Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

JUNE 1-2,  2023

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE:

NOT EXACTLY THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN:   Think of the great history, then think of this.  From Fox:   The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force is being pressured to filter out "useless white male pilots" in an effort to hit diversity targets, according to leaked emails obtained by local media.  The messages seen by Sky News also show that a number of selection boards used to place new recruits were canceled if they didn't include women or minorities.  The RAF maintains its standards have not been lowered to increase the number or diverse applicants.  "Selection standards were not and have not been altered and there was no compromise of entry standards and no impact on the frontline or operational effectiveness," an RAF spokesperson told the news outlet.  The military branch is also paying more than $123,000 to 31 White men who it found had been disadvantaged by the new policy. The payments contradict statements by Air Chief Marshal Wigston that the diversity push would not discriminate against White men, sources told the news station.  Imagine if Winston Churchill had been confronted with the word "diversity" when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany.   How might he have reacted?  If you have any suggestions, send them here, to comments@urgentagenda.com

June 2, 2023       Permalink

A TERRIFIC STORY:  We've all watched, with appropriate horror, as the WOKE movement has infiltrated medical schools, trying to replace excellence with equity in the training of physicians.  But now there's pushback, and it shows what first-class professionals can accomplish if they have the guts and discipline to fight the monster.  From the New York Post: 

Conservative activist Kenny Xu, who’s fighting what he says are harmful diversity, equity and inclusion practices at US medical schools, says he’s notched another anti-DEI win at the University of North Carolina — with the help of a renowned, African-born, US-based heart surgeon.

Xu persuaded Harvard-trained Dr. Nche Zama, 66, who was born in the Republic of Cameroon and immigrated alone to the US at age 14 with just $20, to speak at one of the anti-DEI events Xu organized in Chapel Hill in February aimed at getting the UNC medical school to back off its policies.

Now UNC’s medical school says it has disbanded its DEI task force, adding that it has no plans to implement its recommendations now or in the future.

“The most important issue should be educational excellence but it’s the one thing missing in all these DEI policies,” Zama, 66, a Pennsylvania-based cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon who was raised in a grass hut in Cameroon, told The Post about why he spoke on behalf of Xu’s campaign.

“I’m all for diversity and inclusion but I believe these issues should be grounded in excellence in education.”

Zama and Xu, the founder of Color Us United, had objected to recommendations made by a DEI task force set up by the school.

They had been supported by FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), which wrote to the UNC Medical School to say the organization was concerned about possible First Amendment violations incurred by the school’s DEI policies.

But the school revealed it was backing off of many of its 84 DEI task force recommendations in response to the letter from FIRE.

“The recommendations have not been operationalized and the task force has concluded its work,” the school said in its response to FIRE, sent in May.

The letter also said there is no plan to implement the task force’s recommendations now or in the future.

The school emailed The Post a statement that the task force, which was formed in 2019, had actually completed its work in 2020.

Xu, however, disputed the claim and said the school has been carrying out taskforce-recommended policies such as “unconscious bias training” and “racially-preferential admissions” since at least 2020.

Xu, the son of highly-educated Chinese immigrants, has been on a mission with his group, Color Us United, to end what he sees as dangerous DEI policies in medical schools and bring back academic meritocracy.

In February, after Xu’s lobbying efforts, the board of governors at the University of North Carolina voted to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements from hiring and tenure decisions.

Xu told The Post Thursday that what he called the medical school’s recent “public reversal” of its plan to implement the task force’s plans was the first of its kind among American universities which have been ramping up DEI policies since the May 2020 death of George Floyd.

“We needed a win at UNC medical school to go to Harvard and Stanford medical schools and say what you guys are doing is not scientifically necessary,” Xu said. “It doesn’t help the quality of patient care.”

Zama, the author of “Mommy Please Don’t Die,” which details how he watched his mother bleed out in childbirth and die when he was only 10 and then how he later came to the US with almost no money and became a surgeon, said that racism is a reality but lowering standards in medical school for minority students is a bad idea.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  It's well worth it.  And send it to friends.  We can win the fight against mediocrity and socialist absurdity, but the battle will be bitter and long.  Recruiting more people like Dr. Zama is a huge step.

June 2, 2023       Permalink

DEBT BILL CLEARS:  The bipartisan bill funding the U.S. Government so it doesn't default at the end of the week, and containing other provisions, passed the U.S. Senate tonight.  It had already passed the House, and now goes to the president for his certain signature. 

