Ed Beat: Princeton’s Eternal Greed
“It turns out there is such a thing as a perpetual motion machine,” Malcolm Gladwell quipped in the Bulletin. “It’s called Princeton University,” whose endowment reached $37.7 billion in 2021. So a reasonable “return on their investments of even 10 percent per year” will bring in “approximately $3.77 billion” next year. “Princeton’s annual operating budget? $1.86 billion.” So, “university leaders could . . . are firing their entire fundraising staff tomorrow.” But Princeton still beats its alumni for “$68.6 million” in money. “If you had a car that could drive forever, would you still stop to get gas? Just to drop $80 and do a pantomime filling an imaginary tank with a substance your car doesn’t need?”
Foreign Desk: Biden’s Lame Words on Iran
“President Joe Biden has shattered every expectation of credible American leadership” by only giving “hesitating signs of virtue” during the major protests in Iran over the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by morality police, the Washington Examiner editors are outraged . She was killed “after a disagreement over her headgear, given all the Biden administration’s rhetoric about gay rights and police brutality, one might have expected the President to be outraged.” But while he claimed to side with the protesters, he “did not call for global condemnation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime. He has not pledged any real support to the Iranian people.” And: “He provided no moral contrast between the democratic rule of law and the distorted Islamic theocracy of Iran.” Biden’s response makes it clear that “a nuclear deal with Iran must trump all other concerns, including this atrocity and the popular uprising it sparked.” If the Prez “actually supported the Iranian people, he would do a heck of a lot more than that.”
fAct Checker Check: A Fetal Heartbeat Oops
Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler supported Georgia’s would-be governor Stacey Abrams’ claim that there “is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks’ gestation,” but cardiologists “quickly corrected the fact-checker,” reports RealClearPolitics’ Chandler Lasch. Kessler claimed that “ultrasound picks up electrical activity produced by an embryo” and therefore the “heartbeat” you hear is produced by the ultrasound, not a heart. One cardiologist scoffed at the idea that “ultrasound can pick up electrical activity”; Radiologist Pradheep Shanker called it “100%” wrong: Ultrasound “measures MOTION, not electrical activity.” The Journal of Prenatal Medicine and Planned Parenthood also recognizes heartbeats at six weeks. Abrams has urged Americans to “follow the science,” Lasch notes, while Kessler insists his papers are “actual.” Oops.
PA watch: Fetterman’s selfish health move
While hospitalized after a stroke, as Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman “wrote a letter saying he was ready to resume his duties,” according to Senator Jake Corman in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But “the evidence suggests” he was unwilling to “be acting governor if necessary” – his prime constitutional duty. If he “couldn’t attend” campaign meetings or parole board meetings (which he didn’t do for months), “how could he have dealt with the significant demands of the governor’s office”? Most people “can keep their health concerns private. But when you take the oath of office to the constitution, you have to overlook your own political self-interest.”
From right: Awakened vs. Military Ready
“Under the Biden administration, doctrines of warfare – even at the training level – are being replaced by doctrines of diversity, justice and inclusion,” Michael Pompeo laments on FoxNews.com. The US Air Force Academy “created a scholarship program that excludes men who are biological males—only women and transgender people are required to apply”; Cadets are told to avoid “micro-aggression” by using more inclusive language and “exemplify humility when doing wrong”. Under these wake-up rules, “we have placed pronouns above potency in our armed forces.” “Excellence” should be the only yardstick. “America’s military needs to wake up – stand up for excellence and put wakefulness out of the way.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
