach their disagreements.
“We educate them in the western intellectual tradition, which is a tradition of massive argument, disagreement and debate. We’re not indoctrinating people with conservative stuff. We’re just presenting this tradition that has arguments about everything from economics and the relation of the state to the individual to the existence of God and the nature of evil, everything imaginable,” said Whalen.
“When you wrap your mind at difficulty, under pressure and in strain around the most serious arguments about the most serious things, you turn into a pretty intellectually adept, responsible, mature person,” said Whalen.
The 2016 election brought fierce debate to campus, particularly during the primary season. Whalen was proud of how the students approached those debates without resorting to what’s being seen on other campuses.
“The debates were vigorous but civil,” he said. “There weren’t breaking up of friendships and shouting down dormitory hallways. There was a lot of very vigorous, very serious disagreement, but it was done with civility and respect. People didn’t assume that someone with a different point of view was morally deficient,” said Whalen.
by GregC
Liberty University students are standing by their public criticism of school president Jerry Falwell, Jr., for what they say is “inexorably associating” the school with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
On Thursday, a group called Liberty United Against Trump released a nine-paragraph letter rebuking Falwell for his enthusiastic backing of Trump and carrying the name of Liberty University with him.
“In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him, the statement begins.
“Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose,” the statement says.
Liberty United Against Trump spokesman Dustin Wahl says students, who firmly rejected Trump in the primary, are fed up with Falwell associating them with Trump.
“It’s about the fact we don’t want to associate Donald Trump with Christianity, most importantly, and then also with Liberty University,” said Wahl, noting that Falwell has traveled to campaign for Trump and also spoke at the Republican National Convention.
“He carries the banner of Liberty University when he goes. That’s why people know who President Falwell is,” said Wahl.
Wahl acknowledges and seems to largely agree with the argument that Hillary Clinton will be aggressively hostile to the values Liberty holds dear. However, he says the amount of passion Falwell has for Trump’s campaign is troubling to him.
“There’s quite a difference between casting a ballot for the lesser of two evils and being kind of frustrated about it than what Falwell has been doing, which is loudly and proudly supporting Donald Trump,” said Wahl.
Wahl says students have been frustrated with Falwell since the primary season, but Trump’s comments about women in the recently released Access Hollywood tape from 2005 demanded the group dissociate from Falwell. who continues to back Trump.
“Our motto is ‘Training Champions for Christ,’ and that is supposed to be our message. Our message isn’t supposed to be endorsing any political candidate, but especially not one who directly opposes everything that we’re taught and everything we’re supposed to stand for and believe,” said Wahl.
And while stating the gospel of Christ cannot be stopped by any man, Wahl says Falwell’s actions make the work more difficult.
“It’s difficult to advance the message of Jesus Christ of salvation from our sins when we’re tying ourselves directly to a man who is not only sinful, because we’re all sinful, but who proudly preaches his sin,” said Wahl.
He says Falwell and others who defend Trump risk being branded as hypocrites.
“It’s pretty disappointing when the same people who used to say that character matters when Bill Clinton has his problems are now saying that character doesn’t matter when it comes to voting for the highest office in the land,” said Wahl.
Falwell quickly responded to the student statement.
“I am proud of these few students for speaking their minds. It is a testament to the fact that Liberty University promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities where political correctness prevents conservative students from speaking out. However, I am afraid the statement is false in several respects,” stated Falwell.
Falwell stated that Trump has much more support on campus than his critics are willing to admit. He also says many of the people in Liberty United Against Trump aren’t even students and that he is always clear that he is not speaking for the university when he advocates for Trump.
He also claims his actions are biblical.
“I am only fulfilling my obligation as a citizen to ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ by expressing my personal opinion about who I believe is best suited to lead our nation in a time of crisis,” stated Falwell, referring to Mark 12:17.
Wahl is not impressed.
“I’m not a biblical scholar but I think there’s a strong argument to be made that’s he’s maybe taking that verse out of context. I believe that had a little more to do with taxes than , not so much with endorsing a specific presidential candidate,” said Wahl.
He says even Trump supporters on campus are applauding Trump opponents for speaking out.
“We’ve received word from all kinds of Trump supporters here on campus and other places that are proud of what we’re doing. Even though they’re voting for Donald Trump, they say, ‘Look, we don’t want Liberty to be associated with a man like Trump. I personally think Hillary Clinton is worse. But I don’t want my degree tied to someone like Donald Trump even though I’m choosing to vote for him for president,'” said Wahl.