So this "crisis" is over.  The Government won't run out of money, and, of course, the next generation will pay the bill for the loans that make solvency possible.  What a way to run a country!  From Fox: 

The Senate passed a bill to raise the government's borrowing limit late Thursday night, sending it to President Biden’s desk with just days to spare before the government was set to run out of money to pay its obligations on June 5.

The bill, which implements the deal struck by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending, passed in a 63-36 vote. Four Democrats, 31 Republicans and one Independent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted "no."

House lawmakers sent the bill to the Senate on Wednesday in a bipartisan 314-117 vote after weeks of intense negotiations between McCarthy and Biden. The Senate's inability to pass its own bill made it a bystander in those talks and gave senators no realistic option other than approving the deal. 

The bipartisan deal suspends the debt limit with no cap through Jan. 1, 2025, cuts non-defense spending to near fiscal 2022 levels, caps spending increases at 1% the following year and sets non-mandatory caps for the four years after. It also claws back some money aimed at the Internal Revenue Service and some unspent COVID-19 pandemic funds.

Defense spending would rise by about 3% in the first year of the deal, below the rate of inflation. That drew complaints from several Republicans senators who warned on the floor that the deal would harm U.S. national security.

"To my House colleagues, I can't believe you did this," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on the Senate floor. "To the Speaker, I know you’ve got a tough job. I like you. But the party of Ronald Reagan is dying. Don't tell me that a defense budget that’s $42 billion below inflation fully funds the military."

Graham and others threatened to hold up the bill until assurances were given that defense spending would not be limited by the deal, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., offered those assurances.

"The agreement includes a commitment that the Senate will not be limited in its ability to respond to emerging or ongoing national security threats, including Russia’s unjust and unprovoked war in Ukraine, challenges posed by China with respect to our economy and the growing threat to Taiwan, and protecting vital interests and partners in the Middle East," Graham's office said in a statement released as the Senate was considering the bill.

COMMENT:  This all occurred at the very time when the race for the GOP presidential nomination is heating up, with many more candidates joining than had been expected.  It also occurs at a time of growing concern in the Democratic Party that President Biden might not be able to make the run.  The Dems do not have a deep bench, and the name Kamala Harris is not greeted with unbounded enthusiasm.-2

June 1,  2023     Permalink

MAY 31,  2023

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE

THIS IS INSANE; IT'S ALSO CALIFORNIA:  FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a controversial progressive prosecutor who was booted by voters last year over his soft-on-crime policies, is taking the helm of a new criminal justice center at UC Berkeley School of Law.  Boudin, 42, was named the executive director of the school’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, he announced in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed Wednesday.  “In my new role, just as I did as district attorney, I will continue to draw on networks of advocates, activists, judges and legal practitioners to support reform and advance safety in ways that are rigorous, principled and responsive to the lived experiences of directly impacted communities,” he wrote.  “The center will systematically evaluate the outcomes of specific policies and communicate to the public which policy changes are essential to enhancing public safety and justice,” Boudin said...Boudin is the son of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who were members of the far-left Weather Underground terrorist organization.  Both were convicted of murder and served decades in prison for the deadly 1981 Brink’s armored truck heist in Rockland County, New York.  The 14-month-old future DA was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents.  Do these universities ever learn anything, or is their devotion to Marxist doctrine so great that all common sense is swept down the drain?

NO ONE'S HAPPY, BUT IT'S GETTING DONE:  Look, bottom line, the United States cannot default on its debts, and a debt payment is due around the end of this week.  So, the Democrats and Republicans have negotiated an agreement whereby the debt ceiling will be raised, and each side gets some economic concessions to sweeten the deal.  The package has passed the House and is headed for the Senate.

Neither side is happy, especially the most conservative Republicans in the House, who believe that GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy could have gotten more from President Biden.  Some conservatives are threatening to try to stop the agreement in the Senate, but that seems very unlikely.  No one wants to be responsible for a national debt default.

Seems to me that the Speaker did as well as could be expected.  Our side only controls the House, and only by four votes.  We don't control the Senate or the White House.  Those who complain have their marching orders – increase GOP power in next year's elections, and things will go better next time.   And we should remember Ronald Reagan's comment that if he gets 80% in a negotiation, he has a good deal.

I can understand the disappointment of conservatives.  I share some of it.  But the debt negotiations are not the hill to die on.  The debt ceiling throws a monkey wrench into serious talks about other issues.  As we used to say in Brooklyn when the Dodgers lost a World Series, "Wait 'til next year!"

May 31, 2023       Permalink