A young Hillsdale student writes:

All of us young people need to give manual work a try, and summer is the perfect opportunity to do so. It needn’t be your full-time job: Build a fence for your parents, mow some elderly neighbors’ lawns, take care of a friend’s toddler for the day.

Proverbs says:

 Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.

The idleness the pandemic forced us into and the lethargy and idiocy that has come in its wake prove the wisdom of both writers.  This Sunday morning as I head to church (to celebrate graduates!) I pray for utility, productivity and activity.

Big stories yesterday about H.R. 6090, “Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023.”  The title is certainly inoffensive, terribly appropriate actually, given what is happening on our campuses these days.  The host contends it was intended primarily to demonstrate the antisemitic streak in the Democrats, most evident anyway in the likes of Ilan Omar and Rashidi Tlaib – and it did with 70 Democrats (more than 30%) voting against the resolution.  However, there were also a scant few Republicans (<10%) that voted against it and that, the host rightly points out, is what the left-leaning media decided to make the story.  The Republican objections were from the very, very far right of the party and entirely different from those of the Democrats.  I was intrigued.  On its face, how could a bill against antisemitism be objectionable to any other than those that are antisemitic or support those that are.  So, I looked into it.

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President Biden’s comments yesterday on the campus unrest seemed to want it both ways.  Something often referred to as “splitting the baby.”  Because we don’t get near the Bible in public education anymore, people may not know that reference.  It refers to a biblical story wherein two women come before King Solomon claiming motherhood over a baby and Solomon responds by offering to split the baby in half, half for each woman.  Of course, the real mother immediately reveals herself, repelled by the thought and offers to give the baby to the other woman rather than watch her child die. It is an example of Solomon’s renown wisdom.  But where does the wisdom lie?

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Our nation sits on a foundation built of decency and respect for the law.  Before there was a constitution, a Congress, a presidency or justices, there were those two things.  It is impossible to write laws to direct every human interaction, hence decency is mandatory. If no one respects the law there is no way to enforce it short of becoming a complete police state, and even then it does not really work.  If our nation is to work at all there must be decency and respect for the law.  And yet the two leading stories that confront us, for the last several days and for several days to come are rooted in the absence of those two things.

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Mary Kissel, among former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s most trusted advisors, is now executive vice president of Stepehns, Inc. She and I discussed the path the General Secretary Xi has placed the CCP. Heads up to trustees of endowments: You may want to study your exposure to Cina’s economy very closely:

Audio:

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Andrew C. McCarthy argues, quite technically, that the current criminal trial of Donald J. Trump in New York is illegal.  At Powerline John Hinderacker follows up more accessibly and says, “His legal arguments are well taken, but the reality is perhaps even more stark. This prosecution is entirely fraudulent.”  Hinderacker considers, briefly, if Trump should simply return to the campaign trail, refusing to cooperate with this extra-legal nonsense, pointing out that since the prosecution is purely political so should be the response.  Heck of a point, but it further undermines the rule of law, and therein lies the rub.

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Senator Tom Cotton joined me this AM:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: My guest is United States Senator Tom Cotton. Good morning, Senator. Welcome back.

TC: Good morning, Hugh. Thanks for having me back on.

HH: I’m playing the Vietnam protest music of my youth. I wasn’t in college at the time that went on, but I heard it, and I saw it, and I am amazed that we’re seeing it again. What is your reaction to the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall this morning, and to the obvious antisemitic actions and assaults that occurred at UCLA that went unpunished yesterday?

TC: Hugh, from coast to coast, we’re seeing nascent pogroms on college campuses. Columbia seems to have been the lead of the most recent round. You’ve seen the videos, as I have, of students draped in Palestinian keffiyeh headdress physically preventing Jewish students from attending classes, much like Nazi brownshirts did in the 1930s in Germany. And now, overnight, these radicals have apparently taken over an administration building on Columbia’s campus and barricaded themselves in. We shouldn’t be surprised that they’re escalating their tactics when the supposed adults on these campuses won’t do their basic responsibility of providing safety and security to all students and bringing in police, and if necessary, police from outside their university police departments, and if beyond that, the National Guard, to restore law and order. Look, these are not criminal masterminds. They’re not paramilitary militants. They are deeply troubled and fanatical students who can be easily detained and removed from these so-called encampments, or from seizing the building. That should have been done long ago. I’d just remind all your listeners that one of the predecessors of the current Columbia University president was Dwight Eisenhower between his time as Supreme Allied Commander and president of the United States. He was president of Columbia for about five years. Just ask yourself what Ike would have done at such a despicable display of antisemitic criminal activity on his campus.

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Sadly, we are not cartoon talking dogs, momentarily distracted by a squirrel that can easily pick up the conversation exactly where we left off.  Once a conversation is diverted, it tends to follow the diversion, not the original strain.  Covid was a giant diversion of the national conversation and sadly many of us are still running down the path of the diversion and we have not returned to the main conversation.  Some seek to reinforce the diversion.  Some seek to regain lost credibility to reinforce the diversion.  Which is why Jim Geraghty’s concerns that the presidential election forthcoming is going to be about anything but what most Americans are concerned about is completely unsurprising.

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